Killian Fox

Dublin

Writer at Freelance

Writes for the Observer and elsewhere. Previously: The Gannet. Gmail: killianfox. @killianfox0.bsky.social

Articles

Loyle Carner: ‘Glastonbury is a big deal for us’

1 week ago | observer.co.uk | Killian Fox

Benjamin Coyle-Larner, known professionally as Loyle Carner, was born in south London in 1994 and raised in Croydon. His 2017 debut album Yesterday’s Gone was nominated for the Mercury prize, as was 2022’s Hugo, which brought a darker, more political edge to his breezy style of hip-hop (The Observer called it “a beautiful, blistering masterpiece”).
On my radar: Adam Curtis’s cultural highlights

1 week ago | observer.co.uk | Killian Fox

The documentary film-maker on medieval novels, Banksy and Emily in Paris The documentary film-maker Adam Curtis was born in Dartford, Kent, in 1955. He studied human sciences and then taught politics at Oxford, and joined the BBC in the 1980s, working on programmes such as That’s Life.
The big picture: Nicola Lo Calzo’s villain of São Tomé

2 weeks ago | observer.co.uk | Killian Fox

In the 16th-century Portuguese play The Tragedy of the Marquis of Mântua and the Emperor Charlemagne by Baltazar Dias, Prince Charles, son of the emperor, murders the nephew of the Marquis of Mântua in a crime of passion. The Mântuas appeal for justice and Charlemagne must decide whether to deny it or sign his own son’s death warrant.
On my radar: Wendy Erskine’s cultural highlights

3 weeks ago | observer.co.uk | Killian Fox

The author on cherry blossom, French psychedelia and Instagram elegance Wendy Erskine is the Belfast-based author of two acclaimed short story collections: Sweet Home, which was longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize; and Dance Move, a BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime in 2022. The head of English at a Belfast secondary school, Erskine, 57, started writing seriously a decade ago.
The big picture: Lauren Greenfield’s prom portrait

3 weeks ago | observer.co.uk | Killian Fox

The photographer turns her camera on the LA teens whose image is a carefully curated construct The teens in Lauren Greenfield’s photo series Social Studies don’t do proms by halves. Eighteen-year-old Keshawn Domingo, a DJ and budding TikTok star, turns up to his in a red tailored suit and white loafers. “I look like something straight out of a movie,” he remarks, in Greenfield’s five-part docuseries of the same name.
SXSW London: ‘A love letter to the capital I know’

3 weeks ago | observer.co.uk | Killian Fox

The trend-setting festival comes to England this week, and the cutting-edge music isn’t the half of it Over the past four decades, South by Southwest (SXSW) has gone from a tiny annual showcase for new musical talent in Austin, Texas, to a sprawling behemoth that takes over the city for a week each March, encompassing film and technology as well as music.
On my radar: Delaine Le Bas’s cultural highlights | The Observer

3 weeks ago | observer.co.uk | Killian Fox

The artist on feeling like a child at the theatre, her red felt boots and birthdays on the beach Delaine Le Bas was born in Worthing in 1965. She studied art at West Sussex College of Design and then Central Saint Martins. Her wide-ranging work uses embroidery, painting, decoupage, sculpture, performance and other media to explore her Roma heritage and address issues of nationhood, land, belonging and gender. Last year she was shortlisted for the Turner prize, for Incipit Vita Nova.
The big picture: Larry Fink’s New York state of mind

3 weeks ago | observer.co.uk | Killian Fox

The celebrated photographer contrives a moment of Manhattan hedonism as George Plimpton looks on In 1999, the photographer Larry Fink orchestrated a fashion shoot in New York. The location was the celebrity hangout Elaine’s and the theme was Sweet Smell of Success, the 1957 movie about a gossip columnist, played by Burt Lancaster, exerting his power amid the shadowy whirl of midtown Manhattan.
Marie-Laure de Decker’s Vietnam war self-portrait

1 month ago | observer.co.uk | Killian Fox

The French photographer cast an original eye on the violent conflicts she covered It’s 1971 and the war in Vietnam rages on. Recently arrived in Saigon from Paris with no experience of combat situations, Marie-Laure de Decker boards a US army helicopter for a reconnaissance mission. The 24-year-old photographer is on assignment for Newsweek, having replaced the French photographer François Sully, killed in a helicopter crash that February.
Liz Diller: ‘I truly believe you should do work that you’re totally unqualified to do’

1 month ago | observer.co.uk | Killian Fox

Liz Diller, 70, is the co-founder of Diller, Scofidio + Renfro, the architecture firm best known for renovating the High Line in New York. She was born in Poland in 1958 and moved to the US with her parents aged two. She studied architecture at Cooper Union, where her future husband and business partner, Ricardo Scofidio, was teaching (Scofidio died in March, aged 89). DS+R’s other projects include the Shed at Hudson Yards, the Broad in Los Angeles and the expansion of MoMA.