Made
Rewired bathroom light
Rehabbed back after 2010 gardening injury
Learnt how to make 2 kinds of pastry and steamed pudding
Planned winter sales shopping, saving £350
Read
Jane and Prudence – Barbara Pym
(and many others, of course)
Saw
Kristin Hersh, Afterlight (Russell Maliphant), Sylvie Guillem (Mats Ek, William Forsythe and Jirí Kylián), Fela! (Bill T. Jones, Jim Lewis), Drought and Rain (Ea Sola), 9 Lessons and Carols for Godless People.
Filed under Uncategorized
March 26 March
Lapa - Rio, Brasil
Parilla, Buenos Aires
Woods near The Old Man of Storr, Scotland
Birthday present
Christmas cheeseboard
Filed under Uncategorized
This Charming Man – Marian Keyes
One of her exceptional ones – truly an iron mind in a pastel slipcover.
The Driver’s Seat – Muriel Spark
Got 20 pages in and gave up when plot was revealed to involve murder and rape of protagonist
The Thing Around Your Neck – Chimanda Ngozi Adichie
Superbly plotted and observed short stories set in the US as well as Nigeria
Christie Malry’s Own Double-Entry – B.S. Johnson
Had planned to read this for a long time – I have half a memory that it’s one of the books read by Matilda in the Roald Dahl story, which considering the references to cancer, sodomy and genocide is quite in line with his sense of humour. A strange, dated, easy read.
Filed under books
Music
Kristin Hersh - Bloomsbury Theatre
Extracts of Paradoxical Undressing, plus songs including ‘Your Ghost’ and ‘Me and my Charms’ .
Books
Meet David Sedaris - recording for BBC Radio 4
His announcement that his final piece would be ‘Me talk pretty one day’ had to be re-recorded as the audience reacted ‘like a rock concert’, according to the producer. (Actually just multiple gasps of delight, which is not a sound loud enough to be heard at a rock concert, in my experience.)
Exhibitions
Natural History Museum - dinosaurs, birds, creepy crawlies, volcanoes
Lots very bright display boards which dwarfed and distracted from the objects in several of the galleries. I enjoyed the vitrine of humming birds most.
Victoria and Albert Museum – jewellery, theatre, Japan, China, Korea
The fashion and textile galleries are both closed currently.
Courtauld Gallery - permanent collection
I can’t believe I waited this long to look at Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Begere, or as I always think of it (with her ‘I care, but I’m knackered and I don’t want you to hit on me’ posture, her sad eyes and her sceptical pout) the patron saint of bar maids.
Detail from Edouard Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Begere
Fiction
Disobedience – Naomi Alderman
Girls of Riyadh - Rajaa Alsanea
The Sea – John Banville
The Monday Night Cooking School – Erica Bauermeister
Your presence is requested at Suvanto – Maile Chapman
The Amenable Woman – Mavis Cheek
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao – Junot Diaz
Drown – Junot Diaz
The Big Pink – Anne Fine
The Lais of Marie De France
My Cleaner – Maggie Gee
Helpless – Barbara Gowdy
Notes on a Scandal – Zoe Heller
Nature Girl – Carl Hiassen
Anybody Out There? – Marian Keyes
Sushi for Beginners – Marian Keyes
Watermelon – Marian Keyes
The Lost Language of Cranes – David Leavitt
Equal Affections – David Leavitt
Fruit of the Lemon – Andrea Levy
Family Album – Penelope Lively
Dancer – Colum McCann
Fall on your knees – Ann-Marie MacDonald
The Popularity Rules – Abby McDonald
Summer in the City – Pauline McLynn
Purple Hibiscus – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
How to breathe underwater – Julie Orringe
Woman’s World – Graham Rawles
Baby Sister – Marilyn Sachs
A Far Cry from Kensington – Muriel Spark
Girls of Slender Means – Muriel Spark
Mothers milk – Edward St Aubyn
The Bad Sister (omnibus) – Emma Tennant
Whistling for the Elephants – Sandi Toksvig
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen – Paul Torday
If morning ever comes – Anne Tyler
Fanny: A Fiction – Edmund White
The Married Man – Edmund White
Non-Fiction
Paid Servant – ER Braithwaite
The Perfect Scent – Chandler Burr
Good to Great – Jim Collins
A Reader in Promoting Public Health: Challenge and Controversy – J Douglas, S Earle, S Handsley, C Lloyd, S Spurr
Getting to Yes – Roger Fisher, William Ury
Fight the good fight – Catherine Fox
Offbalance: The real world of ballet – Suzanne Gordon
The Thoughtful Dresser – Linda Grant
Julie and Julia – Julie Powell
Fish, flesh and Good Red Herring – Alice Thomas Ellis
