Grayson Perry Tapestries in Cornwall

Grayson Perry The Vanity of Small Differences Oct 3 - Jan 2 The Exchange, Penzance, Cornwall, UK These six large tapestries show the Hogarthian progress of a male character on a ' Class Journey’ using researches the artist made as he developed his 2012 tv series ' All in the best possible taste'. There were more people in the gallery than I have ever seen there apart from pre Coronavirus opening parties. All were masked and spaced and carefully examining the wealth of detail in the narratives and the way the fabric has a variety of textures. There is also a film about the weaving of the work. Grayson has produced a commentary on contemporary British life and class which can be witty and ingenious - focused on white characters. I enjoyed seeing the show. Grayson points out the art historical influences on the compositions in his lengthy written captions. I don't really like the horror vacui and the rather monotonous tones and textures but I admire the accumulation of observations which relate to class and taste. When Grayson makes a pot there is a satisfying beauty in the symmetry and form which then contrast alarmingly with the applied narrative content that can only be seen from a close look. That strange combination doesn't apply to the tapestries because although there are fascinating details to see up close you can see everything also at a distance. It's been a mammoth task to compile all the images but the all over complexity I find lessens the impact. It's well worth seeing nevertheless and admirable in its satirical contemporary relevance.

Robert Broadhurst. 'An Occurrence at Arverne' vimeo

Robert Broadhurst. 'An Occurrence at Arverne' vimeo, 7.30 mins This short video is a 'staff pick' on Vimeo with 113,000 views. After seeing it I find this is Broadhurst's first narrative film, written by him, that isn't done as a commercial advert for his usual clients - Adidas, Kanye West fashion, Armani etc which are slick glossy productions. In 'Occurrence at Arverne' there are a lot of signs that can be read in ways that betray our prejudiced expectations. A hooded black man enters a bungalow. Towards the end a police car draws up outside. Is he up to no good or has he gone round to feed the cat - who fails to show up? It's clever, subtle, and succinct. Marcus Curtis Cooke is the actor. Extensive credits are followed by slogans in block capitals such as ' BLACK LIVES HAVE ALWAYS MATTERED', 'DUMP TRUMP' and 'LOVE BEATS FEAR'

The Little Book of Humanism

The Little Book of Humanism. 2020 Alice Roberts and Andrew Copson I bought this because I am a humanist so I wanted to love it. However I don't like the unusual narrow format that means it won't stick out as far as a normal paperback in the bookcase. There may be a reason for the usual format - that it feels a more satisfactorily proportioned rectangle on which to arrange things. I don't like the quotations being often contained in a thin wriggly line, nor the photos being so lacking in contrast and by only two photographers. The illustrations are also by only two artists and some remind me of the very generalised people depicted in Jehovah's Withess literature. So it is that these visual aspects are very subordinate to the words and could have been more exciting, varied and important, could have included some great art from say Kathe Kollwitz and William Kentridge. Apart from that it can hardly be revelatory - humanism has but few basic beliefs so it's likely to be repetitive - but it does offer lots of quotes and a useful list of the writers of them with their dates. Andrew Copson and Alice Roberts have collaborated so we do not know who wrote which parts and I would have prefered them to own two distinct sections. They have decided not to alter quotes but leave the sexist 'he' where it could have been made 'he/she'. I found several writers I did not know before, lots of quotes I liked. I couldn't agree with Ingersoll that happiness is the only good, and I find the argument that eternal life would be boring is unconvincing. I wouldn't have referred to the book 'The Joy of Sex' because of an unsavoury bit in it that recommends mysogynistic sadism - perhaps Roberts and Copson got a later revised edition. My favourite bits were James Hemming on what our bodies are made of- eg 'enough iron to make a two inch nail' , Darwin on sympathy for all races and Einstein on the importance of society. I liked a Stevie Smith poem, something Protagoras said and Bertrand Russell on life as like a river that ends in the sea. I recommend buying the book - and perhaps keeping your own notebook of quotes to add to it. The profits go to Humanists UK and hopefully it will interest new people in joining a humanist group.

