Luigi Pericle: A Rediscovery

Well, for me, a new discovery because I had never (knowingly) heard of this artist before but I popped down to the Estorick Collection near Highbury Corner to catch their exhibition before it closed.

Pericle was a Swiss-Italian painter and illustrator working mainly in Switzerland during the 1940s, 50s and up to the mid-60s when he abruptly withdrew from the art world and basically disappeared.

He was mainly self-taught and started off producing drawings for Punch magazine and his own illustrated books and comic strips, as well as paintings. His career as a painter does seem to have been a bit erratic as at the end of the 1950s he seems to have destroyed all but one of his figurative paintings and set off on a different, abstract course, producing most of the paintings shown in exhibition. He was inspired by spiritual and esoteric ideas found in astrology and theosophy. I do like the bold strokes and the obvious texture in the paint. I particularly like his paintings that look like various planks of wood fitted together.

After he stopped painting in 1965, his work fell pretty well into obscurity and he died in 2001. His old house in Basel was purchased in 2016 and a treasure trove of his work was discovered there.

It’s a fascinating story and I’m glad that I got to see the exhibition. Discovering a new (to me) artist whose work I quite like is always fun.

The house of Sappho

My friend Ruthie (@igetspellbound on Insta) has been watching a rollicking BBC series about the fairly notorious early- eighteenth century lesbian called Anne Lister. As we were in the general area, she had suggested that we stop off and visit her house, Shibden Hall, in Halifax.

Lister, disparagingly called Aka ‘Gentleman Jack’, was known as a tall, strapping woman who dressed in masculine-style attire. She travelled widely and had affairs with several women including Ann Walker, with whom she entered into an informal marriage.

Anne Lister

Lister recorded her amores in her diaries, which she began writing in 1806 and continued until her death in 1840. She wrote partly in code to conceal the true nature of her lesbian identity, her affairs and seduction techniques. This code was only cracked by Anne’s descendant John Lister (1847–1933) and his friend Arthur Burrell. Burrell was so scandalized by Lister’s accounts of her affairs that he advised Lister to destroy the diaries. Luckily for posterity he decided to hide them instead meaning that this first hand account of lesbian love and sex in the early 1800s survived.

Shibden Hall is one of those ancient manor houses that has been much-modified by its various owners over the years, but there’s a substantial amount still intact. Built in about 1420, it has a distinctive Tudor half-timbered frontage and dark wood-panelled interiors.

Shibden Hall

There were loads of original artefacts and furniture still in the house so it was a really interesting visit. The front windows of the main central room, the ‘Housebody’, of Shibden Hall, are leaded with small square, rectangular and diamond-shaped panes of glass. Interspersed with the plain glass, there are panes, or fragments, with images of strange beasts, flowers and foliage, and the crests and coats of arms of the Otes, Savile and Waterhouse families.

The ‘Homebody’

The coloured glass dates from several different periods and it is believed that at least some of it had been taken from dissolved priories and monasteries by the Waterhouse family, earlier owners of Shebden Hall.

The windows

Me and Ruthie were fascinated with the images in the glass. There are featured, among other things, some rather violent and heavily armed animals, a bird pushing a wheelbarrow, the devil playing pan-pipes and a weird bird/beast with hoofs for hands carrying a fish. Random.

I would definitely recommend a visit if you’re in the area.

The Prelude

Currently on display in the Sunley Room at the National Gallery is an exhibition of paintings and film by the American artist Kehinde Wiley.

To be honest, I’m not familiar with this artist’s work other than his most high-profile commission, his 2017 Presidential Portrait of Barack Obama. One of his themes is to place black people in settings that are unexpected in western art, e.g. placing black people in ‘Old Master’ settings.

In Search of the Miraculous (Zakary Antoine and Jasmine Gracout), 2021

In Search of the Miraculous (Zakary Antoine and Jasmine Gracout), 2021

In this series of paintings Wiley places named individuals from Haiti and Dakar, in modern dress, into ‘Grand Mariner’ settings, cast adrift on the pitiless sea in the tradition of great, highly romanticised, shipwreck scenes like ‘The Raft of the Medusa’.

Ship of Fools II, 2021

In another work, Prelude, Wiley recreates a modernized version of the German Romantic artist Caspar David Friedrich‘s ‘The Wanderer above the Mists’ of 1817-18. The effect is striking, so familiar (if you know the original painting) and but also playing with our expectations. I especially liked this one. It’s large scale adds to the feeling of grandeur and expansiveness and puts the subject, Babacar Mane, firmly in the role of the Romantic hero; contemplative, self-reflective, solitary.

