Falmouth BA show 2024

 Sink at Belmont House

 

There are  about 100 artists in the show, most of them women.
Falmouth University doesn’t give this huge exhibition much publicity and in three hours I only see six other visitors. Several buildings are without any invigilators.
There is no information about what the course content is so we only see each student’s final project and we don’t know their degree results.
Hardly anyone presents anything for sale but quite a few have business cards to collect and a few have give away items. There is little invited participation and no performance.
It’s mostly introspective installations with lots of fabric used and assembled collected ready made things, videos and lots to read. Only the drawing BA has a printed catalogue - and drawing can mean anything.
There’s scarcely any use of wood or metal, stone or ceramics.

Trying to take an overview, mostly the students, who I presume are generally under 25, are preoccupied with their personal identity and problems. There are warnings about suicide as a topic and references to violence in war, to distress, illness, disability and sexual orientation.
A few refer to the outside world, what it looks like, ownership of land and industry, but there’s nothing definitely socialist or traditionally political - there’s mention of women, hints of feminism, portrayal  of vaginas, protest at Greenham, nature as wonderful and the need to conserve it, Dionysian intoxication, and postwar Germany,
It’s mostly about individuals but two artists feature meeting a range of friendly people and having conversations.

My prize for the most memorably meaninglessly horrible exhibit is the room containing two sordid toilets that smells heavily of urine. Elliot Millin gives no clues about it.

Most surprising is the piece that mentions god, by Rebekah Mohamed. There are elegantly written words drawn directly on the wall and gentle sounds and recorded spoken words  - it’s all pale, quiet, contemplative and refers to psalms in the  Bible. 

 part of R Mohamed's installation

 

I liked the drawings of a woman with birds and their twittering on overhead speakers - all about her loss of hearing, by Violet Hill

Violet Hills

I watched the video about a disfunctional family, my attention captured by the way it was constructed and performed.  Its the work of Diana-Maria Ghita, who references the book, ‘What is love?’ by feminist Bell Hooks and uses the same title.

 from Ghita's video

The installation extolling libraries made a change from the personal, with an unusual largedistorted  photograph of bookshelves and then an assemblage of bookcases at odd angles from which you could take a book. I took F.Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘Tender is the Night.’
Lily Tyrrell made this.

 Lily Tyrrell

Nowadays you have to be wealthy or willing to incurr a hefty debt to attend these courses.
I talked to a group who were invigilating who had enjoyed being on the BA although one was glad to stop having to explain everything.
Its not surprising that young students have a lot of personal angst to express but maybe it’s become more general?
Are there similar trends on other BA courses round the globe?

It was a stimulating foray into the minds of Falmouth’s class of ‘24

A relief also to leave this world of self absorbed reconnaissance that feels rather claustrophobic.

St Ives Society 'Spring Open' show

St.Ives Society ‘Spring Open’ 2024

The St Ives Society was the one Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson left  to form the Penwith Society in the height of St Ives’ fame when modernism flourished here and in America.

Now two open shows per year provide varied art and useful income for the society which exhibits in the Mariners’ Church.
The opening was crowded, 323 works had been submitted and most it seems were accepted.
Marie Keeling had arranged them, grouping by themes and types, grey- blue abstractions together, a wall of flower paintings, seascapes, geometrical arrangements, plus ceramic vessels and sculpture and a case of delicate jewelry. It’s  a giant installation of what is going on in the local scene. Much the same mix as last time with nothing controversial, nothing overtly political.
A lot of artists do much the same things repeatedly so if you like what they do it’s fine and if not it’s tedious. Many have exhibited here for years but I met a couple who submitted there for the first time and were delighted to be included.
Could any of these artists become famous beyond St Ives?
How does that happen?
Are these local shows similar globally?
Should clear pastiches of the famous such as Basquiat be either not accepted or at the least acknowledged?
Could innovation be encouraged?
Does the variety mirror that in the contemporary art world?
Is it just harmless fun and a welcome outlet for the many who belong to a loose knit community catering to the tourist trade?
As in football there are a few with genius status who are famous worldwide and become wealthy and then the others, in various leagues down to those kicking a ball about in a nearby cul de sac and all of it shows the importance of art and football at every level in our so hierarchied society.

