Spring Has Sprung: Brilliant Things To Do in March

Exhibitions

The Linda McCartney Retrospective at The University of Arizona Center for Creative Photography: Until August 5, 2023

A new Linda McCartney retrospective has just opened at the University of Arizona Center for Photography, providing a compelling overview of the American photographer’s career. Spanning self-portraits and sweet snapshots of her daily life with her husband Paul McCartney, through her candid early portraits of stars of the 1960s music scene (she was the first woman image-maker to have her work featured on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine), the show reflects “the spontaneity and ease” of McCartney’s unique photographic style.

A Hard Man Is Good to Find! at The Photographers’ Gallery, London:  March 3 – June 11, 2023

Anticipate pert pectorals galore at The Photographers’ Gallery’s upcoming show, A Hard Man Is Good to Find – a celebration of the “clandestine visual culture of gay men’s bodies that emerged in the post-war period: a time when making and distributing such images was a criminal offence”. Tracing 60 years of queer photography in London, the exhibition will feature works by the likes of Cecil Beaton, Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Bill Green, Keith Vaughan and many more, while various catalogues, print ordering sheets, personal albums and publications will illustrate how such imagery was circulated and shared.

Jonny Gent at Galerie Pixi, Paris: March 14 – April 15, 2023

At Galerie Pixi on Paris’ Rue De Seine, discover a career-traversing show by the London-based artist and founder of Sessions Arts Club and Cabin Studio, Jonny Gent. Summoning the atmosphere of an abandoned artist studio, the exhibition will showcase everything from gestural paintings and menu drawings to collages, doodles and mixed-media works, all of which will serve to platform Gent’s “inventive, gnarled vision of human complication”.

Mask and Face: Inge Morath and Saul Steinberg at Museum der Moderne Salzburg: Until June 4, 2023

If you happen to be in Austria in the coming months, we recommend paying a visit to the Museum der Moderne Salzburg, where a new exhibition of the iconic series Masks by Magnum photographer Inge Morath and Romanian-American artist and illustrator Saul Steinberg is currently being hosted. The project began when Morath, commissioned to capture Steinberg’s portrait, arrived at the artist’s house to find him sporting a paper bag on his head, bearing a scrawled self-portrait. Between 1959 and 1962, the duo would go on to create several masked characters in this vein, shot in different scenarios, with wildly imaginative results.

A Perfect Sentence at The Museum of Making, Derby: March 16 – September 3, 2023

For his first solo exhibition, Oliver Frank Chanarin (of Broomberg & Chanarin fame) will present a new documentary photo project titled A Perfect Sentence, produced by Forma. Comprising 300 images taken in the UK during 2022, the series serves to paint a picture of “a nation in transition” in the wake of Brexit and pandemic restrictions, and was inspired by August Sander’s collective portrait of German society, People of the 20th Century (1927-64). The striking photographs were made in close collaboration with their subjects and see Chanarin infiltrate the worlds of suburban fetish groups, carnival troupes, gender activists and more to compelling effect.

Kehinde Wiley: An Archaeology of Silence at the de Young Museum, San Francisco: March 18 – October 15, 2023

In San Francisco, the masterful US portraitist Kehinde Wiley will soon unveil a new series of paintings and sculptures that “confront the silence surrounding systemic violence against Black people.” Drawing on renowned paintings of dead or wounded mythical heroes, martyrs and saints, each work finds its subject in a fallen state, with the effect of transforming “the senseless deaths of men and women around the world” into a “powerful elegy of resistance”.

Read AnOther’s interview with Kehinde Wiley here.

Betty Woodman and George Woodman at Charleston, East Sussex: March 25 – September 10, 2023

Artists Betty and George Woodman lived and worked side by side for most of their careers. Betty was a pioneering ceramic artist, while her husband George was a painter and photographer. Every summer the pair ventured from their home in the US to their summer getaway, an ancient stone farmhouse in Antella, Tuscany that served simultaneously as their home, studio, inspiration and canvas. Taking place in the fitting environs of Charleston, the Sussex bolthole of Bloomsbury artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, a forthcoming exhibition will soon platform the extraordinary legacy of the Woodmans’ work and the influence of their holiday home upon it.

