The Photographer's Gallery and Planning

Having enjoyed a world class selection of work from top photographers at the Barbican last week I ventured into central London to Ramillies Street as there's new pictures on show and the Annual Deutsche.

 Well there were a couple of things I liked and it's generally good to have a look at the shop but perhaps overall a shade disappointing.

 I did though really like I am a leader Xenia Delegko  - more of a youtube thing and rather oddly magnificent.

Also some good stuff about Monsanto (a project by Mathieu Asselin) - Monsanto doesn't seem to be a very nice company.

Monsanto - Unfettered Capitalism looks a dangerous beast 

Planning

Easter is pretty much on the horizon and I've got pictures to show in a local bar..
About a year since I took a class in putting on exhibition - still plenty to learn though.

Part of my show will be a claendar of my local area.

Part of my year - July to December.

Another wall full in planning

I'm also looking at some other urban stuff and I need to get my invites and flyers done..

A mixture of ideas - but broadly Colour and Time

Last outing with CityLit - Intro' to The National Portrait Gallery

Five weeks really isn't enough when you're having fun - but as they say all good things to come to an end and Course Leader Leslie Primo pretty much brought us up to date.


So the last day of my course at the Portrait Gallery -and  again our leader had to make some changes as work was going on in the gallery.

We included after looking at the span of time  reflected in portraiture development  (see further below) a viewing of a bold modern portrait of Dame Eileen Younghusband by Sir Kyffin Williams  - this was both formal and intimate in a 20th century sort of way.

A nice display at NPG shows evolution from Ingres  via Sickert 

 I enjoyed spending time looking at and discussing the Sickert - he is one of my favourites, but not sure how successful this Self portrait example is. The thoughts were that the effect of press photography is a big influence on him here.

Walter Sickert used the press 

 For me I thought I'd begun to understand something of portraiture but modern practice and expectations are confusing me - I'm not so excited by works like Bomberg and Auerbach - in fact I prefer the effect of the older works like that of Ingres.

A historic spread across the Years (to Auerbach)

 The last pictures we looked at were a painting of Anna Wintour by Alex Katz an early self portrait by the modern British/Nigerian artist Ofili (1991) - (First heard about Chris from Nick Pearson nearly 5 years ago) not sure that these really represent progress!

A Self Portrait -Chris  Ofili 

Fashion Guru Anna Wintour - something about Clebrity?

Oh yes and here’s a rather good picture of the late Sir Ken by David Cobley which I noticed and I do like the trick used here (not uniquely) where a mirror gives us the chance to see more than one side of the subject.

The recently departed Sir Ken Dodd by David Cobley

Photographing the Margins

Thursday and a trip to Barbican Gallery - ANOTHER KIND OF LIFE was a great chance to see some striking photographs of people operating outside the mainstream.

Another Kind of Life  in Photograph  and a... 

A roll call of Photographers

A lift from the exhibition 

The selected works were almost anthropological in their nature highlights for me included works of Russian 'Hippies' on archaeological digs (photographer- Igor Palmin), also saw work from Japanese photographers Daido Moriyama  and Seiji Kurata (who follows in his footsteps in style but also draws on the operating manner of  U.S. news photographer Weegee).

Lots of the Photographers were new to me, like survivalist sympathiser Alec Soth but included was the great Diane Arbus.

visitors to the show 

Barbican's a nice place to visit, good café and bars too

The Artist is Present (week 4 of the NPG Citylit course)

What really impressed me today was the depth of knowledge and ability to think on his feet of our Course leader for the CityLit Course at The National Portrait Gallery.

As always Leslie Primo was there with notes for today's paintings but unbeknown to him part of the gallery was not available until 11:00 (half an hour after the start of the session).



So Leslie just adjusted and spoke with us about some other interesting works -  namely Anne of Denmark (by John de Critz the Elder) - which I liked and King James I of England and VI of Scotland by Daniel Mytens (which I'm less inclined to admire).

These two were again non-native painters from the 'low' countries who worked in England.