 

Images are Jenny Beavan, .energised water' porcelain, glass and pebbles, £475

and El Matador Del Muerte, 'Hold Fast' concrete, paint and resin, £265

 

Harold Harvey at Penlee Gallery, Penzance

'A kitchen Interior' 1918

'Portrait of a Girl 1922'

 

 

The Exceptional Harold Harvey, May 1 to Sept 29 2024, Penlee Gallery,Penzance

Harold Harvey was born 1874 and died 1941

This exhibition is a real visual treat and also has panels giving useful background information on the artist’s life, plus there is a lovely book to accompany the show.

How simple his life seems compared with that of a contemporary artist today trying to find a career in a post modernist world of installations and concepts, grants and fellowships.

Harold studied art in Penzance and Paris and settled in Newlyn, teaching at his own school of art, sending paintings to the Royal Academy shows and living happily with his wife Gertrude within the artists’ colony.

He shows us the countryside in well observed detail and with colours that look as if they were painted yesterday. No doubt he used photography to supplement his knowledge.
We see young women going out for an evening, hikers, miners, flower-pickers and beach goers. There are delightful interiors and twenties and thirties fashion depicted with such care. His style develops through the years. The compositions use rhythm and complexity to evoke a whole era and you can feel you’ve met the people and been to their homes and surroundings.

I suppose everywhere there are artists carrying on this record of life in their own time which has a historical value as well as an aesthetic quality and Harold Harvey ’s paintings remain as such accomplished examples to inform and entertain us.
 

Danny Dyer on 'How to be a Man'

 Danny Dyer in ‘How to be a Man’ Channel 4, two one hour episodes.

Danny Dyer seems quite  likeable as he puts together a collection of rambles round this subject, from a kindly chat with his daughter about his grandson to looking at bondage gear and hearing about boundaries in a sex shop.
I read that he met his wife when she was 14 and they are still together so maybe he’s as nice as Paul Newman. He was discovered as an actor at a teenage acting club for disadvantaged children.

Danny  tells us the high suicide statistics for men and goes to a gym where men box and sometimes talk. He insists men and women are different- men not liking to talk on personal subjects face to face, being competitive, protective, physically stronger than women, but he also  finishes with an effective unpaid  advertisementent for cacao in a men’s retreat, dancing, venerating women and suggesting there are many ways to be a man outside the stereotypes.
Its good - hearted and might encourage both sexes to relax a bit about how they express their gender.

One thing bothered me in the first program so I made a tally in the second. One man other than Danny used the f word -  and in the presence of his small child. Danny however, in the 45 minutes if taking out the ads, and saying he spoke half the time, used ‘fuck’ or ‘fuckin’ 56 times - an average of about every 30 seconds. Once this referred to sex.
Now when he was on ‘Whose life is it anyway,’ investigating his ancestors, I do not remember this habit.
Is there a group for involuntary expletive addiction?

Bruce Parry travels up the Amazon, BBC4

 Amazon with Bruce Parry, BBC 4   April 2024 Dir. Rob Sullivan

I watched Bruce Parry for an hour as he spent time with two isolated tribes in the Amazon forest and some loggers.
I got some appreciation that it’s a vast region in which tribes can remain fairly isolated although their clothes and gadgets show contact with the outside world as does their vulnerability to hepatitis B, originating from contact with prostitutes in the nearest city.
Bruce goes along with whatever the people around him are doing, from balancing on logs in the river to ordeals for men by ant sting.
He does not offer medication for suffering children or suggest that hours chanting over them may not cure them.
It does occasionally cross his mind that the natives may be playing to the camera. He calls the way they laugh at his difficulties ‘having a good sense of humour.’
I don’t hear Bruce asking what about if there’s equality between the sexes, toleration of differences, or acceptance of same sex relationships. He doesn’t find out how decisions are made, or what childcare is like. How do people go out beyond the tribal society and do they ever return?
There’s a great deal of male camaraderie - in fact what it mostly reminds me of is an episode of Top Gear - competition, jeering and public school peculiarities.
 In this Bruce holds up ok, eats, sleeps and after hearty hugs, leaves.