Alberto Venzago: Stylist of Reality at the Ernst Leitz Museum, Wetzlar: March 10 – May 14, 2023

In Wetzlar, Germany, a new retrospective will highlight the impressive oeuvre of Swiss photographer, photojournalist and filmmaker Alberto Venzago, whose multifaceted work places people firmly at its centre. “From reportages in Iran during the time of the Islamic Revolution to many years [spent documenting] the Yakuza criminal organisation in Japan, the photojournalist has always tried to get as close to his subjects as possible, often putting himself in life-threatening danger in the process.” Venzago’s celebrity portraiture, meanwhile, is no less extraordinary, as demonstrated in the show’s selection of brilliant shots of everyone from Tina Turner and Mick Jagger to Andy Warhol.

Projects: Ming Smith at The Museum of Modern Art, New York: Until May 29, 2023

New Yorkers, be sure to catch Projects: Ming Smith at MoMA, described by the museum as a “critical reintroduction” to the photographer who is best known for her lyrical, in-motion depictions of Black cultural figures. Smith, who has lived and worked in New York since the 1970s, has “inspired a generation of artists engaging the politics and poetics of the photographic image in relation to experiences of Blackness”. This new exhibition offers a fresh look at Smith’s output, past and present, defined as it is by languid, long exposure shots that “dissolve the boundaries between her subjects and their surroundings”.

Winfred Rembert: All of Me at Hauser & Wirth, New York: Until April 22, 2023

The work of late American artist Winfred Rembert was shaped by his harrowing experiences as “a son of the ‘Jim Crow’ American South“ in the words of Hauser & Wirth, New York, where a display of Rembert’s works, made from carved, tooled and painted leather, is currently on display. Thrown in jail after participating in a 1965 Civil Rights demonstration, and surviving a near lynching thereafter, it was during a seven-year stint in the Georgia prison system that Rembert honed his leather working techniques. Upon his release, he spent the last three decades of his life decorating leather objects with painted scenes that encapsulated world view – “from pool halls, juke joints, and civil rights protests, to cotton fields and chain gangs” – constructing a singular visual memoir that commands attention.

Four Sisters at the Jewish Museum of Belgium, Brussels: March 23 – August 27, 2023

At the Jewish Museum in Brussels, a soon-to-open exhibit will bring together the work of four Jewish artists – filmmaker Chantal Akerman, sculptor Marianne Berenhaut, painter Sarah Kaliski and photographer Julia Pirotte. All hailing from different generations, each woman lived in Brussels and experienced, either directly or through their relatives, the horrors of the Nazi occupation. Featuring artworks, archive material, images and texts, the show will spotlight the themes of destruction, emancipation, transformation, desire and memory that underscore these artists’ works, telling an interwoven story of strength and survival.

Monet/Mitchell: Painting the French Landscape at the St Louis Art Museum, Missouri: March 23 – June 25, 2023

A sure-fire way of escaping any grey March days, the St Louis Art Museum’s latest show unites the landscape paintings of French impressionist Claude Monet and the American abstract painter Joan Mitchell, who both found endless inspiration in the lush surroundings of rural France. Monet spent the last decades of his life in Giverny, while Mitchell lived at nearby Vétheuil, with views of a house once occupied by the French artist. In presenting 12 artworks by each artist, the show seeks to highlight their shared fascination with trees, earth, water, flowers, and their own gardens, while drawing attention to the fascinating formal parallels between their vivid conjurings.

