Thames Water and How should we build a life?

Please- he's gone already

Really annoyed that Thames Water continue to send post to someone who live here more than 20 years ago - not for the first time I've returned letters asking them to remove form the database - expect an explosion (literal) if any further arrives in this style- it serves to  remind me how Thames Water continues to act as badly (or worse) than a state monopoly in so many ways

A Life in the making

But The Good Life is not won by 'Degree'

Interesting to hear Micky Flanagan on  Desert Island Disc recently -quite a different background from mine and a few years younger but what he spoke of resonated - insights were there too, particularly around schooling.


I guess if I was asked to reform the UK's state educational curriculum my focus would be on preparing people to live a 'full life' rather than train them for employment - to be fair for most of my education (as a child and an adult) employment has felt peripheral even though the 'state' may have wished it other.


Be great if more focus was on where I child's interest lay and that practical were accommodated (one of the best things I got was from being a Cub Scout where I learned some basic cookery) and looking after oneself physically and mentally  - other stuff could be learnt as needed, people I know train themselves in Astronomy, History and Gardening because they want to- not just to pass a (stupid) exam, a lot of UK education system is training to pass exams (and not therefore much use  in later life).

BBC radio Tony Benn in the chair ( The Joys of Radio)

John Peel was a great Radio Star

Oh the joy or Radio...

Although the Buggles sang that 'Video Killed The Radio Star'  I'm not so sure - there's something special about a great radio broadcaster.

In the psychiatrist's chair was a very good radio format for an in-depth radio interview - perhaps on  a par to that of the  legendary (John) Freeman hosted TV Interviews - Face-to-Face.


At the w/e I listened to an archive edition of the Radio programme which featured Tony Benn.


What came through for me was not only how much Benn had been influenced by his parents but also how important structure had been for him in the achievements he had made- he did at times feel overly serious and moralistic but the life he led it seems followed a clear moral Calvinistic compass and contrasts strongly (I feel) with those in politics now.

[Also enjoying the Andy Zaltsman series on Philosophy - My Life as .. that's currently running].

Brexit

What it is

Tony Benn was very much an anti EU politician - Dunno' how he'd feel as the chaos seems set to continue with David Davis M.P. Playing (Is he really?) 'The fool' Liam Fox MP  (the man to secure the new export  deals) and rumours of Russian meddling - this and Trump are setting a strange background for the current times...

Walthamstow, William Morris and a Borough of Culture

Last week I and a friend from a previous CityLit course met at the  William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow - of late we've met up fairly regularly to look around exhibitions and museums - it's great both in terms of the visits and the chats that we have.

A former home of William Morris 

This time our trip was to look around a house where the renowned Socialist William Morris lived - we've both been before (me about 4 years ago) - it was really good and as was subsequently pointed out to me May Morris (his daughter) is often overlooked but her life and talents are shown here and were of great interest to me.

A Plaque on the house

The London Mayor's initiative to promote a Borough of Culture (which has created interest in my home borough of Ealing) is also creating some traction in Walthamstow as well.




The idea of the Gallery is I suppose both to celebrate the man and his work - previously it had not really registered that he'd done so much in his 62 years - interesting too to learn that Jeremy Deller was also a fan.

The Borough looking to its heritage 

Looking at the work I was a little underwhelmed by much of the design and philosophy that implied all could aspire to it but the final part of the exhibition made clear that Morris recognised his privilege but wished for others to have what he did - he spoke at demonstrations, made speeches and wrote supporting his Socialist beliefs - I was won around.

Walthamstow is after the £1m too

The Brexit Budget Statement  & The Archers

Am  I the only one to see the current Radio 4 Archers stories as an Allegory against Brexit - who are Matt and his cohorts if not Messrs Farage, Gove and Co?

[Oh yes I think Auntie Chris could be Mrs May - the one who ran through a farmers field!]

Well of course I could be wrong but on a different tack nearly a week on from a barely noticeable Tory budget but a clear statement on the anticipated UK economy performance along with reports of dodgy dealing from those seeking influence with British voters.

