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Moping Owl ... from yonder ivy-mantled tow’r | ||||||
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Watch the Birdie So a film has won the Turner Prize again. Good luck to little Mark Leckey, a Bearded Tit by the looks of him, and Liverpudlian Professor of Film Studies at Frankfurt no less – rara avis indeed. I wonder when BAFTA will ever give a golden gong, or whatever it gives, to a painter. Has any film critic yet taken a view on the Bearded T’s work, or even bothered to look, I wonder. We wait, our breath bated. His winning masterpiece includes clips from ‘The Simpsons’ and ‘Felix the Cat’, and another is a ‘film’ of a Jeff Koons Bunny, all studio reflections and ‘ironical’ distance. From a couple of scraps of chip-paper that fluttered by on the wind I learn that his ìis the sardonic aesthetic of the provincial art school fashion victimî: or so says the visionary Ben Lewis of the Evening Standard, clearly another BT. And BT Leckey himself tells pretty little Louise Jury, also of the Standard, that, back in Liverpool in the 80s, he was ìa Casual, which was a working class (yawn yawn) style of wearing inappropriately expensive leisurewear. It was the idea of taking something you were denied and making it your own.î The Courts have another word for it, I believe. Leckey also says that winning will change his life around. Let’s hope so. His girlfriend, by the way, is a curator at – guess where. A Sombre Warning So many strange words echo up through the branches nowadays, that passeth all understanding. ‘Artwork’ now, ‘An Artwork’, what on earth is ‘An Artwork’? Artwork is, or at least it was not so long ago, simply the stuff a jobbing illustrator or commercial artist passed on to be processed for publication. Oh how simple life was once upon a time. But at least we can be fairly sure that anyone who utters the dread word outside such a context, is either a charlatan and fraud or fashion-struck idiot, who has made or is confronted by something he hopes somehow to dignify in the name of Art, but has no clue as to what it actually is. The usage used to be confined to the twite or tit with a ball of string, a tin can, some chewing gum and an Arts Council grant to use up – Oh what joy it is to call oneself an artist, but painting and drawing are sooo boring). But the disease is now spreading, I see, into the realms of journalism and comment. Only the other day, a scrap from the Daily Telegraph wafted by on the breeze. A mid-17th century painting in the collection of the Tate, no less, newly cleaned, is revealed as the work of one John Hayls, a follower of Van Dyke. And very nice too, a pretty gentlewoman newly complete with a brace of airborne Cupids. So what does the little bird reporter, Roya Nikkhah, describe it as? Why, playing elegant variation upon ‘canvas’ and ‘painting’, to her it is of course an ‘Artwork’. Artwork indeed: ‘best avoided’, as that wise old wader through deep waters, the Great Fowler, might say. PS: Nothing to do with Art, but so too, always ‘better left alone’, the illiterate and affected ‘proven’ for ‘proved’, no excuses, ever: ‘disinterested’, that useful word, for ‘uninterested’: ‘rookie’ – what is a ‘rookie’ other than a wholesome snack?: and when did an ‘ex-serviceman’ become a ‘veteran’: or a ‘railway-’ a ‘train-station’. ‘This train terminates here’: no it doesn’t. But I show my age. This sentence terminates with a. Boo Hoo Still with the poor old Telegraph, here now is Mother Goose Dorment, tears still rolling down his beak, quacking away about what a grievous loss the departure of Norman Rosenthal, that vainglorious raddled old Turkey, is to the Academy, if not to the entire world. – no more world-class shows etc. etc.. Dear me: quite makes the old eyes water, don’t it? Our Norman never gave any credit but to himself, and clearly thinks he restored the fortunes of the RA single-handed. To be fair, some of his shows were pretty good, along with all the pot-boilers, second-hand deals, and expensive mistakes. The truth is that the Academy had been turned round and set on a fair course well before Mr Gobble strutted aboard, not least in the 60s and 70s by the valiant efforts of the then President, the much under-sung Tom Monnington. But then, as our Great Helmsman Gordon shows so well, if you boast your pretensions loud and long enough, the dolts will believe you. Give Me Strength I learn that one Barnacle Hosking, yet another kind of Goose by the sound of him, is to take over a room at the Royal Academy for an evening, for a performance. The Academy Room is a comforting space it seems, with panelled walls and a large fireplace – sounds quite like my own ivy mantled tow’r without the draught. ìAll men’s miseriesî, said that sensible old bird, Pascal, ìderive from not being able to sit quietly in a room aloneî. Indeed so, and in taking the hint, or rather the entire idea to heart (oh how our conceptualists parade their learning), Barnaby Barnacle might just have missed the point. For he has persuaded nine more geese each in turn to spend an hour alone there, with only their thoughts for company – well not quite alone, as it turns out. ìWithout guiding participants in any formal practice of meditationî, so we are told, ìthe artist (sic) will inform each participant of helpful attitudes to observing one’s mind.