Picasso Celebration: The Collection In A New Light! at the Musée Picasso Paris, France: March 7 - August 27, 2023 

Five years in the making and held to mark the 50th anniversary of the artist’s passing, Picasso Celebration: The Collection In A New Light! is curated by the Musée Picasso’s president Cécile Debray and Joanne Snrech under the artistic direction of Paul Smith. The beloved British fashion designer responded to Picasso’s expansive body of work on an intuitive and personal level, focusing on his vivid use of colour, stripes, sketches and abstract forms. “If Picasso had been alive today, I think he would’ve been curious about modern approaches to communication and presentation and that’s something I’ve tried to capture in the different rooms throughout the exhibition,” Smith says. “There is a humour and playfulness throughout while maintaining the utmost respect for Picasso’s unparalleled mind and work.”

Events & Performances

An array of new live events is set to entertain and inspire this month. There’s the English National Ballet’s production of Creature by Akram Khan, arriving at Sadler’s Wells on March 23. Billed as an “unearthly tale of exploitation and abandonment” inspired by Georg Büchner’s play Woyzeck and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, expect glitchy, visceral choreography set to a compulsive score by Vincenzo Lamagna. Women, Beware the Devil is a riotous new play by the award-winning writer Lulu Raczka and directed by Rupert Goold, showing at the Almeida theatre until March 25. “For Lady Elizabeth nothing is more important than protecting her family’s legacy and their ancestral home,” the blurb teases. “When that comes under threat, she elicits the help of a young servant suspected of witchcraft [who] has dark dreams of her own for this house.” 

On March 16 at the Royal Opera House (RoH), don’t miss a special free performance by more than 130 London-based Ukrainians, who will showcase a range of works from their collaborative project with the Royal Opera Chorus, titled Songs for Ukraine, to mark one year since Russia’s devastating invasion of their country. While Wayne McGregor’s extraordinary ballet triptych Woolf Works, inspired by the writings of Virginia Woolf, with an original score by Max Richter, will also be gracing the RoH stage from March 3–23.

March is Women’s History Month, and WOW (Women of the World) Festival at the Southbank Centre is the perfect way to celebrate. Dedicated to celebrating the power and potential of girls, women and non-binary people, and confronting the causes of gender inequality, the festival offers the chance to see “world-class speakers, activists, musicians and comedians all in one place”. This edition’s highlights include talks by the American writer and feminist Roxane Gay and British-Nigerian children’s author and hair care educator Tolá Okogwu.

Further Than the Furthest Thing arrives at the Young Vic on March 9 and sees director Jennifer Tang offer up a “visionary interpretation” of Zinnie Harris’ acclaimed play about a remote island community that is both “haunted by its past and under threat from a modern world in crisis”. Finally, at the Harold Pinter theatre from March 25, be sure to catch the new stage adaptation of Hanya Yanagihara’s searing novel A Little Life, following four friends as they move from a small college town to New York City. Conceived and directed by Ivo van Hove, the anticipated production will star James Norton and Omari Douglas.

Film

March brings with it an abundance of excellent movie offerings too. First up, there’s Close by Belgian director Lukas Dhont, the powerfully crafted tale of two 13-year-old boys whose friendship is thrown into disarray when its intimate nature is questioned by their classmates. Other People’s Children, by French filmmaker Rebecca Zlotowski, is the nuanced, bittersweet story of a 40-year-old woman without any children, who grows deeply attached to her new partner’s young daughter. While Infinity Pool, from Canadian writer-director Brandon Cronenberg, has been hailed an instant cult classic. In it, a couple holidaying at an island resort are enticed beyond its walls by a mysterious woman (a magnetic Mia Goth), only to be met by “a culture of violence, hedonism and untold horror”.

In Spanish filmmaker Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s new movie The Beasts, an ecologically-minded French couple living in rural Spain seek to responsibly repopulate the area, igniting the fury of their neighbours along the way. An intense, masterfully rendered thriller ensues. Awarded the first feature prize at last year’s London Film Festival, Manuela Martelli’s political drama 1976 uses one woman’s story to paint an “unnervingly brilliant portrait of the ways in which the Pinochet dictatorship realised its brute force and pervasive influence” (the BFI). Meanwhile, new Mubi release The Five Devils, a captivating fantasy-drama from French director Léa Mysius, sees the life of a young girl with a magical gift turned upside-down by the return of her estranged aunt.

