Archive for the ‘Arts’ Category

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Tuesday, December 6th, 2011

Gerhard Richter

Candle

“It is the sport of the Eurotrashy, hedgefundy, Hamptonites; of trendy oligarchs and olligarchs; and of art dealers with masturbatory levels of self regard”

- Charles Saatchi

I enjoyed the coincidence of being at the party to launch Charles Saatchi’s latest collection “Gesamtkunstwerk: New Art from Germany” at the same time as he launched into an attack on his fellow collectors who, as he said, “circulate in a giddy round of glass-filled socialising, from one swanky party to another”. It was perfect irony, as we circulated, glass of Champagne in hand, to come across an exhibit by Zhivago Duncan which was called “Pretentious Crap”. Who said the Germans don’t have a sense of humour?

Charles Saatchi’s comments came to mind as I went round the Gerhard Richter retrospective at the Tate Modern. Richter is the world’s most successful artist – last year an astonishing $76.9 million (£49.3 million) worth of his art was sold. Eat your heart out Damien. Trendy oligarchs bought their fair share – Roman Abramovich paid $15.2m (£9.7 million) for one of his “Abstakte Bilder” paintings in 2008. But the most popular of Richter’s paintings is his “Candle” (pictured) of which he has cannily painted 27 versions. One sold for $15.8m (£10.1 million) in 2008. When it first went on sale, no-one bought it, even though the price was only a few thousand. It was interesting to see that hardly anyone at Tate Modern gave it a second glance. But if a dealer tells Roman that it’s a good investment it soon develops an aura of its own.

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Sunday, November 13th, 2011

The Turner Prize 2011

Karla Black's art

“Plaster is sieved perfectly on to the floor, is disrupted, and is repaired, all the time leaving behind traces of what happened before. Once encountered it is impossible to avoid the appeal of such a sensual feast to our bodily desires.”
Katherine Walsh, describing Karla Black’s art in the Turner Prize brochure.

The 2011 Turner Prize exhibition doesn’t disappoint – it’s just as daft as last year’s. The purpose of the Turner Prize is to expand the boundaries of contemporary art. This year’s contenders, which can be seen at the Baltic Gallery in Newcastle have little to do with art, but do manage to push the boundaries of contemporary humour. There is the sculptress Karla Black, whose favourite materials include topsoil, eye shadow and petroleum jelly. There’s George Shaw, a painter who has expanded the boundaries of modern art by using Humbrol enamel, a paint normally used by model makers. His exhibits are aptly titled “The Age of Bullshit” and “The Same Old Crap”. He seems certain to win.

In a city which is known for its friendliness, the gallery staff are deeply unpleasant – scowling, growling, controlling. I’m not sure if they’re upset by the impending public spending cuts (when are they going to happen?) or by having to deal with a public who are contemptuous of what’s on show.

The photo below is of a section of Martin Boyce’s sculpture – the objects displayed are a few dead leaves, which in the contemporary art world are reverently known as “found objects”.

Turner Prize

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Friday, September 23rd, 2011

Mr McGregor Takes Shape

Mr McGregor

This is me 20 years on. Alan Ward used the mould which he had taken of me on August 5th (see http://www.slow-life.co.uk/2011/08/05/making-mr-mcgregor/), added a few wrinkles, white hair and a beard to create Mr McGregor. I’m happy to say that it looks nothing like me, but it’s a sobering thought that I’m going to get more and more like it when I look in the mirror as the years wear on.

I’ve now got to get Mr McGregor and Alan’s model of Peter Rabbit to Huis Ten Bosch, which is near Nagasaki in southern Japan. They fit into one large suitcase, marked “Fragile” which, together with my other luggage, is quite a handful. The journey needs 5 taxis, 2 planes, 2 trains and a bus. Today I made the first leg of the journey to London and I had a really heartening experience at Euston Station, which I wouldn’t have had down as the friendliest place in Britain. To get from the platform to the taxi rank you need to negotiate three steep flights of stairs and to my amazement, as I stood looking helpless with my luggage at the top of each one a stranger offered to help me carry them down. I thought that only happened to blondes and little old ladies, but on reflection perhaps I look more like Mr McGregor than I’m prepared to admit.

