British artists are often caught in the wake of the big "isms". Cubism sprung solidly from the continent. Surrealism was a keenly European affair. And although British artists did plug into such movements, many remain - rightly or wrongly - rather dim in the constellations of these monolithic movements.
The UK's very own "ism" in art, started just before the First World War, is often forgotten about entirely. Vorticism - however grand the name might be - has been sucked into a vortex of obscurity in accepted histories of this pivotal period.
But The Vorticists: A Manifesto for the Modern World, a charged overview of the movement currently showing at London's Tate Britain, might redress that.
The origins of Vorticism lie in the meeting of the poet Ezra Pound and the writer-painter Wyndham Lewis in London at the start of the 20th century. Both were hungry for a new visual language.
The great shake-up of Cubism was stampeding out of France while, at the same time, modernity roared into Europe's cities. This brought more cars, faster railways and - disturbing in hindsight - the devastating potential of mechanised warfare.
In Italy, this fed into Filipo Marinetti's Futurist Manifesto, a call to art to accept velocity as its new muse. The Futurists searched for how best to render an accelerated world. In Umberto Boccioni's canvases, for instance, horses abstract into flecks of pointed light, tearing through old cities like a sonic boom. But as Futurism evolved, its vision obscured: velocity came to mean power, and power was obtained through violence. Today, Futurism's proto-fascist leanings have earned it a questionable reputation.
When Lewis founded the Rebel Art Centre in 1914, a gathering place for artists disaffected with parochial Edwardian Britain, he'd been exposed to Futurism but wanted an alternative.
Chris Stephens, one of three curators working on the Tate show, suggests that the Vorticist project was a reaction to the way that modernism's potential was being explored by the group's peers.
"Lewis was also rebelling against the Bloomsbury Group, the likes of Roger Fry and Clive Bell, whose aesthetic was that art is only about its formal qualities. He was more interested in talking about life, and human existence in his work, and he set out a position that was radically abstract but engaged with subject matter in a way that the other modernists weren't."
With Lewis as leader, the Vorticists charted their own territory. Lewis's painting Workshop (circa 1914-15) is key to the Tate show and displays the angularity and geometry that came to define his work. He captured the discordance of the urban environment, seeing disharmonies in time, shape and colour as a wellspring of energy.
David Bomberg, though he never identified himself as a Vorticist, is also at the show's heart. His 1914 work Mud Bath sees the artist searching for a way to channel human forms into their most direct and essential representation. Amid a colour field of pale red, bathers with limbs and bodies resembling shafts of light seem to quiver with energy. It's an image that remains exhilarating even today.
"The vortex is the point of maximum energy," writes Pound in the first issue of BLAST, the group's journal of fragmented poetics and black-and-white photographs of their work, published in June 1914. A startling piece of graphic design for its time, BLAST's second and final edition would publish early work by the poet TS Eliot, who was then relatively unknown.
The Vorticists also presents work by a number of female artists. Pieces by Jessica Dismorr, Dorothy Shakespear and several only recently discovered pieces by Helen Saunders are included, some of which present the most divergent work in the group. Shakespear created an energetic, bright blue collage that zigzags across the canvas. "Forms tend to interlock in the Vorticists' paintings, but hers has a tension," says Stephens. "It's held between two points."
Yet it's fitting that a movement driven by the idea of energy would have such an energetic rise and fall.
"Vorticism eked itself out, more or less, in the course of a year," says Stephens.
It was named as a movement in the late summer of 1914 by Pound. The group's only English exhibition took place in 1915, in London's Goulin Gallery, and by then most of the painters were holed up in Europe's trenches of the Great War. Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, a French sculptor whose witty, playful sculptures feature in The Vorticists, had already been killed in combat.
Vorticism's brief existence is partly to blame for why it is so often overlooked. And although the artists of the movement were fairly prolific, much of their output has since been lost.
There's also a sweeping association with Futurism, and its fascistic leanings, which doesn't work in favour of the group's legacy. Though Pound would later ally himself with Mussolini and Lewis would write a glowing report of Hitler in the early 1930s, Stephens is resistant to the idea of germinating fascist ideas in the Vorticist project.
The curator is keen to point out, instead, the group's radicalism. Here is a movement distinct from both Cubism and Futurism. "Stylistically, they were more extreme than the Futurists," says Stephens. "Meanwhile, Picasso and Braque were still abstracting life into Cubism.
"Aside from Malevich in Russia, who was painting simple black squares, the Vorticists were then about as extreme as abstract painting went."
The Vorticists: A Manifesto for the Modern World is on at London's Tate Britain until September 4.
If you go
- The nearest international airport to the start of the Chuysky Trakt is in Novosibirsk. Emirates (www.emirates.com) offer codeshare flights with S7 Airlines (www.s7.ru) via Moscow for US$5,300 (Dh19,467) return including taxes. Cheaper flights are available on Flydubai and Air Astana or Aeroflot combination, flying via Astana in Kazakhstan or Moscow. Economy class tickets are available for US$650 (Dh2,400).