The Millionaires' Holiday Club

The Millionaires' Holiday Club. BBC 2. Director Simon Draper. There is a travel agent in the north of England where the starting salary for employees is £18,000. They are organising holidays that may cost per person that amount for one week. The program shows three of these young women on a work visit to see some of these luxury premises so that they will be good at selling the holidays. It also followed two couples who go on them. One were off on their travels several times a year. They wanted to see the staff as friends and kept hugging them. One of the staff explained to camera that there was in fact quite a social gap between them. The man of this couple was a quiet thoughtful person, his wife was described as being the party, and was dedicated to enjoying her holidays with some serious shopping. The other couple worked all year on their fruit farm business and took one week off to do nothing in style. The husband was prone to making heartless jokes at his wife's expense which she tolerated longsufferingly in silence. The rich holiday makers and the travel agent visitors were all shown as if they rarely had a serious thought in their heads, constantly playing their parts as happy hedonists. The staff were unfailingly playing theirs as ever devoted servants. If you've ever been to a poor world country on holiday you've experienced being many times better off than the beggars who live on the streets - which feels an insurmountable gulf which you can't alter. This is similar but on a vaster scale - these trippers keep well insulated from the poorest inhabitants, rarely leaving the hotel complex or luxury cruiser. The whole thing is nauseatingly watchable. It presents the white holiday makers and their black servants almost as if it's just a fact of nature that this huge gap exists. It shows us how enjoyable such a holiday can be - and therefore how anything that threatens this vast gap of wealth will be likely to be resisted - not as a cunning political plot but as an instinct to preserve this separate realm of wealth which the filthy rich can tell themselves is kindly giving employment to the poor, who they admire for working hard. Like a man convinced the woman he pays to pretend she fancies him isn't acting - they can imagine the hospitality staff are their faithful friends rather than the worker-dogs whose tails wag. Oh workers of the world unite.

Global Trade

Today arrives a tiny parcel A man in a van drives to my door He posts it through. It is from China A necklace worth three US dollars From number three Yanhe Road Elephant Kok T Origin village Nanhung Street hexi D district There is a telephone number. Small packet by air Guaranteed to contain nothing dangerous or prohibited. Chinese characters Necklace in Chinese A month ago Late at night Browsing my ipad In bed Alone I chose a necklace Blue beads One yellow, one pink, one purple, one red And a green one One metal butterfly Two fish Tiny metal flowers It's perfectly sweet I put it on Happy Some Chinese hands assembled it. A person I hope paid decently Thousands of miles it travels to me. Only profitable because - measured by cost of living We are a wealthy country - they a poorer one.

The Joy of Painting

The Joy of Painting Bob Ross showed people how to produce corny horrible inauthentic paintings for years on tv. These programmes are being repeated on British TV bbc 4

Apparently he practised the day's painting and copied from his practice efforts that were kept out of shot. While he works he keeps up a smooth softly voiced commentary, referring to 'happy little clouds' etc. He shows clever tricks of using the paint to depict land and seascapes. At the end he signs it prominently in red - the only red in the painting so it stands out. In a way the whole painting is just a background for the name he adds - Kilroy was here on a grand repeated scale. There is no soul, no observation, no personal experience, no innovation, nothing but a few tricks and a chocolate box image. I find it unbearable. I find it appalling that some tv producer accepted this, that people admire it, that there's no programme showing artists that are trying to produce something original, personal and not this complete trash. Well occasionally - there was 'What do artists do all day?' There used to be stuff about the Turner prize. How to explain to someone who likes this what I feel is so bad about it? Is it pointless to try? Do people in fact like it or even watch it? Bob Ross made a living from this repetitive nonsense. He died some time ago. How is it possible that it's on British tv now?

All or Nothing - Mike Leigh

All or Nothing'. Mike Leigh 2002 The first third of this film shows us a collection of unpleasantly depressing characters on a south London housing estate. Their lives are wretched, their vocabulary and conversation limited, so that I felt like not even giving the DVD to a charity shop because of its horribly stereotyped view of the working or underclass in contemporary London. By the end I was crying, moved by the central character - Timothy Spall's taxi driver - who reminded me of myself once on holiday with my husband but temporarily cast into utter wretched despair - feeling I would rather be dead if our relationship should fall apart. It's as if Mike Leigh sets himself the challenge to take all the worst stereotypes of the poor and after presenting us with characters we can scarcely bear to think exist then develops them to a point where at least some of them become people so real to us that we long for the best for them. This director works via long improvisations which actors find alarming and wonderful. Their statements are on the DVD and it's a relief to see these actors - not those grim characters after all - but existing outside the Mike Leigh workshop. They didn't get a script but explored their characters and acted only knowing at any point what their character would know. Watching them talk about the process reminds me of the intensity of a psychodrama holiday I once went to on Skyros. Ruth Sheen as Maureen for me provides the most memorable and joyous moments in the story as she sings in the pub and becomes a beautiful, confident and subtle performer who could have had a stage career if she weren't living the life she has. Mike Leigh says in his interview that they are lucky to work in a loving atmosphere where they go 'on voyages of danger which produce the goods' which are 'a heightened and distilled reality'. I believe films are the greatest art form of our era - paralleling medieval cathedrals in their wide scope and combining of many talents which are largely left as anonymous contributors to the audience despite the end credits.

