Mounir Fatmi is almost the archetypal polymath artist.  Working across film and video, installation, drawing, painting and sculpture - in fact, any media that he can appropriate - Fatmi constructs a tangible visual space.

Using the forms and conventions of whatever media Fatmi thinks works best for each piece proves two things: One, that Fatmi understands the notions that underpin practical art history; and two, that he is skilled enough to make art that is relevant to both the world and itself.

You see, Fatmi produces work that directly address the current events of our world, and serve to both clarify the origins and symptoms of global issues, as well as speak to those whose lives are affected by specific events.  

Mounir Fatmi will be screening three films as part of tank.tv + Artprojx Cinema NY.  I Lived on the 3^rd Floor, Architecture Now 1 and Architecture Now 2 are playing on 03 March, at the SVA Theatre at 14.25.

There is a truly great scene in the movie South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, where, in preparation for an attack on Canada, the US forces are divided into platoons.  One particular platoon is made up entirely of the black population of South Park.  This particular platoon would be the first in to the war zone and act as a blanket for the rest of the invasion, in a military attack titled 'Operation Get Behind the Darkies'.  When asked by the character Chef of whether he had heard of the Emancipation Proclamation, the General leading the invasion replies that he 'doesn't listen to hip-hop'.

Cutting satire, naturally, is so because it has an element of truth to it.  Black Watch, currently playing at The Barbican, is a play by Gregory Burke originally written for the National Theatre of Scotland.  Based on interviews with former soldiers, it tells the true story of the titular regiment of the British Army, based in rural Scotland, and that has its roots in the ancestry of professional soldiers from the Fife and Tayside regions.  Under a centre of political controversy, Black Watch was commandeered by the US Army and relocated to front-line Fallujah in an area known as the 'Triangle of Death', where they subsequently came under sustained insurgent attacks.

So not a barrel (excuse the pun, entirely unintentional) of laughs then.  It is, though, a powerful play that has in common much with the political activism that has seen a trend in twenty-first century theatre, led in part by the Tricycle Theatre.  Winner of manifold awards (including Olivier Awards for Best New Play and Best Director), this, more than most other events in London, is something to see.

Black Watch is at The Barbican, London, until 22 January, 2011.

It is a very difficult thing to be able to make a film that deals with filmmaking without it succumbing to being a completely insular, self-referential parody of something that is really quite benign and dull to those outside of the industry.  There are, of course, exceptions but these are few and far between and inevitably 'prove the rule', as it were.  What do 8 1/2, La nuit américaine, Peeping Tom, Bad Education, The Player and Singin' in the Rain have in common?  Sure, they're all films that are set on a film set but more than that they are probably some of the finest examples of filmmaking from some of the world's greatest filmmakers.  These are undoubtedly unusual circumstances.  Which is only one reason that makes Le père de mes enfants such a brilliant work of film.

The film is the third by French director and actress Mia Hansen-Løve, and winner of the Jury Special Prize (Un Certain Regard) at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival.  Her previous (the short Après mûre réflexion [2004], Tout est pardonné [2007]) were small productions that proved her conservatoire training.  She released her first feature film at the age of twenty-six, and this latest film when we was 28.  Considering that the film industry is, without question, one of the most male-dominated across the entire arts, this is no simple feat.  Also no simple feat is the fact that this film is breathtakingly stunning.  Following the misfortunes of a film producer in modern-day Paris, as he attempts to juggle his work and personal life, the film is unsettling.  It reminds us of how life can be both fragile and, at times, seemingly futile but Hansen-Løve has a more assured hand than that.  Hers is a world akin to the great Eric Rohmer, and is ultimately about what can make life, well, just wonderful.