- The Double Tree by Hilton in Novosibirsk ( 7 383 2230100,) has double rooms from US$60 (Dh220). You can rent cabins at camp grounds or rooms in guesthouses in the towns for around US$25 (Dh90).
- The transport Minibuses run along the Chuysky Trakt but if you want to stop for sightseeing, hire a taxi from Gorno-Altaisk for about US$100 (Dh360) a day. Take a Russian phrasebook or download a translation app. Tour companies such as Altair-Tour ( 7 383 2125115 ) offer hiking and adventure packages.
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
Dubai works towards better air quality by 2021
Dubai is on a mission to record good air quality for 90 per cent of the year – up from 86 per cent annually today – by 2021.
The municipality plans to have seven mobile air-monitoring stations by 2020 to capture more accurate data in hourly and daily trends of pollution.
These will be on the Palm Jumeirah, Al Qusais, Muhaisnah, Rashidiyah, Al Wasl, Al Quoz and Dubai Investment Park.
“It will allow real-time responding for emergency cases,” said Khaldoon Al Daraji, first environment safety officer at the municipality.
“We’re in a good position except for the cases that are out of our hands, such as sandstorms.
“Sandstorms are our main concern because the UAE is just a receiver.
“The hotspots are Iran, Saudi Arabia and southern Iraq, but we’re working hard with the region to reduce the cycle of sandstorm generation.”
Mr Al Daraji said monitoring as it stood covered 47 per cent of Dubai.
There are 12 fixed stations in the emirate, but Dubai also receives information from monitors belonging to other entities.
“There are 25 stations in total,” Mr Al Daraji said.
“We added new technology and equipment used for the first time for the detection of heavy metals.
“A hundred parameters can be detected but we want to expand it to make sure that the data captured can allow a baseline study in some areas to ensure they are well positioned.”
The biog
Name: Capt Shadia Khasif
Position: Head of the Criminal Registration Department at Hatta police
Family: Five sons and three daughters
The first female investigator in Hatta.
Role Model: Father
She believes that there is a solution to every problem
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
BIGGEST CYBER SECURITY INCIDENTS IN RECENT TIMES
SolarWinds supply chain attack: Came to light in December 2020 but had taken root for several months, compromising major tech companies, governments and its entities
Microsoft Exchange server exploitation: March 2021; attackers used a vulnerability to steal emails
Kaseya attack: July 2021; ransomware hit perpetrated REvil, resulting in severe downtime for more than 1,000 companies
Log4j breach: December 2021; attackers exploited the Java-written code to inflitrate businesses and governments
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Some of Darwish's last words
"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008
His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.
More on Quran memorisation:
Barbie
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The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
Company%20Profile
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Libya's Gold
UN Panel of Experts found regime secretly sold a fifth of the country's gold reserves.
The panel’s 2017 report followed a trail to West Africa where large sums of cash and gold were hidden by Abdullah Al Senussi, Qaddafi’s former intelligence chief, in 2011.
Cases filled with cash that was said to amount to $560m in 100 dollar notes, that was kept by a group of Libyans in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
A second stash was said to have been held in Accra, Ghana, inside boxes at the local offices of an international human rights organisation based in France.
Winners
Best Men's Player of the Year: Kylian Mbappe (PSG)
Maradona Award for Best Goal Scorer of the Year: Robert Lewandowski (Bayern Munich)
TikTok Fans’ Player of the Year: Robert Lewandowski
Top Goal Scorer of All Time: Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United)
Best Women's Player of the Year: Alexia Putellas (Barcelona)
Best Men's Club of the Year: Chelsea
Best Women's Club of the Year: Barcelona
Best Defender of the Year: Leonardo Bonucci (Juventus/Italy)
Best Goalkeeper of the Year: Gianluigi Donnarumma (PSG/Italy)
Best Coach of the Year: Roberto Mancini (Italy)
Best National Team of the Year: Italy
Best Agent of the Year: Federico Pastorello
Best Sporting Director of the Year: Txiki Begiristain (Manchester City)
Player Career Award: Ronaldinho
The bio
Date of Birth: April 25, 1993
Place of Birth: Dubai, UAE
Marital Status: Single
School: Al Sufouh in Jumeirah, Dubai
University: Emirates Airline National Cadet Programme and Hamdan University
Job Title: Pilot, First Officer
Number of hours flying in a Boeing 777: 1,200
Number of flights: Approximately 300
Hobbies: Exercising
Nicest destination: Milan, New Zealand, Seattle for shopping
Least nice destination: Kabul, but someone has to do it. It’s not scary but at least you can tick the box that you’ve been
Favourite place to visit: Dubai, there’s no place like home