Home Life 3 – Alice Thomas Ellis
Perfumes: The A to Z Guide – Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez
The Wordy Shipmates – Sarah Vowell
Selective Memory – Katherine Whitehorn
Art
The Hoerengracht – Ed and Nancy Kienholz, National Gallery (February)
Exposures - Jane Bown, National Portrait Gallery (February)
Deutsche Borse Photography Prize 2010 – Photographer’s Gallery (March)
40 Years On (Selection of works by artists affiliated to Flowers over the past 40 years) – Flowers East (March)
Factum – Candace Breitz, White Cube (March)
Trio – Herbert Krenchel, Hans Wegner, Ib Gerstein – Rocket (March)
This is how we are going to change the world. I should be in charge – Bob and Roberta Smith, Hales Gallery (March)
The Unnameable – Pierre Ardouvin, Museum 52 (March)
Burn away fade out – Graham Dolphin, Seventeen Gallery (March)
We’re all Mad Here – Alice in popular culture, V&A (April)
Digital Pioneers – V&A (April)
The Concise Dictionary of Dress – curated by Judith Clark and Adam Phillips, Artangel (May)
Edward Burtinsky, Nadav Kander, Robert Polidori – Flowers Central (August)
This is not the Chelsea Flower Show -Robert Mapplethorp, Dora Maar, Neeta Madahar), Diemar/Noble (August)
Pyschopomps – Polly Morgan, Haunch of Venison (July)
Joana Vasconcelos – Haunch of Venison (July)
The Aspiration Factory - Tom Crawford, Floor 10 Gallery (September)
Books
Bobby Baker’s ‘Diary Drawings’ launch, including talks by Bobby Baker, Dora Whittuck (co-editor), curator of 2009 exhibition (free biscuit pictured above) – Wellcome Collection (April)
Bright Club: Books, featuring Jane Gilbert, Chiara Ambrosio, Myles MacDonald, Sarah Bennetto – Wilmington Arms (July)
Sarah Waters in conversation with John Mullan about The Little Stranger, Guardian Book Club (August)
The Book Stops Here (4 Denmark Street, W1):
Ned Beauman, Natasha Solomons, Adam Thirlwell (August)
Anjali Joseph, Jean Hannah Edelstein, Marie Phillips (September)
Evie Wyld, Sathnam Sanghera, Matthew Crawford (December)
Comedy
Black History Month comedy showcase (BBC radio recording). Compere: Stephen K Amos. Featuring Annette Fagan, Ava Vidal, Andi Osho, Felix Dexter, Eddie Kadi, Doc Brown, Nathan Caton, Slim, Felix Dexter. Hackney Empire (September)
Be honourable – Josie Long, Soho Theatre (November)
9 Lessons and Carols for Godless People – Compere: Robin Ince. Featuring: Josie Long, Ben Goldacre, Marcus de Sautoy, Baba Brinkman, Mitch Benn, Bloomsbury Theatre (December)
Dance
Programme 2: Hymn, Annointed, Revelations - Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre, Sadlers Wells (September)
Nearly 90 – Merce Cunningham Company, Barbican Centre (November)
Film
Whip It! – Drew Barrymore (April)
The Runaways – Floria Sigismund (September)
Time Out Live: Another Year by Mike Leigh. Screening of film, followed by discussion between Mike Leigh and Dave Calhoun, Time Out film editor (October)
History
Ministry of Food - Imperial War Museum (March)
The Cradley Heath Centenary - 3 short lectures on women in the British trade union movement, the Cradley Heath strike, the trades union library, 30 minute documentary including interviews with participants (December)
Lectures
The Morality of Charity – Martin Brookes, Anne-Marie Piper, Mark Easton (Chair) RSA, (September)
What is [International] Development For? Elaine Storkey, Matthew Taylor, Roy Trivedy, Paul Vallely, RSA, (October)
Music
A Yiddish Winterreise performed by Mark Glanville, Alexander Knapp – Purcell Room (January)
Little Fish – Brixton Academy (May)
Hole – Brixton Academy (May)
Kristin Hersh – Islington (July)
Pins And Needles (Musical) – Cock Theatre, NW6, (December)
Whitehall Orchestra playing Webern, Strauss, Bernstein, Vaughan-Williams – Pimlico Church, (December)
Dirty Projectors – Koko (December)
Jeff Mills - Lost, SE1 (December)
I recently came across this article on a smart (as in ‘intelligent’) person who works in the fashion industry and consequently several accompanying discussions as to whether fashion (without the intervention of a museum curator and a psychoanalyst) can be considered ‘art’.
I consider fashion to be one of the creative industries, rather than an art form.
Art (to me) is a unique or very limited event or object, which is not profit-making (i.e. it’s subsidised by the state or private donors), thus while couture may be limited, as long as it’s sold at a profit to the designer, it can’t be considered art.
