Don McCullin, Shaped by War – Imperial War Museum

As part of my birthday we spent yesterday morning at the Imperial War Museum, where we’d bought tickets to see the Don McCullin Photography Exhibition, Shaped by War. It’s a major chronological retrospective covering his social history/poverty and commissioned photography work in the UK and in various war zones around the world.

I have to admit I only knew a little of McCullin’s work (and photography in general) prior to visiting, but I’ve always admired the starkness of human suffering captured in that shutter moment and I always think of the subject and photographer when I see an image which drags out an emotional response. What they were feeling? Whether they survived? Where are they now? Are they happy?

But not knowing much made the experience more forceful, more hard hitting. The first thing to say about McCullin is he’s in his late seventies, he lived through the war years, through poverty and rationing, through evacuation from Finsbury Park, North London. He has felt that hunger in his belly which many of us born in later years will have no concept of.

People from villages and small towns often say that they are proud of the sons and daughters of their region, when they go on to make a success of themselves. Although London is a big city, there still exists some sense of connection and community to an area within it, it may be a nostalgic or romantic vision of it (McCullin himself describes the area as tribal and violent when he was a young adult), but I still cling to some connection and love to where I’m from. Hence, having grown up in the area myself, I felt a sense of pride for Don. Here was a local working class lad who’d contributed so much to photo-journalism and to the world.

It all could have gone wrong for him though, he may have dumped photography, he pawned his camera, but his mother sensibly got it back for him.

In the thirty minute film which is shown as part of the exhibition (see extract below), McCullin comes across as being haunted by the sense of making a living through tragedy. The first tragedy which got him into a career in photography was the murder of a policeman by a north London gang. As he was an associate of a gang himself, he took photos of his friends, he sent them to the Observer and they published them. A window into this (probably) hidden working class world of 1950s urban violence must have fascinated the broadsheet buying public. And that kick started his career.

He doesn’t claim he’s a good guy, and in no way is he a bad guy… there are times when he personally performs great feats of courage or dignity (carrying a wounded G.I in vietnam), there are other times when he says (I paraphrase) he feels repulsed by his feelings towards war, needing it and being enthused by it. It’s an uneasy and unsettling ambivalence, balanced between revulsion and guilt and the absolute conviction of making sure people had a voice in the world, that tragedies would be brought to the public attention.

In addition, he has a deep sense of value for his work, he sheds this peculiar British notion of self effacement, denying or putting down value in your own work. He positively knows his work is excellent, he has invested so much in it, so much skill and feeling, but in no way does it come across as an arrogance, or a blind spot to some hidden weakness. He puts everything into it, he wants us to feel, to become involved. His weakness is one which he is painfully aware of, the guilt he carries for what he has seen and photographed. I suspect he feels this pain every day of his life.

His mistrust of humanity stems from what he has seen. As he states in the interview, he keeps his loved ones close of course, but witnessing such unimaginable horror has made him suspicious to the point of avoiding human contact it seems. In recent, non war related work, he seeks solitude through the photography of landscapes, in what he describes as healing. He wants people to fall in love with these photographs. And in the exhibition, after the harrowing images of war, there are some beautiful landscape images which appear gently at the end, a kind of reflection, a small balm, a little reminder that there is beauty in the world.

But, what one man can inflict on another without any mercy or compassion has forged him. His story of his experience in Vietnam sounds like hell on earth. Being surrounded by corpses, sleeping and waking up finding you’d inadvertently slept beside a corpse, jumping into a hole to hind only to find you are sitting on the belly of another corpse, but still maintaining an ability to take photos. It shook him, drove him to battle fatigue, it would have tipped most people over the edge, whether they were fighting men or not. His image of an American solider, having been badly wounded in both legs is one he describes as reminiscent of one of the most iconic images in the western world. That of Christ being brought down from the cross by his loved ones.

McCullin’s has been quoted as saying : “I am a professed atheist, until I find myself in serious circumstances. Then I quickly fall on my knees, in my mind if not literally, and I say : Please God, save me from this”

And it’s not hard to imagine investing frightened prayers for salvation when faced with such chaos and murder all around.

Pic I took of McCullin’s camera which copped a bullet for him. And it still works!

I have to say, going to this exhibition, you cannot be anything other than emotionally involved with the suffering and sadness he has captured. Not just because of images of fighting, but because of images of the victims of war. The hollow shell of the fragile oprhan albino boy from Biafra, not only starving, but shunned because of his condition, dressed in rags.

Or, the picture of the abandoned child in Bangladesh in 1971. This child would be about the same age as me. I haven’t stopped thinking about him or her since looking at this photograph.

(photo of this photo from thedrum.co.uk)

Finally, the final part of the film “The Darkness in Me” where Don McCullin talks of his later years and finding peace. It contains some disturbing, but also beautiful images as he talks about overcoming or at least controlling the darkness in him. The other three parts are also on youtube.