Mary on her art

The Money Trick

5932ead0 7bce 11ea 968f 150b4fbbc143

TV ART -'Home is where the art is.' BBC One 2020

'Home is where the art is'. BBC tv



Three artists go round the potential client's house as they put it 'snooping'.
They meet the buyers and pitch for the commission.
One is thrown out.
The remaining two make some art.
The buyers choose between the results.


The thing is most of the art is absolutely dreadful and the rest is dreadful.
The presenter says things like how amazing it is that the artists are all so different.
None of the buyers betray the slightest dislike of the works presented.
The buyers in general are overcome with emotional reactions of admiration and sentimental attachment to personal references in the work - symbols of their dead relations or their recent marriages.


We get glimpses of the artists filing, casting, sticking or painting. They are all mutually appreciative of each other's efforts. They all say the works are good value for money.
A selection is made, quite often the buyers buy both works.
In general it's a lot of kitsch, twee, well crafted birthday card sort of banality.


The works are presented in the buyers' homes to universally awed friends.

There's a certain fascination with guessing who is rejected, with seeing the apparent genuine effort and appreciation involved.


I am personally longing for a reaction of horror and rejection, just one, like there used to be on the programme where interior decorators presented people with a room that might appall them.


I was telling a neighbour about the program. Why watch it he says if it's so bad?


Is it the absolute dearth of any good tv about living artists?
Is it liking the idea that people are encouraging folk to buy art?
Is it a superiority complex stoked by comparing my work with these?
Is it wanting one time to be impressed?
Am I hoping for out takes where the presenter reveals what he really thinks?


Aargh!


But there I am recording it!

Mierle Laderman Ukeles - her talk on youtube

Mierle Laderman Ukeles 'Maintenance/Survival/and its Relation to Freedom' YouTube. 14 Feb 2013, 2,558 views - 1 hour 32 minutes.

www.youtube.com/watch.?v=3Hr-MWXpuvs

Ukeles

Krzysztof Wodiczko, Professor of Art and Design at Harvard University, who introduces this talk, asks if an artist by working with people can de-alienate the worker whose plight was explained by Marx.

Twelve minutes in Ukeles appears, the screen goes blank disconcertingly but then she is back, an impressive, calm, assured speaker with a wealth of experience and plenty to say.

Useless mentions names familiar from the avant garde of the 60's - Pollock, Duchamp and Rothko, pointing out that that they didn't change diapers and that when she had a baby daughter she was suddenly in a world of maintenance, of both mind bending boredom but also rediscovering the world as her baby did.

In October 1969 Ukeles wrote her Manifesto, unfortunately shown on slides too fuzzy to read, and she found her theme of connecting with the world's maintenance workers and making her art about them and their vital work.

Ceremonial Arch 4-1988,93,94 and 2016 Queens Museum photo Jillian Steinhauer

Ukeles explains several projects including the 30 year making of 'Fresh Kills' a park on Statton Island, New York, constructed on top of fifty years deposited garbage, where she is organising that a million people donate valued objects, hand size, to be documented, archived, and incorporated into the walls and paths encased in glass blocks.

She tells her audience about working with snow truck drivers in Japan to make a mechanised ballet based on Romeo and Juliet.

She also met garbage truck drivers to make a display in a Madison Avenue art parade. She describes holding on to get these drivers to come up with their own ideas because, 'it can't be art if I tell you what to do'- in great contrast to Anthony Gormley who used volunteer labour to carry out his instructions for the many terracotta figures made for his 'field for the British Isles'.

She says in that work or in the studio it's the same process of waiting for the ideas 'to rise up, in the vacuum of terror'.

However it is Ukeles 11 month project in the 70's when she shook hands with every one of the 8,700 sanitation workers in New York City, thanking each one and rising early to walk all the garbage collection routes with them that made her famous and which is so relevant now because the worth of all maintenance workers is so apparent in the Coronavirus crisis.

Book by Patricia C Phillips, 2016

Ukeles has earned her place in the contemporary canon of art made from social cooperation.

One can argue that she might have been more involved politically in the workers' union struggle but it's certainly worth giving her projects your attention.