So David Davis MP shows his discomfit by  spams of  awkward laughter suggests to the EU negotiators that they should not put  political posturing ahead of the economic good having been part of a campaign based pretty much on this sentiments seems rich but it's not only Davis who is out of his depth Dr Liam Fox racks up the air  miles (without his adviser friend) trying to get countries like NZ and Australia to replace the trade whole created by Brexit  (and in the meantime blaming UK exporters for the mess we find ourselves in).

At the National Gallery with 'Still Life'

Well the working through genres of painting has brought us to this - Still Life.

Winter at the National Gallery 

Intelligence from the 'academy' (French Intelligentsia in this case) is that Still Life is a lowly form in the world of painting so I think Julia from CityLit  who conducts our  education in Painting  sugars the pill - providing the chance to look at works that are far more than just Still Life(s) - the plural is problematic and so I suppose is the classification.


We did though look at a painting that fit the classification with no ifs and buts -  A painting by Jan van Hysum - Flowers in a Terracotta Vase - the hidden story in a painting like this is that the flowers shown would not all exist in bloom at the same time and it is the artist's work to create a new piece of art that shows this - so perhaps we're seeing something beyond just a still life even here?

Flowers in a Terracotta Vase 

The painting also shows the artist's skill in the way elements are shown 'suspended' mid flight at the base of the vase.


Other paintings that showed the riches of everyday life included Joachim Beuckelear - The Four Elements (around 1570), these paintings though do not just show rich still life subjects - they include portraiture - particularly the 'servant class' as they make purchases for the household but also more subtly parts (in the background) of a biblical narrative - Mary, Jesus and Joseph on their flight into Egypt, and the return of the prodigal son for example.

Beuckelear was from a family of Dutch artists in the 16th Century he worked often in still life genré and  and was hugely  influential  on its development.

Fire (Jesus with Martha and  Mary in the Kitchen)

Water (Jesus appears after the Resurrection)  

Earth - shows the riches from the land

Air  shows produce that we'd now call game and has the (drunken) Prodigal son on a cart in the background 

Caravaggio was also no slouch on showing fresh produce as we saw in his painting Supper at Emmaus - which always impresses me with (what I now know) is a tour de Force in foreshortening  
 

What a meal to have been present at 'Supper at Emmaus' (1601)

We also saw a sub-type of the genre which is all about the unavoidable mortality of life - Vanitas Still Life by Jan Jansz. Trek.

Vanitas -Still Life  by Jan Jansz. Trek (with that odd full stop) he worked in the 17th Century

Local News & Ealing Life

Very good BBC radio 4 programme ( Local News - what are we missing?)  this morning highlighted the vacuum that now exist in local news (Trinity Mirror a particular culprit) - the job they have holding local politicians and councils to account now this too often goes undone and Grenfell  tragedy was  of course  mentioned .

[In fact for me if the funding for local coverage  is going to come from anywhere it should be Google/online which is what has to a large extent the monster that's eaten local news's lunch.]

 

So local News from me

Remembering Claudia Manera's death 

First report  - very sad to report the death on local roads of  a cyclist based in Ealing - the roads are very dangerous even in slow moving  city traffic there are too many fatalities (just one would of course be too many).

Here just by Northfields Avenue junction with Uxbridge Road an experienced cyclist was killed a few days back - I noticed the cycle that commemorated the tragedy and found the sad story.

Jump Lead - nice tribute guys

Local Gig

At thew w/e we had our first visit to Ealing's Red Room where many of the London based R & B groups performed (Rolling Stone's and Manfred Mann to name just two) - many in the lineup of the group Jump Lead could well have been around during those halcyon days and they made good efforts in their cover versions. 

Nice too that the gig raised funds for Leukaemia and Cancer charities - from the way the audience were bopping around there were probably a few aching limbs  on the day after the concert.

The Plays's the thing

A sting in the tail?