Shaped by War is on until the 15th April.

Mark Lanegan, Shepherds Bush, Tuesday 13th March 2012

I have to say I was very excited to hear Mark Lanegan had recorded a new album and was touring. And not just a new album, but a Mark Lanegan Band album, his own compositions. We’d waited eight long years between 2004’s Bubblegum and this years Blues Funeral. In between Mark busied himself with collaborating, his growl added to the work of Isobel Campbell, The Gutter Twins and Soulsavers. It was like this work kept him in touch with the musical world, on a low intensity, whilst he hibernated like a ruminative bear incubating his own songs.

And after this long hiatus, the new album, it’s when he has his own voice that his songwriting, his under appreciated poetry, his music and his vocals really come to the fore.

Blues Funeral is great, full of the expected dark gospel and gothic blues as well as big rumbling rock numbers. But scattered throughout that mix are some uplifting lyrics. There were always references to religion in his lyrics, an evocative hook many singer songwriters latched onto, whether they were religious or not. Lanegan’s past (although he doesn’t dwell or want to discuss it) is one which looks to be scattered with regrets and tragedies, addictions, jail and poverty, this comes through in his songs, so when he roars the following on the powerfully raucous “Quiver syndrome” it does verge on the Christian Rock (and I don’t say this in any derogatory way, as it’s a brilliant tune, but when I catch myself singing along to it I do smile at the thought of the arch-agnostic getting right into it!).

“Will the lord hold me down, because I’m wicked? Will the lord hold me down, to my shame? Will your love it get into me jesus? Now I heard you calling out my name.”

And the almost Goldfrapp like “Ode to Sad Disco” is another one, an uplifting song with a synth groove running through it, has lyrics relating to seeing the light and being on your knees.

But of course, there are also classically dark songs, like the opening track of both the album and the gig. “The Gravedigger’s Song”. The video draws on so much of the horror genre, it should have an 18 certificate :)

So, onto the gig. I met up with the Bossman and we got to the venue early enough to catch the last couple of tracks of the first support act Duke Garwood. With perseverance, his disembodied blues with almost unintelligible lyrics was compelling. The already large crowd (it was a sell out) watched respectfully as he occasionally plucked or strung out a lyric whilst his equally hirsute percussionist trudged away in the background.

After Duke Garwood, the Creature With the Atom Brain, a psychedelic stoner rock band from Belgium. They were brilliantly tight. Really enjoyed them. Here is a pic. I particularly liked the bassist as he looked like a Greek priest with his hair in a bun and his big beard :)

And then to Mark Lanegan himself.

He is a man of few words, he doesn’t have much to say beyond the songs themselves. But some people in the audience want to hear some stand up it seems. “Give us a smile!” someone shouted. Lanegan didn’t flinch or react. Just enjoy the music dudes! He stood in his familiar pose, one hand fixed high on the mike stand, his crucifix tattoo visible on his fist, the other hand gripping it lower down, like he was clasping to it for dear life.

Songs of death, regret, attempted suicide, drinking, depression, addiction, love, lost love, cruelty, despair. His lyrics are moving and powerful. When he did speak, it was just to mumble the occasional thankyou. When he introduced his band, he seemed crippled by shyness and self doubt. For someone who bares their soul through their lyrics, just genial engagement with an audience tests him. I’ve no problem with that. In fact, it’s endearing. We all have our doubts and challenges. The fact he came out to sign stuff for the audience after the gig must have been difficult for him too.

All in all, including the encore, the band played twenty tracks, new tracks and some classic old ones, such as “One Way Street” from my favourite Lanegan album Field Songs. Bubblegum was also well represented, another great album, often cited as his best. It was a mammoth performance, he poured his heart into it. Lanegan sweated like a beast, sweat poured down through his beard, onto his shirt and the floor. His big leonine head occasionally rocked, his face grimaced as the storm raged around him. Some lyrics seemed painful for him to sing.

When it came to the first encore track “When Your Number isn’t up” a song about loneliness and a botched suicide attempt (I don’t know whether it was his own) he sounded particularly vulnerable. It was moving hearing this song live.

When your number isn’t up (Mark Lanegan)

Did you call for the night porter?
You smell the blood running warm
I stay close to this frozen border, so close I can hit it with a stone
Now something crawls right up my spine
That I always got to follow
Turn out the lights
Don't see me drawn and hollow
Just blood running warm
No one needs to tell you that
There's no use for ya here anymore
And where are your friends?
They've gone away
It's a different world, they left you to this
To janitor
The emptiness
So let's get it on
When the sun is finally going down, and you're overdue to follow
But you're still above the ground
What ya got comin' is hard to swallow
Like blood running warm
Did they call for the night porter
And smell the blood, blood running warm
Well I've been waitin at this frozen border, so close you could hit it with a stone

It was swiftly followed by Pendulum, a song about Jesus, his sacrifice, loneliness (again), drifting and homelessness. Then Harbourview Hospital, from the new album, about redemption and personal demons and finally the massive Metamphetamine Blues. People saved their moshing for the last track of the evening.

