tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41137590082812146182024-03-13T21:21:24.080+00:00Run Paint Run Run.One women's lairy thoughts about arts and culture.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger132125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4113759008281214618.post-7836800102470699162012-10-18T14:23:00.001+01:002012-10-18T14:23:16.884+01:00Arts PR 101The first paragraph of a press release for a exhibition is required to include the phrase '<i>draws together</i>' and the word '<i>exquisite</i>'... extra points if you can include reference to '<i>bridging</i>' as well. <br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span">That being said, these organic textile doodads from Kazuhito Takadoi look rather nice. Pity the exhibition is in London, something the PR for <a href="http://www.jaggedart.com/exhibitions/2012/shadowlands" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Jaggedart</a> didn't think about when they purchased my personal email from some 'arts blogger' list.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuffp3iEfoz6kANgmCVzhDBXE1Kje8fVAKaieHSIwqFD9nPkgJUi91l81uw66EZa6Tu_kTLLfnRXD_NG0u2mRDgJ9RdsJzULAn8_eIaWU3PH64AjmkYvCs_eOmYH3J1YFplEhyphenhyphenzarBtpk/s1600/attf4fdc.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuffp3iEfoz6kANgmCVzhDBXE1Kje8fVAKaieHSIwqFD9nPkgJUi91l81uw66EZa6Tu_kTLLfnRXD_NG0u2mRDgJ9RdsJzULAn8_eIaWU3PH64AjmkYvCs_eOmYH3J1YFplEhyphenhyphenzarBtpk/s640/attf4fdc.png" width="480" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4113759008281214618.post-52126082959420643892011-09-12T15:57:00.000+01:002012-09-07T11:16:45.418+01:00AND Festival: Tattoo Event by David Shrigley<div style="text-align: left;">
I’ve always had a soft spot for <b>David Shrigley</b>, ever since my older sister gave me some of his books when I was a teenager. Apparently my drawings were reminiscent of his, a fact I find rather worrying now. Mad, odd and very funny, Mr. Shrigley’s only crime is to spawn herds of half arsed wannabe doodlers without his uncanny and disturbing wit. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I’ve had tattoos for almost ten years now (do the maths, I started illegally young), and in that time have considered getting some odd images. The only thing that stopped me getting a tattoo of a bat when I was 20 was a terrible bout of tonsillitis coinciding with the appointment. By the time I was off antibiotics I had thought better of it. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Not that I think I would have regretted the bat, in fact I still think it would have been pretty awesome. I strongly believe that you live with your tattoos, and even if you wouldn’t get them if you had the chance over again, that’s no real reason for regret. I’m happy that I’ll be an old lady with wrinkly tattoos and dangly great earlobes.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; clear: left; color: black; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;">For the upcoming AND Festival David Shrigley will turn his hand to the tattooist’s art at our favourite cards and nickknack shop, Utility on Bold Street. Well from the information of the<a href="http://andfestival.org.uk/event/utility-shop-tattoo-event">Abandon Normal Devices website</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; color: black;">, I assume he’ll be designing the tattoos, and a properly experienced professional from Liverpool studio Tattoo studio Dermagraffiti will be doing the painful part (hopefully upstairs in their nice clean airy studio).</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I won’t lie to you; my mouse did hover over the link to make an appointment. But then I reconsidered, where the hell would I want a tattoo like that? Wouldn’t go with my flowers and arty abstractions at all! </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
However, I understand the appeal. A few years ago would have leapt at the chance and I doubt I would have regretted it… and if it seems right to you now, I doubt you’ll regret it either!</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4113759008281214618.post-37064420394467587162011-05-09T21:58:00.006+01:002012-09-07T11:17:12.138+01:00Miro in MallorcaThat’s it northerners, it’s not even May and our summer has already been and gone. <br />
<br />
What now? Perhaps you’ll consider nipping down to London town for a zingy dose of Spanish sunshine, <a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/joanmiro/">Miro-style at the Tate Modern</a>... but then, looking at the pricey confusion of ticket prices for a train ride down south, you might like to think again.<br />
<br />
How about jumping on a Ryan Air flight to Mallorca? I know it’s grim while on the plane, but it’s about the same price and time as a ride on a Virgin Pendolino from Liverpool to London. Set aside all the boozy beach front bars and sun-cancerous stretched of crowded sand - for a day at least (<i>I know, they are so much fun!)</i> - and hop on a 2€ bus from Palma to the <a href="http://miro.palmademallorca.es/">Pilar and Joan Miro Foundation</a>.<br />
<br />
You won’t be disappointed! As well as an enviable collection of paintings by Miro in a standardly nice contemporary gallery space, this place offers you the chance to glimpse the work and workings of a true master of modern art beyond a stark gallery setting.<br />
<br />
This is the place that Miro spent his artistic maturity, and his workshop is lovingly (although I cannot attest to any authenticity) preserved. Designed by the architect Josep Luís Sert, it’s wonderful to see a collection of paintings by Miro set among homely detritus of what was once a working artists studio. The paintings may not be considered by the art world to be “<i>significant</i>”, but I challenge anyone to say they are not intrinsically beautiful and essentially Miro.<br />
<br />
This room might be as carefully curated as any formal gallery setting, and I’ll still assert that an artists biography isn’t never that useful for looking at art, but to see paint brushes, folders, stools and smocks stacked side by side with extraordinary canvasses, displayed so perfectly faux-casually, is a sheer pleasure.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
Up the hill, past stunning views of the Mediterranean sea and shores of Mallorca, is another house. Purchased especially for Miro to work in, it’s walls are covered with the artist's scrawled doodlings and sketches. Together with pinned-up postcards and newspaper clippings, as well as tins, pots, jars and pans on shelves, these are delicious fragments of Miro's life and, if you are so inclined to think so, his thought-processes. Whatever the story or argument about the artist being made here, it’s fascinating.<br />
<br />
So, if the South Bank is within easy reach for you, I’ll envy your trip to see what is undoubtedly an impressive and worthy retrospective, but this Spring I’ll hold tight to my trip in the Spanish spring sunshine to see where a master of modern art spent his later years working.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4113759008281214618.post-54758492187458838702011-04-07T20:40:00.006+01:002011-04-07T21:19:11.143+01:00The Crystal PalaceYou know those lists of contingency options we all keep? You know, what music to play at your funeral? What you would do if you won the lottery (despite not even playing)? If you absolutely, absolutely had to kill someone, who would it be? and, of course, what to say when <b>Doctor Who</b> eventually turns up and wants to whisk you off through time and space?<br />
<br />
<i>Oh, it’s just me then...?</i><br />
<br />
Come on, If you could get the TARDIS to drop you anywhere in the world at a culturally significant point in history, what would you ask for? For me, there is only one option: Thursday 1 May 1851, to see the opening of the <i>Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations</i> at the <b>Crystal Palace</b>.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 6px; padding-right: 6px; padding-top: 6px; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Crystal_Palace_from_the_northeast_from_Dickinson's_Comprehensive_Pictures_of_the_Great_Exhibition_of_1851._1854.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="173" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Crystal_Palace_from_the_northeast_from_Dickinson's_Comprehensive_Pictures_of_the_Great_Exhibition_of_1851._1854.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 19px;">The Crystal Palace from the northeast from Dickinson's <i>Comprehensive Pictures of the Great Exhibition of 1851</i>, published 1854.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
Characteristic of the finest Victoriana, the <i>Great Exhibition</i> was both an anomaly and typical of the time. What we understand as the “<i>Victorian</i>” style is actually a massive spectrum of appropriated and hybrid historical styles in modern techniques. The fact that the 1851 Exhibition included an “<i>Engine in the Egyptian taste</i>” (I shit you not) is almost too perfect to be true. This is what I find most fascinating about the Victorian world, the way it defiantly leapt forward, all the time anxiously looking to the past.<br />
<br />