î And having thus observed it, I imagine I’d be quite happy to give him back a piece of mine, quite a big piece too. There is to be a reception in the room next door, which should help all that tranquillity no end. More? Surely not? Oh yes there is: for now Goose Richard is looking forward, eyes a’gleam, to treats in store, notably ‘Heaven and Earth’ (God Help Us), which will bring to Tate Britain in the summer the efforts of a lifetime of that tired and ageing Avon Mudlark, Richard Long. ìLong overdueî, he squawks, in vaunting this ìendlessly inventive sculptorî. Endlessly inventive? That really does make my eyes water. Can’t wait. And, he goes on, understating it just a bit, coming to the Academy a little later is, wait for it, ìa magisterial retrospective of one of the thrilling careers in recent British art ..î Now whose could that be? Piles of dye: polished discs: holes? ’Fraid so. Old Mother Goose Sorry, but there it is, and nothing to be done about it. That Wicked Old Wolf, Vlad the ‘You’re-only-making-things-worse-for-yourself-Sir’ Putin KGB, has picked up a paint-brush, and even Auntie Telegraph has gone a bit pale and weak at the knees. Not only does she show us his latest toneless daub in full colour, but then pokes her head out of the kitchen door to whistle up our old friend Goosey Goosey Dorment from the farm yard for ìan expert’s viewî. And up he waddles: so brace yourself for something special. ìIn that special category of world leaders who paintî, he cackles desperately, eyes staring, anxious to please, ìVladimir Putin may not be the Picasso, but at least he’s the Winifred Nicholsonî (no, I’m not making this up). ìI like the way the yellow window frame and white curtain fill the blue canvas, so that we find ourselves looking through four panes of glass in the centre at a night sky filled with snow and stars.î (I’m not sure I can go on). ìNotice the confidence with which those curtains are drawn – how with each long stroke Putin never loses contact with the canvas until his loaded brush is dry.î This is utter bollocks – never trust any academic art goose going on about technique, least of all Goosey D. ìThere isn’t a wasted or unnecessary brushstroke, and nothing childish or naÔve about this picture.î Oh yes there is – and quite a bit of a double-negative about this sentence too, Goosey dear. It’s all too much. ìThis is an artistî, he concludes, ìwho has been struck by something most of us wouldn’t look at twice.î And not struck hard enough, I’d say. ìWith remarkable economy he contrasts the warmth, light and gaiety of the interior with the cold and darkness beyond.î Strewth – it’s enough to make an Owl hoot. Oh poor Goosey, only ever to have looked out of a window once. And if Vlad won’t be sending him back to the Gulag – I mean back to the muddy old farm yard, after all that flannel – I will. On The Beat That beady-eyed little bird, Louise Jury, Chief Arts Correspondent of the Evening Standard no less, can be spotted flitting about the wood quite a bit these days, it seems, and how sharp she is in putting her pretty feathers on the very nub of the matter to hand. Here she is on a show of Constable’s portraits coming soon to the NPG. ìHe was one of the greatest landscape artists of his dayî she twitters, ìwhose rural scenes are a staple of chocolate boxes and birthday cards.î Was he really? And, do you know, I never noticed. One of the show’s curators, she tells us, is ìcritic Martin Gayfordî, a sort of mynah bird, who is very good at repeating what he has been taught to say, or has read somewhere, as it might be ìConstable was very good at trees, and clouds, and ponds.î This time it looks as though the line will be something like ìbut not all that good at portraits, though they are quite pretty, and very interesting in a personal sort of way.î A Flightless Bird (part I) Here comes dear old Wally the Dodo, trundling through the wood on the mobility scooter given him by the Sunday Times, for old times’ sake I suppose – it can’t be for anything else. And peering dimly through his glasses into the gloom, he suddenly sees, or says he sees, that the art bubble is about to burst, and a jolly good thing too. Hooray for the Recession. It has come, he squawks, ìin the nick of timeÖ The art world has spent a decade and a half metamorphosing into something ugly and worthless.î Has it really taken him only a decade and a half to notice? No: more like 20 years. ìThe art world’s chief and most catastrophic problem [is that] as its prices have risen, so its values have collapsedÖ. Back in 1986 the world was already turning into the one that has been collapsing around our ears, and nobody gave a fig.î Well yes, Wally, may be so: and were you the figging exception back in 1986, or were you cheering it all along from your old burrow at the Guardian? I can’t quite remember. He then gets his Parson’s Nose in a bit of a twist over Tate Modern, lately given £50 million for an extension, and ìto my eyes the worst villain in the piece... Instead of pumping money into this oversized amusement cavern, we should ask ourselves why it is that at exactly the same time as Tate Modern has been growing, the achievements of British Art have been shrinking.