It seemed apt the last words he sung were “I don’t want to leave this heaven so soon”.

Adam Cohen, Union Chapel, Feb 29th 2012

For our Christmas present, my lovely niece Dod got me and Deb tickets to go and see Adam Cohen, as in son of the legendary Leonard and not just that, but at the aesthetically beautiful Union Chapel in Islington. Six of us went, a collective noun of Greeks. A gaggle (Deb is honorary Greek now).

We’ve seen Cohen senior twice, one time was at the Royal Albert Hall where we lucked out on front row stalls tickets, which was utterly brilliant. A magical occasion where his humility moved the audience. The first time was in Dublin and I wrote about it in this post. I would wax lyrical about the genius that is Leonard, but this blog isn’t about him, it’s about his son and much as I will try to avoid comparisons, sometimes they are unavoidable.

After the support act, who incidentally I liked, Scott McFarnon, a sincere, easy going singer songwriter, Adam strode onstage in a formal jacket, his jeans looked perhaps one size too small for him, a white shirt, with a perfectly folded cravatte tied in a triangle round his neck. Why is all this detail important? Well, because it seemed important to him. There was something vaudeville about him, the way he lounged out, holding a tumbler of tequila. As Christina said, he looked like he was doing an impression of Al Murray as the pub landlord. I thought he was more like the Fonz at times, always on the verge of sticking both thumbs up and saying “eyyyyy Mrs Cunningham”. His band consisted of two other members and together they were flawlessly tight.

So what were we in for? His songs contained hallmarks of his fathers genius. The syrupy depth of his voice, the poetry of lost love and layers of perfect vocal harmonies. Some of his songs were beautiful too. His first few songs cited the names of various ex-girlfriends. This got a bit grating as it seemed he was exultant in the power and content of his tightly packed trousers as much as the despair of losing these various beautiful former loves.

But beyond the showman was a great performer. He warmed up and he warmed us up. The times he did honour his father with a cover version or a snippet of a cover version, I struggled, but eventually gave in (So Long Marianne, Tower of Song for instance). He wasn’t the toddler trying to stand in his dads immense shoes, it felt more like him respecting his dad. And why not, they are his inheritance and something for him to be rightly proud of. 

Persian Fire, Rubicon and Millennium by Tom Holland

As a keen amateur dabbler in the short story area and having stumbled over the corpses of several fizzled out novels, advice that is often lobbed in your general direction is to Read, Read, Read… read other authors, let other authors amazing skills ooze into your pores and by osmosis you will be at least enthused if not influenced to write better.

Sod that. Much as I like fiction, what I usually end up reading is narrative history. I respect writers in this area because they combine both;

1) The painstaking effort in the meticulous research required to build their book, balanced with-

2) Being actually able to write, be compelling, tell a story, without actually making it up or losing the determination to get to the end of the project.

These are two very different skills, they almost pull at each other, opposing forces, so if an author can achieve both, seemingly effortlessly, then this makes for a good book.

And Tom Holland really hits the spot in both areas. I’ve read approximately 2.9(!) of his books so far (I’m just coming to the end of Millennium) and I have to say all three books are excellent, the others being Persian Fire and Rubicon. There’s a fourth on the way too.

My well thumbed copies of Tom Holland’s books. Guaranteed to make you appear to be erudite and wise when visitors appear and you lean against the bookshelf they are housed in, your other hand ruminatively holding the pipe you are slowly puffing on.

To keep you on your toes, he also inserts a little fact or reference to make you smirk along the journey, to perk you up, some humour to go along with the hardships, glory and despair of the realities of conquest and war. Stuffier authors might consider these facts unnecessary or lacking in historical worth, but for me, they paint a picture. Of what the goss’ was back in the day. Of what people were saying, this is just as important as the actual facts to me, to get to grips with the psychology and motivations of the protagonists, their contemporaries and enemies.

Examples, from memory, Greeks looking down on the Persians as effeminate as they wore “trousers”.

Or where he cites (in Millennium) one of the stories of how Sweyn Forkbeard assassinated his own father Harold Bluetooth to take the Danish crown, through shooting him “square between the buttocks with an arrow” as his old man was “squatted down behind a bush for the purpose of emptying his bowels”. Which may or may not have been the way it actually happened, but brilliantly enlightening that someone saw fit to spread this rumour about back then!