When we think of the <b>Crystal Palace</b> you probably think of faded grey prints in neglected corners. With a little imagination perhaps you could introduced some sparkling monochrome to the picture. But just think, as the exhibition opened, of the <b>293,655</b> panes of glass that comprised the structure glittering in the spring sunlight. <br />
<br />
It’s easy to imagine the Victorian world with a muted palette of monochrome, supplemented by muddy ruby reds and holly greens, and apply this thinking to the<b> Crystal Palace</b>. What colour do you think the structure was? Grey metal or perhaps white like a tasteful conservatory? In fact, it was painted in the full range of primary colours. It was red on the undersides of girders and behind the gallery railings; yellow on the diagonal faces of the columns and on certain projections; blue on the concave parts of the columns. Positively, and gloriously, gaudy! <br />
<br />
Within it must have been utterly and overwhelmingly dazzling, with the glass ceiling letting in so much light a canvas barrier had to be constructed to keep the reflected light from blinding visitors. Among the 100,000 objects on display there was a giant fountain made entirely out of glass, large chandeliers hung throughout the building, stained glass hanging up in sheets in their very own gallery... and not to forget the bloody Koh-i-nor! Doesn’t it sound fabulous? <br />
<br />
The Crystal Palace persisted for many years, falling into disrepair, until burning down in 1936. In that period it was used again for the <i>Great Exhibition of 1863</i> (we don’t talk about that one), as well as the world’s first cat show in 1897. However, I’d most dearly like to see it on that spring day in 1851, when it was opened by Queen Victoria herself. <br />
<br />
So Doctor, if you are reading, pick me up tomorrow, about 12.30, and get me back in time to pop down to Matta's for some herbal tea and be back at my desk before my lunch break is over. Deal?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4113759008281214618.post-2263222632551245512011-04-06T22:39:00.000+01:002011-04-08T08:48:36.380+01:00Lady Digby on her Death-Bed by Anthony Van Dyck (1633)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2619/3970404672_8781eec9b9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="288" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2619/3970404672_8781eec9b9.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
I recently made a a few changes in my living habits, which have resulted in me sleeping like I have never experienced in my adult life. For weeks now, most nights I’ve fallen into deep, oceanic slumber that insomniacs can only dream of. It would be a happy consequence, if the tendrils of sleep didn’t linger throughout the day. A dullness and melancholia, somehow worse that sleep deprivation or hangover, haunts me.<br />
<br />
Where am I going with this? I feel, perhaps, that this is an instance where a painting can describe, if a little abstractly, what I’ve been experiencing better than words. A kind of reverse ecphrasis. It might be a little self indulgently morbid, but when struggling out of bed this morning I found myself thinking about <b>Van Dyck</b>’s posthumous portrait of <b>Venetia Stanley</b>. <br />
<br />
<i>A little background first: </i>The painting was commissioned by Venetia’s husband, <b>Sir Kenelem Digby</b>. The popular story is that her death was caused by excessive arsenic consumption, taken for cosmetic purposes, encouraged or aided by her shallow or ignorant (or Machiavellian) husband. I don’t know how much of this story is a Victorian construction, who loved a good cautionary tale, although the fact an autopsy was performed suggests there was some suspicion about Venetia’s death at 33. <br />
<br />
<i>Venetia Stanley, Lady Digby on her Death-Bed </i>(to use its full name) was painted from drawings made two days after her death. I suspect this painting avoids truth in the photographic sense. There are no signs of rigor mortis or decay, her hands and facial features haven’t contracted. Nor is there any evidence of the plaster casts that were made of her face and hands or the hair cut from the head as a relic. In fact, the only indication she is really dead, and not sleeping, is the slightly open left eye, a subtle and morbid detail. Despite it's obvious beauty it is at complete counterpoint to <b>Van Dyck</b>'s numerous portraits of strutting cavaliers and blossoming ladies.<i> Is this a fantasy of death or of sleep?</i><br />
<br />
However, these are just the facts, as far as you can call this smattering of historical titbits and opinion facts. Like many paintings by Old Masters - and indeed all art which is not of our era - we cannot suppose that our initial reaction and interpretation has any relation to what was intended or interpreted at the time. What I do feel free to ponder, is the haunting beauty of this painting and the immutable mysteries of sleep... Sorry, getting melodramatic, what's I'm basically trying to say is <i>see that picture, that's how I feel at the moment.</i><br />
<br />
Perhaps I should just cut out the <i><a href="http://www.celestialseasonings.com/products/detail.html/wellness-teas/sleepytime-extra">Sleepytime Extra</a></i> tea?<br />
<br />
<i>Venetia Stanley, Lady Digby on her Death-Bed</i>, by Anthony Van Dyck (1633), is in the collection of the <b><a href="http://www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk/">Dulwich Picture Gallery</a></b>. According to their website it currently needs restoration to which you can contribute by <a href="http://www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk/support_us/adopt_an_old_master/adopt_a_van_dyck.aspx">‘Adopting’ the painting</a>... it’s a little more expensive than a baby panda though.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4113759008281214618.post-88847169503875388342011-04-05T18:47:00.001+01:002011-04-05T18:47:57.774+01:00Glee - A Confession<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/05/18/arts/glee-600.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="204" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/05/18/arts/glee-600.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
For someone who used her 4 years at university to grapple with the most esoterically, historically pointless subjects she could find - Victorian polar explorers, Crimean war memorials and mezzotints anyone? - I am completely intellectually lazy. I weekly rediscover, and then fight to conceal, the fact that I am the worst kind of Guardian skimming snob, misanthrope and hypocrite. <br />
<br />
So, in an effort to move away from having to leave the flat to find something to write about, I’ve decided to fess up, come clean and interrogate some of my less surely held opinions. <br />
<br />
First up <b>Glee</b>. I’ll freely admit I’ve said some pretty harsh things about this television show. It’s marketed as colourful, plasticy sub-<i>High School Musical </i>trash, and without watching it for yourself there is nothing to make you think otherwise. I only deigned to watch it because I was in a bit of a blue funk and was looking for the televisual equivalent of sitting in a bath with a bottle of gin and a massive bag of Haribo... and of course I was pleasantly surprised. <br />
<br />
If you watch it you don’t need me to tell you that despite it’s many faults, it is thoroughly engaging and utterly endearing. Inside it’s sugary shell, it must be one of the most generous shows in terms of characterisation out there. Glee frequently accepts difference where other shows would have ponderously dwelt on it, instead agilely shifting the plot forward for more high jinx and toe tapping pop numbers. <br />
<br />
Setting aside that the majority of the cast are offensively beautiful and talented - it is produced for US network television after all - and that it is often uneven in tone, inconsistent in plot and the (sometimes obviously and direly auto-tuned) music out of context is utterly execrable, I can no longer pretend I don’t have a massive soft spot for this show.<br />
<br />
Now I’ve admitted this, does Glee no longer count as a guilty pleasure?<br />
<br />
<i>(However, you try to play the music in my presence, I’ll push you out the nearest fucking window.) </i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4113759008281214618.post-69804960630587896212011-03-31T22:15:00.005+01:002011-04-01T07:56:53.537+01:00British Art: 1880-1950 @ Walker & Knowledge Lives Everywhere @ FACTRecently it’s seemed like nearly everything is geared towards children and their keepers. I’ve known since I started writing this blog that if I was chronicling my ongoing adventures with a small creature that had escaped from my womb, I’d be giddy with the fumes of incoming links.<br />
<br />
I guess it makes sense, I think there are more of them than me. The yummy mummies undoubtedly outnumber the misanthropic singletons, or perhaps they just carry more legislative weight? <br />
<br />
Tonight I’ve been to two very different new exhibitions in Liverpool, both of which are decidedly family friendly. <br />
<br />