 In her Manifesto Ukeles said anything was art if she said it was - and I believe her.

Keith Piper 'The Perfect City' on vimeo

Keith Piper 'The Perfect City'.  2007 12mins. Vimeo.

This video work was first shown as a two screen installation in PM Gallery London, funded by Film London.

The version on Vimeo is a compelling short narrative by the artist with a complex visual series of images. There is the paper model of the design he is making of an archetypal city. There are shots of people in London, of police, of beautiful scripts in different languages, of fire and water, ofthe Tower of Babel in past art, of maps.

The sound includes quietly sonorous menacing music and a ticking clock.

Piper speaks of the 'memory of drowning'- floods- the refuge Tower of Babel that he says challenged God.

Aptly for our time of Coronavirus  there is a section on contamination, pandemics, the use of infected bodies as weapons, of smallpox inflicted on  Native Americans.

What Piper calls 'the memory of amputation' shows boundaries between areas of wealth and poverty. This is followed by 'cleansing', regulation, surveillance, the words are spoken calmly with the disquieting soundtrack behind them.

Finally there is burning, the destruction by God of Sodom and Gomorrah, his angels having failed to find ten pious people. Fires are mentioned that destroyed St.Pierre in Martinique, and in  Monserrat, both in the twentieth century, and before that the Fire of London, 1666,  that ended the Plague. Piper says that God seems to have a fondness for fire.

It ends with Piper reciting that God gave Noah the rainbow sign- still as we see recently a symbol of hope as we in lock down to  escape our current pestilence put rainbows in our wi- but 'it won't be water but fire next time'.

I don't know if Piper believes in God or simply finds the Biblical stories suitably apocalyptic. It's not a narrative with a clear plot but what is clear is that he expects the worst.

Keith Piper, born 1960 in Malta but brought up and living in Britain as a black artist, part of a group called the BLK art group, has done a great deal of work, exhibited widely,  and teaches at Middlesex University.

I loved his work that  I saw in Derby about how everyone has moved from one place to another, everyone's family have been migrants for personal betterment or to escape something. This was done very cleverly by inviting visitors to answer a questionnaire which was projected on the wall to reveal every person as a migrant.

He has done work about slavery- the 'Lost Vitrines' that were installed in the V & A to bring a new awareness about the Georgian exhibits and that era.

Recently in 2017 his 'Unearthing the bankers' bones' used fiction, history painting and video to make a complicated show about the evils of class and race discrimination.

Keith Piper is not an artist to repeat a signature piece. His work tackles serious and political themes in a variety of media. It's often complicated and requires time to absorb.

I think he is saying important things in imaginative and powerful ways.

Somehow this doesn't make him well known but he keeps at it with a controlled passion.

Leonardo da Vinci - on tv

Leonardo da Vinci   

BBC One - Da Vinci: The Lost Treasure

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b016xjq6

I am watching Fiona Bruce go from country to country showing on tv Leonardo da Vinci's work.

She started with the Salvator Mundi in New York thought to be by him. To me it looks unlike his work, too ill defined and fuzzy.

She is good at this exposition, rather self consciously strutting about in Italian sunshine in a very expensive looking yellow dress, then in a dark embroidered number.

There are lovely Italian words - the sound entrances me, thinking of a visit to Florence with my beloved husband, sadly killed by docetaxl. How glad I am we went as he had always wanted to.

When I was an undergraduate we had a trip to Italy to study art but the Last Supper was closed as it was Easter, so I have only seen a copy in Caglieri in Sicily. Fiona Bruce shows a us a richly coloured English copy. Such a lively composition.

Then it's the Madonna of the Rocks - Luke Syson from our National Gallery talks about light and sfumato. A restorer is shown working on it.

We get a good explanation of Leonardo's multi faceted explorations into weapon design and anatomy.

Now we get to the Mona Lisa, which I remember feeling surprised to find so small.

I think it's the way the background doesn't match up in a straight line that keeps us looking, and of course the slight smile, about to change, to react to us as the viewer as if we have just met her, and the quiet glow of her in the darkness.

So, ten minutes left for the discovered painting, revealed by infra red photography.

I still don't buy it - not that I could afford it.

They say it's a real Leonardo.

If so its his worst.

Issues re Corona Virus 2020

Issues re virus

Thinking about stuff.

1.Many people who are old, sick or alone won't find it that much different to 'self-isolate' from normal.

2.If everyone who is sick stays at home there should be a lot fewer colds and normal flu and a change from virtuous masochistic culture.

