(no subject)
In a pathetic attempt to make up for having lain about the house torpidly for the last two weeks, I decided to go out somewhere improving and non-course-related today, and picked the Colour after Klein exhibition at the Barbican. As the bus passed Old Street tube station I noticed that it had been closed off, and further down, so was Moorgate. By this time I was almost at the gallery, so I carried on, and checked with the men at the admissions desk and found that as far as they knew, there had been nail and/or smoke bombs at several tube stations. My nephew, home from school, confirmed this, so, since I was there anyway, I went in, but I couldn't really concentrate.
Colour after Klien turned out to be rather thin and disappointing, with surprisingly few actual exhibits, especially if you left out the video bits, which which were all in scary dark rooms I didn't want to go into. The main Louise Bourgeois piece was downright creepy, consisting of an enclosure of old wooden doors filled with domestic odds and ends in dark red glass and wax mouldings of hands and arms in the same colour. All the best bits were in the advance publicity, including a room of shapes covered in powder pigment by Anish Kapoor, a lovely calming room with a panel of blue-violet light on the wall, and a corner illuminated in coloured neon that felt like standing in a chunk of lime jelly.
I came out, had some tea and a bun, and while trying to find the way out passed another show in an exhibition space I'd never seen before (the Barbican is like that). Folk Archive was a really fascinating and funny collection of ancient (or fairly ancient) British folk art odds and ends, from film of the Padstow 'Oss, the flaming tar-barrel running at Ottery St Mary (which I remember being terrified by as a teenager) and several more or less scary 'oss costumes from Kent to drawings done by inmates of Pentonville prison and an interesting collection of home-made prison tattoing devices via oddly-decorated cakes, animals constructed out of vegetables (a perennial class in the children's section of flower shows in my childhood) and funeral wreaths shaped like footballs. The exhibits were all barmy in a wonderfully local way, with one-offs like the wonderful mechanical elephant normally used to give rides to children at the seaside, the packet of cigarettes decorated to match a set of elaborately painted nails, and the sidecar hearse used for motorcycle funerals or customs so long-standing and with origins so lost in the mists of time as to be mildly (or very) scary. On investigation, the mists of time usually turn out to be no earlier than the sixteenth century, but I'm not sure that really matters in practice. A lot of the older customs were firmly in Wicker Territory, complete with sword dancing, men ineptly disguised as women, and grown men prancing about covered in burnt cork or vegetation. In Scotland, the Burry Man parades the streets of Queensferry covered in burdock burrs, which is apparently very uncomfortable indeed; they also had a set of his burry genitals, which were by a very long chalk the Least Comfortable Thing I Have Ever Seen In My Life. In Lewes there is a hugely elaborate fire festival featuring hordes of middle-aged ladies in American Indian outfits waving flaming torches, an exploding effigy of the pope, what looked in the video like three bishops being burned alive, and more flaming crosses than anyone really expects to see in rural Sussex. In Soho, the staff of a French bakery dress up and re-enact the French Revolution every July 14. Very much more interesting and colourful than the other exhibition, and free as well.
Unfortunately, while Colour after Klein is on until September, Folk Archive is only on until this Sunday, but I can very much recommend it to anyone within reach. But I also learned that the spectacular conservatory at the Barbican (complete with terappin pool and cactus annex) is open to the public again, on Sundays, and I can definitely recommend that as well.
Colour after Klien turned out to be rather thin and disappointing, with surprisingly few actual exhibits, especially if you left out the video bits, which which were all in scary dark rooms I didn't want to go into. The main Louise Bourgeois piece was downright creepy, consisting of an enclosure of old wooden doors filled with domestic odds and ends in dark red glass and wax mouldings of hands and arms in the same colour. All the best bits were in the advance publicity, including a room of shapes covered in powder pigment by Anish Kapoor, a lovely calming room with a panel of blue-violet light on the wall, and a corner illuminated in coloured neon that felt like standing in a chunk of lime jelly.
I came out, had some tea and a bun, and while trying to find the way out passed another show in an exhibition space I'd never seen before (the Barbican is like that). Folk Archive was a really fascinating and funny collection of ancient (or fairly ancient) British folk art odds and ends, from film of the Padstow 'Oss, the flaming tar-barrel running at Ottery St Mary (which I remember being terrified by as a teenager) and several more or less scary 'oss costumes from Kent to drawings done by inmates of Pentonville prison and an interesting collection of home-made prison tattoing devices via oddly-decorated cakes, animals constructed out of vegetables (a perennial class in the children's section of flower shows in my childhood) and funeral wreaths shaped like footballs. The exhibits were all barmy in a wonderfully local way, with one-offs like the wonderful mechanical elephant normally used to give rides to children at the seaside, the packet of cigarettes decorated to match a set of elaborately painted nails, and the sidecar hearse used for motorcycle funerals or customs so long-standing and with origins so lost in the mists of time as to be mildly (or very) scary. On investigation, the mists of time usually turn out to be no earlier than the sixteenth century, but I'm not sure that really matters in practice. A lot of the older customs were firmly in Wicker Territory, complete with sword dancing, men ineptly disguised as women, and grown men prancing about covered in burnt cork or vegetation. In Scotland, the Burry Man parades the streets of Queensferry covered in burdock burrs, which is apparently very uncomfortable indeed; they also had a set of his burry genitals, which were by a very long chalk the Least Comfortable Thing I Have Ever Seen In My Life. In Lewes there is a hugely elaborate fire festival featuring hordes of middle-aged ladies in American Indian outfits waving flaming torches, an exploding effigy of the pope, what looked in the video like three bishops being burned alive, and more flaming crosses than anyone really expects to see in rural Sussex. In Soho, the staff of a French bakery dress up and re-enact the French Revolution every July 14. Very much more interesting and colourful than the other exhibition, and free as well.
Unfortunately, while Colour after Klein is on until September, Folk Archive is only on until this Sunday, but I can very much recommend it to anyone within reach. But I also learned that the spectacular conservatory at the Barbican (complete with terappin pool and cactus annex) is open to the public again, on Sundays, and I can definitely recommend that as well.