î Well, up to a point – but hang on a moment. ìThe last British movement to have any real impact on the international stage,î he quacks on, ìwas Brit Art, which emerged a decade and a half ago.î So, if I’ve got this right, the decline he so regrets has nothing to do with the Brit Art gang with which it so neatly coincided. Seems so. ìI cannot remember the last time I encountered an artist with the kind of fire in their (sic) belly that made Damien Hirst so unmissable when he emerged. Or anyone boasting the passions of an early Tracy Emin.î Passions were they? I did wonder. Wally, it’s not just your glasses that need demisting. Dodo (£50m special supplement) In the same piece, self-professed ‘art-lover’ Wally confesses to finding ìsomething grotesquely warped about Ö the giving of £50 million to a rich duke for an Italian painting as a national bargainî, pleading the teachers’n’nurses reflex argument in support. Yet the Titian ‘Diana’, along with the better part of the Sutherland collection, has been on open public view for some 200 years, first in London, then, since the war, in Edinburgh, and I doubt the Louvre or the Metropolitan would pass up any chance of such a ‘bargain’, indeed of the whole set. And didn’t I hear something the other day about Fire-Belly Hirst, some diamonds and a skull, a snip at only £50m? Whoops: Wally has hit a tree. All Coat, No Drawers High up here among the bricks and ivy, I do feel fairly free of the general run of worldly despair, but there are moments, even so. A rumour now wafts up from the mud flats of the South Bank, misty haunt of the Rugoff Redshank and his wader chums, of a forthcoming Hayward Touring Show, ìThe End of the Line: Attitudes to Drawingî. It will be ìexploring and celebrating fresh approaches to drawing in contemporary artî, which in itself is enough to put us on our guard. The precaution is well founded, for the show is to feature ìeleven internationally acclaimed artistsî. We all know what that means – i.e. we’ve never heard of a single one of them. They all, so we are to believe, ìtreat drawing as a primary means of expression, a practice in its own right, with its own integrityî. Well, if they say so. And now the despair really sets in. ìDrawing foundered in art schools in the 1970s, tainted by academicism, but recently it has undergone a resurgence in popularity, partly because of its accessibility as a tool for communicating personal visions and ideas.î What on earth is all that about? Does it actually mean anything at all? (Answers on one side of the paper only). All I can say is that we could do with some of that taint these days, quite a bit if possible, in fact as much of it as we can get. Senior Hayward Stork, Roger Malbert, says ìwe have concentrated on the most intense and passionate visions of reality, to show how meaningful drawings can be.î I bet they have. Vocabulary: attitudes: accessibility: acclaimed: celebrate: explore: integrity: meaningful: tool. Gormblimey Word comes from a distant northern forest, native haunt of Sir Jack Daw himself, that could even be a squawk of pain. And safe for the moment though we may hope we are, if only for the moment, here in our warmer, drier wood, we can but sympathise. For Manchester Art Gallery, we learn, has acquired ìan important sculptureî by ìone of the UK’s leading contemporary artistsî, and the heart sinks. Who can it be? Yes it is. Oh no, it can’t be true – and so the awful truth sinks in. To help the deal along, David Barrie, chief Shoveller Duck of the Art Fund, has shovelled up £80,000 of his members’ money for ‘Filter’, ìa suspended life-size male figure made of cut steel rings welded together. Holes in the rings [if a ring isn’t a sort of hole anyway] allow people to view the interior which contains a ‘heart’ made of a mass of steel balls Ö As with much of [the artist’s] work, the figure is based on the artist’s own body.î How wonderful it all is, such ìa very exciting acquisition for Manchesterî, quacks the Barrie Duck. But what has the Oo Mi’Gooley Bird himself to add (for it is he), in the name of human enlightment, peace for all and global warming? ìIt hangs in space, as if in orbitÖ It is a meditation [here we go] on the relationships between the core of the body and space at large. It suggests that while movement, freedom of choice and the exercising of the will [no, I’m not making this up] is one way in which life expresses itself, there is another axis: the relationship between emotion and spatial experience.î Oh dear. By the way, the Oo Mi’Gormley Bird is a sad, near flightless creature of hot and arid lands, that flapping low over thorn and cactus, screeches plaintively at intervals, ìOh I’m Gormley, Oo mi’Goolies, Oo Mi’Gooliesî. It quite brings tears to the eyes. Steel balls would be just the thing. | |||||
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Moping Owl All of this site is | |||||
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