The <b>Walkers</b> new room, <i><a href="http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/collections/room-guide/room-eleven.aspx">British Art: 1880-1950</a></i>, makes brilliant use of the neglected space beyond their displays Victorian and Impressionist art. Showcasing some wonderful paintings by luminaries such as <b>Jacob Epstein</b>, <b>LS Lowry</b> and <b>Lucian Freud</b>, the display includes a particulary beautiful painting by <b>Paul Nash</b>, a long standing favourite of mine. <br />
<br />
Together with complementary lighting and a sympathetic hang, there’s enough interactive claptrap to entertain the young and those who don’t have the attention span to simply enjoy looking at art. Usually I’d be vehmently against this kind of thing, but it is discreetly and well implemented enough not to distract from what is most important in the room - a fantastic, and very impressive, selection of British painting. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5298/5509236571_5ef71bbed5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5298/5509236571_5ef71bbed5.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The<i> British Art: 1880-1950</i> room in progress, from <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/nationalmuseumsliverpool/5509236571/in/set-72157625814363498">National Museums Liverpool </a></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
If you have neither children nor a well developed sense of social responsibility, <i><a href="http://www.fact.co.uk/about/exhibitions/2011/knowledge-lives-everywhere">Knowledge Lives Everywhere,</a></i> the new exhibition at <b>FACT</b>, probably isn’t for you. <br />
<br />
Downstairs a series of stridently playful interactive installations set the mood, highlighting the work of seven groups that work with FACT. I wouldn't say there was anything wrong with them, other than purely not being to my taste. I like art that seductive invites engagement, not demands participation to be appreciated. It feels like an invasion of my intellectual space. <br />
<br />
Despite some flimsy rhetoric, as timely platform to publicise their community work, and to anchor their gallery space within that programme, it’s probably a great success for FACT... but as art its all a bit <i>meh</i>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4113759008281214618.post-71738975145956349822011-03-30T09:31:00.000+01:002011-04-08T08:49:01.861+01:00Anxious about the arts...Anyone else feeling a tad demoralised? <br />
<br />
Yesterday, as Arts Council England announced it’s funding settlements for what are now National Portfolio Organisations, was pretty nerve-wracking. As it turns out the situation was not as dramatic as feared, but hardly encouraging for anyone who cares about the arts in this country. <br />
<br />
When fantastic small groups like Urban Strawberry Lunch lose what little funding they did receive from Arts Council England, it puts the cuts to some of my favourite Liverpool arts organisations –for example 4.9% for the Everyman and Playhouse and 11% for FACT (both in real terms over 4 years) – in a rose tinted context.<br />
<br />
The official announcements, the tweets of relief and outrage, the newspaper and blog scramble to assess the impact, was utterly overwhelming, especially for someone who isn’t used to thinking about things politically or mathematically. Thankfully, Seven Streets do a very good job of summarising the <a href="http://www.sevenstreets.com/blog/arts-council-england-2011-funding-cuts-and-liverpool/">headline figures for Merseyside organisations</a>.<br />
<br />
When Liverpool City Council recently handed out a flat 20% funding cut for all arts organisations, the dialogue was often pushed in the direction that it was a question of either/or… that it’s education and public services against the arts. If you force even the most ardent artinista to weigh the value of a rape crisis centre against an arts centre, there is absolutely no choice. Yesterday this worrying rhetorical trend continued, with my friend and LIPA lecturer <a href="http://twitter.com/MariaBarrett/status/53114568922238976">Maria Barrett commenting in a tweet</a>: “<i>'Arts Funding or NHS & education?' premise of #radio2 call in disgusting. Looking forward to 'TV Licence or food?' next week. #artsfunding</i>” <br />
<br />
I won’t roll out that trite quote from Winston Churchill about arts funding that is doing the rounds, but I will suggest to fuck over the arts is the effectively neuter any city outside of London. This didn’t happen yesterday, but feels like a step towards it. We will be discovering what the decisions announced yesterday really means for the arts in the follow months.<br />
<br />
Let’s upgrade demoralised to anxious.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4113759008281214618.post-83467995455211142502011-02-14T18:09:00.002+00:002011-02-14T23:02:25.320+00:00Farewell A FoundationFarewell <b>A Foundation</b>, we barely knew ye…. Well, I – still a fairly recent import to this city – did anyway. <br />
<br />
With the news that A Foundation is now no more, I was initially reticent about joining in with the general wailing and gnashing of teeth, but like the proposed sell-off of the collection of <a href="http://runpaintrunrun.blogspot.com/2009/08/seriously-southampton-art-gallery-what.html">Southampton Art Gallery</a>, I find myself feeling both somewhat quizzical and absolutely disgusted.<br />
<br />
Yes, not every experience I had within A Foundation’s industrial walls was gilded. I can count some of the most queasily gauche, self aware and un-self-conscious example of contemporary art that I’ve seen in recent years as elements in exhibitions at A Foundation. <br />
<br />
But still, it’s a great shame that it’s been wound up with a whimper, noticed only by <a href="http://www.sevenstreets.com/art-and-creativity/the-l-word/">premiere Liverpool blog Seven Streets</a>. Whatever the consistency of the work on display, Seven Streets are so right to recognise it’s programme as possibly the most dynamic, challenging and exciting in the city.<br />
<br />
Beyond the clearly discernible tragedy for contemporary art in Liverpool, I’ve got two burning questions: <br />
<br />
<b>One</b>. <i>What the hell is the point of the Baltic Triangle now? </i>Apart from CUC it has very little to tempt me, and it’ll take something very special to tempt me into the oppressive confines of the Novas Centre. Now, unless I'm buying a shed or getting my non-existent car painted, why would I go to the Baltic Triangle?<br />
<br />
<b>Two</b>. <i>What does this spell out for the Biennial?</i> After <a href="http://blogs.biennial.com/2010/11/02/the-cuts/">Biennial Artistic Director Lewis Biggs’ volatile blog about funding cuts back in November</a> – which made the organisations seem to be visibly floundering even before the axe has fallen – the closure of A Foundation can only seem like a body blow. The loss of such a space (in addition to whatever funding disaster it will have to pass through in the following months) will surely have a huge impact on what the Biennial can offer in 2012. <br />
<br />
But right now I can only mutter and sigh and ponder what this means for quality visual art in Liverpool. I have no more information than Seven Streets, and I am very aware of the brutality of cuts that are painfully imminent and will be on going for the foreseeable future. Overshadowed by the nose drive the Liverpool Boat Show just took, this won't be the last asset to disappear from Liverpool's cultural ecosystem. <br />
<br />
Anyway, bye bye A Foundation, I hope your legacy is more than a swathe of Big Society art students who couldn’t curate their arse from their elbow. Where else in Liverpool would I have been able to <a href="http://runpaintrunrun.blogspot.com/2010/04/jacob-dahlgren-colour-reading-context.html">re-encounter <b>Jacob Dahlgren</b>’s <i>Colour Reading Context</i></a>?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4113759008281214618.post-86248329920694572772011-02-13T13:24:00.002+00:002011-02-13T13:28:45.850+00:00What would be in your dream art collection?<i><a href="http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/exhibitions/collectors-eye/about.aspx">A Collector's Eye</a></i> is an exhibition of paintings from the <a href="http://www.artsjournal.com/realcleararts/2011/02/schorr-collection.html">Schorr Collection</a> assembled by a private collector, and it opens at the Walker Art Gallery next week. The exhibition promises to feature five centuries of art ranging from 15th-century devotional images to 19th-century French Impressionist landscapes. Old Master artists <b>Rubens, El Greco, Delacroix</b> and <b>Cranach</b> are included alongside Impressionists such as <b>Pissarro</b> and <b>Sisley</b>.<br />
<br />
It’s an interesting departure from the on going trend for exhibitions based upon extremely didactic concepts, an emphasis on telling art as a heavy handed biographical or teleological story I've always round annoying. Some might find a basis in the personal tastes of a private collector problematic, but I hope the selection of works in an exhibition curated along these principals will be much closer to the diverse and changing relationship with art that most of us have. <br />
<br />