To someone who had a wholly vocational education from the age of 13, who is only catching up on the arts and history I would have thoroughly enjoyed as a kid, it’s also educational without being patronising. There’s a childlike wonder when I consider the origins of words. Like “ostracised” coming from the Greek “ostraka” meaning the broken pieces of pottery on which voting Athenians would scratch the name of their choice for expulsion from Athens, a kind of inverted voting system, which clearly the classically astute producers of “Big Brother” studied deeply in the development of their TV programme :)

Or as covered in Rubicon, “decimation”, the ugly way the Roman’s would punish a failing army, by randomly picking every tenth man and having him executed in front of his comrades. How terrifying. And how this possibly could lead to a rally in their morale or improvement in their fighting ability I have no idea. But this is another thing Holland expertly points out. How people thought in that period was significantly different to how we think now. Modern morality is built upon an Abrahamic foundation, whether you are religious or not. The Romans, Greeks and Persians seemed unencumbered by such “trivialities” as compassion or forgiveness. Sure, they loved and they grieved, but their motivations were different to ours, as Holland himself states in the preface of Rubicon:

The Romans, it goes without saying, existed under circumstances – physical, emotional, intellectual – profoundly different from our own. What strikes us as recognisable about aspects of their civilisation may be so – but not always. Often, in fact, the Romans can be strangest when they appear most familiar. A poet mourning the cruelty of his mistress, or a father his dead daughter, these may seem to speak to us directly of something permanent in human nature, and yet how alien, how utterly alien a Roman’s assumptions about sexual relations, or family life, would appear to us. So too the values that gave breath to the Republic itself, the desires of its citizens, the rituals and codes of their behaviour. Understand these and much that strikes us as abhorrent about the Romans, actions which to our way of thinking are self-evidently crimes can be, if not forgiven, then at least better understood. The spilling of blood in an arena, the obliteration of a great city, the conquest of the world – these, to the Roman way of thinking, might be regarded as glorious accomplishments. Only by seeing why can we hope to fathom the Republic itself.

In that vein, my favourite of his books, Persian Fire, explored the vast differences between modern and ancient peoples, but also the vast differences between Greeks and Persians, and finally the vast differences, the bickering in-fighting and wars between the Greek speaking peoples themselves. A Spartan was as different to an Athenian as he would be to a Persian. There seemed to be a deep mistrust.

The words “Laconic” and “Spartan”, in popular use today, stem from the behaviours of the residents of Laconia, of Sparta, built for war, with their economy of words, unsympathetic to weakness, to their own children, wearing nothing more fancy that a red cloak wrapped round their shoulders (when they earned the fighting right). A red cloak, a symbol of athletic power, of skill in battle, that struck fear in kingdoms and city states from near and far. I’m generalising, but diplomacy wasn’t something they considered worthwhile investing in. They were insular and warlike.

The Athenians on the other hand, seemed duplicitous, full of intrigue, making bargains and deals, loving a bit of old chit-chat, philosophising and speculating. This “democracy” they had invented seemed alien to all outsiders that would witness it. Dangerous, worthy of being crushed in case it caught on (of course it was only elite men who got the vote). After all, a hero could become a villain overnight and be cast from Athens, based on some tenuous slight or perceived mistake. Shockingly, even Themistocles ended up ostracised, that hero of the Persian wars with his “wooden walls”. But being a fickle Greek, he ended up working for the Persians as a special advisor on Greek matters. Being of Hellenic stock myself, I can picture him being flattered by the interest, coyly turning his bull neck, a one time enemy becoming a trusted confidante. I hate to use this analogy, but I will anyway :) … Like football managers in the modern era, you were only good as your last result in ancient Athens.

And the Persians, with their splendour, their armies from all of their nations, the real Empire of the day, gigantic compared to the flea that was Greece on the fringes of their borders, nipping at the thick golden hide of the ever hungry Persian beast. Persia’s seemingly benevolent King, making nothing more than a demand of “earth and water” (in the form of gold levies and soldiers) from the nations he conquered, letting them maintain they culture and ways of life as long as they maintained a loyalty to him. They absorbed the interesting aspects of the conquered cultures rather than destroying them, but were happy to destroy if the subjugated nation ended up too meddlesome. The Persians had seemingly been delivered a disservice by the crowing Greek chroniclers in the aftermath of their setback at Thermopylae and defeat at Platea, dismissing them as barbarians but Holland gives them an even handed assessment. It’s interesting in a modern context, had the Persian’s conquered Greece, would modern people be looking at Democracy as some quaint old folly, long since disposed in the dustbin of antiquity? And in the context of fledging democracies today, is it better to live safely and with relative wealth under a tyrant, on the understanding that you give complete subservience and don’t have an opinion. Or do you opt for the dangers of the chaos and danger that comes with that fledgling democracy? I wouldn’t be so arrogant as to make any assumption as to what hardships the people of Iraq or Libya (and even the poor and unemployed within the old Soviet states) are going through now or when they lived under dictatorship, or what decision they would make if given the choice to go back to what they had. But it leads to an interesting consideration.

I have very fond memories of Persian Fire as I read it on my honeymoon, which I shared not just with my wife, but with Themistocles, Leonidas, Cyrus, Darius, the Oracle at Delphi, Xerxes, the enslaved Helot underclass and the horsemen of the Medes. As I read it, on our hillside cottage in St Lucia, I’d occasionally take a sip of some cocktail, or watch a hummingbird flit around the lush flowers. It was a beautiful week.

