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Moping Owl ... from yonder ivy-mantled tow’r | ||||||
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Not all is lost The admirable but nowadays much neglected Matthew Smith, a true painter, turns out for the time being to be the hero, properly celebrated, of the first room on the left at Tate Britain, as we must learn to love to call it. There he is along with Bacon, and Auerbach, Sickert and Co., and quite right too. His model, mistress perhaps, and muse of his later years was the late Vera Russell, a large, magnificent and truly formidable old bird who once picked up your poor Owl by the throat, whom she began first to shake and then to throttle. He had spoken disrespectfully, so she thought, of one of her chicks, the free-range Hambling, who looked on in a sort of awed amusement. Hacking For All It’s Worth Keen young Nick Hackworth, a chirpy little Chiff-chaff or Reed Warbler (beware of Cuckoos), fledged not so long ago from the precarious perch he shared for a while with the fierce old Sewell Bird – a venerable and unpredictable Cassowary that will peck as soon as look at you – at the Evening Standard, is now testing his wings as a curator-dealer. And good luck to him, we cry, with his Paradise Row gallery somewhere in E95. Indeed he’s even flown off to Moscow and set up nest for a while with a show in a sometime Soviet Chocolate Factory there (my mouth is watering already), courtesy of a pretty, and pretty loaded, little Russian Redbreast Chickabid, if the Guardian wrapping up last night’s chips is to be relied on. ìWe really wanted to put together a show that explained to people what the London art scene is aboutî, she cheeps. ìIt’s a very global scene and you don’t need to be British to be part of itÖ All the artists (20 of them) Ö know each other, they’re having conversations.î How sweet. The Hackwit, for his part, tweets on: ìthere is something unique and special to London still, which is the richness and the openness Öî but why go on. We all know it’s only open if you’re in the club. And what does that earnest Dunnock at the peanut feeder, Mark Brown, whom we understand to be the Guardian’s arts correspondent, have to say about it all? Why, he could hardly be more enthusiastic. ìAmong those exhibiting is performing artist Eloise Fornieles, who yesterday (i.e. February 20th) presented a challenging [I’m not making this up] piece called ‘Carrion’ which involves her walking naked through piles of second-hand clothes.î Shall I go on? ìAlso in the room is the hanging carcass of a cow. Onlookers are encouraged to write letters of [wait for it] apology for consumption, which the artist (sic) then inserts into the cow.î ìThe contemporary art scene in Moscow appears to be flourishingî, says Dunnock Brown, happily taking pretty Baibakova Chickabid’s word for it. ìThe general Russian public are extremely uncomfortable with the avant-garde Ö But they are eager to learn.î The trouble, I find, is that some people never do. Summer Showdown Sundays are usually pretty quiet, up here among the ivy and long-silent bells, but they can have their unsettling moments even so. So what’s this I see in what nowadays passes for the Sunday Telegraph magazine? ìEnter Now: Summer Exhibition 2009î, shouts the full-page advertisement taken out by the Royal Academy. Well I may have missed something, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that before. And all I can think is that the poor dears must be desperate. Having thoroughly disaffected their natural constituency of professional artists for the open submission (the odds are now simply far too long, the cost of entry far too high to be worth the punt), there can only be the nation’s army of amateurs left to cozen. Gor Blimey Any chance of a glimpse of the Oo Mi’Gooley Bird is clearly irresistible even to the but-occasional bird-watcher or twitcher, among whom we must clearly now number that sage old crow, Bryan Appleyard, whom I saw having a gentle prod or tease the other day, just to see what squawks came out of the oracular nest. And what wonderful Gooley squawks they were – hoots even – all about this great scheme or ‘art-work’ of his, that is to have 2,400 twites successively perched for an hour each, around the clock, high up on a plinth in Trafalgar Square – and may the pigeons send them our compliments. There is to be a net to stop them falling off, which ìÖis also important in terms of talking about the vulnerability and exposure of the person at the top – this idea that you are alone in a very public place, really exposed and, therefore, in danger, not simply from the fact that you are 8 metres (sic) above the ground, but also, perhaps, from what others might do to you.î Excuse me a moment, I must have something in my eye. Where was I? Oh yes Ö ìThe net aside, is he doing sculpture here?î, asks the patient Appleyard. ìIt’s the making of a piece of sculpture in time. It’s asking fairly fundamental questions about who can make art and how it can be made, who can participate in it, and important questions about representation.î Well, a few answers might be helpful, and from you first, Gooley old son. ìWhat I’m hoping is that this will tell us something [I’m not making this up] we don’t already know about what people think and feel about being alive now.