The Times - UK (2022-04-08)

the times | Friday April 8 2022 13

first night

TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER JAMES GLOSSOP

Sheila Hicks at the

Hepworth Wakefield

spill is to realise that she understands

how to make a visual impression.

The viewer, irradiated by the

almost eerie chromatic energy of

her pieces (it is no accident that she

worked on the set design for Stanley

Kubrick’s The Shining, making

hand-woven carpets for his creepy

hotel), is immersed in what feels like

an ecosystem of cloth.

However, it is in the smaller, subtler

pieces (her “minimes” or miniatures

— the tapestry weaver’s equivalent

to a sketch book); and in the less

complex creations (a simple coloured

rug of oranges and yellow); and in

the more muted confections (she

often uses undyed fabrics) that her

underpinning interests are most

clearly played out.

Hicks experiments with the colour

theories prescribed by her Bauhaus

teacher Josef Albers. But she also plays

with poetic ideas, creating works from

the ripped-up uniforms of nurses or

babies’ belly bands (used to protect the

navels of newborns).

She travels the world, delving into

the histories of traditional textiles, and

then confects something radical. She

restlessly tests the boundaries of the

functional and the aesthetic. Her

works feel as deeply informed by

documented facts as they are by

personal feelings.

All this is knotted and woven,

plaited and bunched, overlaid and

looped into pieces in which tradition

and high tech, a reverence for

craftsmanship and a radical ambition

come together. Hicks is an artist

whose work might encompass

anything from architecture to

a porcupine quill.

It might look as striking as any piece

of monumental sculpture, or merely

like some den rigged up in a corner by

kids. One piece even appears to be a

confection made from those plastic

Loom bands that were a craze a few

years back.

As textiles emerge as the latest

art-world phenomenon, it is primarily

as a consummate weaver that we must

acknowledge Hicks, and not just as

a woman who has been overlooked

for too long.

To Sept 25, hepworthwakefield.org

Blanca Li, a Spanish choreographer

and film director with a penchant for

futuristic technology, in collaboration

with the graphic designer Vincent

Chazal, the composer Tao Gutiérrez,

the VR and body-tracking specialist

BackLight Studio, and Chanel. Li’s

work Robot, presented at the

Barbican in 2017, featured interactions

between eight live dancers and seven

humanoid robots.

Here, we are as much participants

as observers, our imaginative

involvement predicated on donning

equipment — principally a relatively

heavy backpack, a skull-gripping

headset and sensors strapped to ankles

and knees — that allows us to see and,

ideally, believe we inhabit for a short

spell, the eye-popping virtual world

that has been conjured for us.

And then away we go, first up on to

a platform shifting vertiginously high

above a vast and actively populated

ballroom. Next comes a sleek pleasure

boat that glides us past sparkling

fountains and singing, frog-headed

mermaids à la Busby Berkeley to a

sunlit garden and maze. Our final

destination is a chic nightclub full of

cancanning chorines who eventually

cede the spotlight to us.

Cue rapturous applause, although

with reservations. The insipid love

story on which all these adventures

hinge barely registers, especially

when accompanied by banal songs

blandly delivered. Gutiérrez’s

soundtrack is otherwise nicely

serviceable as it segues from waltzes to

Balkan gypsy music to big-band jazz.

Better yet is the sophisticated

imagery, a little blurry but always

handsome and aglow. Think Moulin

Rouge! given a fun, stylish zoological

makeover.

Li’s hybrid extravaganza is a

giddy, harmless piece of artificial

enchantment. You will probably

only get as much out of it as you put

into it. It is not quite kids’ stuff (the

recommended age is 14 and up).

Several small groups can be

accommodated simultaneously in

curtained-off areas arranged side by

side on the Barbican stage. It has a

somewhat assembly-line feel, and

the ending was charmlessly abrupt.

Attendance at a post-show dance

class crammed into the venue’s green

room is optional.

Donald Hutera

To Apr 9 and from May 19-28,

barbican.org.uk

The doyenne of fabric art

weaves a magical spell

Radical

ambition meets

craft in Sheila

Hicks’s striking

work. By Rachel

Campbell-

Johnston

C

ultural fashions move swiftly.