The creative industries are those which replicate pieces of intellectual property for profit - including publishing and graphic design. Architecture is included, although an exception – it’s practised for profit, but results in unique objects (if we’re talking about the work of Zahar Hadid or Richard Rogers or similar).
Further elucidation: Chiwetel Ejiofor as Othello = art. Les Miserables = creative industries.
Of course the two fields feed off each other for ideas and sometimes for directly for content, in the case of artists monographs. Certainly in my experience, people who work in the creative industries sometimes do so because they do not wish to have the life of an artist, although they may have the talent.
This is not to dismiss the craft of fashion or the idea that some clothes are worthy of our attention as cultural artefacts – I just don’t think they are art.
Artangel is the organisation who make me want to do nothing but think about art and how it’s made, all day. Artangel overcomes the problems of contemporary art – that it is so often feels slight and amateurish (rushed, cheap) and imagines, schemes, cajoles, slogs and induces vast, complicated, expensive, deeply memorable experiences.
This summer’s Concise Dictionary of Dress was a 45 minute tour* of 11 installations composed of specially commissioned objects and display hardware and articles from the archive of the V&A, accompanied by a series of definitions. I was unthrilled by some of the accompanying text of the first work, Armoured. “3. Inviting attack by being prepared for it, provocative. 4. Heavier. 5. Sustaining belief in the inside and the outside, the invulnerable space and the essentially unprotected body” reminded me that Freud was a shit-head. A shame, as the installation, in an arch on the edge of a building high enough to see all over London, was one of my favourites.
The exhibition was held in Blythe House (a former post office sorting office and currently the archive of the British Museum, Science Museum and the V&A), reaffirming that Artangel have the surest touch when it comes to choosing venues and that the venue is as often as much a part of the work as the objects it contains.
*Our guide was polite but very firm, reminding me so much of how appallingly middle class people behave in their time off. They just do it in theatres as opposed to branches of Yates.
I’ll go to any Artangel project I can organise myself (and sometimes another person) into attending, namely:
Stifte’s Dinge – Heiner Goebbels (2008) -I saw this with Alix who managed to review it very decently.
Night Haunts – Sukhdev Sandhu (2006) – The website for this project is excellent, although you should probably look at it at three in the morning, to get the full effect. Alix and I attended the final ‘Nights of London‘ event, ‘Because the Night‘, which took place in the (out of use) Bethnal Green town hall, which included readings by Sandhu (I have fond memories of the jokes told by sewer workers), works on paper displayed, magic tricks, music by Scanner and a bar, of course.
Kuba – Kutlug Atman (2005) I attended this alone towards the end of the run, the building was grubby and there were almost no other visitors. I think might be the best way to see Artangel works, so you can get completely lost in them. Although you may end up running screaming from the venue having totally lost your sense of self.
The Cremaster Field – Matthew Barney (2002) – This was the first ever screening of all five films, in sequence, of the Cremaster Cycle, which felt like the work that took over the world in the mid-zeros. Admittedly, anyone with a passing interest in film, opera, architecture, vaseline, murder, musicals, TT racing, broad-shouldered women, legless women, process art, vaseline, men in kilts, men in suits, men in leather aprons, escapology, demolition derby, the Masons, bees, home-made tapshoes and vaseline, will find plenty to enjoy. (Although it took me two years to recover mentally from a pub conversation in which a group of us speculated as to the specifics of his proclivities.)
Femininity is an issue I restlessly turn over in my mind every time I stretch my feet after a day in high heels or deal with the baffled or disapproving glances of women when I confirm that no, I’m not wearing make-up today and yes, I regularly don’t wear it. I feel equally strongly that femininity is both a threat to self-expression and a form of self-expression.
Many manifestations of femininity are expensive forms of repression and hatred of the female body. Arguably some of these can be dismissed as ‘temporary’, such as make-up or high heels, and not potentially life-threatening, like cosmetic surgery. (Cosmetic surgery performed on a patient who has e.g. been in a car accident is a different situation – I’m talking about lip plumping and the like.)
Any modification supports the idea of the female face and body as needing alteration in order to be acceptable, and that people unwilling or unable to perform these alterations are unacceptable. (Choosing your choice? Please see here.)
Simultaneously however, I reject the status of the masculine as both the ideal and the norm. Marginalising the feminine and femininity as trivial or inferior is yet another manifestation of misogyny.
Many manifestations of femininity are expensive forms of repression and demonstrate hatred of the female body. Arguably some of these can be dismissed as ‘temporary’, such as make-up or high heels, and not potentially life-threatening, like cosmetic surgery, (when not performed as the result of a patient being scarred by a fire or car accident). Any modification supports the idea of the female face and body is something which must altered in order to be acceptable.
Simultaneously however, I reject the status of the masculine as both the ideal and the norm. Marginalising the feminine and femininity as trivial or inferior is yet another manifestation of misogyny.
Filed under rants
