Exit Through The Giftshop - Pictures At An Exhibition #17

As museums and galleries are still locked down here are some memories from the past...

1) THE LAST JUDGEMENT (detail) (1435-1440) - Fra Angelico

I bought this at the Gemaldegalerie in Berlin where Fra Angelico's impressive triptych of the Day of Judgement is on display. The central panel is Christ triumphant surrounded by his sainted besties and on the left panel he shows those blessed with life eternal and on the right those being tortured in Hell.  It possibly needs renovating to bring the painting back to what one assumes was it's vibrant life.

The postcard features a detail from the left panel where those bound for Heaven are being led by dancing angels; the flowing robes are beautifully realised in such tiny detail and they really stand out against the dark background as do the tiny buds and shrubs.

2) THE ANNUNCIATION (1440 - 1445) - Fra Angelico

This came from the San Marco monastery in Florence which is the home of this fresco, one of Fra Angelico's two masterpieces showing The Annunciation, the other is in the Prado.  In one of the great moments of "art theatre" you ascend the wide staircase to the first floor of San Marco where the monks' cells are located and as you turn the corner, you see this large fresco facing you at the top of the staircase - a real wow moment.

Fra Angelico, through the held gaze between the Angel Gabriel and The Virgin Mary, creates a captured moment of being; there is nothing to distract from the intensity of that moment, you believe the world has stopped outside.  It is marvellous to stand and revel at it's detail: the intricate painting of the relief at the top of the portico's pillars which give the image a perspective that breaks with the traditional flat look of Gothic paintings, the vivid pink and gold of Gabriel's robe is contrasted against Mary's blue cloak and his lovely multi-coloured wings also contains intricate detailing.  It's interesting how the flat rendering of the garden is offset by the depths of the trees beyond the fence.

3) THE TOWNEY DISKOBOLOS (circa 2nd Century AD) - unknown

This marvellous Roman marble statue was discovered near Hadrian's villa in Tivoli in 1791 and later acquired for the British Museum.  It is based on a now lost bronze statue, sculpted in the 5th Century BC by the Greek artist Myron.

When it was found, the statue was missing it's head but when it was purchased by Charles Townley he was told that the head had been found nearby.  Down the years there has been much conjecture as to whether it actually was the original head as another marble statue had been found a few years before with the athlete's head turned looking at the discus. Whatever it's genesis, it is still a wonderful rendering of the athlete about to launch his discus into the void.

4) THE BROKEN COLUMN (1944) - Freda Kahlo

One of the most famous and revealing of Frida Kahlo's self-portraits, she painted it in 1944 after she had spinal surgery to correct the injury she received 19 years before in a trolley-bus crash   I bought this in 2005 at Tate Modern when they had a major retrospective of her work.

Frida stands alone, impassively staring out at the viewer in a landscape that is as broken and split as her body.  Her torso is cracked open to reveal a broken but still-standing stone column instead of her spine.  She wears the cumbersome harness that doctors had her wear to correct her posture and her body is pierced with nails as in her own crucifiction.  Although there are tears on her face, she is still standing, still surviving.

5) PORTRAIT OF A GIRL WEARING A BLUE JERSEY (DORA CARRINGTON) (1912) - Mark Gertler

Bought at the marvellous CRISIS OF BRILLIANCE exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in 2013 which brought together six contempories who studied at the Slade Art School in the 1910s: Bomberg, Nevinson, Spencer, Nash and, as seen here, Mark Gertler and his subject Dora Carrington.

Through his arresting portrait you can feel Gertler attempting to capture the quicksilver modernity of Carrington, then aged 19, with her placid but determined stare, her self-cropped hair and the cool tones of her blue jersey against the sky. Gertler was to become obsessed with Carrington only to find that CRW Nevinson was also pursuing her.  Carrington, however kept them both at arm's length, wanting their friendship but not sex.  She later gave in to Gertler's persistance but it left them both unhappy and they kept a distant friendship afterwards.  Carrington committed suicide in 1932 in despair after the death of Lytton Strachey, the love of her life, and Gertler killed himself in 1939, lost in a swell of depression.

Exit Through The Giftshop - Postcards at an exhibition....

More bootiful booty from museum and exhibition gift shops...

1) FARM AT WATENDLATH (1921) - Dora Carrington

I bought this at Tate Britain which have Carrington's lovely painting in it's collection.  It is now 23 years since the last major exhibition by the most elusive of Bloomsbury-related painters so Tate Britain really needs to pull it's collective finger out.