<b>The organisers also ask the question, </b><i><b>what would be in your dream art collection? </b></i><b>and I feel compelled to day-dream up an answer. </b><br />
<br />
To start with, if we are allowed to get greedy, can I have a couple of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_de'_Medici_cycle"><i>Marie de’ Medici </i></a><i>cycle</i> by <b>Rubens </b>(1577-1640)? If I had to pick just one, give me <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Peter_Paul_Rubens_035.jpg">The Disembarkation at Marseilles</a> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">(1622-25)</span></i>, deliciously dripping with allegory and bursting with bizarre perspective and plentiful cavorting sea maidens. In a skinny-obsessed world I find the expanses of doughy flesh positively refreshing!<br />
<br />
I’d follow this with a healthy slice of Victorian life which a complete de-emphasis on the bloody Pre-Raphaelites. Give me some <a href="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/03/02/arts/darwinslide4.jpg">monkeys</a> and <a href="http://www.rhbnc.ac.uk/picture-gallery/landseer.html">polar bears</a> by <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Henry_Landseer">Edwin Landseer</a></b> (1802-1873) and my favourite Polar pin-up <a href="http://www.nmm.ac.uk/collections/explore/object.cfm?ID=BHC2981">Sir James Clark Ross</a> (painted in 1834) looking young and dashing in a dead animal’s skin. Throw in some <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Turner_Ovid_Banished_from_Rome.jpg">late <b>J M W Turner</b> (1775-1851) too</a>, to dazzle and shimmer.<br />
<br />
Next I would like to get a little patriotic and whimsical, and place the illustrations of <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bauer">John Bauer</a></b> (1882-1918), <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tove_Jansson">Tove Jansen</a></b> (1914-2001) and <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsa_Beskow">Elsa Beskow</a></b> (1874-1953) next to each other - a delightful flock of trolls, fairies and woodland creatures. Equally whimsical, I’d compliment the <a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Odilon_Redon_003.jpg">visual dreams</a> of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odilon_Redon"><b>Odilon Redon</b></a> (1840-1916) with the Art Deco graphical delights of <b><a href="http://www.aquarellepublishing.co.uk/pictures.asp?section=benedictus">Edouard Benedictus</a></b> (1879-1930). <br />
<br />
What else? Getting a little more modern, let’s have a healthy serving of <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Sutherland">Graham Sutherland</a></b> (1903-1980) and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Nash_(artist)"><b>Paul Nash</b></a> (1889-1946) - skipping over anything too war-focussed for some of their lovely <a href="http://www.contemporary-art-holdings.co.uk/images/sutherland/thorn_1.jpg">organic-architectural fantasies</a>.<br />
<br />
I’d also pinch <b>Eduardo Paolozzi</b>’s (1924-2005) <i><a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/artandthe60s/bunk.htm">Collage from BUNK</a></i> from the Tate Modern, and ship <b>Frida Khalo</b>’s (1907-1954) <i><a href="http://arthistory.about.com/od/from_exhibitions/ig/frida_kahlo/Frida-Kahlo---Self-Portrait--1940.htm">Self-portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird</a></i> over from the US. <br />
<br />
To round things off give me <b>Rodney Graham</b>’s (1949- ) <i><a href="http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=100073">Rheinmetall/Victoria 8</a></i>, and finally all on it’s own in a big blue room, in absolute pride of place, let's enjoy <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Rousseau">Henri Rousseu</a></b>’s (1844-1910) languorous <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sleeping_Gypsy">Sleeping Gypsy</a></i>.<br />
<br />
I could go on... but it’s a little akin to torture. Like most people my art collection is just a hodgepodge assortment of tattered posters and prints... *sigh*<br />
<br />
<i><a href="http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/exhibitions/collectors-eye/about.aspx">Collector's Eye is at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, 18 February to 15 May 2011</a></i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4113759008281214618.post-32493725329176225052011-01-01T12:58:00.003+00:002011-01-01T13:12:36.936+00:002010 in Art, Theatre, Film, Music and Meme<b>Art</b><br />
<br />
2010 started as the year that my anti-<b>Bansky</b> rant was distributed around London in <a href="http://issuu.com/theblogpaper/docs/theblogpaper_beta3/5?zoomed=true&zoomPercent=100&zoomXPos=0.08727477477477485&zoomYPos=0.24213075060532688">The Blog Paper</a> and continued with getting very pleasantly freaked out by <b><a href="http://runpaintrunrun.blogspot.com/2010/02/artist-rooms-ron-mueck-manchester-art.html">Ron </a></b><b><a href="http://runpaintrunrun.blogspot.com/2010/02/artist-rooms-ron-mueck-manchester-art.html">Mueck</a></b><a href="http://runpaintrunrun.blogspot.com/2010/02/artist-rooms-ron-mueck-manchester-art.html">'s </a><i><a href="http://runpaintrunrun.blogspot.com/2010/02/artist-rooms-ron-mueck-manchester-art.html">Wild Man</a></i><a href="http://runpaintrunrun.blogspot.com/2010/02/artist-rooms-ron-mueck-manchester-art.html"> at Manchester Art Gallery</a>, discovering <a href="http://www.culturepool.org.uk/">Liverpool's </a><b><a href="http://www.culturepool.org.uk/">Culturepool</a>,</b> becoming reacquainted with <a href="http://runpaintrunrun.blogspot.com/2010/04/jacob-dahlgren-colour-reading-context.html">an old friend at the </a><b><a href="http://runpaintrunrun.blogspot.com/2010/04/jacob-dahlgren-colour-reading-context.html">A Foundation</a> </b>through to my first ever<b> <a href="http://www.biennial.com/">Liverpool Biennial</a>, </b>which began in August with <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Trebuchet, 'Trebuchet MS', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;"><a href="http://runpaintrunrun.blogspot.com/2010/08/laura-belems-temple-of-1000-bells.html"><b>Laura Belém</b>'s</a></span><a href="http://runpaintrunrun.blogspot.com/2010/08/laura-belems-temple-of-1000-bells.html"> <i>Temple of a Thousand Bells</i>. </a><br />
<br />
It will also be the year that technology and art finally coalesced - at least for me - and ended a history of uneasy tolerance and awkward plundering. In October I was enchanted by <a href="http://runpaintrunrun.blogspot.com/2010/10/recorders-manchester-art-gallery.html"><b>Rafeal Lozano-Hemmer</b>’s installation <i>Pulse Room</i> (2006) at <b>Manchester Art Gallery</b>.</a> I didn’t know it then, but Lozano-Hemmer’s work shares many of the delicious tensions and delights with earlier digital art pioneer<b> <a href="http://runpaintrunrun.blogspot.com/2010/12/nam-june-paik-tate-liverpool-fact.html">Nam June Paik</a></b><a href="http://runpaintrunrun.blogspot.com/2010/12/nam-june-paik-tate-liverpool-fact.html">, as I found in December at <b>Tate Liverpool</b> and <b>FACT</b></a>. <br />
<br />
<iframe frameborder="0" height="225" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/14962725?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" width="400"></iframe><br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/14962725">Recorders: Rafael Lozano-Hemmer</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user1424934">Manchester Art Gallery</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.<br />
<br />
<b>Theatre</b><br />
<br />
In October I did not want <a href="http://web.me.com/slung.low/Slung_Low/slung_low_home.html"><b>Slung Low Theatre</b></a>’s almost unimpeachable <i><a href="http://www.everymanplayhouse.com/Show/Anthology/217/Info.aspx">Anthology</a></i> at the <b>Everyman</b> to end. Brilliant in both conception and execution, I doubt I will ever forget the experience of standing in some university gardens just off Hope Street, holding a feather, in a sudden downpour, watching <b>Eileen O’Brien</b> tell her character’s heart breaking story. Yes, I shed a tear or two. <br />
<br />
Honestly, I felt utterly bereft after my last one and envy those who got to experience them all. Short, often sharp, bite sized ghost stories, the experience was somehow more like a radio play than anything else and yet so much more.<br />
<br />
<object height="250" width="400"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/k61MfSvIygo?fs=1&hl=en_GB&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/k61MfSvIygo?fs=1&hl=en_GB&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="400" height="250"></embed></object><br />
<br />
<b>Film </b><br />
<br />
Although there were plenty of main stream cinematic treats this year - S<i>cott Pilgrim, Another Year, The Illusionist</i> - I need to maintain my status as a bit of an intellectual snob. My film of 2010 is <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1425933/"><i><b>Skelletons</b></i></a>, a very British supernatural comedy that really did deserve to be a box-office hit. A cute, quirky and yet fairly psychologically dark film, the evidently low budget effects added to the charm and never once detracted from an adorably loopy high-concept storyline and well realised adorable characteris. Love Film/<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Skeletons-DVD-Jason-Isaacs/dp/B003YUBZ8E/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1293882826&sr=8-1">Amazon</a> it now, bitches! <br />