Last Month I went to see a play at the always excellent Questor's Theatre (Ealing Mattock Lane) - it was Season's Greetings and was written by Alan Ayckbourn.


I really liked the staging  and the acting was good too but I remain puzzled by the plays' ending - seemed too extreme and unlikely it seems a familiar style for Ayckbourn - I recall it from another play where suburbia was under siege (Neighbourhood Watch perhaps?) - seems a shame as a lighthearted play was somewhat derailed by the playwright's desire to make a point.

Ealing's Questors Theatre does some fine productions

The Sad Story of 'Boom for Real' Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.

A Ticket to see

I think I've seen some of Jean-Michel Basquiat's work at the Saatchi Gallery before and certainly heard his name mentioned by others so decided to visit exhibition of his work at the Barbican Gallery.

It's a big exhibition with a lot to see including a full length film that he was in (it includes Debbie Harry too) - so if you're going allow enough time.

No longer with us

Basquiat was part of the flowering of an American/New York  rebirth in the late 70's/80's where Keith Haring Fab 5 Freddy and others started to bring work from the street to the attention of galleries and collectors (as well as Andy Warhol).

Early recognition of his gifts meant that he was able to pursue his own passions and he was the epitome of (and listed as in Wikipedia list!) an Auto-Didact.

What came out of the exhibition though for me was something of a rather confused body of work - so sad that Jean- Michel's life was not longer and he was unable to fully realise his early potential and  promise.

UK TV and US Consolidation 

Changes in the US TV market as customers increasingly 'cut their cords' means that Discovery TV has been able to  complete an agreement for merger with Scripps Network.

Discovery TV which has one of the highest paid bosses in the world has performed poorly over recent years and failed to make the strategic changes needed as it is outmanoeuvred by new players like Netflix and Amazon TV.

The repercussions are likely to be felt at UK TV where the BBC's commercial arm mulls over taking full control of UK TV (where Scripps was a major shareholder) - this though is small fry in the mega business that TV has now become. 

UK TV is one of a number of 'second level' TV operations reliant for audiences  on BBC TV re-runs.

It would indeed be sad if Publicly owned  TV was so far weakened that all commercial TV needed to care about was the bottom line - it is (I still think) more important than that -time will tell

Landscape stretching Artistic Genrés at London's National Gallery

This weeks visit to London's National Gallery as part of the CityLit class on looking at paintings was another opportunity to spend some time appreciating what are considered by many to be the cream of the 'Art World'

The National Gallery continues to delight

In fact as we continue down the hierarchy of paintings it becomes increasingly clear that the classification structure is rather a blunt tool for placing a work.

Julia tells us about Constable's use of Red

This week our genré was 'landscape' and unsurprisingly some of the works we looked at encroached on other genrés - was this actually a painting of people/ Did it have a narrative?


 Early works we looked at like Bellini's Madonna of the Meadow felt like a Portrait - (This painting I found a little odd as the building in the background had the feel  to me of a modern Power Station or Multi-storey Car Park) and The Embarkation of Saint Ursula by Claude was surely a Narrative work?


Far more 'Traditional' were landscapes like  Constable's Hay Wain and Cézanne's Landscape with Poplars (1885-7).

Poplars were Popular with Cézanne in the late 19th Century 

We also looked at Some of Turner's paintings both Sea and Land - here's Rain, Steam, and Speed - The Great Western Railway It was interesting to think what of his work was actually finished?

Turner's Rain Steam and Speed - What was finished?

National Gallery -Monochrome, Painting in B&W

And a sign with a  yellow background has impact 

I suppose I'm aware of some pressure to produce some of my photographic prints in Black and White - there's a certain feeling for it to be considered more 'serious'.

We don't

I had not really considered art (save for drawing) as having a Black and White dimension so was intrigued by the subject of this exhibition at The National Gallery.


First thing to say is that I enjoyed seeing a smaller exhibition that had some thought put into contextualising an interesting topic and where the curation was considered and appropriate - it was good for example to see some modern work in the National Gallery.