I love how Carrington has the Cumbrian landscape, rearing up like a whale, echoed by the brick walls which surround the farm house which is dwarfed by the countryside.  The woman and child, who form a loose visual triangle with the house and the washing hanging on the line, seem frozen in awe of their surroundings.

2) ROSES SUR FOND NOIR (1932) - André Derain

This was bought at the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris where Derain's striking still life is in the permanent collection.

I am not the biggest fan of still life paintings but I was struck by the lovely use of light in Derain's painting; he was one of the painters who embraced the 'Fauvist' style in the early years of the 20th Century and his use of colour here is still vibrant, particularly against the black background.

3) LE VERROU (1777) - Jean-Honoré Fragonard

We went to a Fragonard exhibition at the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris but I found it all a bit underwhelming to be honest.  By far the best painting there was one of his most famous, "Le Verrou" or "The Lock" which usually is seen in The Louvre.

It was certainly the image of the exhibition as it featured on the poster and all the merchandise so I simply had to buy a postcard to get out!  It is certainly a striking painting, full of intrigue and passion: is the man locking the door to stop others getting in or the woman getting out?  Is it violent or romantic?  You decide... It would make a perfect poster design for LES LIAISONS DANGEREUSES which was published only five years after Fragonard finished his painting.

4) RAMON CASAS I PERE ROMEU EN UN TÁNDEM (1897) - Ramon Casas

One of the jewels of the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Casas' large painting was originally created for the Barcelona cafe Els Quatre Gats, which was a focal point for the artists of the Catalan 'modernisme', a copy now hangs there.  The original in the museum however has been cut down by a third in the intervening years

Casas is seen at the front of the tandem pedalling into the future while the restaurateur Romeu looks out at the viewer grinning widely with the Barcelona skyline behind them. Romeu was financially backed by Casas and two other leading Catalan artists Santiago Rusinol and Miguel Utrillo.  I love Casas' spare design, almost as if he knew it would one day adorn merchandise!

5) The PARAKEET AND THE MERMAID (1952) - Henri Matisse

I bought this at the wonderful Tate Modern exhibition of Matisse's glorious cut-outs in 2014.  The  large work, measuring over 11' x 25', drew you into it's waving, magical world; a world of waving fronds surrounding the parakeet and the floating mermaid.  Suffering from failing health, Matisse still wanted to express his artistic vision so he turned to cut-outs.

Matisse painted paper with coloured gouache then cut out his individual shapes which would then be arranged by assistants until he was happy with the harmony of colours then glued them onto the white backing paper, so simple yet so vividly effective.  It's wonderful that only two years before his death, Matisse was still creating art and continuing his love affair with colour.  Another work of art I want to dive into!

Moments of Being

When I heard that the National Portrait Gallery were staging an exhibition about Virginia Woolf I was excited but worried too - she is my favourite writer and the concern is how do you do an exhibition of her which would include her writing as well as her personality.

 

Although I loved walking around the exhibition, the curator Frances Spalding (whose books on Bloomsbury I have enjoyed) has not really addressed that central problem of balancing the woman and her art.  That would not stop me however recommending it to anyone who admires Woolf and her work.

As you enter the exhibition you are confronted by a close-up of that extraordinary face along with a photograph of her bomb-shattered house in Tavistock Square in 1940, setting up the premise of the fragility of life.  After that it is a fairly chronological exhibition which only takes up four rooms.  This was also a bit disappointing, it gave the exhibition the air of skimming the surface.

Through the exhibition it was interesting to see the constant representations of Virginia through photographs, paintings and even sculpture.  The now-iconic Beresford photographs of the 20 year-old Miss Virginia Stephen share space with snapshots from family and friends - Bloomsbury loved to photograph itself! - and with professional photographers such as Giséle Freund and Man Ray.

Paintings of Virginia by her sister Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant and Roger Fry share space with portraits of fellow Bloomsbury figures such as the artists named, Lytton Strachey, Desmond McCarthy, Saxon Sidney Turner, Dora Carrington and of course Leonard Woolf.  Also included is Stephen Tomlin's haunting life-size bust of her, eyes wide with mouth open as if about to speak.