3. Would it be a good time to try out universal pay to cover food-claim it back from most later in tax?

4. If children are left with un checked adults there could be increased abuse.

5.Many parents might enjoy being at home with their children and want a life with a better work-life balance.

6.Home-schooling might increase in future and children might enjoy not being in chaotic overcrowded bullying environments where classes are too large. Some might learn more.

7 A year with no exams might be ok.

8. Time to read and play music and talk together at home.

9.Would be far worse without online stuff and phones.

10 Might be pressure to improve daytime tv.

11 Apparantly a lot cleaner air in Bejing etc where factories have closed?

12 Will humanity one day be wiped out by a similar but more deadly virus spread?

13.If they accidentally find a cure for the common cold during research for the new virus will we get the cure?

14. Motive to move the homeless into accommodation so they aren't coughing all over those that pass by?

15. Rationing may be needed if people panic buy.

Evelyn Williams and Carlos Zapata at Anima Mundi, St.Ives

Evelyn Williams and Carlos Zapata at Anima Mundi, St.Ives, Cornwall, UK


Feb 22nd to March 31st , 2020


Evelyn Williams died 2012, aged 83, having completed a body of work said to be hard to categorise and having left a Trust to help women artists. I was told at Anima Mundi that the director, Joseph Clark, found a painting by her in a charity shop and purchased it. It turned out to have been stolen from a show and he decided to organise this exhibition of her paintings. There were two books about her oeuvre to peruse.


Most of the works had two figures in them so the relationship between them seemed to be the subject. One had a naked woman emerging from the side of a naked man, recalling the biblical creation story.

I didn't like the very pink fleshy tones of the bodies, a bit like Lucian Freud but not I think observed but imagined. The backgrounds contrasted with the bodies to emphasise them as the focus. They are striking works but to me didn't embody clear feelings. Maybe they are worked on too long which results in a certain heavy handedness. One small picture of two heads in watercolour was much more free and spontaneous

looking so I thought the artist in making large works had found it difficult to maintain her freshness of approach or maybe didn't value that and wanted to make more deliberated images when working on a larger scale. The artist said her subject was 'inner thoughts, other worlds'.

Reading about her I am horrified to see Evelyn Williams was sent to board at Summerhill before she was three and spoke of a remaining sadness from this. I would say she suffered abandonment by her parents. She also felt her whole generation were affected by the holocaust and did a great picture of a huge bomb exploding over a mass of people- depicted naked to show their vulnerability and give a timeless quality.


Anima Mundi shows a interesting video on the website of an interview of the artist on bbc Wales 2007 and I am left pleased to learn about her.


Prices were between £2,800 and £13,000




Carlos Zapata is from Colombia but lives in Falmouth. He uses a variety of materials for his sculptures of figures and works in different sizes. There are references to gods and to celtic culture. The waxed steel 'sacred book' has ragged looking pages with no discernible text as if it has been burnt.

I liked best 'celtic mother', in grey polyphant stone, smaller than life size and a gentle, tender image.

There was an expressive charcoal drawing 'bog man' and a roughly textured textile version in 3D.
'Celt' was a painting of a man as if dead with the head and genitals blocked out by added pieces of hessian - the reason not being apparent.

I like his figures when they are whole but the torsos and heads are more macabre.

I've liked other works by Zapata more than these but it's always interesting to see his sculptures because at their best they have are simple directness that is very appealing.

Prices are from £1,800 to £7,200.

Cecilia 'Leaps and bounds' performance at Porthmeor studios, St.Ives, UK

Cecilia, 'Leaps and Bounds' , a performance at Porthmeor studios , St.Ives, Cornwall, UK
29th Feb 2020


About 25 of St.Ives arty cognoscenti assembled to watch this 13 minute free performance.
I invited someone from the Pool club but he said it would be ultra sophisticated middle class impenetrable nonsense.


So was it?


The dancer was a largish woman, probably over 50, who moved very deliberately and confidently, using various props and with a recording playing of seagulls, song and guitar.


There was a photo of a young man, a womb shape on the floor outlined in red cord, blank paper at first cradled like a baby and then torn up, finally some of it made into a bird shape that could fly away. There was some vigorous sort of South American dance, a bit scary at eye level from where I sat. There were stones moved and placed in a line and the performer sat gazing out of the window, sometimes reacting as if sharply noticing something.


I took it to be a sorrowful discarding of the torn up paper, perhaps the unlived life of a son who died? The dancing seemed a wild attempt to maybe pretend to be happy, or a brief respite from sorrow, followed by looking through the window for a shred of hope.