<br />
<object height="250" width="400"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/UDZr2zeQIOU?fs=1&hl=en_GB&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/UDZr2zeQIOU?fs=1&hl=en_GB&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="400" height="250"></embed></object><br />
<br />
<b>Music</b><br />
<br />
Unquestionably my musical crush of the year is <b>Janelle Monae</b>. What make could you want from a beautiful, talented musician who crafts perfect pop albums drawing heavily from a spectrum of sci-fi, pop culture and high brow sources... that most importantly makes you want to dance round the office like a sexy robot loon. *Sigh* If you need more convincing, <a href="http://open.spotify.com/album/7MvSB0JTdtl1pSwZcgvYQX">listen to <i>The Archandroid</i> on Spotify</a>.<br />
<br />
<object height="325" width="400"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/LHgbzNHVg0c?fs=1&hl=en_GB&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/LHgbzNHVg0c?fs=1&hl=en_GB&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="400" height="325"></embed></object><br />
<br />
Honourable mention also has to go to <b>Quatuor Ebène</b> and their incredible album of film music <i>Fiction</i> <a href="http://open.spotify.com/album/4gPpWZjXUvbrIacogrTKrl">(also available on Spotify).</a><br />
<br />
<object height="250" width="400"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/SApSILYF9Mo?fs=1&hl=en_GB&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/SApSILYF9Mo?fs=1&hl=en_GB&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="400" height="250"></embed></object><br />
<br />
<b>Meme </b><br />
<br />
It might have started in 2008, but with fucking bed bugs <a href="http://www.sundancechannel.com/greenporno/"><b>Isabella Rossellini</b>’s <i>Green Porno</i> and <i>Seduce Me</i></a> series came to everyone’s attention this year. Add to that a <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2010/11/isabella-rossellini-does-not-want-you-to-have-sex-with-animals.html">demented interview in </a><i><a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2010/11/isabella-rossellini-does-not-want-you-to-have-sex-with-animals.html">Vanity Fair</a></i>, where the interviewer seems to basically plead with Isabella to say she wants to shag animals, and my meme for the year is set. <br />
<br />
<object height="325" width="400"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/MakIB_IJnu0?fs=1&hl=en_GB&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/MakIB_IJnu0?fs=1&hl=en_GB&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="400" height="325"></embed></object>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4113759008281214618.post-43374990574529200792010-12-19T13:53:00.002+00:002010-12-19T14:05:08.705+00:00Nam June Paik @ Tate Liverpool & FACTSomething magical is happening in Liverpool... and I don’t mean the snow or the Christmas spirit. <br />
<br />
Split across the <a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/exhibitions/namjunepaik/default.shtm">Tate Liverpool</a> and <a href="http://www.fact.co.uk/about/exhibitions/2010/nam-june-paik">FACT</a>, <b>Nam June Paik</b> is receiving a very well deserved retrospective. Even though he may not be universally well know, he’s a seminal artists, and there is more than enough artistic ammunition to prove this as gospel truth. <br />
<br />
<b>Nam June Paik </b>seemed to consistently produce provocative, assessable artwork without having to belabour a theoretical or political point. It is refreshing and enjoyable, and most importantly not at all worthy or good for you! This is delicious visual and intellectual bubble-gum, sustenance without nasty roughage. <br />
<br />
In the <b>Tate Liverpool</b>, you find yourself stumbling from delight to delight. In <i>TV Garden</i>, 1974, a room bristles with tropical plants and flickering tv sets and feels like something out of the Terry Gilliam film Brazil. <i>One Candle</i>, 1988 - a video camera focused on a candle, with the image broken down into it’s constituent colours and projected onto the walls - is as beautiful as an abstract painting and lead you to ponder the very nature of light. Also... Robots! <br />
<br />
This is not to mention <a href="http://www.fact.co.uk/about/exhibitions/2010/nam-june-paik/gallery-1---laser-cone"><i>Laser Cone</i>, 2001, over at <b>FACT</b></a>. If you are lucky you’ll be able to enjoy this experience without aged hippies yelping that how it’s just like acid... but even with that annoying accompanying chorus it is sheer magic.You'll have trouble tearing yourself away from <i>Laser Cone,</i> and not just because being battered and bruised from falling over on the ice makes it hard to get up. <br />
<br />
It shouldn’t be startling, but to find an artist who so consistently worked with such dazzlingly originality, ingenuity and integrity with mass technology is just that. It has driven home to me (again) how utterly jaded I am about technology and art; why did I even need to remark on the synergetic skill with which <a href="http://runpaintrunrun.blogspot.com/2010/10/recorders-manchester-art-gallery.html">Rafael Lozano-Hemmer</a> wove the two together? Because most artists simply have not been as good as this pioneer! <br />
<br />
<b>Nam June Paik</b> has reminded us that art can be magical. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NG17VXCLBeI/TQ4NmoH0lwI/AAAAAAAAALg/prvAN1pC1Nk/s1600/laser+cone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NG17VXCLBeI/TQ4NmoH0lwI/AAAAAAAAALg/prvAN1pC1Nk/s320/laser+cone.jpg" width="260" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nam June Paik in collaboration with Norman Ballard<br />
Laser Cone, 2001/2010 <br />
© Estate of Nam June Paik and Norman Ballard <br />
Photographed by Stefan Arendt, LVR / Medienzentrum Düsseldorf</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4113759008281214618.post-87903956855081197332010-12-19T12:50:00.004+00:002010-12-19T17:52:23.674+00:00Goodbye Don Van Vliet<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://youaintnopicasso.com/images/CaptainBeefheart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://youaintnopicasso.com/images/CaptainBeefheart.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<br />
If the name of this blog isn’t enough of a give away, the fact that I dedicated my MA dissertation to <b>Don Van Vliet </b>might indicate to you that I am a little bit of a <b>Captain Beefheart</b> fan girl. <br />
<br />
With the recent death of <b>Don Van Vliet</b> (1941 to Friday 17 December 2010) I’m guessing a great number of copies of <i>Trout Mask Replica</i> are being dusted off. Now, don’t get me wrong, <i>Trout Mask Replica</i> is an alright album, just as his best known album it is rather overrated and frequently, even to my prog loving ears, unpalatable.<br />
<br />
What’s probably not being said is that of this undoubted pioneer of mad, experimental rock music is that he was also an uncanny master of love songs. <br />
<br />
Turn to songs like the adorable <i>My Head Is My Only House Unless It Rains</i> (The Spotlight Kid/Clear Spot), the bitter sweet <i>Too Much Time </i>(again The Spotlight Kid/Clear Spot, sadly not on Spotify) and the glorious rolling broken hearted ballad <i><a href="http://open.spotify.com/track/0q1Ds1ir9TFh8vy6HpHMSO">Love Lies</a> </i>(Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)) and tell me I’m wrong. <br />
<br />
A while ago, I put together a <a href="http://open.spotify.com/user/runpaintrunrun/playlist/0qfAE0m5Z9oklQkO6uO6FQ">Beefheart Love Song</a> playlist on Spotify, sadly missing some real gems that are not available. <br />
<br />
... and, it might not be a love song, but little can beat the swirling, foot tapping magic that is <a href="http://open.spotify.com/track/5aCRp13VGNww5Kh4h8XVqc"><i>Yellow Brick Road</i></a> for sheer musical manifestation of joy.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4113759008281214618.post-77671497131376599802010-11-20T11:49:00.000+00:002010-11-20T11:49:17.487+00:00Sound Relay ~ Long Night 2010<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NG17VXCLBeI/TOe0hZrgORI/AAAAAAAAALc/kDX3cndmvAo/s1600/longnight.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="215" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NG17VXCLBeI/TOe0hZrgORI/AAAAAAAAALc/kDX3cndmvAo/s320/longnight.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Photo from Liverpool Echo - </span><a href="http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/multimedia/arts-and-culture/images/2010/11/19/liverpool-long-night-100252-27679296/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">see more on LiverpoolEcho.co.uk</span></a></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
In recent weeks - perhaps prompted by budget cuts, perhaps by the many wonderful musical and artistic experiences I've enjoyed - I've been thinking about how art and music provide an essential intellectual life. <br />
<br />