There were of course her publications: from her first novel THE VOYAGE OUT to the first Hogarth Press publications, hand-bound and printed by Virginia and Leonard, hand-written proofs as well as her great works where she wrestled the novel form into something new, something closer to life in all it's complexity.

The final room is called "Thinking Is My Fighting" and covers the growing threat of Fascism in the 1930s.  There is a drawing by Picasso called "Weeping Woman" which he donated to a fundraising event for Basque children which Virginia, Leonard, Vanessa and her youngest son Quentin had supported.  The title proved sadly prophetic when three weeks later, Vanessa's oldest son Julian was killed driving an ambulance for the Republicans in Spain, leaving Vanessa inconsolable.  Also on display is the Nazi 'black book', of intellectuals and writers who were to be arrested after a Nazi invasion, with Leonard and Virginia's names printed within.

All the way around the exhibition I felt Virginia eluding one's grasp, slipping around the far corner of the room, but here in the final room she was suddenly very close by.  Displayed in the same case as Virginia's taut, nervy letter to Hogarth Press editor John Lehmann on March 20th 1941 stating she felt her recent novel BETWEEN THE ACTS was unpublishable, was her walking stick that was found eight days later lying on the bank of the nearby River Ouse.

Facing this, framed together, were Virginia's last two letters, one to Vanessa, one to Leonard.  Although I have read these letters transcribed in countless biographies of her, to actually see them was incredibly moving and I cried as I looked at them.  Virginia the novelist, writing now for the last time to her sister and husband, the people who she loved the most.  Not writing to stretch the form or to test boundaries, just to express her love to those who would miss her the most and her apology that now she was losing herself to another of her terrible depressions she knew she could not find her way back this time.

And I thought of the last words of MRS DALLOWAY “...For there she was.”  For, finally in the exhibition, there she was.

The Chrissies... Art, Music, Cinema, Events

It's the start of a new year so tradition must be upheld to look back on what I enjoyed in the previous 12 months.  After a year of little sensory pleasures 2013 gave me much to savour and enjoy, very little to ignore.

ART

 

From the unknown artists of the Ice Age to the pop age of Roy Lichtenstein, from the 1901 paintings of Picasso to the Profumo scandal of 1963 via George Catlin's paintings of native Americans, it has been a varied and fascinating year for exhibitions.

The Hayward Gallery's LIGHT SHOW collated installations including Ivan Navarro's mirrored, neon-lit telephone box, Carlos Cruz-Diez's chromatic series of single-colour rooms, Leo Villareal's shimmering cascade of white neon on silver and Olafur Eliasson's dizzying Model For A Timeless Garden (fountains of water seemingly frozen in time by neon light);  the National Portrait Gallery's MAN RAY: PORTRAITS showed his astounding experiments in photography; the Victoria & Albert's DAVID BOWIE IS took you on a journey through the ch-ch-ch-ch-changes of the first artist to fully understand how late 20th Century pop would be a real marriage of Sound and Vision while the Royal Academy's exhibition MODERN AMERICAN LIFE opened my eyes to the work of American painter and printmaker George Bellows.

 

But the Art Chrissie goes to A CRISIS OF BRILLIANCE at the Dulwich Picture Gallery which linked the artists Paul Nash, Christopher R.W. Nevinson, Stanley Spencer, Mark Gertler, Dora Carrington and David Bomberg who all attended the Slade Art School in the years 1908 -1912.  Although not a large exhibition, there was plenty to spark a curiosity in artists I had been too quick to overlook in the past, in particular Nevinson.  It also gave me an opportunity to commune with one of my favourite paintings, Carrington's portrait of Lytton Strachey.

 

It was an inspiring exhibition that was exhilarating but also moving as for most of the featured artists the 'crisis of brilliance' that their Slade Professor Henry Tonks accused them of having was never fully resolved.  I would like to take this opportunity to thank Stuart Kirk-Spriggs who has given me a new appreciation of some of the trickier areas of 20th Century art thanks to his inspired teaching. 

MUSIC

 

It's been a good year for gigs, mostly a string of awesome shows under the auspices of Yoko Ono's Meltdown festival on the South Bank.  Somehow - I'm still sure how - Owen managed to get tickets for both of the Siouxsie shows that were much sought after.  It made me remember how good Patti Smith's Meltdown festival had been in 2005.  Maybe all Meltdowns in future should be curated by female singers in their over-50s?