î So will Gooley publish the findings of his deep researches, or will he just flap off into the sunset as usual, to disappear yet again, quacking yet more fatuous questions into his own fundamental ear’ole? ìA strange manî, as Appleyard remarks. Eleven Plus (essay paper) 1. all questions, no conclusions: all fur coat, no drawers – contrast and compare: Baroque n’all Oh dear, here comes Wally the Dodo again, dear old thing, chuntering through the wood on his mobility trolley (special offer from the Sunday Times), and muttering loudly to himself about the Baroque, which he seems to be revising for his Open University diploma in looking at pictures, and things. He says it started in Rome, just like that, ìwhen Caravaggio appeared on the sceneî, and seems to have ended, with the Number 11, at St Paul’s. Who’d ’ave thought it? And in between he lets Rubens into the club, and Velasquez, Van Dyck, Bernini and pretty well anyone else at work in the 17th century – Rembrandt, Vermeer, Cotan Ö But how can you look at Rubens and Velasquez without looking to Titian and Veronese? And what about El Greco, Bassano and Tintoretto, Wally, and the rest of the late 16th century Venetians? There’s more to the Baroque than a bit of light and shade, and its roots go deep. Whoops, careful, left hand down a bit – Wally’s just missed a log. Hoots Mon The beachy margins of the Clyde were always pretty bleak, with a sharp draught up the kilt always a fair prospect. But quite how sharp, and dangerous too, has only now been born in on me. There are clearly some strange birds about nowadays, with long beaks, beady eyes and newly ruffled feathers, padding furtively about in those reeds and bushes. The Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art, I hear as a whisper on the wind, is to ìhost a new exhibition raising the awareness of issues faced by lesbians, gay men, bisexual, transgender and intersex people as part of a wider social justice programme.î So we can forget the Modern Art bit. At the press briefing, on All Fools’ Day as it happens, though we mustn’t read too much into that, of course, ìcuratorial and outreach staff will be on hand to guide you through what promises to be a challenging programme of exhibits and events.î I bet they will, though they’d better keep their hands to themselves if The Herald’s finest pitch up. ìLunch and light refreshments will be providedî, which will be much needed. ìCar Park, Jimmy???î ìI’ve some etchings in the boot o’mi carr ye might care t’see.î ìIs that a Sporran I see before me??î Goodness, it’s another world up there. Keeping Cheerful And as with the buses, if we wait for one, we get two. So while we’re on the subject, my friend the Duty Pigeon in Trafalgar Square tells me that the Portrait Gallery is to put on an exhibition this summer of ‘Gay Icons’, whatever they are. Chief Booby, Sandy Nairne, who has such a way with words, tells us it is to be an exhibition in which ìinspiring stories – both private and public – are shared. These are stories of brave lives and significant achievements, told through iconic (that word again) photographic images chosen by selectors who are themselves iconsî – Sir Elton John, no less, and Lord Smith of Chris, Billie–Jean King and Sir Ian McKellen, are among the ten Dicky Birds of the jury. So that’s all right then, but I’m still not sure what ‘icon’ has to do with it. But it gets better. The show’s sponsors are the Rose d’Anjou wine-growers, whose own Chief Booby, Olivier Lecomte (I think I’ve spelt that right: one can’t be too careful – these people can be very sensitive about such things, prickly even), waxes even more lyrical than Booby Sandy. ìPortraiture is an Artî, he declares, ìwhich is easy to relate to, cutting across racial, social, sexual, educational and economic barriers whilst enhancing cultural appreciation and awareness.î Do you know, that would never have occurred to me. And it gets better still. ìViticulture shares many of the same values – it blends grape varieties, personalities and culture to create wines that are designed to be enjoyed in a diverse number of ways.î Diverse ways, eh? Well, the mind boggles. Perhaps they sent a case up to Glasgow for those refreshments. Let’s hope so. ìWaed ye care fur a glass o’Rose, Jock?î ìOch, that’s si virray kind o’ye, Willy – jist a wee one. I niver say noo to a bit o’pink.î Sickert as a Parrot Sickert was a wise old bird in his contrary, opinionated way, and quite a comfort to turn back to now and again. How right he was about not writing someone off just because he was out of fashion. Speaking of a painting by Poynter in the RA (‘A Little Mishap’: and, yes, no, you should all know who he is), he says: ìI should like my up-to-date friends in the press to find me a passage of figure painting among the ‘jeunes’ to equal this in tranquil accomplishment.î He then digresses into the matter of trees. ìDon’t imagine that the final manner of treating foliage has been settled for all time. Poussin Ö gave an idea of an oak by drawing a limited number of branches with leaves that were like oak leaves. It has yet to be proved that there is a better way. I have often heard Degas say that in painting you must give the idea of the true by means of the false. In Poynter’s picture Ö certain branches are selected [just so] with great skill.î All so true, and, mutatis mutandis, still so. Those were the days; ‘tranquil accomplishment’; ‘great skill’: ehue. | |||||
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Moping Owl All of this site is | |||||
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