Prelude (Babacar Mane), 2021 by Kehinde Wiley

There’s a sort of deliberate artificiality though, as the paintings are all highly coloured and the display, in subdued lights with strong spotlights, is clearly designed to make the colours pop even more. The exhibition also includes a film shown on six large screens which it’s worth taking the time to watch. I won’t add too many spoilers to that except to say that the actors looked very cold and I could help feeling that it must have been quite a challenging piece to shoot.

So this exhibition is about art; art history, the canon, the people depicted in art, representations of race and class in western art. It’s only a limited number of pieces but it feels bigger.

‘The Prelude’ is a free exhibition at the National Gallery and runs until 18th April 2022.

London : Port City

A little while back, me and my friend Craig went on a little outing. We do that pretty regularly. On this outing, we went over to the Museum of London Docklands to see the current, free, exhibition, ‘London: Port City’.

The exhibition does exactly what it says on the tin, with an examination of the port of London over the last 200 years. The huge Royal Victoria Docks, built in 1855, are a focus and the expo features stories of the working lives of people in different jobs, the equipment used, the goods coming in and going out and the docks’ connections to the rest of the world.

My Grandad, Mack, served his apprenticeship in the graving docks and he worked there for many years. He was a Shipwright so not actually a involved in the trade of goods, but it was nice to see his workplace in the featured maps.

I liked the walls of words and phrases that have come into our language via the docks. If London as a port represents our connections with the world, ‘Cock-up’ seems the most appropriate for our current situation.

The exhibition is free and runs until 8th May. Museum of London Docklands is at West India Quay, London E14 4AL.

#LondonPortCity #MuseumOfLondonDocklands #LondonDocks #LondonExhibitions #London.

To infinity, and beyond

“Our earth is only one polka dot among a million stars in the cosmos… When we obliterate nature and our bodies with polka dots, we become part of the unity of our environment.” Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama

Me and Craig went to see the ‘Infinity Mirror Rooms’ by Yayoi Kusama at @tate Modern.

This exhibition has been on for several months but when I initially tried to get tickets, I ended up about number 13,000 in the queue 🤷🏽‍♀️ (seriously).
When more tickets were released, I was luckier so we finally got to see it.

Many of you may have seen some of Kusama’s work before, even if you didn’t know it. She makes giant polkadot pumpkins and polkadot trees and polkadot dresses and polkadots…and infinity rooms.

The exhibition contained two infinity rooms. Before we went into ‘Infinity Mirror Room – Filled With The Brilliance Of Life’, we were warmed to stay on the path and not stray because we were surrounded by water. The room was filled with the eternal cosmic colour-changing polkadots.

In ‘Chandelier Of Grief’, the rows upon rows of chandeliers disappeared into the distance.

The room was so disorienting that it took us a while to work out that there was, in fact, only one chandelier. I’m sure that must mean something. I wonder what.

There is also an accompanying exhibition about the artist and her work, including images of her much earlier infinity rooms from the 1960s and a bang-up-to-date 2021 work entitled ‘The Universe As Seen From The Stairway To Heaven’.

Détail from ‘The Universe As Seen From The Stairway To Heaven’, 2021

The artist as a child, c. 1939

The artist, mid-1960s

The exhibition is due to run at Tate Modern until 12th June 2022. It’s completely sold out until the end of March but look out for the last tranche of tickets to go on sale (I have no idea when that will be). When they do go on sale, it’s ‘fastest fingers first’ I’m afraid.

#InfinityMirrorRooms #YayoiKusama @tate Modern #London #LondonExhibitions #LondonArt #TateModern

I don’t do blogs 2

It’s 2022. I haven’t blogged in a while. My last blog post was in January 2020. The ‘before time’.

A lot has happened in the last couple of years, some of it good, much of it bad. I guess that’s the same for a lot of people. We manage.

I might start blogging again. Even in between all the lockdowns, restrictions, illnesses, deaths, bans and kerfuffle, I have actually managed to do some cool, interesting things. There are also better times to look forward to, so maybe it’s time to blog again.

Punk Graphics

The combination of cheap Eurostar tickets and an overwhelming sense of impending doom prompted me to take another quick jolly to Brussels for a couple of exhibitions and a roam about the city before we all go to hell.