Art Exposed Julian Spalding

Art Exposed.  Julian Spalding. 2024

Julian Spalding has been a controversial curator and director of important art museums in uk and in this book he presents various writings about his experiences and his thoughts on art. These are put in alphabetical order which is novel as is that every person he meets is described physically.

Julian would like better lit art galleries. He has several times mooted shows such as one about Jesus, which were not mounted and he goes into the frustrations of his jobs as well as his successes.

He dislikes Duchamp and asserts that Damian Hirst’s work isn’t art. He  likes Beryl Cook ‘s paintings, using one for the cover of the book which made me hesitate to buy it.

He includes writing about very famous artists and lesser known ones that he has boldly championed. 

He deplores the lack of open submission shows and the undue influence of commercial art dealers. He dislikes Anthony Gormley, calling him ‘ the hollow man of British Art’. He extols drawing and loves Ruskin.

However, whatever his views are, this is a writer whose great energy and enthusiasm is clear and who has a wonderful ability to write clearly and vividly.

I was on the same unusual BA course as Julian Spalding at Nottingham University. It combined fine art taught in town at the art college with art history studied at the University on the out of town campus. There were only about ten students in each year and the four year course only ran for four years, I think because the two sets of staff could not cooperate.

I remember how articulate and passionate Julian was in telling our Professor what our demands were when Hornsey students came up to politicise us and we had our own minor revolution.

The revelation to me from this latest book is that Julian was brought up on a council estate and reared on ‘puritanical communism’. I was in the year after his and seeing him in action and being  best friends with a student who had lots of money I was entirely taken in by what he calls his adopted ‘aspirational accent’. One of my friends was secretly, as far as I know, in love with him.

I still can’t quite believe what he says about having these origins. 

I’m not mentioned in the book. I effortlessly failed to make what might have been a very beneficial contact with this man who went onto a stellar career. Once given a general invitation by his first wife Frankie, the renowned art historian, who was also at Nottingham, to visit them when I met her  by chance at a Bobbie Baker performance years later, I could not really imagine going to stay at their house because I couldn’t have returned their hospitality having nowhere to put up guests.

They both chose the art historical path after University whereas I pursued being an artist and supporting myself via school teaching at the comprehensive chalkface.

Anyway it’s a fascinating read by a man who struck me as very clever and  eloquent and has  written a number of books that are original and enjoyable.

Women's Work at Helston Museum of Cornish Life March 8-23rd 2024

 Women’s Work- an art exhibition at Helston Museum of Cornish Life, Market Place, Helston.
March 8 - 23, Monday to Saturday, 10 - 4  Free admission.

Stina Falle, an artist living in Goldsithney, had the idea to organise an art exhibition inspired by the example of Denny Long, who often worked with groups of women, and lived in Cornwall for some years before her final illness.

Somehow a group of women emerged, many who knew the artist Denny Long, and it was agreed to make a mandala of segments united by the theme of women who have been inspiring.

The result is an extremely varied assemblage which is arranged to flow in a circle of colour to be viewed horizontally in the round. The women referenced range from groups to individuals, from personal contacts to famous people. The media chosen contrast paint, collaged materials, embroidered surfaces and printed fabrics. There is a book with further information about the pieces and visitors may write their own contributions in a book provided.

In addition women are contributing other work united by the theme of women - part of what can be termed fourth wave feminist action. This will be in the upstairs gallery area at the back of the museum, please check for lift access.

 

Susie Chaikin mosaic 'femininity rising'

Also there will be a wide variety of workshops from a reading session to all kinds of creative activities and making reusable eco friendly sanitary pads. These sessions are free, and can be seen listed at the museum information online site - www.museumofcornishlife.co.uk

Stina Falle commented about the process of allowing the mandala to emerge from the effort, skills and enthusiasm of the group ‘I think everything we do in a collective way contributes to a sense of generosity and co - operation in the world - which is what we need.’

 

Sarah Sullivan 'She of the Sea Totem'

Charlie Lewin , felt vessel