It had meaning to the maker but wasn't all that clear for the viewer. Dance usually has a written program that tells you the story and can be read before or after. As it was, seeing it cold, I spent all my time puzzling over the meaning.


At the end we were invited to ask questions but this was rather cut short by the performer saying she had said what she wanted to say in the performance. We were given cards on which to respond. Most people reacted by doing curvilinear drawings which were pegged on a line. I put a question mark.


I thought it was for the artist a lost opportunity to find out honestly what folk made of it.
These opportunities are rare outside college and here was a group of people who could have helped her communicate better in future - if she had been really interested in their understanding.

Reflecting on it I seem to have formed a cohesive interpretation - so perhaps inviting a response by email later would have been appropriate.


It was not nonsense, it was an effort to express something meaningful, done with serious intent and worthy of respect.







Note: I found out later that Cecilia is a student on the Porthmeor Programme - a lengthy mentoring course for artists.

Michael Wood, bbc channel 4 tv., 'The Lady of the Mercians' from the series 'King Alfred and the Anglo -Saxons'

Michael Wood, bbc channel 4 tv., 'The Lady of the Mercians' from the series 'King Alfred and the Anglo -Saxons'



This hour long program shows Michael Wood with his usual impish enthusiasm exploring the life of Aethelflaed in the tenth century in Britain, before England existed as a unified country, Queen of Mercia, at a time when she needed to either fight or to negotiate with Vikings and did both.


I thought this program was really beautifully made. Every shot of bleak countryside or present day towns was stunningly beautifully composed and lit. A shot of a field's rich earth surface was like an abstract painting. My own home town of Derby, a place the Vikings named, was shown looking so beautiful that I almost felt like returning there.

Derby

Derby - Sadlergate

Suitably spare and evocative music was used.

In addition to this there were many images of medieval manuscripts, hand written, which the presenter was able to read and translate from the Anglo Saxon. There was an elaborate illustrated family tree of the Monarchs on a scroll. There were drawings done with that lively economy of line in pen and ink that is so delightful and with which in my own drawings I feel a great affinity.

Aethelflaed

Michael Wood talked to various learned historians and archaeologists who each made interesting contributions.
We saw precious objects and ancient buildings. Above all we learnt that occasionally a woman could have a lot of power and influence in the middle ages.

There were a lot of battles and inhumane slaughter. It was almost the custom that plotters would murder rival heirs to the throne.

Returning to our present political democracy it seemed with all its difficulties a good deal more tolerant and peaceful.

Michael Wood turned the pages of a book made about a thousand years ago - not wearing gloves, in direct contact with the scribe who wrote it, and we participated in his wonderful enthusiasm and knowledge.





Note- there is a controversy over the term 'Anglo-Saxon' which has been used by racists in USA
but was used from early times without any such connotations as is explained by Michael Wood elsewhere.

I Kill Giants - a film review.

'I Kill Giants', a film directed by Anders Walter 2018. Stars Madison Wolfe, Zoe Saldana, Imogen Poots and Sydney Wade

This film is about a young secondary school attending girl called Barbara constructing an elaborate fantasy that helps her deal with an unbearable situation in her life. 

This makes her fairly unbearable also and we see people trying to help her and some girls being nasty to her in the general odious ways of school bullies.

Unfortunately it would be difficult to watch this movie without having already grasped something of the plot from the cover or the publicity.

Therefore the ending isn't entirely surprising although not completely obvious.

Also the plot hinges on no one mentioning facts that it's unlikely no one at the school young Barbara attends would know and mention.

The acting is fine and the special effects of frightening giants are impressively gothic. The details are imaginatively peculiar and the brooding landscape is dramatic.

One scene moved me to tears and then I felt the ending was unrealistic - the director's own escape into a comforting optimism.

It's an interesting foray into using imagery to convey emotions - film being so suited to indicating visions and craziness but so rarely used for this.

I call it a brave attempt to tackle how the mind can invent to protect a person from pain that is too much to stand.

Maybe that's why we have religion persisting in a scientific era but Barbara constructs her own mythology.

Naum Gabo at Tate St.Ives 25th Jan to May 3rd 2020

Naum Gabo at Tate St.Ives. (1890-1977)


On the way in through gallery one there is a beautiful golden coloured Gabo, made of bronze, looking a bit too large for its corner and apparently at one stage it was in the main show. I'm told it's too fragile on its minimal support to be allowed out of its protective acrylic case. It's simple, geometric, metal formed into a curvilinear form, constructed using machinery to acheive a perfectly satisfying composition. Its presence in a room with Brian Wynter, Sandra Blow etc. claims him as one of our own in St.Ives.

