The most frequent complaint of these wayward sentiments (made by my motley crew of loyal readers) is that, though they appear as if belonging to a blog, do not actually constitute a blog, rather a mere collection of essays. 'Tis true to be sure - I like essays - it means I can make believe I'm writing my own newspaper column, but without the pressure of deadlines or word count. Nevertheless, I shall endeavour to occasionally take on the mantle of confessional (compulsive?) bloggette.
Starting now.
Two firsts for Monday the 15th of September. I started a new job, and given that "working" is a concept I find in every way unpalatable and reprehensible (academia partially excepted, of course), I was looking forward to today with trepidation and apprehension. I needed not worry, however, as my new post is pretty swish. I am, as of today, the newest editorial assistant at the Architects' Journal - part time so I can still PhD (yes, it is a verb), good pay (the publishing industry's equivalent of spotting a narwhal in the middle of a desert), cool editor, and an equally groovy editorial team (afternoon "water cooler" chat consisted of a discussion of the merits (or not!) of Kurt Vonnegut's "Breakfast of Champions"). I'm quite fond of writing, keen on architecture, too opinionated for my own good, and a fascist pig dog when it comes to editing AND I've already snagged an invitation to the private viewing of Gerhard Richter's new show at the Serpentine next week. Me and the AJ are going to get along just fine. Oh yeah!
In an attempt to ensure my bottom spends good time on a chair in the library, especially now that twenty hours of my week are now dedicated to the AJ, in a whimsical fever of, uh, whimsy, I joined the London Library a few weeks ago. Today was the first opportunity I'd had to consummate my membership and I wasn't disappointed. There's a nice frisson of sexual tension given that the overwhelming majority of LL users are either male or very masculine looking women. It also doesn't help that the floors in the stacks are metal grates, meaning that anyone on the floor below looking up may have caught an eyeful of my stockings and knickers. Needless to say, I won't be wearing dresses in the library anymore. Don't want to encourage the pervy old men. The selection of books is ace and open stacks are such a good idea, especially compared to the Fort Knoxness that is the British Library. But the best thing I discovered in the library this afternoon was in the Members' Room where I retired after a few hours of reading to revive myself with a cup of tea. I picked up the magazine nearest me to page through and then noticed it wasn't actually a magazine. The cover letter on the manuscript politely explained that the author of the screenplay resting in my hands had been unsuccessfully pitching said manuscript for the last three months. He had bribed a friend, a member of the Library (which incidentally is rather costly to join), to surreptitiously sneak the manuscript into the Members' Room so that any directors or producers (who happened to be members of the Library) might take pity (or interest, whatever) on his script and make his dream come true. The best bit was the post script which indicated that, for their trouble, the kindly producer/director would be treated to a "large drink" and that the author would make a "small donation" to the library. Though I am neither kindly nor a producer nor even a director, I was intrigued by the gumption of the author and turned to page one only to find (not unexpectedly) that the writing was terrible and the story even worse. If you're going to go through the trouble to hob-nob with the great and glorious of the LL, at least make sure you've got a good story to tell and then do it justice by telling it well. For all the awfulness of the script, I was quite taken with my studious afternoon in the reading room and look forward to many more such productive sessions surrounded by the charms of the library. In trousers mind...
Showing posts with label London Library. Show all posts
Showing posts with label London Library. Show all posts
Monday, September 15, 2008
Friday, August 22, 2008
Cy Twombly: Il Miglior Fabbro
So occasionally I get a bit sick of living in London and want to pack it all in for a more exciting existence in Zambia or Puglia or anywhere "exciting." Generally though, I'm pretty content living in this city, and some days I even thank my lucky stars that I get to call the capital home. Today was most definitely a star thanking kind of day. I suppose it might seem odd that it only takes an art exhibition to garner such praise, but I need my humanist batteries charged regularly. Otherwise I tend to get grouchy. And I'm not much fun when I'm grouchy...
I had been putting off going to the Cy Twombly exhibition because I didn't want to be disappointed. Although I find the building magnificent, the exhibitions drive me to despair: Duchamps, Dali, Gilbert and George, yawn, yawn, yawn. Surely it would be far more inspiring and educational for the art-viewing public to have regular exposure to less well known artists. When Nicholas Penny was appointed as the new director of the National Gallery earlier this year, one of the first things he said to the press was that blockbuster exhibitions don't teach anyone anything, and insisted he would concentrate instead on erudite shows of lesser-known artists. Finally, I thought, a man with some bloody good sense. As of yet, he hasn�t been director long enough to make good on his word, but he appears to have struck a chord with other galleries if this exhibition is anything to judge by.