This year I've seen Boy George twice (thinner and bursting with confidence), Liza Minnelli (with the remnants of her voice and hips but glowing with pure star wattage), Petula Clark at 81 dominating the barn of Theatre Royal Drury Lane with class and showmanship, two alternative music queens Sinéad O'Connor and Viv Albertine wowing with passion and humour and an incandescent Pet Shop Boys show that lit up the O2.  Hopefully 2014 will see them back again now we are familiar with the new material.

For her Meltdown show, Marianne Faithfull turned the Queen Elizabeth Hall into an intimate club as she strolled through her back catalogue with guitarist Bill Frisell (she will back in November to celebrate 50 years in music); The B-52s brought their unique lunatic genius to the IndigO2 while, back at Meltdown, Patti Smith brought along the kids Jackson and Jessie to accompany her in an evening of prose and music where she was wonderfully goofy, caustic and relaxed!  And in the afore-mentioned shows, Siouxsie was quite magnificent, encased in a white PVC ensemble as she showcased the entire Banshees KALEIDOSCOPE album from 1980 then plunging into songs from their back catalogue as well as from her solo career.  They were her first shows in 5 years and she owned the stage - as some hapless oaf found out when he foolishly attempted to climb up.

But my Music Chrissie, and I am a bit surprised by this, goes to Amanda Palmer at the Roundhouse.  With her new band the Grand Theft Orchestra she showcased most of her 2012 album THEATRE IS EVIL (sez she) as well as older and some unrecorded songs.  As with the four acts mentioned above, Amanda creates her own unique world when she performs and this time was just as memorable.  What makes each show different is that she is unique in being able to take whatever is happening to her at that precise moment in her life and spin the show around it, making each one moment-specific.

The two great moments were when she sang BIGGER ON THE INSIDE a painfully honest examination of her recent spell of depression and DEAR DAILY MAIL in which she lambasted that ridiculous paper for highlighting her recent Glastonbury gig when her breast popped out of her bra.  She was, quite simply, her.

CINEMA

In rediscovered cinema I am grateful for the National Film Theatre (nope, still can't call it BFI Southbank) in giving me the chance to see three favourite actresses - Jean Seberg, Vivien Leigh, Vanessa Redgrave - on the big screen with screenings of BONJOUR TRISTESSE (in a sparkling new print), THE DEEP BLUE SEA (I've finally seen it!!) and an advance screening of the BBC film THE THIRTEENTH TALE in which Vanessa was excellently paired with Olivia Colman in Christopher Hampton's atmospheric version of Diane Setterfield's novel.  The same cinema also provided the cinematic highspot during Yoko's Meltdown festival when it showed Eisenstein's BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN with the score by the Pet Shop Boys (with Neil on hand to introduce it) - yes comrades, the revolution WILL have a Disco Beat!

I've seen more recent films this year but nothing that totally knocked me out - the most enjoyable being the two Broadway documentaries I saw at the London Film Festival, Dori Berinstein's MARVIN HAMLISCH and Chiemi Karasawa's ELAINE STRITCH: SHOOT ME - equally enjoyable in different variations in the documentary form.

 

EVENTS

 

In the course of any year there are those shows that you can't quite fit into other categories and I had a few of them in 2013.

 

I saw the remarkable Rita Moreno give an insightful talk at the covert racism she faced in the Hollywood of the 50s & 60s while also rubbishing the film she was there to introduce - now that takes guts.  David McAlmont was in the audience to ask her about THE RITZ and I also saw him giving a talk at the National Portrait Gallery.  Tracey Thorn, Derek Jacobi and Ray Davies gave us idiosyncratic glimpses into the process of writing their autobiographies and Simon Russell Beale gave us his memories on working at the National Theatre.

 

In particular I enjoyed a reading of A CHRISTMAS CAROL at the Queen Elizabeth Hall with Griff Rhys Jones as Dickens and an excellently cast Bill Paterson as Scrooge.  The supporing cast included Tim Pigott-Smith as Marley and Janine Duvitski as Mrs. Dibber and as I watched them I wished they could be playing it for real at the National next door.  At the same venue earlier in the year Rupert Everett gave a hugely entertaining and insightful talk about his autobiography VANISHED YEARS while at the Leicester Square Theatre, Patti LuPone gave an odd combination of concert & talk (with Seth Rudetsky) which covered all areas of her acting career.  It gave her ample opportunity to bury a few axes in appropriate backs but the high points were when she simply sang songs from EVITA, THE BAKER'S WIFE, LES MISERABLES, GYPSY and most surprisingly "With One Look" from SUNSET BOULEVARD, the first time she had performed it since being so ingraciously fired from the London production.  The biggest surprise came when at the climax of her final song - "The Ladies Who Lunch" from COMPANY - she punctuated the final "RISE!" with hurling her drink into the first few rows. Guess who got splooshed?  A dryer but wonderful 45 minutes were spent in the company of Imelda Staunton and Jim Carter as they reminisced about their experiences working at the National Theatre which of course included memories of my beloved 1982 production of GUYS AND DOLLS, which was were they first met.

