Four art shows and a French new wave classic...
Seeing as I've managed to visit quite an impressive array of art shows in the last week or so, I thought I'd gather them all together into one update...
First of all, Damien Hirst's No Love Lost, which wasn't offensively bad, just entirely inconsequential. The repeated motifs of skulls, lemons, and so forth, with accompanying perspective lines weren't badly done, but they're hardly difficult things to paint, and the exhibition had neither enough repetition for that to have an effect (a la Warhol) or enough variety to make it interesting. There were maybe a couple of paintings in that exhibition I'd have on my wall, but to be honest I would have done them myself, and I probably still wouldn't look at them very often.
Hirst's cause wasn't helped a great deal by nesting his show in amongst so many stunning classical works. Right next door, for example is one of my favourite portraits, the strangely staring George IV (looking it, I always imagine I can see his father's madness shining brightly from his eyes), plus many other lovely pieces including some very odd looking mutant portraits of children, and some nice Flemish stuff (I never understand why most Flemish sea battle paintings seem to show the Dutch being hammered by the English - I always thought it was supposed to be the other way round).
After that, I took a pleasant stroll down to the Tate Modern to have a wander round in the giant metal wheelie bin they have in the turbine hall. This was actually a lot more impressive than I was expecting. Walking up the ramp to the cavernous opening is like walking through the gates of some massive medieval fortified city, or possibly the gates of hell itself, and inside it takes a while to adapt to a near darkness you rarely ever experience in London. It reminded me rather of my childhood, getting lost out in the woods on a moonless night. It would have been even more effective were it not full of people turning on their mobile phone torches to illuminate the gloom - I may have to go back at a less busy time to see if I can get the darkness all to myself. Muhahahahahaha!
On Sunday, I braved the lack of public transport and headed for Portobello, to take a look at the Mutate Exhibition - my pictures here - which is lurking under the arches of the Westway where the skate park used to be. I really recommend this show, it's masses of fun, with a combination of animal sculptures made from bits of old motorbikes, amazing graffiti, political stuff and a lot of culture-jamming. It was also nice to see some of the Mutoid Waste Company stuff I remember from festivals past. I didn't stick around that long as I was in a funny arty sort of mood, so we're going back for another visit this weekend.
Yesterday I managed to get a ticket to go and see the Chord Exhibition at Kingsway tram tunnel (my rubbish photos here, pretty much solely to get the chance to have a nose round the tunnels themselves.
The exhibit itself - two large machines weaving a massively long rope was interesting in its own right, mainly through the sense of scale of these large automatic machines ever so slowly moving down tracks and knitting a multi-coloured rope, like something out of Blofeld's fiendish imagination. The tunnels though, were so much more fascinating, relics of an earlier era, still with details such as tiles, tracks and even the station platform still in existence. I've wanted to do this since I was a kid, and used to imagine the long cobbled ramp was the entrance to some sort of secret underground base.
After meeting up with a couple of chums for a few jars at the Princess Louise (the pub that is four small pubs in one big one), I headed home, and finally managed to persuade my DVD player to play my copy of Le Samourai. This is one of my all time favourite films, possibly my favourite of all the French New Wave films (hmm, or maybe Alphaville). It's the beautifully inevitable story of Alain Delon's hitman who pulls off a near perfect hit, has a solid alibi, but still ends up in the merde (due to, surprisingly, a police force portrayed as effective and intelligent), with unpleasant results.
It's a beautifully downbeat and subtly acted piece, that drifts along at a beautifully relaxed, thoughtful pace, and contains very little dialogue, especially from the lead. In fact no one says a word for almost the first ten minutes of the film - I can't imagine that happening in a film these days. It's also a hugely influential film - if it wasn't for Le Samourai there wouldn't have been The French Connection, Ronin, Leon, Ghost Dog, and so on. I'm really hoping it'll show up again on the big screen at some stage, as I've never seen it at the cinema.
First of all, Damien Hirst's No Love Lost, which wasn't offensively bad, just entirely inconsequential. The repeated motifs of skulls, lemons, and so forth, with accompanying perspective lines weren't badly done, but they're hardly difficult things to paint, and the exhibition had neither enough repetition for that to have an effect (a la Warhol) or enough variety to make it interesting. There were maybe a couple of paintings in that exhibition I'd have on my wall, but to be honest I would have done them myself, and I probably still wouldn't look at them very often.
Hirst's cause wasn't helped a great deal by nesting his show in amongst so many stunning classical works. Right next door, for example is one of my favourite portraits, the strangely staring George IV (looking it, I always imagine I can see his father's madness shining brightly from his eyes), plus many other lovely pieces including some very odd looking mutant portraits of children, and some nice Flemish stuff (I never understand why most Flemish sea battle paintings seem to show the Dutch being hammered by the English - I always thought it was supposed to be the other way round).
After that, I took a pleasant stroll down to the Tate Modern to have a wander round in the giant metal wheelie bin they have in the turbine hall. This was actually a lot more impressive than I was expecting. Walking up the ramp to the cavernous opening is like walking through the gates of some massive medieval fortified city, or possibly the gates of hell itself, and inside it takes a while to adapt to a near darkness you rarely ever experience in London. It reminded me rather of my childhood, getting lost out in the woods on a moonless night. It would have been even more effective were it not full of people turning on their mobile phone torches to illuminate the gloom - I may have to go back at a less busy time to see if I can get the darkness all to myself. Muhahahahahaha!
On Sunday, I braved the lack of public transport and headed for Portobello, to take a look at the Mutate Exhibition - my pictures here - which is lurking under the arches of the Westway where the skate park used to be. I really recommend this show, it's masses of fun, with a combination of animal sculptures made from bits of old motorbikes, amazing graffiti, political stuff and a lot of culture-jamming. It was also nice to see some of the Mutoid Waste Company stuff I remember from festivals past. I didn't stick around that long as I was in a funny arty sort of mood, so we're going back for another visit this weekend.
Yesterday I managed to get a ticket to go and see the Chord Exhibition at Kingsway tram tunnel (my rubbish photos here, pretty much solely to get the chance to have a nose round the tunnels themselves.
The exhibit itself - two large machines weaving a massively long rope was interesting in its own right, mainly through the sense of scale of these large automatic machines ever so slowly moving down tracks and knitting a multi-coloured rope, like something out of Blofeld's fiendish imagination. The tunnels though, were so much more fascinating, relics of an earlier era, still with details such as tiles, tracks and even the station platform still in existence. I've wanted to do this since I was a kid, and used to imagine the long cobbled ramp was the entrance to some sort of secret underground base.
After meeting up with a couple of chums for a few jars at the Princess Louise (the pub that is four small pubs in one big one), I headed home, and finally managed to persuade my DVD player to play my copy of Le Samourai. This is one of my all time favourite films, possibly my favourite of all the French New Wave films (hmm, or maybe Alphaville). It's the beautifully inevitable story of Alain Delon's hitman who pulls off a near perfect hit, has a solid alibi, but still ends up in the merde (due to, surprisingly, a police force portrayed as effective and intelligent), with unpleasant results.
It's a beautifully downbeat and subtly acted piece, that drifts along at a beautifully relaxed, thoughtful pace, and contains very little dialogue, especially from the lead. In fact no one says a word for almost the first ten minutes of the film - I can't imagine that happening in a film these days. It's also a hugely influential film - if it wasn't for Le Samourai there wouldn't have been The French Connection, Ronin, Leon, Ghost Dog, and so on. I'm really hoping it'll show up again on the big screen at some stage, as I've never seen it at the cinema.
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