Coco - Two views of Chanel

Reviewed by Anne Ryan

Last year saw the sumptuous biopic 'Coco – Avant Chanel' – in which the designer was portrayed by Audrey Tautou – this year's offering is 'Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky' – directed by Jan Kounen and starring Mars Mikkelsen and the current Chanel muse Anna Mouglalis.

The first film concentrated on Chanel's early career, her affair with Arthur 'Boy' Capel shown for its importance in backing her work, rather than as a grand passion. And the work, written and directed by Anne Fontaine, showed Chanel as an innovator both artistically and socially – her designs based on her rejection of the role which society had assigned to her – as a poor woman.

Skeletons

Reviewed by Dave Porter

Skeletons is a darkly comic debut from young talent Nick Whitfield with lineage straight from the European school of film making.

Shot with a meticulous eye for detail, the film has a rural setting which recalls Jean De Florette in its rustic charms. Avowedly set in the present, the feel is distinctly of a bygone era – the two central characters carry leather briefcases, use antiquated equipment and travel in train carriages dusted with nostalgia.

Davis and Bennett visit people’s homes to metaphorically clean out their closets of skeletons: hidden and often dirty secrets which they are too weak to disclose themselves. The duo is played with Pinter-esque menace by Andrew Buckley and Ed Gaughan, social misfits who work for the mysterious Colonel.

Picasso: Peace and Freedom

Tate Liverpool: until 30 August 2010

A major exhibition bringing together over 150 works by Picasso from his "communist" period

Reviewed by Jane Turner August 2010

This exhibition reveals a fascinating new insight into the artist's life as a political activist and campaigner for peace, challenging the view of Picasso as creative genius, playboy and compulsive extrovert. 

Walls are Talking: Wallpaper, Art and Culture

Whitworth Art Gallery, until 30 Aug 2010

Reviewed by Dave Porter July 2010

This fascinating exhibition at the Whitworth Art Gallery is the first major UK Exhibition of artists' wallpaper with work by over 30 artists, including Damien Hirst, Andy Warhol and Sarah Lucas. It shows how artists have leapt on the possibilities that wallpaper offers to magnify and multiply their vision, so if you want art hanging on your walls, it now doubles up as wallpaper!

Repetition, of course, is the name of the game here and Warhol’s influence looms large, his Cows being a classic example of the power of one image repeated many times. But where Warhol leaves little to the imagination, some of the best pieces here are intricate and detailed montages of startling images and often highly-sexualised motifs.