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Wednesday, September 21st, 2011

Françoise Hardy

dylan-hardy

for françoise hardy
at the seine’s edge
of notre dame
seeks t’ grab my foot
sorbonne students
whirl by on thin bikes
swirlin’ lifelike colors of leather spin
the breeze yawns food
far from bellies
of erhard meetin’ johnson
piles of lovers
fishing
kissing
lay themselves on their books. boats.
old men
clothes in curly mustaches
float on the benches
blankets of tourists
in bright red nylon shirts
with straw hats of ambassadors
~Bob Dylan

I’m not saying that Dylan stole the notion from me, only that I was on the case first.  As a schoolboy I had a whopping crush on Françoise Hardy, so much so that I translated all her lyrics into English (quite an effort for me) which I sent  to her  with a letter asking if I could set up her fan club in England. Her failure to reply pierced my heart, although looking back it would have been much more remarkable if she had replied. Dylan’s tactic of writing her a poem on the back of one of his albums was more effective.  This video, in which she talks about her encounter with Dylan shows that she’s just as beautiful now, to me at least. There’s one of her songs on the soundtrack of my August in the Garden slideshow- (link)

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Tuesday, September 6th, 2011

David Hockney- Freedom is Choice- Part 2

David Hockney smoking

“If you can’t be a good example to your children at least be a horrible warning”.

There was nothing half hearted about my father’s dedication to the pleasures of smoking. He went at it full tilt, 60 a day and none of those namby-pamby filter-tips, but only full strength John Players. I don’t remember ever being put out by his habit, but I think I recognised that tobacco had taken an unpleasant hold on him and this was enough to put me off smoking for life. But I’m with David Hockney all the way. I wonder what he would make of the latest proposal, which has come from a Tory councillor in Grange, (and was so bizarre that it made the front page of the Sunday Times), to ban smoking outdoors near a children’s playground. The councillor in question, Bill Wearing, happens to be a good friend of mine and I don’t want to add to his misery, because he’s been ribbed enough already.

Meanwhile, the smoker’s lobbying group, Forest, has recruited Anthony Worrall Thompson to lead a campaign to allow publicans some freedom to let their customer’s smoke on their premises – not a bad idea considering the thousands of pubs which have gone under since the smoking ban was put in place. The choice of Anthony Worrall Thompson is utterly bizarre. He has an unerring talent to put people’s backs up. Everyone finds him intensely irritating and he is widely despised in the catering trade for closing down businesses and leaving his suppliers in the lurch. I’m reminded of the time when he was employed to promote a brand of sausages and he was pictured on the packet grinning inanely and holding up a fat sausage on a fork, underneath which was written “Prick with Fork”.

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Sunday, September 4th, 2011

Freedom is Choice- David Hockney

FreedomIsChoice_415

“Tobacconists in England look like Eastern Europe circa 1970. Cameron, Clegg and Milliband treat us all like children, I am sick and tired of them. They stand for a meanness of spirit that pervades everywhere in England. Pettiness, meanness, dreariness. That’s all I see from them. Meanness of spirit is very bad for the health no matter how long you live. Can’t they look into their own hearts and understand that many people in England are fed up with unthinking, bossy-boots politicians that believe us to be infants.”
David Hockney

David Hockney was inspired to create this art piece by the 133 different tobacco brands which were on sale in a tiny shop in Baden-Baden. This contrasts with just 50 on sale in one of England’s most famous tobacconists, Davidoff Cigars on Jermyn St. He’d have got on well with my second favourite Yorkshireman, J B Priestley, who, in his book, Delight (written 60 years ago) bemoans the lack of choice in tobacconists then- “The country is crowded with men who pay their four-and-something an ounce and yet could not maintain five minute’s talk on tobacco”, he wrote. Priestley’s favourite relaxation was lying in a hot bath smoking a pipe.. “and Elagabus himself, after driving his white horses through the gold-dusted streets of Rome never knew anything better; nor indeed anything as good, not having either pipe or tobacco”. Hockney as a painter and Priestley as a writer have both said that smoking helped them in their creative process. So did Jerry Lieber, the songwriter who, with Mike Stoller, wrote many of Elvis’s hits, and who died this week. He was asked what he and Stoller did all day. “We just sat around smoking”, he replied.

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Friday, August 5th, 2011

Making Mr McGregor

Mask 1

“I’m going to completely cover your eyes, nose and mouth and the whole of your face in this purple gunge. Don’t worry, you’ll be able to breathe through these two bits of rolled up paper which I’ll stick up your nostrils. Keep still, or you’ll block the airflow and remember that I won’t be able to see your face turning blue. Then I’ve got three minutes to apply strips of bandage to the paste before the whole mass hardens. After about ten minutes I should have a perfect mould of your face, which I’ll be able to use to make a latex model of your head”.