King James I of England 

Anne of Denmark

The reason for the great detail in the portrait of Anne was explained to us as follows :-

Tapestry was more highly valued than painting at the time of the commission and the artist captured detail of the carpet, chair and her clothes to the point  where it could almost pass for material rather than paint  -to me I thought there was a connection with the work of Klimt, perhaps because of the full length and somewhat flat-sh style used?

Job ben Solomon - a slave who was freed

The next picture we looked at connected with last weeks pictures and theme of slavery -it was a William Hoare painting of a a Muslim cleric Job Ben Solomon who was captured and enslaved in America (It's the Koran around his neck)   he was subsequently given his freedom by a result of funds raised by the  'Public' in England.


The painting by Hoare an English artist had clearly set himself a challenge in capturing the dignity and also the skin tones of the sitter - for me he met the challenge well.





After the interruption to Leslie's plans we returned to look art the works he had scheduled, mainly works around the Victorian era - here I fond the works less engaging being more (to me) rooted in 'reportage' and propaganda .

 The biggest culprits being  an imagined (or made up) portrayal of  Queen Victoria bestowing a bible in 'The Secret of England's Greatness' (1863) by Thomas Jones Barker, almost as saccharine is the tableau style work showing an almost spectral saint like  Florence Nightingale in the work by Jerry Barrett called The Mission of Mercy: Florence Nightingale receiving the Wounded at Scutari.

The Mission of Mercy: Florence Nightingale receiving the Wounded at Scutari

What we were seeing in some of these works was almost a collage of Newspaper images colourised and some work better than others, another of Jerry Barrett's is the painting of Victoria visiting the war wounded has had little care in the scale and direction of view of many of the extras behind the Queen and her family.

  

Queen Victoria's First Visit to her Wounded Soldiers (1856) - for me the extras don't work 

The highlight for me this week though was undoubtedly Dame Laura Knight's self portrait - I'd seen this before (pre the course)  and thought it was great but having spent some time looking at it with the group I realise now some of what is going on (and like it even more for the extra 'layers').

Leslie explained the 'Artist is Present' (and of course mention was made of Marina)  phrase and also mentioned Yoko Ono's 'cut piece' (it's not only formal art he knows about!).

But here the artist is present at many levels and this was a ground breaking work when it appeared at the time of the suffragettes struggle for 'The Vote'.

But is's witty and skilful too

The Artist truly is present - Dame Laura Knight's taboo busting self portrait of 1913 

Kant and Egalitarianism

Last Ethical outing at CityLit

Well when Ariel introduced us to the CityLit course on Moral Philosophy 10 weeks or so ago he did mention it wouldn't be easy and it didn't feel like it was - it was undoubtedly too short to give the individual topics the time and space their particular angle warranted (even Ayn Rand's  Objectivism  felt was worth more time).

The overwhelming good (for me) was that it gave me the opportunity to see that 'things' could be judged and that perhaps consistency of such judgements was something worth aspiring to.

John Rawls (nice little video of the man here)  who was one of the modern philosophers we considered all to briefly in our final session was to all intents and purposes a Kant-ian Egalitarian (and a favoured thinker by former  US president   Bill Clinton) but it seems one can be of the Kantian persuasion but non Egalitarian in your leanings as was the other modern philosopher under our  fading' spotlight Robert Nozick (favoured by Neo-Cons) - he as far as I can see made some incisive points on freedom in his review of Distributive Justice - but I feel my heart is not with him.

I (like many of us) reckon the state is not the best judge on allocating resources to solve problems but the alternative of 'no- state' offers what might be eben more perilous for the weak and disenfranchised.

So a challenge for me is to consider appropriately what are 'Moral' questions and then   make use of the school of Moral Philosophy which might throw light on what we should do - I am also (and hope to remain) cognisant of the dangers of appearing to be 'Moralistic' - I am now even more conscious of my own shortcomings (without aspiring to be at a level of a Socrates).

 

Is our planet the most important thing?

Perhaps we should worry that many can not afford £400,000
for a roof above their head?