Live in a Black

  The exhibition was split over a number of rooms ( 8 I think) -the least satisfactory being the final one where we shown a work by Olafur Eliasson  - Room for One Colour - a neat idea but perhaps not totally successful - it was though the one room where photography was permitted.

Here Sodium Light was used to limit the colour Spectrum

Things I did like that were more modern though included Bridget Riley's Horizontal Vibration (1961) and Richter's Grey Mirror (765).

Also great to see Jasper Johns (a big fan of grey) again with his untitled work from 2007.

In Room 6 there was an interesting work called 'Joel' by Chuck Close showing how a photo had been translated by using a grid.


Also a detailed work by Celestin Joseph (Head of a Girl- 1887) showed how one artist had met head on (literally) the challenge that Photography had made to portraiture.

   

and White World

  In Room 5 (Painting and Printmaking) there some lovely works from the 18th Century including A Girl at a Window (1799) by Louis Leopold Boilly and  multiple versions of  'Back from the Market' (La Pourvoyeuse)  by Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin  (originally) and a Trick of the Eye reinterpretation by  Etienne Moulinneuf.


In Room 3 the paintings were in Grisaille (that is grey) and was struck by Maternity (1896)  from Eugene Carriere which had strong Photographic influences.

In Room 4  (more Tricks of the eye) there was an impressive Tour de Force from Titian - Portrait of a Lady (1510) where the artist answered the question face on regarding painting versus sculpture and even more convincing was Andrea Mantegna's 'The Introduction of the Cult of Cybele in Rome(1505).

All in all I found the exhibition a good way to spend a couple of hours

.

More at Leeds Gallery

Leeds - A refurbished gallery 

Our weekend away in Leeds - gave us the chance to see the city, its' fine Civic Buildings and Shops as well as the Art Gallery which is fairly recently refurbished

A provincial (not meant pejoratively) gallery has to function across all sorts of work and epochs - in London we have galleries/museums covering fairly tightly specified periods - Like Tate Modern or The National Gallery.

The Gallery in Leeds covers a wide range of work from Impressionists like James Tissot to more modern artists - works included Francis Bacon and UK Pop Artist pioneer  Peter Blake.


It being Remembrance Sunday the The Drums of the Fore and Aft (by Edward Matthew Hale - which you can buy a print of) seemed particularly appropriate.

Sir Peter Blake's Girl in a Window

A picture with a story.

Intrigued to see work by Tony Cragg famed for his Stack  (I'd seen his work at Tate Modern earlier this year) real link to me was with the 'Strand' of Stuart Haygarth who had taken a long walk on England beaches (and heard him talk at London's Design Museum).

Postcard Flag by Tony Cragg at Leeds Art Gallery

I'm not sure if Cragg is covering the same topic but the colours and style immediately reminded me of the walk that Haygarth made collecting rubbish from the UK beaches.

I loved seeing Bruce McLean's I want my crown and Roger Palmer's 'The Remains of a Wooden Icebreaker lie submerged in Botany Bay (2007)

Work of Roger Palmer 

- I like to see Neon work 

Last week's Genré was Genre

Amazing that it's a week since Julia showed us a little about Paintings that fit the classification of Genre.

Autumn at National Gallery 

Genre paintings are all about everyday life be it high class or the humdrum lower orders and I suppose they'd been something of a rarity in 'The West' when the Church dominated cultural life.

The Dutch artists of the 17th Century were undoubtedly the best at creating such works often small and subtle they were richly evocative and included the detail which helps portray the minutiae of the existence.

Of the paintings we visited my favourite has to be The Poulterers Shop by Gerrit Dou.


Other Dutch paintings also had much to recommend them both in their style and in what can be gleaned of the times and dynamics shown within by inspection - see  below left.