These very scary instructions were given by Alan Ward, the sculptor, who I’ve commissioned to make a life size model of Mr McGregor for my garden for the Gardening World Cup. We talked at some length about who to model Mr McGregor on. We looked at the pictures in the Peter Rabbit books and it was clear that we needed some-one who was wild and angry . But Alan knew that what we really needed was some-one daft enough to allow themselves to be encased in purple gunge. He suggested me. That was how I found myself being made into a Spitting Image latex model.

The cast was successfully made and Alan’s now going to take it to his holiday home in France, where he’s going to add white hair and a beard and dress me in a French linen nightshirt. And then, I hope, it will look a lot like Mr McGregor and not at all like me.

Mask 2

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Sunday, July 31st, 2011

Lucian Freud 1922-2011

lucien freud palm tree

“I was offered a knighthood but turned it down. My younger brother has one of those. That’s all that needs to be said on the matter”
Lucian Freud

Can there have been a more astonishing career than that of Lucian Freud, who had several large families (reputedly 40 children in all) by various wives and mistresses and whose paintings sold not just for millions but tens of millions. He never set out to flatter, whether he was painting the Queen or one of his daughters and he had a notoriously bad relationship with his brother Clement. Because his portraits and nudes are so sensational it isn’t generally known that he also painted landscapes and garden plants. He often painted the buddleia and bamboo from his overgrown garden in Notting Hill. Jeffrey Bernard remarked “He has cracked the nut of how to live a double life”. That comment, which was made about his private life (and none was more private) could equally apply to his life as a painter.

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Monday, July 25th, 2011

The Hare with Amber Eyes

‘Be careful of the unwarranted gesture: less is more’
Edmund de Waal- The Hare with Amber Eyes

The-Hare-with-Amber-Eyes-007

I’ve been saving up The Hare With Amber Eyes, which has been in the best-seller lists for much of this year, for my trip to Japan. The story is based upon a collection of antique Japanese ivory carvings and the changing fortunes of their owners, from immensely rich Jewish merchants to the present owner, a potter, who is the author of the book. The story has a particular resonance for me because for many years I collected antique Japanese ivory pieces (known as okimono, from the Meiji period, 1868-1912) and only stopped adding to the collection when I ran out of space to display them. Ivory is deeply unfashionable because no-one wants to be associated with the trade in elephant’s trunks, and this taint has meant that these beautiful works of art which have been carved with astonishing skill can be bought relatively cheaply.

When I first took my family to Japan several years ago the first thing I wanted to do was to look at the collections of ivory in the Tokyo museums and to see what was for sale in their antique shops. I was surprised to find that the Japanese have almost no interest in okimono and that the National Museum in Ueno has almost no ivory objects on display.

The Hare with Amber eyes is a story about netsuke, a small toggle used to tie the belt of a garment. When, in the middle of the nineteenth century, the fashion for using netsukes fell, the craftsmen whose livelihood was threatened turned to making okimonos for the export market. The purchase by Charles Ephrussi of a collection of netsuke in Paris was a reflection of the craze for Japanese art in Victorian times, and we continue to admire these objects now, but the fashion has never caught on in Japan itself.

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Saturday, July 16th, 2011

Tracey Emin

Tracey_Emin

When I happened to allude, during a talk to some graduate art students, to Tracey Emin’s limited intelligence, my remarks produced a gasp of disapproval from the students. Tracey Emin was clearly their hero. Perhaps I was missing something, so I took the opportunity to brush up on her achievements by visiting her retrospective exhibition at the Hayward Gallery on the south bank. The Hayward is a wretched building, ugly and disfunctional, one of the nastiest pieces of architecture there is. Tracey Emin’s retrospective is equally nasty. She has no artistic skills, to the extent that she can’t draw, or paint or sculpt. Her only talent is the power to shock (as in her exhibit of used tampons) and to publicise herself. One of the ways in which she generates this publicity is to talk about her “fucking high IQ”.
Quite how high her IQ is, can be seen from these quotations taken from a TV interview which was made to promote her retrospective:

On being a mother: “If I’d had children I’d have hung myself by now. I can prove it, cos I’m sitting here now and I didn’t have those children”.
On the work of Damien Hirst: “We all love it. Even if you hate it, you still love it”.
On the public (this, I think,includes me): “What annoys me is when people think all I do is talk about myself. And it’s true, I do”.
(For these quotes, thanks to Michael Deacon).

One of the students at my talk, a feisty redhead, was particularly passionate in her worship of Tracey Emin. A little later I got chatting to her Professor and was surprised to learn that the redhead’s speciality was needlework.
“What kind of needlework?”, I naively enquired. “Female genitalia, mostly”, he replied. Here’s a word of advice for that feisty redhead- Don’t go there, the subject has been done to death already by her hero.

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