As much as I'll defend anyone's right to enjoy <i>Eastenders</i> and <i>Don't Tell The Bride</i> (I'm guilty of both), little beats an exhilarating cultural experience. <br />
<br />
Bearing these thoughts in mind you would think that music in art galleries would be a heavenly concoction... and indeed, done in the right manner, it is. <br />
<br />
On Thursday night. <b>Ensemble 10/10</b>'s (yes, I might have a vested interest here) performance of <b>Jennifer Watson'</b>s <i>Reflections, </i>set amongst <b>Magdalena Abakanowicz</b>'s <i>Embryology,</i> was simply magical. A quirky, vortical cascade of sound led by a delicious sounding soprano saxophone (not a "fat clarinet"), the piece didn't fall into any of the discordant pitfalls of contemporary classical music. <br />
<br />
However - proving there are no absolutes - the rest of the <i>Sound Relay</i> at <b>Tate Liverpool </b>was a very different experience. <br />
<br />
Self indulgent art and self indulgent music are seldom of the highest quality. While clattering about the streets of Liverpool after a cacophony of musicians is a lot of fun, the same cannot be said about musicians making the same sound scattered about a gallery space. <br />
<br />
The joy of an art gallery is that the environment is tightly controlled, curatorially judged, not to <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/3634141/They-have-ways-of-making-you-spend.html">make you buy stuff</a> but to encourage reflective gaze and thought or to create atmosphere and evoke feeling. On Thursday night people in the gallery space just did not know what to do with themselves, look at the fine art or cast awkward regard at the buskers, and it was seemingly impossible to do both. The atmosphere was both oppressive and fragmented, simply put a balance had been disrupted. <br />
<br />
Yes, there was novelty in having musicians in the gallery, but novelty is not enough! I'm not casting aspersions on the skill of the<i> Sound Relay </i>musicians, but rather the premiss that it was a good idea effectively executed. Perhaps I'm just not a fan of noodling?<br />
<br />
In conclusion, live music in art galleries, not a bad idea. Just needs to be as carefully executed as the fine art and as curated as the gallery space.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4113759008281214618.post-45778363754901136682010-11-05T08:59:00.001+00:002010-11-05T09:01:14.415+00:00The illustration of Tove Jansson<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://kimmco.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/08/23/tove_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://kimmco.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/08/23/tove_2.jpg" width="294" /></a></div><br />
I was a lucky child. Unlike most of British children I wasn’t exposed the Moomins by <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8W27XMWRFA">creepy stop animated felt</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiZ0eBFTH6k">Japanese cartoon interpretation</a> or the slightly awkwardly written/translated novels. Looking at these versions of Tove Jansson’s creations, is it any wonder that illustrator <b>Adam Cadwell</b> included <a href="http://www.adamcadwell.com/moominpapa/">Moomin Papa in his list of childhood villains</a>?<br />
<br />
<blockquote><i>“It’s hard to describe but something about their vacant, piercing eyes and their emotionless, mouthless faces used to get me extremely worried and paranoid about what their true intentions were.”- </i><b>Adam Cadwell</b></blockquote><br />
Fortunately for me, one my earliest memories is my mother reading to me in English - translating from Swedish - from <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_about_Moomin,_Mymble_and_Little_My">Moomin, Mymble and Little My</a></i>, the very edition she herself had owned as a child. This has recently be translated and reissued, and I feel so happy that British children will be exposed to this wonderful book. Yes, weird, but still utterly wonderful.<br />
<br />
As adorable as the characters, narrative and prose created by Finnish-Swede <b>Tove Janssson </b>are, for me the real joy of the Moomins lie her original, delightfully quirky and innocently warped, illustrations. Like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Sendak">Maurice Sendak</a>, or fellow Scandinavian <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsa_Beskow">Elsa Beskow</a>, there can surely be little better than strange stories, exciting and engaging for the bizarre peril that permeates them, accompanied by beautiful illustration?<br />
<br />
Anyway, what started me on this soliloquy of Moomin-love? Bury Art Gallery currently has an exhibition called <i><a href="http://www.bury.gov.uk/LeisureAndCulture/MuseumsAndGalleries/GalleryFeatureExhibitions.htm">Magical Moominvalley</a></i> (23 October - 15 January 2011) celebrating Tove Jansson’s illustration. Get thee to Bury!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4113759008281214618.post-6865138875020070422010-10-11T19:02:00.002+01:002010-10-12T07:55:50.498+01:00Recorders : Rafael Lozano-Hemmer @ Manchester Art GalleryUntil recently art that was substantively digital or technological seemed to jump one of either two way. It was technologically awkward, light years behind the actual advanced grace of contemporary technology, or it was unengagingly aloof, endeavouring to divorce technology from the throbbing warm of the human experience.<br />
<br />
Thankfully this dichotomy is now over, art has finally caught up with technology, and we have artist who are brilliant technologists... or perhaps the other way round?<br />
<br />
<b><i><a href="http://www.manchestergalleries.org/whats-on/exhibitions/index.php?itemID=73">Recorders</a></i></b>, <b>Rafael Lozano-Hemmer</b>'s solo exhibition at <b>Manchester Art Gallery</b> (18 September to 30 January), brilliants elucidates the uneasy, but delicious, relationship between the body- and life-human and technology. <br />
<br />
You are greeting by <i>Pulse Index</i> (2010), a work that perfectly embodies the playful, ominous, interactive ethos of the exhibition. The sight of your finger print, so ubiquitously human and essentially individual, enlarged in perfect definition, complete with tiny beads of sweat and grime magnified and glittering like pearls, is both delightful and viscerally shocking. It then flutters off to join the teeming, digitalised hoards of finger prints stored in the work.<br />
<br />
As fascinating as all the installations are in this exhibition, none of the joyful wizardry evokes the sheer wonder and consternation of <i>Pulse Room</i><b> </b>(2006). The tension that runs through many of the works, that we are all uniquely identifiable humans and yet share essential innately-human functions, is illustrated by a constellation of heart-beat-flickering light bulbs. Standing in the darkened room, as a light bulb pulses in front of you with your own heart beat, followed by watching your rhythm flow and dissipate across the room, is just thrilling.<br />
<br />
Recorders reminds you of your humanity, simultaneously evoking your biological uniqueness and your puny organic commonness, like a kindly robotic overlord. This exhibition is delightful, if you are not too serious about art or technology. Ominous and playful, I feel as though <b>Rafael Lozano-Hemmer'</b>s work is the first that I've experienced that accurately and beautifully portrays the mood, issues and joys of life in our ubiquitously- digitalised present and near future.<br />
<br />
<iframe frameborder="0" height="225" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/14962725?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" width="400"></iframe><br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/14962725">Recorders: Rafael Lozano-Hemmer</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user1424934">Manchester Art Gallery</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4113759008281214618.post-83942389749204946702010-09-19T10:20:00.002+01:002010-09-19T12:05:56.418+01:00Biennial @ The Europleasure / Scandinavian Hotel<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/48659000/jpg/_48659946_europleasure.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/48659000/jpg/_48659946_europleasure.jpg" /></a></div><br />
As many people have commented, one of the wonderful side effects of the Biennial is the access to disused buildings, many that I've previously walked past without noticing. The Europleasure / Scandinavian Hotel, at the top of Duke Street, is one of those buildings.<br />
<br />
You can't miss it now! At the front it is resplendent with <b><a href="http://biennial.com/content/LiverpoolBiennial2008/International10Touched/WillKwan11/Overview.aspx">Will Kwan</a></b>'s <i>Flame Test </i>and the words <i>Touch and Go </i>have been smashed into windows at the side.<br />
<br />
I wouldn't have expected the real highlight of yesterday to be two completely dissimilar pieces of video art. <i>We Wish to Inform You that We Didn’t Know</i>, a three-channel video work by <b><a href="http://biennial.com/content/LiverpoolBiennial2008/International10Touched/AlfredoJaar1/Overview.aspx">Alfredo Jarr</a></b>, offers compelling and harrowing, but not gratuitously so, insight into the atrocities in Rwanda. Even if you are familiar with the details, the video articulates emotions and facets that perhaps no written or purely documentary account could manage.<br />