The human mind must derive immense pleasure in the making of cross references, patterns, and connections in works of art; whether literature, music, or the visual, as we seem to love saying things like, �this band sounds like a cross between early David Bowie and Brahms!� or �this author is the new Hemmingway.� Twombly excels at this sort of cross-pollination and there are references, both ancient and modern, aplenty. Twombly makes no secret of his love of great poets, especially Rilke and Homer, but for me, the subtle or even unacknowledged connections were more intriguing. Twombly's early works, for instance, reminded me very much of some of the commercial work of Gary Fernandez, a modern illustrator. While the similarities are entirely tenuous (though I suppose it is possible Fernandez takes Twombly as inspiration), the vibrant, fresh, looseness of the Twombly is very evident in the illustrations of Fernandez. There�s something very illustratory (nice word, I know) in general about Twombly's early pieces which give them a surprisingly modern sensibility.
One of my favourite paintings from the exhibition, Treatise on the Veil, was entirely different from any other work displayed. Evidently these paintings were inspired by an Eadweard Muybridge photograph of a bride in motion. Muybridge was a photographic pioneer, using multiple cameras to create stop-motion action sequences of things like horses galloping or a couple dancing. Twombly�s series of six interlinked panels brilliantly echoes the concept (and the inspiration of a stop motion bride seemingly floating under her veil) while simultaneously remaking the technique into something completely new.
Quattro Stagioni, perhaps Twombly�s most well known work (the Modern's publicity for the exhibition is taken from this work), is hung in two different versions, completed roughly around the same time, 1993-95. These reminded me of something, but it took me a while to remember that, especially Estate, echoed the work of Clyfford Still, which I'd seen at an exhibition in Washington DC in 2003. You can see the difference between the two immediately, but that's hardly the point. The stylistic similarities are perhaps more intriguing. Still is far more controlled; he�s cleaner, harsher, more primitive, while Twombly is all whimsy, ragged, carefree, reckless insouciance, but it was Still's yellow painting below that I remembered and brought the resemblance to mind. I love discovering connections like these � as I'm not approaching this from an academic perspective, I don't have to consider the implications of whether they actually knew each other. I can simply enjoy the thrill of recognition and the remembrance and clarification of that recognition. I suppose it's this sort of thing that makes an unpersonal gallery exhibition into a far more personal experience.
The first two are the Twombly's, and Still's work is below.
The last series of work in the exhibition is from Twombly�s 2005 Bacchus, Psilax, Mainomenos (for those non Greek speaking, anti-mythologists, Bacchus is the Roman equivalent of the Greek god of wine Dionysus, and even if you do know that, you probably don�t know that his rites were celebrated with orgies and animals being torn to pieces and their raw flesh consumed � see Euripides� The Bacchae for more fun and games). This was the only time where I felt the work on display represented something quite different to me than it did to the curators. The accompanying blurb indicated that Twombly�s initial inspiration for the work was Homer�s Iliad, which seemed sensible enough given Twombly�s classical leanings. The curators then went on to say that the brilliant, massive, red looped paintings were an expression of pure drunken abandon. Having three of the paintings in the room at once, there was little euphoria to be felt. They are marvellous pieces of work, but all I could think of was Christopher Logue�s War Music, a contemporary, pseudo-translation of the Iliad, with its haunting evocation of war, �Dust like red mist/Pain like chalk on slate. Heat like Arctic� and also �Moving at speed, but absolutely still/The arrow in the air. Death in a man/as something first perceived by accident.� In particular, the long streaks of dripped down red paint create a sense of morbid frenzy, the body exploding into a fine red mist. Not exactly jubilant...
Still, I found the exhibition to be absolutely superb (how many adverbs in one post?). I was so enamoured that I sought out a feedback form from the information desk and filled it in then and there. It basically said, �more like this please.� I hope they take my advice.