Still, it’s taken the woven

tapestry about 500 years to

reclaim the sort of cachet it

would have enjoyed when

it was counted the most prestigious

— not to mention usefully warm —

artefact to be found on the walls of

a Renaissance home.

Sheila Hicks has certainly had a

long, impatient wait. But it has finally

paid off for this pioneer of fabric-based

pieces. The craftsmanship that she has

studied and practised for more than

six decades is at last coming to the

forefront of the contemporary scene.

And visitors are now offered a chance

to find out why, as the Hepworth

Wakefield plays host to the first big

exhibition of Hicks’s work to be held

in this country. Don’t dismiss Hicks

as just another of those octogenarian

women that are keeping our curators

and gallerists so busy, as they dash

back through art history in search

of sidelined female talent.

Hicks, as this show following the

chronological course of her career

makes clear, has not only pursued

the same modernist investigations as

her male contemporaries, but has

frequently done so to similar acclaim.

She has won big commissions. There

were embroideries for Boeing, for

instance, or a tangle of nylon and

silk for IBM. And to step into an

exhibition in which monumental

creations dangle, heap, sprawl and

T

he brutalist concrete jungle

of London’s Barbican is not

exactly conducive to the idea

of peaceful communion with

nature. But Joyce DiDonato

gives it a good crack in her latest

recital, in which she encourages us to

reconnect with the world in an eco-

inspired programme that delivers

moments of sheer musical bliss.

Eden is the latest project from the

star mezzo-soprano, who exudes all-

American sincerity and positivity.

Deciding that a full-on climate-change

theme might risk being “preachy’’ or

“militant’’ (DiDonato’s words), not to

mention the optics of doing so while

on a global tour (those are all mine),

she has come up instead with a more

generic green concept to link

composers from Marini to Mahler,

Cavalli to Copland.

Some aspects work better than

others. Ives’s The Unanswered

Question, emerging out of darkness,

makes for a spine-tingling, existential

opening. A new piece by Rachel

Portman, The First Morning of the

Wo r l d, is all pastoral loveliness, even

if it doesn’t break new ground.

The juxtapositions of musical eras

sometimes jar, yet the segue from

Handel’s As with rosy steps the morn

from Theodora to Mahler’s Ich bin der

Welt abhanden gekommen from the

Rückert-Lieder is perfection.

DiDonato is never in less than total

control of her voice, and there’s fizzing

chemistry with Il Pomo d’Oro and

conductor Maxim Emelyanychev. Yet

she’s most exciting in the baroque

repertoire, ironically when Eden feels

furthest away.

Paradoxically, it’s when in operatic

character that DiDonato comes across

most naturally. The self-conscious

semi-staging also feels less intrusive

then. Elsewhere the gradual

construction of two large circular

frames, presumably symbolising

unity and our planet, distracts.

“One song, one seed’’ is Eden’s

tagline — and on each seat was a

packet of seeds, ready to grow. She

brought her Eden Choir on stage

for a song inspired by the question

“what if trees could sing?”.

Despite the Von Trapp family feel

to this encore, it’s impossible not to

applaud DiDonato’s initiative nor

to be moved by the young singers.

Handel’s Ombra mai fu, an ode to

a plane tree, serenaded us home, off

to scatter our seeds.

Rebecca Franks

I

f the idea of being in a Disney-

style animated musical seems

appealing, this 35-minute VR-

based performance could be just

the ticket. You won’t be playing

yourself but, rather, an animal avatar

— an antlered deer or

long-eared rabbit clad

in a snazzy

Chanel outfit

of your choice.

Nor will you be

a leading player.

That responsibility

falls to two professional

dancers who

accompany you,

and up to nine

other punters, on

a virtual journey

into a candy-coloured

romantic fantasy that

is delightfully kitsch

and disorientating.

Still, at its best, the

experience is

transporting.

It was created by

Le Bal de Paris puts

you at the heart of

the (VR) action

Le Bal de Paris

Barbican

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Sheila Hicks:

Off Grid

The Hepworth Wakefield

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Joyce DiDonato

Barbican

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dance

visual art

classical

Joyce DiDonato is in total control