Do we care about fairness - and if we do how do we define fairness - I liked the thought experiment Rawls's describes in the  'Veil of Ignorance ' but also can not totally reject the ideas of Rand (or for that matter Nietzsche).

Utility is attractive in the abstract but perhaps can be less compelling in 'real life' - when viewed against allocations to ones 'flesh and blood'  anyway something of value I hope has been gleaned by me from looking at my own views on morals..

Should we be taxed to support the homeless and destitute or does that make us all slaves to the state? 

Hooked

I suppose I'm getting a bit hooked on these 'phone' panoramas - so let's get yesterdays one  out of the way (from a quick Tate Modern visit).

Panoramas - I love 'em 

In fact yesterday was the last part of Moral Philosophy (more on that in the next day or two) - sufficient to say that some light relief and a change of direction  was needed.

Having taken journey to St Paul's trip across the wobbly bridge and the strains of Leonard Cohen penned Hallelujah being played on the accordion started a  lifting of spirits.

St Paul's -A source of awe 

A  busker performs

Once inside the Tate Modern I looked at works I was familiar with and new ones too.

I'd become acquainted with work of US artist Richard Tuttle both at Tate Modern a few years back - this new work was on (to me) a more human scale and nice to look around it - although the full 360 degree was not possible.

System VI - White Traffic by Richard Tuttle (2011)

Amongst the other work I was excited to see was that of Japanese artist Kazuo Shiraga which was very striking - having found out a little about it I guess it could be related in some ways to 'Action paintings' - I really like it (interesting too that he spent some time as a Buddhist Monk).

An abstract that is not obviously from Japan

The Tate is very well curated and the work of Eduardo Paolozzi really works well with the Russian artist Viktor Pivovarov nearby.

Work from a favourite of mine The Scottish-Italian artist  Paolozzi - City of the Circle and the Square 

Part of Viktor's Apartment 22 collection

Also great to see again the work I'd visited with James (on another CityLit course)  a few months back and eavesdrop on a guide explaining the connection with immigrant labour.

Los Moscos (again)

Also took a look again at two significant (dear we say Iconic?) pieces-

Fountain and Cadeau.

On a pedestal 

Any old iron (y)

Slavery and more at The National Portrait Gallery

Yesterday and at the National Gallery again - and we saw some examples of Portraits which were connected with Britain's involvement in the slave trade -Leslie the course leader reminded the group how England faced two ways on Slavery amassing large amounts of money but in some ways being  disapproving of the practice.

 The first portrait of  Lord Chief of Justice (William Murray) who ruled against the right of recapture of a black slave. This painting was by John Singleton Copley an Anglo American artist.

Lord Chief Justice

 My favourite of the paintings  was probably the portrait of Erasmus Darwin (related to Charles Darwin) by Joseph Wright of Derby (I like the reflection of the sitter's hand in the table) - this painter is one of my favourite English Painters.

Erasmus Darwin (Physician)  by Joseph Wright of Derby - look at the reflected hand

 I also liked the painting of Mary Lloyd by George Romney - the Gallery has hung this on the other side of an arch from a rather mannered self portrait by the Swiss (female) artist Angelica Kauffman.

and Mary Lloyd  by George Romney

A self portrait by Angelica Kaufman 

 The painting by Haydon is less successful as art but a useful documentation regarding the feeling amongst abolitionists particularly Quakers.

Haydon struggled with this work and it could have been one of the difficulties and  a contributory factor around his taking of his own life

Visitors take a look at a meeting of The Anti Slavery Society Convention - 1841 by Haydon 

And a panorama of a wet Trafalgar square by me..

A synthesised view

The Fascination of 'Victorian Giants' at NPG and a Japanese Giant too

Small but well put together.

An art  Photography lesson

Yesterday after my weekly battle with (the study of) Ethics (more about that later) I took a walk to the National Portrait Gallery to see what the story was around.


Worryingly (in some respects) I'm familiar with Julia Cameron having seen her work in exhibitions separately  at the Science Museum's Mediaspace and also at Tate Britain, and of course the involvement of Charles Dodgson/Lewis Carroll in photography is well known (as is the idea perhaps unfairly that he behaved inappropriately).