I had been putting off going to the Cy Twombly exhibition because I didn't want to be disappointed. Although I find the building magnificent, the exhibitions drive me to despair: Duchamps, Dali, Gilbert and George, yawn, yawn, yawn. Surely it would be far more inspiring and educational for the art-viewing public to have regular exposure to less well known artists. When Nicholas Penny was appointed as the new director of the National Gallery earlier this year, one of the first things he said to the press was that blockbuster exhibitions don't teach anyone anything, and insisted he would concentrate instead on erudite shows of lesser-known artists. Finally, I thought, a man with some bloody good sense. As of yet, he hasn�t been director long enough to make good on his word, but he appears to have struck a chord with other galleries if this exhibition is anything to judge by.
The human mind must derive immense pleasure in the making of cross references, patterns, and connections in works of art; whether literature, music, or the visual, as we seem to love saying things like, �this band sounds like a cross between early David Bowie and Brahms!� or �this author is the new Hemmingway.� Twombly excels at this sort of cross-pollination and there are references, both ancient and modern, aplenty. Twombly makes no secret of his love of great poets, especially Rilke and Homer, but for me, the subtle or even unacknowledged connections were more intriguing. Twombly's early works, for instance, reminded me very much of some of the commercial work of Gary Fernandez, a modern illustrator. While the similarities are entirely tenuous (though I suppose it is possible Fernandez takes Twombly as inspiration), the vibrant, fresh, looseness of the Twombly is very evident in the illustrations of Fernandez. There�s something very illustratory (nice word, I know) in general about Twombly's early pieces which give them a surprisingly modern sensibility.
One of my favourite paintings from the exhibition, Treatise on the Veil, was entirely different from any other work displayed. Evidently these paintings were inspired by an Eadweard Muybridge photograph of a bride in motion. Muybridge was a photographic pioneer, using multiple cameras to create stop-motion action sequences of things like horses galloping or a couple dancing. Twombly�s series of six interlinked panels brilliantly echoes the concept (and the inspiration of a stop motion bride seemingly floating under her veil) while simultaneously remaking the technique into something completely new.
Quattro Stagioni, perhaps Twombly�s most well known work (the Modern's publicity for the exhibition is taken from this work), is hung in two different versions, completed roughly around the same time, 1993-95. These reminded me of something, but it took me a while to remember that, especially Estate, echoed the work of Clyfford Still, which I'd seen at an exhibition in Washington DC in 2003. You can see the difference between the two immediately, but that's hardly the point. The stylistic similarities are perhaps more intriguing. Still is far more controlled; he�s cleaner, harsher, more primitive, while Twombly is all whimsy, ragged, carefree, reckless insouciance, but it was Still's yellow painting below that I remembered and brought the resemblance to mind. I love discovering connections like these � as I'm not approaching this from an academic perspective, I don't have to consider the implications of whether they actually knew each other. I can simply enjoy the thrill of recognition and the remembrance and clarification of that recognition. I suppose it's this sort of thing that makes an unpersonal gallery exhibition into a far more personal experience.
The first two are the Twombly's, and Still's work is below.
The last series of work in the exhibition is from Twombly�s 2005 Bacchus, Psilax, Mainomenos (for those non Greek speaking, anti-mythologists, Bacchus is the Roman equivalent of the Greek god of wine Dionysus, and even if you do know that, you probably don�t know that his rites were celebrated with orgies and animals being torn to pieces and their raw flesh consumed � see Euripides� The Bacchae for more fun and games). This was the only time where I felt the work on display represented something quite different to me than it did to the curators. The accompanying blurb indicated that Twombly�s initial inspiration for the work was Homer�s Iliad, which seemed sensible enough given Twombly�s classical leanings. The curators then went on to say that the brilliant, massive, red looped paintings were an expression of pure drunken abandon. Having three of the paintings in the room at once, there was little euphoria to be felt. They are marvellous pieces of work, but all I could think of was Christopher Logue�s War Music, a contemporary, pseudo-translation of the Iliad, with its haunting evocation of war, �Dust like red mist/Pain like chalk on slate. Heat like Arctic� and also �Moving at speed, but absolutely still/The arrow in the air. Death in a man/as something first perceived by accident.� In particular, the long streaks of dripped down red paint create a sense of morbid frenzy, the body exploding into a fine red mist. Not exactly jubilant...
Still, I found the exhibition to be absolutely superb (how many adverbs in one post?). I was so enamoured that I sought out a feedback form from the information desk and filled it in then and there. It basically said, �more like this please.� I hope they take my advice.
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