Holland gives a history of Sparta, Athens and Persia, sets the scene. It’s a quite amazing story, considering the majority of Greek states chose to (seemingly wisely) side with Xerxes and his gigantic army. And yet, two distrustful, diametrically opposed Greek states, sharing only a language, Gods and heritage, formed an alliance with a clutch of other Greek cities, to defend or be crushed against their common enemy. Luck played its part, but from a historical context, it seems almost miraculous that these small armies and navies (Athens had no real maritime history at that point but made a huge investment to train and create one based on the Oracle’s “wooden walls” advice and Themistocles belligerence) could defeat the power house that was Persia.

I have to say, it’s one of my favourite books, fiction or non-fiction.

My final point is that this probably isn’t one of my better blogs, it’s a bit stilted. It’s because I’m having to research and quote and try to avoid naive conjecture which means it doesn’t flow very well. It just shows, even with the books sitting in front of me, I’m just not very good at detail *and* entertainment. I don’t think I could write narrative history without resorting to embellishment (I even did it with Themistocles making flirty eyes at the Persian’s above!), outrageous lies, or losing all faith and giving up.

Tom Holland however, is an expert, so really, you should go and buy his books and take my word for it :)

Art by Animals, Grant Museum of Zoology, UCL

I popped into the Grant Museum of Zoology, a compact little treasure trove I hadn’t ever visited before. It’s part of a group of museums which is part of University College London. The museum itself is, I would guess Victorian, all wood panels and cabinets in a single room, filled to the brim and all the way up the walls with specimens and skeletons of various living, rare and extinct creatures. I wrote a Haiku about my visit in my other blog. Charles Darwin was a one time resident in Gower Street too and there are blue plaques aplenty dotted around this academic hub.

At the moment, there is a temporary exhibition on Art by Animals. Here is a short clip from UCL summarising it.

Animal Art is a fascinating area and the museum has not just displayed the pieces by Primates and Elephants, but provided some background to the (possible) thought processes that accompanied the creation of them and speculate as to the development of art from our primate ancestors. From the subconscious/abstract/impressionistic to when art became more representational in our history.

It truly is interesting. I’m not going to get into any debate as to “what is art?”, I’m just a hairy, low slung assed, bow legged primate myself, my interest was imagining what the thought process of the animal was. Were they enjoying what they were painting? Or was it purely (as possibly exhibited by the behaviour of the Orang-Utan in the clip) just a ploy to ensure they get a treat? Was it free associating? Were they making definitive choices on colours to use? Is the aesthetic quality important to them? And most exciting (to me anyway!), are they trying to represent something?

The museum itself talks about the “What is Art?” question in some of the exhibits, for example the Bowerbird, creating one of the most achingly beautiful structures in the animal kingdom to attract a mate. They then lovingly fill it with similar coloured items stacked together, such as iridescent beetle shells or flowers or even blue plastic bottle tops. Is this art? How did this behaviour evolve? Well, probably not art I guess, but work of this nature inspires us to make art in its honour and feeds into the question of Primates. When our ancestors witnessed something they didn’t understand, of this nature, which made them fearful, astounded or think about more than the desperate need to survive, did they then take a step further in their thinking, to worship celestial beings and Gods and make them want to honour these deities themselves through the creation of art? Apologies for the hack anthropology! But shit like this does keep me awake at night!

image from bbc website

The first piece of art I saw made me gasp, the fact it was made by an Elephant staggered me. Beyond the obvious motor skill, the hand(trunk)-eye coordination in making the painting, there was another question. Was it possible for an Elephant to directly represent still life through paint on a canvas? Were they inspired in any way to do this? This opened up a whole ream of possibilities, how intelligent are Elephants? How sensitive or emotional? And do they appreciate and take comfort from art?

(painting by Boom Mee)

Unfortunately, the Elephant is guided, as it states in the clip, his or her handler manipulates their ear like a joystick, to get them to paint something they, the handler want represented. Does this make the art inauthentic? I don’t think that matters, especially if the Elephants are not mistreated in their training and the art itself is sold to raise money for Elephant charities, it just shows that an Elephant has incredible skills in translating commands from touch, into making an image. So it doesn’t diminish it’s interest value for me.

So, onto the primates. The below is a painting which forms part of the exhibition, by a chimp called Bakhari at St Louis Zoo. It’s a finger painting. Interestingly they exhibited it upside down in the Museum! Or is the photo upside down? Did no one think to ask Bakhari as to which way up he wanted it?

