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Viewing MADDADDAM by Wayne McGregor at Royal Ballet & Opera

Above MADDADDAM

The Wick Culture - Wayne McGregor's MADDADDAM, The Royal Ballet ©2024 RBO. Ph Andrej Uspenski

The Wick Culture - Giacomo Rovero (Adam) and Lukas B. Brændsrød (Zeb) in Wayne McGregor's MADDADDAM ©2024 RBO. Ph Andrej Uspenski

The Wick Culture - Wayne McGregor's MADDADDAM, The Royal Ballet ©2024 RBO. Ph Andrej Uspenski (2)

Above MADDADDAM

MADDADDAM

The Royal Opera House
14 – 30 November 2024

The last few tickets are remaining for the two week run of Wayne McGregor’s visionary new ballet based on Margaret Atwood’s epic speculative fiction of the same title. The two hour performance is divided into three acts and sees many of McGregor’s collaborators from his landmark Woolf Works return, with a new score by Max Richter.

Atwood’s original dystopian trilogy that began with Oryx and Crake and continued with The Year of the Flood, moves back and forth between the apocalyptic present and the past, in which survivors of a biological disaster grapple with its aftermath and the personal and political events that lead them there as they attempt to build a new community.

Wayne McGregor brings Atwood’s trilogy to the stage with panache, riffing on the writer’s themes of extinction and invention, hubris and humanity, love and loss, a vivid and dynamic exploration of life beyond societal collapse.

Viewing Women & Freud: Patients, Pioneers, Artists

The Wick Culture - Lou Andreas-Salomé, c.1900
© Freud Museum London

Above Lou Andreas-Salomé, c.1900 © Freud Museum London

The Wick Culture - Photograph of Anna Freud (1920s), photographer unknown
© Freud Museum London

Above Photograph of Anna Freud (1920s), photographer unknown © Freud Museum London

The Wick Culture - Photograph of Marie Bonaparte and Sigmund Freud taken in the study of Berggasse 19, Vienna, 1937
© Freud Museum London

Above Photograph of Marie Bonaparte and Sigmund Freud taken in the study of Berggasse 19, Vienna, 1937 © Freud Museum London

Above Lou Andreas-Salomé, c.1900 © Freud Museum London

Above Photograph of Anna Freud (1920s), photographer unknown © Freud Museum London

Above Photograph of Marie Bonaparte and Sigmund Freud taken in the study of Berggasse 19, Vienna, 1937 © Freud Museum London

Women & Freud: Patients, Pioneers, Artists

Freud Museum
30 October, 2024 – 5 May, 2025

Women played an important and intriguing role in the development, and dissemination of, Freud’s theories and practice. The authors of ‘Freud’s Women’, the curators Lisa Appignanesi and Bryony Davies’ have drawn on their extensive research for the exhibition Women & Freud: Patients, Pioneers, Artists, exploring the influence Freud’s female collaborators, from the early “hysterics”, the psychoanalyst referred to as ‘his teachers’, to later patients who would go on to become analysts. Several of those analysts – including Joan Riviere and Alix Strachey – worked on the translation of his Complete Works at Hogarth Press, first published 100 years ago.

Images, objects and footage bring the story of these women vividly to life. The room dedicated to Anna, Freud’s daughter, at the museum, will be brought into the dialogue of the show with new materials, and a new installation by ceramic artist Abigail Schama. Moving through the museum, Freud’s impact on artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Paula Rego, and Tracey Emin is explored, as well as other female members of Freud’s family, and important symbolic female figures, such as his female goddesses and Gradiva – the figure that inspired Freud’s influential 1907 essay.

Viewing Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael

The Wick Culture - Raphael, The Virgin and Child with the Infant St John the Baptist ('The Esterhazy Madonna'), c. 1508.
Tempera and oil on panel, 28.5 x 21.5 cm.
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Above Raphael, The Virgin and Child with the Infant St John the Baptist (‘The Esterhazy Madonna’), c. 1508. Tempera and oil on panel, 28.5 x 21.5 cm. Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

The Wick Culture - Raphael, after Michelangelo Buonarroti, David, c. 1505-08.
Pen and brown ink on paper, 39.6 x 21.9 cm.
© The Trustees of the British Museum

Above Raphael, after Michelangelo Buonarroti, David, c. 1505-08. Pen and brown ink on paper, 39.6 x 21.9 cm. © The Trustees of the British Museum

