HE is Paul and she IS Orlando:
review of Paul Preciado’s ‘Orlando’
by Johnny Rodger

TheDrouth
1st September 2024
Published by TheDrouth

HE is Paul and she IS Orlando:
review of Paul Preciado’s ‘Orlando’
by Johnny Rodger

The film Orlando: My Political Biography only went into cinemas in general release here this summer, so, although it was first shown at the EIFF in August 2023, it seems to be up for discussion again. The gender issue(s) is/are, indeed, still way up on the social agenda - as Johnny Rodger puts it, 'We are all on our social stages ... all in our social cages'. Preciado's openly self-constructed cage is a particularly intricate one, and he inhabits it with his own peculiar and provocative panache.
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8th June 2024
Published by TheDrouth

QUESTS FOR ANNIHILATION by Owen Dudley Edwards

What has been the scope of bigotry, racism, oppression and prejudice? Owen Dudley Edwards telescopes a whole history of the entanglement of those evils with the struggle for freedom, justice and truth into a compassionate and humane reading (and most importantly, an Irish reading) of the cornering and silencing of Diane Abbott, who was the first ever black woman elected to the Westminster Parliament.
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21st February 2024
Published by TheDrouth

Made in Scotland:
Studies in Popular Music
Frith, Cloonan & Williamson
reviewed by Sheena Macdonald

A history of seventy years of popular music in Scotland by Simon Frith, Martin Cloonan and John Williamson is fascinating and comprehensive in its introduction to the story , writes Sheena Macdonald in review.
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13th February 2024
Published by TheDrouth

COALITION OF WATERS:
On Wounded Bodies in Capitalistic Time
Rupali Patil & Agnieszka Kilian

How does an artist use material and form to engage directly with all aspects, emotional personal social, political of the world around her? Artist Rupali Patil speaks to curator Agnieszka Kilian about the possibilities for instant and profound expression in drawing and printmaking.
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7th February 2024
Published by TheDrouth

SENSE AND SENSITIVITY:
Killing History
Owen Dudley Edwards

Putting the writing and rewriting of state affairs by politicians in a long and broadly detailed context, Owen Dudley Edwards wonders if 'The self-destruction of the would-be partisan is becoming a literary form in UK political life'? Reviews of new books by Theresa May, Chris Bryant and Rory Stewart.
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23rd January 2024
Published by TheDrouth

WELCOME TO THE SHIPWRECK by Rory Olcayto

Rory Olcayto's assessment of the Glasgow problematic is highly controversial and has been doing the rounds and garnering much critical attention. The straight-talking, complacency-busting analysis and vision for a metropolitan city cannot possibly please everyone, and that, it seems, is precisely the partisan, feather-ruffling intention of the former Architects Journal editor. It was, indeed, first delivered as a talk to the Royal incorporation of Architects in Scotland. Here it is now as a readily accessible text: a provocation to civic and urban action.
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2nd November 2023
Published by TheDrouth

LAOCOON AND LOSS
by
Murdo Macdonald

From Classical Antiquity through Michelangelo to Verlaine, via Godard and Tarkovsky and an essay-load of other makers, Murdo Macdonald shows us how the whole gang of western clever clogs in turn feel the pain of Laocoon - for if art shows us anything it is this: that nothing exists for sure, except the torture of the knowledge that is so, and will be so forever.
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7th October 2023
Published by TheDrouth

Frances Lightbound’s
TECTONICS
by
Pia Singh

'Things in process ... objects out of place and time.' Frances Lightbound's exhibition Tectonics at the John David Mooney Foundation in Chicago, reconfigures and re-enacts the languages of architectonics and manages to refuse the colonial configurations of power and brute strength in structural materials and components. Pia Singh reviews and finds a striking refinement in these rare and enigmatic arrangements.
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