<br />
The video element of <b><a href="http://biennial.com/content/LiverpoolBiennial2008/International10Touched/CristinaLucas11/Overview.aspx">Cristina Lucas' </a></b> <i>Touch and Go</i> couldn't be more different. At counterpoint to <i>We Wish to Inform You that We Didn’t Know</i>, the video offers a '<i>making-of'</i> view of the buildings smashed windows. Humorous, in the gentlest and most charming manner, it is a bitter sweet story of urban transgression set to a delightful discordant sound track.<br />
<br />
The works in this location are part of the Biennial's <i>Public Realm</i> strand.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4113759008281214618.post-66902411269122800702010-09-18T22:36:00.003+01:002010-09-19T08:29:09.161+01:00Biennial @ 52 Renshaw StreetThe old Rapid buildings along Renshaw Street have been used for a variety of interesting purposes recently, but the Biennials residency in the space will take some beating.<br />
<div><br />
</div><div>The vast and warren-like space is cleverly spotted with art works, some of them good, some of them, frankly, extremely questionable. Unlike most vacant shops I've seen used as galleries, the space has not been white washed to death. Instead the curator, Lorenzo Fusi, seems to have made the decision to leave much of the remaining odds and ends of Rapid's decor intact. Outré patches of painting work, tiles and wallpaper offset the carefully organised art works. These remnants add a intriguing sense of exploring an abandoned civilisation - with bizarre interior design habits - to the visit. </div><div><br />
</div><div>Although many of the art works are of dubious quality, there are some absolute gems. Saving the best till last, my highlights are located at the end of the long wander through the maze of interconnected rooms. <a href="http://biennial.com/content/LiverpoolBiennial2008/International10Touched/NSHarsha11/Overview.aspx">N S Harsha'</a>s <i>Sky Gazers</i> blurs the lines of illustration/painting and installation, combining several simple and effective devices in a delightful manner. Go see it soon before visitors' dirty shoes and grubby fingers take their toll! </div><div><br />
</div><div>In the next room, after you pass through <i>Sky Gazers</i>, uneasily rests <i>Free Post Mersey Tunnels</i>. Let's just say, you know an art work is good when it makes you feel panicky... I know it shouldn't matter, but I do like that fact that a female artist, <a href="http://biennial.com/content/LiverpoolBiennial2008/International10Touched/RosaBarba11/Overview.aspx">Rosa Barb</a>, has created such a muscular and mechanically evocative work. </div><div><br />
</div><div>As one of my first Liverpool Biennial experiences, despite feeling sceptical about some of the works in the exhibition, I really enjoyed exploring what 52 Renshaw Street had to offer... even if that includes violent fez wearing goat sodomy. </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4113759008281214618.post-39710240290340947172010-09-17T08:51:00.000+01:002010-09-17T08:51:10.989+01:00John Moores Painting Prize 2010I like painting... in fact, in my own dorky-white-middle-class way, I'll admit privileging it over most other art forms. The simple equation <i>art = painting</i> may be wrong, but it feels so right. <br />
<br />
With this off my chest, you can imagine I was quite excited about the <a href="http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/johnmoores/jm2010/">John Moores Painting Prize</a>. 45 paintings picked by artists and curators with impeachable credentials, a prize with prodigious reputation in the staidly resplendently-Victorian Walker Art Gallery. Delicious!<br />
<br />
However - fetch your torches and pitchforks - the exhibition left me feeling underwhelmed. Where I expected 45 of the best paintings that Britain has to offer - hoping for the bleeding edge of practice and thinking - instead it felt like a gazeteer of contemporary painting. One of every flavour. Each may be a technically brilliant painting with feet firmly in their own artistic and intellectual precedence, but this doesn't seem to be enough.<br />
<br />
I'm not bothered that all the winners were white and male, I am bothered that the first prize winning prize painting,<a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_349955732"> </a><i><a href="http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/johnmoores/jm2010/prizewinners/coventry.aspx">Spectrum Jesus</a></i><a href="http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/johnmoores/jm2010/prizewinners/coventry.aspx"> by Keith Coventry</a>, is deadly dull. There is something too dreary about it for words.<br />
<br />
The other prizewinners, at least, are much more interesting and vital paintings. Bottom line, they make you feel something! <a href="http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/johnmoores/jm2010/prizewinners/fox.aspx">Nick Fox's </a><i><a href="http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/johnmoores/jm2010/prizewinners/fox.aspx">Metatopia</a></i>, a resounding riff on Neoclassicism and Victorian visual culture, is a brooding, and yet delightful, work. For me, it feels like more than just trek down an established painting path. <br />
<br />
As much as it might lack a certain vibrancy, the exhibition is a comfortable essay through contemporary painting, impeccably curated by Sir Norman Rosenthal. I'd call for the John Moores Painting Prize to be more adventurous, but I really have no idea where these adventures in paint are to be had. Have all the old bastions of painting been breached?<br />
<br />
Perhaps it is contemporary painting in Britain that lacks vitality? Or perhaps, more likely, once again I find myself out of step with contemporary taste and artistic practice...Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4113759008281214618.post-50014144852722264562010-08-20T08:00:00.006+01:002010-08-23T21:16:53.737+01:00Laura Belém's The Temple of 1000 Bells @ The OratoryIf I needed reminding - and I don’t! - that it’s less than a month till the 6th Liverpool Biennial, last night was a special preview of <b><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_354334710">Laura Belém</a></b><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_354334710">'s </a><i><a href="http://www.biennial.com/articles/event/Laura%20Bel%C3%A9m's%20The%20Temple%20of%201000%20Bells%20Special%20Preview/326/995.aspx">The Temple of 1000 Bells</a></i> at the <a href="http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/collections/oratory/oratory_cemetery.asp">Oratory</a>.<br />
<br />
The Oratory is the small, square, classically-pillared building down from the front of the Anglican Cathedral. I've always thought that there is something restrained but slightly distorted about 19th Century funerary sculpture, and the light coloured but monumental stone of the sculpture counterpoints Laura Belém's incorporeal installation. <br />
<br />
The sight of a thousand individually created glass bells hanging in the central light well is both beautiful and intriguing. It’s everything it promises, a diaphanous suspended layer of glass objects, each in the same form but each visibly distinctive. Quite simply, <i>The Temple of 1000 Bells</i> is lovely to behold. <br />
<br />
If only it had been left as that! A simple and arresting installation with an evocative title would have been much preferable to final form of <i>The Temple of 1000 Bells</i>. From speakers around the room emanates a voice, telling a story in that overly earnest, childrens’-programme-on-Radio-4 type manner. Accompanied by some half-arsed hippy, hypno-meditation type music, it's unbearably twee. Seriously peoples, “<i>a symphony which cannot be described in words</i>” is not audibly conjured up by a few plinks on a bloody xylophone! <br />
<br />
Hmmm... the only option seems to be to recommend ear plugs.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4113759008281214618.post-35357636782015966062010-08-14T15:36:00.002+01:002010-08-14T15:44:31.163+01:00Endurance @ Merseyside Maritime MuseumStuff the A Team, the only display of hyper-masculine tomfoolery I have any time for right now is down at the <a href="http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/maritime/exhibitions/shackleton/">Merseyside Maritime Museum</a>.<br />
<br />
I grew up with the sagas of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroic_Age_of_Antarctic_Exploration">Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration</a>. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Huntford">Huntford’s</a> book on Scott and Amundsen pretty much held the place a bible might have taken in a religious household. Polar opposite of the heroic, but ultimately unforgivable, bungler <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Falcon_Scott">Scott Falcon Scott</a> stood <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Shackleton">Ernest Shackleton</a>. Steadfast, tenacious and just kick-arse, Shackleton is a colossal but approachable figure. <br />
<br />