But the Chrissie for Best Event goes to the similar National Histories talk with actress Julie Walters and director Richard Eyre.  A delightful 45 minutes sped by as these two favourite people showed a delightful chemistry as they reminisced about their NT memories.  Of course I would love it as Richard Eyre talked at length about his 1982 production of GUYS AND DOLLS but it was also an emotional moment too when they both talked about Ian Charleson with Eyre obviously moved when talking about how he came to cast Ian as HAMLET in 1989 when they both knew he was dying. 

The lovely thing is by clicking here you can watch the Walters & Eyre talk and here you will find Carter & Staunton's talk.

As an intermission act I will leave you in the capable hands of Amanda Palmer and her riotous song DEAR DAILY MAIL from the Roundhouse gig.  After the interval?  The Theatre Chrissies...

 

So... where was I?

Hopefully Constant Reader you are still there.
 
It's been a while.
 
It's a funny thing but when you lose faith in what you think of things then it is difficult to think that others will be interested too.
 
So I have not shared my thoughts on this, that and t'other and have wondered what might make me start again.  That production? That film? That gig? That exhibition?
 
Well no.  Not that exhibition.
 
But this exhibition has!

 
Yesterday afternoon Owen and I had an adventure and made our way to the leafy 'burbs of Dulwich.  It's like another world!  Hard to believe it's only 20-something minutes from Brixton by bus.  I presume it's twinned with Richmond.  You know, the kind of place where you wonder how did we ever lose an Empire.
 
Which was all very appropriate as we went to see an exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery (I do like the use of the word Picture) which covered the years 1908 - 1922 in the artistic lives of six students of the Slade Art School: Paul Nash, C.R.W. Nevinson, Stanley Spencer, Mark Gertler, David Bomberg and, my own favourite, Dora Carrington.
 
It's not a huge exhibition but it does give you an insight into the six artists and in particular, their humanity.  Time and again your read their own comments on the changes they are living through - their struggles with what movement best represents them and in particular, the men's response to the all-encompassing impact of World War I.
 

 
I knew Carrington and, to a lesser degree, Gertler and Spencer, but it was good to get more familiar with the work of the other three, Nevinson in particular.  I had written him off as one of Wyndham Lewis' lot but was heartened to find out that they had fallen out.  His modernist works such as 'Dance Hall Scene' give way to the more, blocky woodcut-like paintings of the War years.  Along with Paul Nash's desolate paintings of the blasted Western Front, they make for sombre viewing,
 
It strikes me that Carrington is the most under-represented of the six artists while David Bomberg remains the most elusive to define.  The exhibition does leave you feeling oddly sad, as so few of them seemed to fulfil the genuine promise of their pre-war years.  Of the six, Carrington and Gertler killed themselves, Nevinson and Bomberg ended their lives in obscurity while Nash and Spencer thrived.  Spencer is the strangest case, his unique vision remains the most constant throughout the exhibition.  I wonder if this points to a reason for his more long-term success over his contemporaries.
 
Last year I had recourse to research more into Carrington's life so it was a joy to see her work again.  From her early pencil sketches - her study of Gertler is particularly fine - and a delightfully illustrated letter to Paul Nash, to her paintings, she reveals how she made the personal public.  None more so than in her hypnotic portrait of her beloved Lytton Strachey.

 
I stood looking at this picture for a long time, caught up in the intensity of her concentration, with, I don't mind telling you, a tear welling.  Entering the last room I read on the wall the entry she wrote 21 days after Lytton's death from undiagnosed cancer "Everything was for you... I see my paints, & think it is no use for Lytton will never see my pictures now, & I cry" and felt so sad.    

The exhibition is open until September 22nd so there is still plenty of time to experience it for yourselves - clicky on the image below:

Um.

It's good to be back x