(by Bakhari)

In terms of expressionistic value, I really like this. There was also an exhibit of a Chimp’s hand which was used to introduce the marvel of the London Zoo based Chimp, Congo, who even had his own exhibition at the ICA in the 1950s! Three Spanish giants of modern art also had a role to play in Congo’s artistic career;

- Dali who exclaimed “The hand of the chimpanzee is quasihuman; the hand of Jackson Pollock is totally animal!” when witnessing one of Congo’s canvasses.

- Picasso, who secured one of Congo’s paintings as he loved it so much.

- And Miro, who on hearing that Picasso had an original Congo painting, wanted one for himself, which he then swapped for two of his own drawings!

The fascinating article is here and below is a short clip with the great Anthropologist/Zoologist Desmond Morris on his experience of showing Miro round London Zoo when the artist was a venerable man.

As for Congo’s work, unfortunately they aren’t on display in the Grant, but I have to say there seems to be a deliberate method to Congo’s art, it was certainly worthy of his own exhibition in my opinion. I would be delighted if I owned one too! And the story of Congo’s work outselling Warhol in a 2005 Christie’s auction made me laugh, Congo had the honour of being the first non-human to have their artwork auctioned at such a prestigious establishment.

(wikipedia image)

As a final note and going back to the question as to whether primate art can be representative and not just abstract expressionism, this little note, cheekily secreted in the description by a painting from another gorilla made my jaw drop (in that unique ape jaw style). A gorilla, who could use sign language, when asked what his painting was of, signed back that he’d painted “Apple Running” – Apple was the name of his pet dog. So was this truly a first? A breakthrough in understanding what goes through a great ape’s head when he paints or when he thinks? That he was actually representing a concept in his art? I find that incredible.

Art by Animals continues until March 9th 2012.

David Shrigley, Brain Activity, Hayward Gallery

At first I thought it was a mistake, it was a great surprise when the team at the Southbank Centre invited me to the Press Viewing of David Shrigley’s Brain Activity exhibition at the Hayward Gallery. But it turns out they read my blog and enjoyed it. I was most flattered and grateful!
So, David Shrigley. Let me begin by sharing an anecdote with you, how I first got introduced to his work. Well, like many other people, it was through a greetings card. Here is the image.

I bought it as a birthday card for a friend of mine a few years ago, she now has it pinned to her desk at work, she loves it. The birthday message squashed inside now meaningless compared to the fun moral conundrum of the drawing itself. It certainly talked to me.
Look at the decisive strength and self assurance of both the dignified Paladin and the monstrous attractive power of the horned Devil person.  The “Good” figure is righteous, unflinching in his belief, honourable, the guy (or girl) you want on your team. I just imagine his (or her) face is equally expressionless as the helmet which covers it. He/She hands out loaves of bread to the poor and fights dragons. Perhaps a bit boring, but utterly reliable. The “Evil” figure is a tower of naughtiness, the guy you want to go drinking with, he just exudes self indulgence. A night out with him would be dangerous, but great fun, assuming you don’t lose a limb or your soul along the way. He’s thrusting his hips in your general direction, he’s saying “Raaaar! I’m full of sex!”
What does that leave? At the end of the line is the figure who represents those who aren’t sure, who are hedging their bets. The mournful sagging hairy tits of the undecided. Neither terrifying or worthy of respect.
My other blog has a Haiku about this very piece of work.
I accept that this might not be a proper arts critics interpretation. I quite liked this soundbite from Nicholas Lezard in the Guardian “Shrigley is having a go at the infantilising anthropomorphism currently sloshing around daily culture”. What?! I have to say that made me laugh almost as much as Shrigley’s brilliant, darkly fun, creative art. It’s something to do with chimps dressed as babies right?
I’ve said it before in other posts, but art (for me) should provoke a reaction. Should draw you in. Enjoying it is then a bonus. And Shrigley’s art is most definitely enjoyable, captivating, clever and silly. It made me smile and laugh aplenty too.
The idea of taxidermy is something that puts me off usually, but Shrigley pulls off a gentle take on it. Even when confronted with a squirrel holding its own severed head, a cute dog holding up a sign reminding people that he’s dead or a headless ostrich, you can’t help but go “awwwwwww”. The work, even if you miss any irony, is great fun. Do you need to intellectualise it? Of course not. You can just take it at face value and get that childlike rush of enjoyment when confronted with something cheeky or silly or most wonderfully… secret! Like the stuffed snake like fabric creatures wedged in the cavity between two walls and only visible through a tiny peephole in the plaster board. (Sorry I spoilt the fun of you discovering that for yourself).

Nutless, 2002, Taxidermy Squirrel and Tree Stump.

I’m Dead, 2010. Taxidermy Puppy, Wooden Sign and Acrylic Paint
The exhibition follows 4 themes. Death, Misery, Characters and Misshapen Things. Which is in itself and without any explanation needed, awesome.
The exhibition showcases Shrigley’s diversity of skills, whether it be sculpture, taxidermy, paintings, photography, animation or his ubiquitous drawings with their laconic funny narrative.
This one made me chuckle – lots. It’s taken from a funny angle as it was high up and I’m only little.

