arts byMark Fisher


Books The Green Socialist: Zack Polanski and the Battle for Britain’s Future Russell Warfield


September 20, Pluto Books Before moving to climate organisation Possible, Warfield worked in the communications team at the Green Party of England and Wales. That gives him a special interest in Polanski, the man who, at the time of writing, has galvanised the party and increased its membership.


End Times Fascism Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor


In depth War reporting stitched up


Four hundred years before William Caxton set up his printing press, the art of reportage reached an early pinnacle in the Bayeux Tapestry. Across 70m of embroidered cloth, it recounted a Norman- centric story of William the Conqueror’s invasion of England, leading up to his victory in 1066 at the Battle of Hastings. There is much


excitement at London’s British Museum where, amid controversy about the wisdom of moving such a delicate exhibit, the tapestry is going on display 1,000 years after its completion. “I was sceptical about


transporting this unique and fragile fabric from Bayeux to London,” says NUJ member Peter


18 | theJournalist


Fieldman, a specialist in the era, who has lived in France for many years. “But it is a perfect opportunity for the British public to learn more about one of the most important dates in English history.” Published in 2009,


Fieldman’s historical novel, 1066 The Conquest, drew on his researches at Le Musée de la Tapisserie de


Bayeux, the relic’s home. Over the course of two years, he also travelled from Normandy to Sussex to help inform his novel. This account follows William as he becomes Duke of Normandy at the age of eight then amasses enough power to defeat King Harold and claim the English crown. While the Bayeux


museum is closed for renovation before it reopens for the 1000-year anniversary of William’s birth, the British Museum will display the tapestry flat, not vertically, in a continuous length. The medieval artefact will be shown alongside contemporary objects. On loan will be a charter drawn up by Edward the Confessor granting lands


to Westminster Abbey, and an illustrated manuscript believed to have been borrowed by the tapestry’s designers for their depictions of clothing, ships and everyday items. “The symmetries and


proportions show careful calculation,” says Igor Tulchinsky, the philanthropist supporting the exhibition. “Its chronological structure reveals something equally sophisticated: a modern sense of causality and sequence. It is a narrative about decisions made under uncertainty, about commitments made before their consequences can be known.”


The Bayeux Tapestry,


British Museum, London, September 10–July 11; 1066 The Conquest, Grosvenor House Publishing


putting the world to rights with a barrage of jokes, rants and state-of- the-nation broadsides.


Exhibitions Technologies of Peace Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin


September 15, Allen Lane Uniting religious fundamentalists, assorted billionaires and the far right is a belief in an imminent apocalypse. Countering the threat from these supremacist survivalists, Klein and Taylor suggest ways to resist.


Comedy Mark Thomas: 40 in Stand-Up Years On tour Until December 13


Getting match fit with a three-week run on the Edinburgh Fringe, the firebrand comedian and NUJ member spends the autumn on the road,


September 12–May 9 Surveying recent Irish and European history, this exhibition looks at the mechanics of conflict resolution through the lens of artists including Frances Hegarty, Willie Doherty, Cathy Wilkes, Alastair MacLennan and Sandra Johnston.


Tim Walker’s Fairyland: Love and Legends National Portrait Gallery, London


October 8–February 7 Five years’ worth of images of activists, performers, artists and writers explore queer identity, community, love – and fairy tales.


Festivals Edinburgh Art Festival August 14–30 One of the Scottish capital’s many summer festivals, this citywide event covers the ground from alternative queer images to Japanese fetish prints. Look out for Catherine Opie: To Be Seen at the Royal Scottish Academy.


Dublin Fringe Festival September 5–20 Nipping in before the Dublin Theatre Festival, the Dublin Fringe has invited artists to explore the space between protest and play with the provocation and theme of Framework for Joy/ Foundation for Resistance.


Film


The Uprising General release From September 11 Director Paul Greengrass goes back to the 14th century when Wat Tyler led a peasants’ revolt against the young King Richard II. Andrew Garfield stars alongside Jamie Bell, Stephen Dillane and Tom Hollander.


The Social Reckoning General release From October 9 Jeremy Allen White plays Wall Street Journal technology reporter Jeff Horwitz, famed for his Facebook files. In Aaron Sorkin’s follow-up to The Social Network, he helps Facebook staffer Frances Haugen (Mikey Madison) to blow the whistle on the company’s secrets.


Music Rinaldo Arcola, London August 19–22


The theatre’s annual Grimeborn festival aims to put some urgency and political grit into the medium of opera.


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