Among other things, this visit took me back to the Art & Design Atomium Museum – ADAM. The last time I was there it was for some D.I.S.C.O (an enormously enjoyable exhibition), this time it’s for ‘disco’s demolition’, punk.

Punk Graphics looks at the visual of the punk and post-punk music scenes, concentrating on the design elements and graphics of the ‘art on paper’ and ephemera. A lot of this is the stuff that isn’t necessarily meant to survive – posters, flyers, tickets, fanzines – but which produced the visual language for the major sub-cultures of the period (in the UK and the US anyway).

Many of the pieces on display were created for a one-off occasion; some are pretty off the cuff and, possibly, with no thought to their continued existence even tomorrow, let alone forty years later.

 

The exhibits are drawn predominantly from the personal collection of Andrew Krivine, and display the key design techniques used by UK ad US producers for this type of material;

Cut ‘n’ paste collage

The ‘appropriated’ image

The comic book look

DIY

Type-face

Many of the items in the exhibition cannot be assigned to a specific designer; ‘Designer unknown’ is all we get. In some cases this was because the item; poster or record sleeve, was designed by a staffer at the record company or music venue. In other cases it’s probably because the item, mostly fanzines in this case, was created by a fan and sold, informally, at the gigs and clubs.

You’ll notice that many of the more ‘informal’ items involve black print on white or coloured paper. The restricted use of coloured ink reduced the cost of production and, let’s be honest, some, at least, of the pieces may have been printed on the sly using the printer or photocopier at work. This was, undoubtedly the case for a lot of later, indie, flyers and fanzines.

We also see the webs of influence, comics and the horror genre influencing the punk aesthetic, which in turn influenced fashion and wider popular culture.

There’s a small selection of punk, and punk-influenced clothing on display.

The Katharine Hamnett, ‘Ban Pollution’ t-shirt highlights punk’s involvement in the political campaigns of the day. On display are some examples of left-wing punk’s push-back against the 1970s populism of the extreme far right. At a time when the National Front marched openly through the streets and promoted hostility towards anyone, or anything, perceived as ‘different’, many punks joined forces with other left-wing and anti-fascist groups to work and fight against them.

  

Andrew Krivine’s collection also seems to include a flip load of badges. This was just one smallish wall but scouring the badges for best designs took up, probably, more time than it should have.

Considering the, sometimes, chaotic appearance of the designs and the, sometimes, chaotic nature of the scene, the exhibition is very clean-lined. This contrast can make it a little difficult to really get into the punk mindset. The pieces on display do seem rather removed from their original context. I suppose that this is inevitable when the physical remains of a scene that evolved so rapidly and organically are selected for display in a wholly different, far more tidy and controlled, environment.

Still, caveats aside, I enjoyed the exhibition. I like to see ephemera and know myself the surprise, and joy, of finding some random flyer, photo or ticket for a gig that happened ages ago, and the memories that it brings back (if I can even remember it. I used to drink quite a lot of cider).

The exhibition ‘Punk Graphics’ is on at Art & Design Atomium Museum (the Brussels Design Museum) until 26th April 2020. http://adamuseum.be/en/punk-graphics/

 

The Burbs

They’re taking away my citizenship – Part Deux

So, another short trip to Paris. They’re threatening to take away my EU citizenship AGAIN! so this might be my last visit before I’m cast adrift to become a vassal of the orange horror in the US. But, once again, Johnson and the Cons have fucked it and the shoddily laid ‘plans’ of the ‘Father-of-Lies’ have fallen through (yay!) so, for now, I’m still one of yEU.

As well as trying to catch a couple of exhibitions that were on my list (‘AlUla, marvel of Arabia‘ at Institut du Monde Arabe and ‘Paris – London : Music Migrations‘ at Musée national de l’histoire de l’immigration), I also had a scout around for something a little more off the beaten track. I’ve been following a Twitter account  called ‘Enlarge Your Paris‘* which is about the Paris that happens in the suburbs and the various outlying areas of the city. The city centre is comprehensively covered by every tourist website going so it’s good to find something that’s a bit different. Via this account, I found out about an exhibition that was going on outside the arrondissement – “Trésors de banlieue“

Near Gabriel Peri metro station on line 13 (the baby blue one) there’s an old market building, the Hall of Gresilles (it’s next door to Théâtre de Gennevilliers), which has been repurposed as an exhibition space, an event space, a community space. The exhibits for this exhibition are displayed in 15 shipping containers and include a range of genres and media.