And it’s a treat to get a whole gallery room of them. Here is a small selection, I particularly liked “Too many humans, not enough robots” and “Shot for wearing shorts”

Oh, and this one, this one is fab! And ever so slightly unnerving.

The exhibition meanders around the gallery and even outside it. I felt like my cat does when she explores a new space (usually a box, a superb box with turny bits and other rooms), that sense of big eyed, forward pointing eared wonder that only a cat can really do a good impression of. (human’s just shouldn’t).

and

The exhibition is also a sensory treat, with aural stimulus, even in the lift; and from various animations. One, of a sleeping man twitching and breathing uncomfortably is projected over a stairwell in what looks like the fire exit. My favourite however is this one. Try not to smile at the marching squares!

Again, let’s not over analyse the message about belonging and fitting in here, or something. Just enjoy it!
The photography I also thoroughly enjoyed. “River for Sale”, a photo of a sign placed in a body of water was great as were others in the series.
And a set of black and white photographs, 20 of them, which when displayed together made a big impact. I haven’t shared images of these, you’ll just have to go to the exhibition and see how flippin’ brilliant it all is!
A big chunk of a gallery room is taken over by an insectoid alien landscape. It’s very compelling, looking at all the little embellishments and details, twisted and formed in metal.

And this giant, specially created for the exhibition, he’s probably 12 – 15 feet tall. I love his labels! Anatomically accurate.

I found the detail in the next piece quite fascinating. The little Edward Munch scream face was a great touch too. The title made you think too, what’s in those spaces where we don’t often look? “The Contents of the Gap between the Refrigerator and the Cooker, 1995”

Shrigley himself was present, to do a little talk with the curator Cliff Lauson and pose for pics with his creations. I felt so sorry for him as the photographers made him stand next to his headless ostrich. He’s tall, so cruelly and not even subliminally they made him stand next to it. “That’s right, crane your neck, be more ostrich like, go on!… Lovely!” click click click. “Smile… bit more leg, that’s it” click click click “hands on hips, turn round” click click “coy look over the shoulder” click click, I could go on embellishing this scenario but I fear where my imagination will take me. But they did treat him like he was in a glamour shoot… a little tiny bit. It wasn’t something that came naturally to him. He was kind of awkward, like some of the elongated characters in his drawings, an eyebrow slightly raised in tolerant annoyance.
The talk itself was very interesting (the Q&A was sadly too short and he was mobbed by proper journalists afterwards so I couldn’t ask him any questions). What I found fascinating was his description of the creative process, how his paintings, specially made for the exhibition and occupying a whole wall, were many more in number, he disposed of three quarters of them before putting up the rest for selection. Which meant he made 150 paintings of which over 100 were disposed, ending up with only perhaps 30 on show. He was also (good naturedly) annoyed with the curator that his painting “shit” didn’t make the cut. I would have certainly like to have seen it. But what was interesting is he wouldn’t let anyone into his own criteria for selection, those that were disposed, would stay disposed. He couldn’t let anyone else into the editing process. “I don’t want to go there” he said decisively.

He described his artistic process as having something in common with Beckett (who he admires) “Tell people less than what they need to know”. The economy of narrative is important to him. He talked of his time at University (he got a 2:2, just like me) and how he was fortunate in that he is from a generation (in his early 40s) where he got a grant and had their fees paid without the huge debt students rack up now. And how, as a poor grad on the dole, he pushed forward his drawing as in the absence of a studio this was the easiest way he could work his art. I also liked his humility, he bears no grudges to anyone who judges the quality of his art, but he appreciates the great honour of showcasing his work at somewhere as prestigious as the Hayward. He’s a quiet likeable man, but you can see he’s got a mischief about him too (threatening to hack the hacks with his bronze swords on the wall in the adjoining gallery room if they were mean about him) and of course this humour pours out of him into his work.

The Bell, 2007.
With regard to the humour, the piece of work I enjoyed most was the gravestone (2008). In itself it is funny, but I imagined the process of commissioning  a gravestone carver to make this work for him (I assume he conceptualised it and asked someone to make it). Of course funerals and all the bureaucracy and business dealings around them is quite a sobering experience. Those who work in the trade could be blasé about it all, it’s their job after all, but I respect that they always appear to be “in the zone” to offer the utmost respect to the grieving relatives they deal with every day. I imagined the conversation.. “You want WHAT on the gravestone?” this made me feel happy, the absurdity in this symbol of death. I hope whoever carved it saw the funny side too. Life’s too short right?

David Shrigley, Brian Activity is on at the Hayward Gallery until 13th May 2012.

The Wallace Collection, Arms and Armour

Just a couple of minutes walk from my work’s London offices is the Wallace collection. One of the things I love about London is that a gallery of this significance can end up little known amongst Londoners and tourists. London is teeming with galleries and museums, it’s a hotbed of culture and learning. This is why it’s my favourite city in the world.