Preening martyrdom on the ice was not for Shackleton. How is it not possible to admire a man who achieved so much and could still wryly say "<i>Better a live donkey than a dead lion</i>"?<br />
<br />
If you do not know the story of the Endurance (or should I say the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Trans-Antarctic_Expedition">Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition?</a>), look it up. It’s is an incredible story of persistence, survival, practicality and, yes, heroism on the ice. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Worsley">Frank Worsley</a>'s book <i>Shackleton's Boat Journey</i> is particularly fantastic.<br />
<br />
And perhaps the best part of the story? That it rests in the period when photography in such harsh conditions was becoming possible while remaining a true technical and photographic feat. That these laboriously created glass plate negatives remained unscathed is remarkable in itself. In a digital age, when we are so used to images being composed from intangible data, the physical nature of these negatives is almost extraordinary to regard.<br />
<br />
Words cannot convey what <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Hurley">Frank Hurley</a>’s lucid photographs manage so eloquently. The strange and beautiful nature of the ice, the startling vision of the Endurance caught in the ice flow and the inscrutable Edwardian explorers, I love all of it.<br />
<br />
I may be a polar exploration fan girl, but I will fight anyone who says this is not visual story telling at its very best. It is wonderful to see photographs I know from books displayed so prolifically in this compelling exhibition.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4113759008281214618.post-29064994902053319152010-08-09T19:31:00.004+01:002010-08-09T20:10:48.601+01:00Trash Humpers @ Wolstenholme Creative Space<div style="text-align: center;"><object height="227" width="360"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/JQYSRXT3CiU&hl=en_GB&fs=1?rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/JQYSRXT3CiU&hl=en_GB&fs=1?rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="360" height="227"></embed></object></div><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">For a film that features bin fucking, baby doll abuse and hippy murder, <a href="http://www.trashhumpers.com/"><i>Trash Humpers</i></a> is a surprisingly dull experience. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Presented on Saturday night in the earnestly edgy <a href="http://www.wolstenholmecreativespace.blogspot.com/">Wolstenholme Creative Space</a>, screened from VHS on a pile of knackered TV's, the setting and medium for the evening was actually rather pleasant. I'd gladly pay a fiver to go to a showing of the <i>Twilight Zone</i> in such a manner... or even better <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077469/"><i>Doctor Strange</i></a>!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">But the film itself? Over indulgent hipster shock fare. To call it pornographic, hell to call it shocking, is to dignify it. Nothing that Harmony Korine put in his film, in either style or content, came near to the sight of a drunk girl sitting in her own piss on Wood Street.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Not even the demented posture it strikes or the directors hipster credentials can raise this film above masturbatory pubescent scheme. It is just too boring to be vilified or event found that offensive. Yawn.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4113759008281214618.post-51871910192421982072010-08-02T18:39:00.002+01:002010-08-02T18:43:03.347+01:00Having A Do @ St Luke’s ChurchKeep it simple, stupid. Who hasn’t been assaulted by this exhausted phrase? It might make me want to obstinately elaborate, but that doesn’t stop it being irrefutably true.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.fabcollective.com/">Fab Collective</a> might have a stated passion for capturing the city of Liverpool and its residents in their pictures, but seem to miraculously avoid those acceptable stereotypes we are so familiar with. With beautiful, almost brutally honest, photographs, sparsely curated by only one loose theme, they have created something brilliant.<br />
<br />
It’s all too easy to be abstract and hoity-toity about art. Setting aside the high-art sensibilities I do love to lug about, <i><b>Having A Do</b></i> is simply a small collection of brilliant photographs adroitly, and often tenderly, illustrating the many agreeable ways we celebrate. Unique and defiantly ungentrified, "<i>The Bombed Out Church</i>" is the perfect venue for this stubbornly simple but perfectly realised exhibition.<br />
<br />
This month, if you find yourself at the top Bold Street with half an hour to spare, <i><b>Having A Do </b></i>is well worth a look.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4113759008281214618.post-31873028165606713472010-07-30T11:11:00.000+01:002010-07-30T11:11:34.222+01:00Intuition @ Whitworth Art GalleryOutsider Art is interesting because of its inherently problematic nature. In the same way that you can never really safely define art - earnestly asking “<i>But what is art?</i>” is simply unforgivably gauche - you can’t plot the boundaries of Outside Art. Even to define it by the artists’ faculties or training is to wander into crude, and restrictive, waters.<br />
<br />
<i><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_2070063876">Intuition</a></i><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_2070063876"> at </a><b><a href="http://www.whitworth.manchester.ac.uk/whatson/exhibitions/intuition/">Whitworth Art Gallery</a> </b>tests, and yet does not plot, the limits of an art form which has always sat uncomfortably at the periphery of the contemporary mode. Gloriously bursting with all forms and styles of Outsider Art, this exhibition forces you to redefine your artistic context. It is easy to lose track of time among the obsessive, riddle-like form and the clumsy, but somehow precise, energy of the works means this exhibition is crackling with strange electricity. <br />
<br />
Perhaps then, it is much wiser to define Outside Art by the impact it has on the viewer? Always unsettling in the manner it strays from the well plotted paths of fine art and evoking, often, equal measures of disquiet and amusement. However, even this loose statement about affect, rather than cause, hampers understanding. It's a conundrum that has no absolute answer.<br />
<br />
The Whitworth Art Gallery do a wonderful job of displaying this collection of work, creating, instead of something sensational and titillating, a restrained, thoughtful, thought provoking and delightful exhibition. I doubt any other institution could have done such a brilliant job of exhibiting the Musgrave Kinley Outsider Art Collection. <br />
<br />
And, at the end of the day, how often do you get to read “<i>The shoes are made of bread</i>” about a work of art?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4113759008281214618.post-10538656632246866652010-05-24T18:57:00.001+01:002010-05-25T08:12:10.002+01:00Picasso: Peace and Freedom @ Tate Liverpool<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/exhibitions/Picasso/default.shtm"><img border="0" height="252" src="http://emuseum2.guggenheim.org/media/full/91.3916_ph_web.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Pablo Picasso, Lobster and Cat, 1965</span></div><br />
Ah! Picasso, a deeply flawed man and an exceptionally talented artist. The Titan of 20th Century art is receiving an indubitably deserved solo exhibition at Tate Liverpool. <i><a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/exhibitions/Picasso/default.shtm">Picasso: Peace and Freedom</a></i> explores Picasso as a political artist... e.g. a dirty commie. <br />
<br />
One of the joys of Picasso’s prolific output and the Tate’s ability to draw art works from the finest collections across the world is that in every room is an unfamiliar work. However different they may be, such as the<i> Lobster & Cat,</i> the use of line, form, colour and painterly texture always manifest the power of Picasso. A whole room is devoted to Picasso’s serene doves and a large space filled with posters and lithographs, the abundant variations on themes feel both delightful and generous. <br />
<br />
The framing of Picasso as a history painter is rather awkward, but there is absolutely no denying the pathos and power of his depiction of war. His doves are just gorgeous, his sleep eyed ladies sensuous and the plentiful snatch singularly un-erotic.<i> Peace and Freedom</i>, at it's heart, is simply Picasso on blockbusting form. <br />
<br />
So while some wonderful choices are made about how the works are displayed, the counterpoints and repetitions of themes, devices and images are delicious, I feel there are some small but intrinsic flaws in the argument that the exhibition attempts to make. Great artists do not necessarily make great political figures, and this exhibition seems to shy away from this important distinction. <br />
<br />
Pure artistic magic... if you insulate yourself from a slightly over zealous attempt to form a new hagiography.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com18