The exhibition  at the NPG is about the border of Photography and Art and what was great for me was to be introduced to and see the work from Clementina Hawarden and Oscar Rejlander.

What was worthy of note was the limited number of photographs these important figures took, even compared with now old analogue film rolls the cameras were  enormous and each picture used a painstakingly prepared glass to capture the image - success then was far from assured.

One Ticket Please

Many of the pictures were to the modern eye pedestrian but where the ambitions were great something amazing can be seen.

What fascinated me most was Rejlander's 'The Two Ways of Life' a vastly complex (for the time) undertaking  - it sought to usurp perhaps what had been done by painters and even included Oscar himself .

I'd love to see a modern colour version of this.

Also on show were examples where the same subject had been taken from different angles - these suggested a feel for how film editing would develop.

I liked seeing connections too - one picture 'Sadness' (1864) of the famous actress  Ellen Terry taken by Julia Cameron  informed (as I didn't know) me that GF Watts (Artist and Sculptor)  had been here husband (only for a year though).

Clementina Hawarden took some great pictures too - a smashing one cleverly uses a mirror to capture two angles of  'Clementina Maude' - technically not easy but a great way to show the subject.

I'll be sitting there on Monday - ahead of session 3 of CityLit NPG course 

And Street Photography from Japan

I saw a very interesting TV programme about three of Japan's cities Kyoto, Edo and Tokyo and was introduced to Daido Moriyama - I think his style of photography is very engaging.



Coffee Cups

Guilty me

- Good to see one of my own my personal irritations in the News - come on let's stop throwing so many cups away

Coffee and preserving the planet (and loyalty)

Come on guys - get a dishwasher!

Now I (like nearly everyone else) like to frequent the Coffee Shops that are now such a part of High Street life.

I'm getting irritated that most places don't offer a 'proper' cup - I can accept McDonalds are not in the game of saving the planet but some of the other chains are portraying themselves as 'ethical'- so where are real pots?

From the main chains coffee-wise  my choice would be Nero, I like the cappuccino they serve and they have a reasonable offer on the loyalty system, they do  use for customers sitting in fairly universally a 'proper' cup and this is a strong preference I have -so well done to them.

Nero  used to sell The Times (and give a loyalty stamp on this too) - When I worked in Chiswick I was close to being a 'regular' in their shops on the High Street.


Starbucks I'm less sure of they certainly were targeted as being Tax avoid-ers (I see Nero aren't great on this either) but then this is not too much of a surprise, I'm not a regular customer so am not too sure on their loyalty offer - I think they're the dominant chain and I've certainly had a pottery cup when I've sat in.

Another offending  Pret near NPG

Costa is not the best coffee for me and they tend to have a confused queuing system (for what reason I don't know) - they were early to electronic loyalty cards (not sure if they still have these) - they have some food but none which I've fallen in love with and it seems pricey for what it is.


[They do though as part of bigger business pay their taxes)

So now we come to crux of the matter - I've begun to like Pret a Manger, they're very well run and staff are nice -I like the charitable stuff they do and really like the Cheese Ploughman's Baguette, there's no loyalty card (but at least their not capturing data about me) - great I could ghave a coffee at somewhere I was broadly in line with and the coffee is in my top 2 - Problem is most of the shops do not provide a pot cup for the customers who sit -The Ealing one does but most others (certainly inner London) don't and the disposable cups it seems  are going to landfill - they're not bio-degradable- so until things improve I will (when I remember) ask for coffee to be in a proper cup and if it's not possible I'll go elsewhere.

Some of the branches I've been in are bigger enough I'm sure to accommodate a dishwasher.

[I have tweeted about this and the company responded that they have this as a goal - my view is that they need to start making it happen -it's worth bearing in mind what an important part 'Loyalty' is of the Coffee chains business plan is - 5+ visits a week over 10 years or so is quite a revenue stream.]

See it is possible

The Ealing Branch

So perhaps what I need to do is be a more active 'consumer' and check out the best independents?