Harry’s Culture Radar: May ‘23

Photography is a medium that allows us to see the world through someone else’s eyes, and few contemporary artists offer as intriguing a view as Wolfgang Tillmans. Now on display at the Art Gallery of Ontario, the retrospective Wolfgang Tillmans: To Look Without Fear, is a rare opportunity to be immersed in the mind of the revered German photographer. From his days photographing Hamburg’s club scene in the early 1990s to his later years experimenting with more abstract expressions, Tillmans has always been interested in sex, politics, and the power of an image to create change. With its sprawling selection of intimate portraits, video and audio installations, and off-kilter landscapes, this landmark exhibit is a window into the mind of one of the 21st century’s most provocative artists.

The design world recently converged on Milan for the annual Salone del Mobile, which featured displays by more than 2,000 brands from 37 countries, and over 500 individual designers. As ever, the fair was a showcase for major names like architect Shigeru Ban, who teamed up with Japanese lighting brand Yamagiwa to showcase a line of Frank Lloyd Wright-designed lamps, and Alessi, which revealed a selection of cutlery designed by Virgil Abloh’s London-based studio Alaska. Despite high-concept installations by the likes of Google and LG, however, the Salon del Mobile remains first and foremost a furniture show, full of covetable seats like 1970s dining chairs by Tobia Scarpa and the elephantine Lunetta sofa by Studiopepe for Leolux.

Anyone with a taste for mint juleps, seersucker, and southern charm should mark their calendars for the first Saturday in May, when the Kentucky Derby arrives at the Churchill Downs in Louisville. The Derby is the first of three “Triple Crown” horse races in the United States each spring (the others are the Preakness Stakes in May and the Belmont Stakes in June). The Triple Crown, considered the biggest prize in the sport, is awarded to any horse that takes all three races, but that feat has been accomplished just 13 times in the last 147 years, most recently by American Pharaoh in 2015. The favourite to win this year’s Derby is the Kentucky-bred Forte, but there’s still plenty of room for surprises. In 2019, a disqualification put the runner-up, whose odds had been a long shot 65/1, in the winner’s circle, earning a major payday for anyone who ponied up a bet.

May, they say, is the best month to visit Edinburgh, with balmy spring temperatures, few tourists and (relatively) little rain in the forecast. Without a doubt the best base of operations for excursions to the historic castles, country estates, and golf courses in the area is the new Gleneagles Townhouse, a luxury boutique hotel in the heart of the Scottish capital. Situated in a late 18th-century building that was once home to the Bank of Scotland (the former bank vaults are now home to a spa) a stay at the Gleneagles Townhouse gives guests exclusive access to spaces like the members-only Lamplighters bar, where you can sip a dram of 1988 Glenrothes while admiring the view across Edinburgh’s stately rooftops.