The Gabo show entrance before the large gallery has a large female head made of planes of metal also feeling very oversized in its space and a small golden work high up in a corner, for those who find it, placed like an icon in a home.

It's a hundred years since Naum Gabo, after leaving to avoid being enlisted in World War One, returned to be an enthusiastic part of the early revolutionary excitement and was distributing his Realistic Manifesto in the streets of Moscow. One copy is in a display case with a translation below but I wonder why the show wasn't constructed around these glorious sentences which carry the flavour of a time we can hardly imagine when a unifying vision of better times had swept Lenin and the Bolsheviks to power. Artists saw abstraction not as the chic accompaniment to a second home it may be today but as a rejection of worn out cliches and a leap forward to an art that sought something essential and meaningful that would affect the whole of society.

'Today is the deed.
We will account for it tomorrow.
The past we are leaving behind as carrion.
The future we leave to fortune tellers.
We take the present day.'


The exhibition is split in half by a curved grey hospital curtain which has even an instruction not to touch it inscribed on the floor and I was puzzled as to why this was made such a dominating feature. I mentioned this to a woman who turned out to be Nina Williams, Gabo's daughter, born in Carbis Bay 1941, and she said she was delighted with the whole display, but I would have prefered it to be removed.

There is a charming video of Nina playing with a toy her father made her in which tiny models are activated by static electricity.

There are models for buildings, monuments, sculptures, mono prints, paintings, drawings and films so you get a great idea of the wide scope of Gabo's work. I loved the film of La Chatte ballet using dancers with circular and square frames wielded wittily. Gabo constructed work with new materials aiming to work with space and kinetic possibilities.

The walls have been painted subtle green and dark turquoise and make an interesting change from the white austerity which has become routine for modernist galleries.


Gabo left Russia again. From my internet research, which I recommend as there are so many images if Gabo's works available and even film of him speaking, I find that he did not fit in with Tatlin and El Lissitsky's views and was not admitted to the Central Soviet of Artists which would have guaranteed him paid work.

Gabo chose to leave and was not to be allowed back until 1962.The tide was already turning from the early revolutionary embracing of pure abstraction and Gabo left for Germany, later as anti semitism grew, moving on to Paris and London, and arriving in St.Ives where he was for seven years.

Here Gabo influenced Barbara Hepworth but felt she stole his ideas rather him becoming a valued member of the incrowd. He left for America 1946, where he found fame and fortune.

Gabo was the son of a wealthy industrialist who owned metal works and the father's finance enabled Naum to travel and pursue art. He said he was converted to the revolution at the age of fifteen on seeing Cossack brutality in putting down the early protests in Russia. He had been
expelled from primary school for writing subversive poetry about the headmaster. He had not been admitted to St.Petersberg Art School and remained self taught.


Nowadays it's difficult to think of any artist rising to prominence without the required education and a string of official awards and residences.- as evidenced by the other artist featured at Tate St,Ives at the moment - Emily Speed.


So, ironically the revolutionary Gabo who left Russia, perhaps because his dedication to his art outweighed his political fervour, succeeded because of his capitalist father's funding and made his own residences moving from country to country. His influence on international art and design was considerable.


I would have liked some context about the Russian artists with whom Gabo parted company, but these one person shows are devoted to the idea of one genius so comparisons with these and with Hepworth are left to the visitor to make for themselves.

Emily Speeed at Tate St.Ives

Emily Speed at Tate St.Ives 'Rooms Designed For A Woman' 25 Jan to 3 May 2020


Tate have been using the last gallery to feature an artist with a video that requires no invigilator and often sadly fails to capture many visitors' attention as they leave without stopping to view it.

This one being only a five minute loop has some chance of being seen.

As before there is little information on the artist and no catalogue, although she has exhibited widely and made a variety of work.

Here she shows a model house within which a woman is restricted but moves. There are also shots of a woman with elaborate eye make up eating a house shaped cake with considerable dramatic attack.

I was reminded of Marisol's sculptures in the seventies' wave of American feminism.

It was quirky and puzzling and I could not see the connection with Gabo which was said to be there.

I think these small additional shows deserve more resources - at least a leaflet.

It seems like a sweetie given on the way out.