For this month’s best documentaries, look no further than Meet Me In The Bathroom, Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern’s deep dive into the New York City music scene of the early 2000s, and its widespread influence thereafter (indie sleaze lovers, rejoice!). Fashion Reimagined by Becky Hutner follows Amy Powney, the daughter of environmental activists, on her quest to create an entirely ethical and sustainable fashion collection, unearthing some important truths along the way. While in Electric Malady, Swedish director Marie Lidén offers up a poignant investigation into the life of a man with electrosensitivity, a debilitating condition that has forced him to “live in isolation, removed from modern technology”.

Food & Drink

Craving some mouthwatering new culinary experiences? We’ve got you covered. Newly opened on Mentmore Terrace in Hackney, Papi is a collaboration between Hot 4 U founder Matthew Scott and Charlie Carr of Wingnut Wines, purveyor of under-represented natural wine. The Papi menu will showcase Scott’s “passion for sustainable, zero-waste cooking, combined with a casual, accessible and fun approach”, and will feature typically bold dishes like iced rhubarb oyster, raw bream and wasabi, and Iberico pork with verjus and pear. The ever-changing wine list, meanwhile, will offer visitors the chance to sample wines that are as rare as they are delicious.

For those looking to celebrate International Women’s Day in sumptuous style, check out Soho restaurant Firebird’s inaugural Firebird & Friends event on March 8. Founders Madina Kazhimova and Anna Dolgushina have invited a line-up of remarkable women in hospitality to co-host a one-off dinner for the occasion. Caia head chef Jessica Donovan, Where The Pancakes Are founder Patricia Trijbits, Updown Farmhouse sommelier Ruth Leigh and chef Pippa MacDonald will all contribute to an intimate evening of exquisite small plates (think: crispy chicken with preserved lemon and nori emulsion, and charred ray wing served on nduja tortellini with sea beets) paired with natural wines. 

Socca, a new French bistro from Michelin-starred chef Claude Bosi and restaurateur Samyukta Nair, has just arrived in Mayfair, paying tribute to its founders’ fondness for the French Riviera, and the coastal towns of Cannes, Marseille and Nice. A simple, seasonal menu elevates comforting dishes with refined skill. Expect to sample plates like globe artichokes and ortiz anchovy dip, blue lobster orecchiette, and whole baked sea bass in salt crust.

One for the vegetable aficionados, Edit is a new low-impact restaurant in Hackney, with a daily-changing menu that centres around seasonal availability and harnessing the “root to fruit” principles of zero-waste cooking. “Small plates such as roasted salsify with smoked aioli, crispy kalettes with purple potato mash, and beetroot à trois, will be followed by larger plates [like] wild mushroom fricassée with creamed barley and wilted chard ... and seaweed-cured celeriac with oyster leaf and radish,” while puddings will be comforting and traditional.

For those in search of delectable Turkish fare, head to The Counter, a contemporary ocakbasi (or open grill) restaurant in Notting Hill from fêted Turkish chef Kemal Demirasal. Dedicated to spotlighting traditional south-eastern Anatolian cooking styles with an avant-garde twist, Demirasal has dreamed up a monthly-changing seasonal menu, made with meticulously sourced ingredients. Highlights currently include chocolate babaganoush made with white chocolate, dukkah, dill oil and rose; lamb liver skewers (ciğer şiş) flavoured with lamb fat, molasses and isot pepper; and beef sirloin kebab (çökertme) served with thin-cut fries, garlic yoghurt and tomato sauce.

Last but not least, legendary London haunt Sale e Pepe has just reopened under new ownership while continuing to serve classic, seasonal Italian cuisine with a modern edge. If linguini lobster, fresh Dover sole, or veal chop and bone-in Milanese tantalise your tastebuds, it’s time to make a reservation stat (and they’re also taking bookings for a special four-course extravaganza for Mother’s Day on March 19). Buon appetito!