A subtext as well as a specific in Dou's work

The Woman playing the Lute to Two Men  may well be a courtesan and the significance of the men's apparel leads us into this interpretation - The artist was Gerard ter Borch  who is said to be an influence on Gerrit Dou

A woman playing a Lute to Two Men by ter Borch

We also looked at Hogarth's Marriage a la Mode series 1-6  (1743) - which was (perhaps) more in the Narrative style.

We can though by inspecting the series of Hogarth's moralistic work learn much of the life of the higher orders and the downfall which some suffered (particularly the illness of Syphilis which was rampant at the time) .

Part of the series of Marriage A-la-Mode (Hogarth) - The Inspection 

James Tissot at Tate Britain and Leeds City Exhibitions

So this w/e first visit to Leeds and it's a nice city (more about it in the next few days).

Not only in Leeds

What was slightly surprising was that last Friday I visited Impressionists in London exhibition at Tate Britain - it's on until 7th May so a good chance I'll visit again - perhaps with a friend.

Tissot in London

The exhibition is around exiles who worked and lived in London between 1870 and 1904 when conflict in Europe between France and Prussia led to instability and the Paris Commune artists who moved to London included Pissaro (who stayed in Kew)


The artist who's work  I was really impressed with  was that of James Tissot, I'd not heard of him before  and strangely I saw another example of his work at the recently refurbished  Leeds City Art Gallery - I was able to take a photo of it (below) but the photography was not possible at Tate exhibition.

Tissot was not strictly speaking an impressionist like Monet  but was working in a similar manner.

The Bridesmaid (1883) by James Tissot

Tissot brought a French sensibility to his composition - often implying relationships that were controversial for British Art fans (two women and a man were regularly shown with a sense of tension between the characters) .

Two of the the works that stood out for me at Tate Britain by Tissot were The Ball on Shipboard (1876) and 'On the Thames' 

The Photographers Polaroids (not a great technology) and back to Jaspers

At The Photographers' Gallery again

Not everything can be good

It's some time since I've visited the Photographers Gallery and as they've got new exhibitions thought it was worth checking out - in truth a little disappointed -  Wim Wenders (Instant Stories) was a reminder for me how bad Polaroids were as a format and the trouble that had gone into displaying, mounting and framing made me think of  'polishing a turd' - I think better work could have been on show in this space.

Interesting from a sociological aspect 

Well staged but not sure about the quality

Likewise I felt that '4 Saints in 3 Acts' was interesting as history but not necessarily great photographs and was a bit surprised that Lee Miller was part of it. 

More RA

So as well as seeing Matisse I took another look at Jasper John's retrospective it really is pretty amazing - work stretches over his whole career and it's clear that his work is distinctive, has a style of its own but also experimental and challenging with some intellectual rigour.

More at the RA

The other week I went to the RA and had quick looks at 'Dali & Duchamp' as well as 'The Jasper Johns - Something Resembling Truth' - it was suggested to me that Matisse in the studio was worth a visit and I wanted to spend some more time looking at Jasper John's work.

I had seen Matisse's Cut-outs  at Tate Modern over 3 years ago and to see another way into Matisse's prodigious output was fantastic, the space that the exhibition was occupying was rather small and such is the attraction of the show that there are a lot of people visiting.


What was great about how this exhibition was curated is the way we were invited to share  the objects and people around Henri that were integrated into his work.

See the Black Marble

I would have like to know about the model Henriette Dariccarriére who modelled for many of Matisse's paintings that featured Odalisque - many of the materials within these paintings that conjured up Morocco were shown including tables and other ephemera.



'Still life with Seashell on Black Marble' and the study that led to the work were informative, it reminded me of how Nick Pearson had described placing objects and their influence as a sort of 'tension'  between them.
Also like Matisse's   Large Woodcut (he worked in many media and perhaps is now overly eclipsed by Picasso) reminded me of Keith Haring's works.

It was also informative to see the example of Chinese Calligraphy that Matisse's wife bought him - clearly there was a link as there was to the fashion at the time of Matisse's creative peak of African masks.

3 big exhibitions at the RA