(no subject)
Legal research class this evening, co-presented with one of the lecturers in the big lecture hall. Died on my ****. Not used to the technology, or to trying to do my spiel into an auditorium. Oh well, you live and lem*.
Then met up with inkognitoh at the Tate Britain. She'd got tickets for the Camden Town Group/Peter Doig exhibitions. The CTG stuff was slightly odd. They seemed to look back to the Impressionists but not quite get it right - maybe like the Stones failing to play the blues properly, though at least they accidentally invented British rock. They also reminded me at times of a lot of later - and better - British artists: Lowry, Stanley Spencer, Lucien Freud... Still, there were some good pictures.
Peter Doig's landscapes and townscapes were something else. Where the TCG had slavishly tried to copy Van Gogh, Doig had got what JMW Turner was doing and done it in his own way. "Hitch hiker" is "Wind, Steam and Speed" with an artic lorry. His pictures were really striking - like if Jackson Pollock did paintings of houses, or if Christmas card snowscapes were painted by someone really bitter about the human condition.
*"Live and lem": a phrase inspired by playing Lemmings. After your attempt to solve a level had gone horribly wrong, resulting in the deaths of all the lemmings you were trying to save, the rueful realisation that this had been the wrong strategy and you wouldn't be trying it again.
Then met up with inkognitoh at the Tate Britain. She'd got tickets for the Camden Town Group/Peter Doig exhibitions. The CTG stuff was slightly odd. They seemed to look back to the Impressionists but not quite get it right - maybe like the Stones failing to play the blues properly, though at least they accidentally invented British rock. They also reminded me at times of a lot of later - and better - British artists: Lowry, Stanley Spencer, Lucien Freud... Still, there were some good pictures.
Peter Doig's landscapes and townscapes were something else. Where the TCG had slavishly tried to copy Van Gogh, Doig had got what JMW Turner was doing and done it in his own way. "Hitch hiker" is "Wind, Steam and Speed" with an artic lorry. His pictures were really striking - like if Jackson Pollock did paintings of houses, or if Christmas card snowscapes were painted by someone really bitter about the human condition.
*"Live and lem": a phrase inspired by playing Lemmings. After your attempt to solve a level had gone horribly wrong, resulting in the deaths of all the lemmings you were trying to save, the rueful realisation that this had been the wrong strategy and you wouldn't be trying it again.