Keir and The Man from Laramie

'The Man from Laramie' 1955 directed by Anthony Mann


Which young woman wouldn't like James Stewart to stroll into her store with a delivery in a small town where there's no one to keep law and order and men have to be men in the archetypal glamourous fighting for honour and justice way that this hero embodies?


The wide open country is a dangerous place with Apache attacks and murderous lawless settlers. James Stewart is attacked, threatened, lassoed and dragged through the dust, his wagons burnt and his mules shot dead and that's in the first few minutes.

Distinctly untraumatised he persists, having revenge in mind for his brother's death and that sort of instant love in his heart that we can't help wanting to work out well with the young woman he met at the store.


I've seen it before and I lie back to enjoy the confidant hero's drawling laconic bravery.


When they say we need a winner to lead the Labour Party, and they generally mean by that not a woman and certainly not one who is only 40 years old, is this what they want? A cowboy with a quick draw to command respect and save us all?

I was brought up with these strong brave heroes, and it didn't really help to make relationships with the opposite sex easy when they were all modelling themselves on men on horses who said very little, didn't commit or settle down and rode off into the sunset.

But haven't things changed?


Who has endless bullets in his six shooter and whose the traitor in the posse?

The mainstream media are the baddies in the black hats. Someone's selling arms to the Apache.
The dramatic music is playing and we hope our hero can save the day.


It turns out the traitor was the one pretending loyalty, James is galloping over the rocky terrain and the proud Apache are on the skyline. Selling them guns makes the bad one guilty as hell but James lets him go so an arrow finishes him off.

Maybe the girl might pass through Laramie but James as ever rides away and Cathy O'Donnell has to be content with that.


And the election for Labour leader has one man and three women to choose between.

Can a woman be the one although the hero in the stories is almost always male?

Grace Pailthorpe and Reuben Mednikoff 'A tale of Mother's Bones.'

Grace Pailthorpe and Reuben Mednikoff 'A tale of Mother's Bones.'

at Newlyn Gallery and The Exchange, Penzance October 19, 2019 - January 4, 2020.


This show toured from Camden Arts Centre and De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea.


The Exchange part of this show had a recording of Pailthorpe explaining in detail one of Mednikoff's paintings using Freudian and Kleinian ideas of everything relating to his experience as a baby, his earliest supposed feelings about his mother, his faeces etc.

Mednikoff 'Anatomy of Space'

She speaks with remarkable certainty about the meaning of each element of the picture - I suppose based on prolonged therapeutic discussions with the artist, 23 years younger, with whom she shared her life.

Pailthorpe and Mednikoff had a long relationship and were unusual people and artists, seeking to understand themselves and the havoc of World War Two and fascism and to use art to help people in general.


Both artists' works have similarities and use figurative surreal imagery, sometimes black and white lino cuts,

Joint work

otherwise rather delicately detailed paintings in which breasts and phallic symbols, mountains and animals make a whole narrative world on which they made detailed notes from their psychological perspective.

Mednikoff

They had the large ambition to understand the roots of fascism, seeing it as stemming from an immature inability to share the good things in life, like an incoherent unconscious infantile jealousy and fear of the baby losing its food. I know from reading Alice Miller that child rearing pratices in the early twentieth century were often harsh and threatening - depriving children of warmth and affection. It is thought that Hitler was subjected to cruelty which resulted in him developing a self protecting armour and unleashing his early repressed rage with terrible consequences.
Grace Pailthorpe also suffered a lot as a child in a bleak Plymouth Brethren household.

Mednikoff 'Bengal Colonel' 1945-7

I enjoyed the show's two parts much more than I thought I would and was told many visitors said that. There was quite a bit to read but the liveliness and colour of the paintings and the attractive way they were displayed in blocks, sometimes on different strongly coloured wall areas, made the experience enjoyable. It made me want to share a meal and talk with these two people.
The catalogue looked fascinating and had sold out.

There had been some contact with the French surrealists and on a Canadian radio broadcast, which visitors could listen to in the gallery, Pailthorpe was described as the most important English Surrealist - but in reference books on surrealism Pailthorpe is rarely mentioned. The pair used surrealist methods such as spontaneous working to reach the unconscious.

Pailthorpe 1967 - 70

At Newlyn the visitor was invited to try a two minute doodle with materials provided or to add to a book of drawings with three interchangeable parts - one of the surrealists' games.


This show made me regard the two artists with respect, reconsider the benefits of surreal experimentation, remember the power of art therapy and enjoy interacting with these works.




( Mary Fletcher worked for a time as an art therapist with adults with mental health difficulties)