I wasn’t aware of it until I started walking past it, on my walks two and from work. Marylebone with it’s quirky shops and great pubs is a wonderful part of our capital and the Wallace collection, in the relative quiet of Manchester Square is a little serene part of it. Like most museums and galleries in London, it’s free, which is brilliant of course.

Although it houses sculpture, ceramics, furniture and paintings; including work by Frans Hals “Laughing Cavalier”, Rubens, Gainsborough, as well as a number of Venice paintings by Canaletto, what I enjoy most about the exhibition space is the Arms and Armour, especially the Oriental gallery, these exotic curved swords, tulwars, scimitars, katanas. Some of them seem very top heavy, with the blade getting progressively wider towards the point, then tapering to a deadly sharpness at the tip. It makes me wonder how they could possibly be wielded.

I always had it in my head that a good sword should be able to balance on the hilt, so the weight was equally distributed between the handle and blade respectively. I think I heard it in something like Time Team, where a modern smith shows us how a sword was made Mediaeval style. Of course this would have been in the European tradition. I may have made that up of course, but it seems sensible. Having a top heavy sword would be difficult to swing and recover, you’d need exceptionally strong wrists (ahem), otherwise you’d have to use it more like an axe, where you are relying on strength of swing and impact to keep the initiative as opposed to a flurry of accurate attacks from a more balanced blade. Anyway, I’m trying to sound like I know what I’m talking about… so I’ll shut up and share a pic of a cool display of eastern weaponry.

And a suit of armour. Indian I believe. Some helmets had a little fine and light chainmail veil. Probably not for any defensive reason, but merely to hide the face of your assailant. Is fighting someone faceless more sinister? Or is it so the attacker can hide his own fear, to not give the game away that he is utterly terrified?

Quick geek observation : This armour looks a little like one of the Ring Wraiths duds in Lord of the Rings (the movie)

A samurai sword, a katana, displayed in the traditional style, to honour it. The inscription says the scabbard is 19th century, but the blade itself (recently) repolished is from the early 15th centure, of the Mihara school, Bingo province, South West Japan.

Samurai sword steel can be folded around 200 times in the making of the blade. I always thought it was because it somehow made it sharper, but it seems it was because the steel was full of impurities and the incessant and continued folding removed those impurities and porous qualities, making it immensely strong. Seeing something of this age always makes me think of its story, how many souls had it stolen? Who owned it? From century to century? What they were like?

And the workmanship can sometimes be of incredible quality. Some weapons were of course ceremonial, but others I’m sure were owned by powerful men, to draw blood, to maim and kill. You can imagine how in ages past, beautiful swords and weapons could be thought of as imbued with magical powers.

Another interesting aspect of the museum is you can look into the history and composition of every piece of weaponry, no matter how small. There are catalogues along the walls which you can reference. I picked a dagger at random to demonstrate, this dagger in isolation is course beautiful, but in terms of the collection itself, it is a relatively unremarkable item.

So… this savage but beautiful dagger for instance is Moghul Indian 17th century (ref 1384 in pic), with a jade, gold and agate hilt. The scabbard however is Turkish from the 19th century, the original scabbard seemingly lost. Note how even though the scabbard was made approximately 200 years after the dagger itself, whoever owned it commissioned that they should use the same white jade designs on the scabbard, to make it in keeping with the hilt. This was clearly a treasured item, worked and reworked, repaired and passed down. Perhaps it was a war trophy, from a defeated foe? An Ottoman general’s booty? Once again, I’m making it all up, so I’ll shut up. But it does make you think, every item in the collection has a story. Was the Ottoman general himself defeated, hence his dagger ended up auctioned and displayed in London?

As well as the Oriental and Eastern galleries, there are European arms and armour, equally savage. This fine fellow stands tall and imposing in one of the rooms, I felt sorry for the horses, I’m sure they had no concept of the aesthetic coolness of their armour. Poor beasts! In the cabinet behind him, you can see some evil looking polearms.

A monstrous gargoyle mask, used as a visor on a european helmet. Totally shit inducing. (I’ll get the reference next time I pop in, for now make do with “totally shit inducing” – which I’m sure is not the description in the catalogue)

And a beautiful mace head, I believe forged in Milan. Look at that work, it would almost be a privilege to have your bonce stoved in by it. *clump!* “Thank you sir!” *falls over*

Anyway, I’m digressing into farcical nonsense, can’t wait to go back, apparently (because I’m a numpty and didn’t realise there was a lower ground floor) there is another gallery of further Eastern arms and armour in the basement. This is a temporary exhibition and it’s only on until 26th March 2012, so get your skates on if you want to look at curvy swords and daggers and imagine yourself as a powerful sultan, draped in silks and fine ladies whilst whimsically sipping tea and writing poetry as your eunuch Oud player plucks out another classic ditty in your court.