The Wick Culture - Michelangelo Buonarroti, Studies of Male Heads, Helmets for Soldiers and Facial Features, c.1504. Pen and brown ink and black chalk on paper, 20.5 x 25.3 cm. Hamburger Kunsthalle, Kupferstichkabinett.
Photo: © Hamburger Kunsthalle / bpk. Photography: Christoph Irrgang

Above Michelangelo Buonarroti, Studies of Male Heads, Helmets for Soldiers and Facial Features, c.1504. Pen and brown ink and black chalk on paper, 20.5 x 25.3 cm. Hamburger Kunsthalle, Kupferstichkabinett. Photo: © Hamburger Kunsthalle / bpk. Photography: Christoph Irrgang

The Wick Culture - Leonardo da Vinci, The Virgin and Child with St Anne and the Infant St John the Baptist (‘The Burlington House Cartoon’), c.1506-08. Charcoal with white chalk on paper, mounted on canvas, 141.5 x 104.6 cm.
The National Gallery, London. Purchased with a special grant and contributions from the Art Fund, The Pilgrim Trust, and through a public appeal organised by the Art Fund, 1962.

Above Leonardo da Vinci, The Virgin and Child with St Anne and the Infant St John the Baptist (‘The Burlington House Cartoon’), c.1506-08. Charcoal with white chalk on paper, mounted on canvas, 141.5 x 104.6 cm. The National Gallery, London. Purchased with a special grant and contributions from the Art Fund, The Pilgrim Trust, and through a public appeal organised by the Art Fund, 1962.

The Wick Culture - Michelangelo Buonarroti, The Virgin and Child with the Infant Saint John (The 'Taddei Tondo'), c. 1504-05.
Marble, 106.8 x 106.8 cm.
Royal Academy of Arts, London. Bequeathed by Sir George Beaumont, 1830. Photo: Royal Academy of Arts, London, Photographer: Prudence Cuming Associates Limited

Above Michelangelo Buonarroti, The Virgin and Child with the Infant Saint John (The ‘Taddei Tondo’), c. 1504-05. Marble, 106.8 x 106.8 cm. Royal Academy of Arts, London. Bequeathed by Sir George Beaumont, 1830. Photo: Royal Academy of Arts, London, Photographer: Prudence Cuming Associates Limited

The Wick Culture - Michelangelo Buonarroti, Male Nude, c. 1505-06.
Black chalk on paper, 40.4 x 22.5 cm.
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Above Michelangelo Buonarroti, Male Nude, c. 1505-06. Black chalk on paper, 40.4 x 22.5 cm. Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Above Raphael, The Virgin and Child with the Infant St John the Baptist (‘The Esterhazy Madonna’), c. 1508. Tempera and oil on panel, 28.5 x 21.5 cm. Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Above Raphael, after Michelangelo Buonarroti, David, c. 1505-08. Pen and brown ink on paper, 39.6 x 21.9 cm. © The Trustees of the British Museum

Above Michelangelo Buonarroti, Male Nude, c. 1505-06. Black chalk on paper, 40.4 x 22.5 cm. Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael

Royal Academy of Arts
9 November 2024 – 16 February 2025

Three titans of the Italian Renaissance takeover the Royal Academy of Arts from this week, in a scintillating exploration of the historic ongoing rivalry between Michelangelo and Leonardo, the influence of both artists on the younger prodigy, Raphael. The exhibition brings together exceptional drawings – and plenty of salacious art history that shows another side to these major figures.

The feud between the Renaissance revolutionaries, legend has it, began when both were commissioned to create battle scenes for the Council Hall at the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence. Da Vinci’s encaustic technique was botched and caused paint to seep into Michaelangelo’s fresco; the latter responded by destroying his own work. The commission was never completed – but the exhibition includes the sketches for the murals by both artists illustrating what might have been, had the two been able to reconcile their artistic and personal differences.

The exhibition begins in Florence, in January of 1504, the moment when Michelangelo and Leonardo met, both having returned to live in their home city. Then both revered artists with powerful patrons behind them, the occasion of their meeting was to consult on where Michelangelo’s recently completed commission, the David sculpture should be placed – Da Vinci is reported to have said it would be best to cover the statue up. In September of that year, the colossal 17ft marble masterpiece would be unveiled in the public square in front of the Palazzo della Signora. Michelangelo later retorted that he felt nothing on viewing Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.