Here are a few of the pieces that I particularly liked.

There was a display of studies for part of a large-scale interior decorative scheme by Blasco Mentor.

And four examples of protest posters associated with the Mai 68 uprising.

Among the big-hitters present are Chagall

And Fernand Léger.

And the photographer Robert Doisneau.

As well as enjoying the artworks on display, I also really liked the space and how it was being used. It’s a big, cavernous space so it could feel cold and impersonal but I think that they’ve managed to make it feel light and airy instead, and it’s pleasant to roam around in.

I did wonder why there were potted spider plants dotted around the floor space but then I realised that this building suffers from the age-old problem: leaky roof. This is neat way to deal with the water and reduce the frequency with which visitors get dripped on.

This exhibition is on until the end of November so if you’re in Paris, pop over and have a look. It’s free. While you’re in the area, you can also make a visit to the the Cimetière des Chiens et Autres Animaux Domestique, the Paris pet cemetery. Have a read of my previous blog post if you want to know about it or, better yet, go and have a look at it.

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*Apparently, Enlarge Your Paris has been banned from Facebook because the ‘naughty step’ algorithm thinks it’s offering ‘male enhancement‘!! Random.

https://tresorsdebanlieues.com/ 

https://www.enlargeyourparis.fr/culture/les-tresors-de-banlieue-reunis-en-un-musee-ephemere-dans-un-ancien-marche-couvert

Farewell Dear Friend

October. The spookiest month. The month when the distance between the living and the dead is only a hair’s breadth. The month when spirits walk and we can speak once again with the departed.

It’s also the London Month of the Dead.

At Brompton Cemetery, in the chapel, a range of speakers have been exploring facets of our relationships with death and how these are expressed now and, especially, how they were in the past. One of the talks I’ve been to, ‘Walkies in the Paradise Garden‘ was about pet cemeteries and how we mourn and memorialize the animals with whom we spend our lives. Several years ago I visited the Cimetière des Chiens et Autres Animaux Domestique, the pet cemetery of Paris. I began writing a blog post about it but the ‘feels’ got the better of me and I had to abandon it. Prompted by this talk, I decided to make a second attempt but this time I’ve had to swerve feelings and just stick to facts and photos.

Here goes…

A recent study has revealed that many humans actually prefer their pets to their partners*.  I can’t say that I’m surprised by this. I mean, let’s face it, humans are a bit rubbish whereas pets are awesome. Don’t get me wrong; humans do have their uses. We have thumbs, we have contactless payment cards with which we can buy cat food, and some of us can play the drums. We don’t look like this though

Unfortunately, most animals don’t live as long as humans, meaning that with pet ownership comes the acceptance that bereavement is inevitable. We bury our loved-one in the garden and sob quietly to ourselves. However, for Parisians, who are always a bit ‘extra’, this simply will not do.

In a north-western suburb of Paris is one of the world’s oldest purpose-built pet cemeteries, the Cimetière des Chiens et Autres Animaux Domestique (originally just Cimetière des Chiens). It opened in 1899 and was designed to have all the trappings, facilities and grandeur of a reasonably smart human cemetery. Before the opening of the cemetery the bodies of deceased domestic animals, even beloved pets, were treated as refuse and disposed of accordingly, but a new law passed in Paris forbade such casual disposal of animal corpses, stipulating that they must be properly buried, away from dwellings. For smart, and well-off, Parisians, the foundation of the cemetery by lawyer, Georges Harmois, and feminist journalist, Marguerite Durand, met the need for suitable facilities.

From the exterior, it’s nearly impossible to tell the difference between this and a human cemetery. It’s really only when you enter the cemetery that the zoological nature of the memorials becomes apparent. The cemetery was originally called the Cemetery of Dogs, as lap-dogs were favourite pets of the well-off and so were the most common animals buried there.

The saying goes that ‘you can’t take it with you’. This good Boi, Arry, begs to differ.

Some of the dogs, especially, were service animals and/or mascots. Some served during, or just after, the Great War or were the working companions of service men and women.

The cemetery also includes the prominent memorial to Barry, a Saint Bernard dog who worked as a mountain rescue dog in Switzerland and Italy before the Great War, and who was responsible for saving the lives of 40 people trapped in snow in the mountains. When he had rescued the 41st person, Barry was overcome and died, but his fame lives on. Barry isn’t buried here though. His remains are still in Switzerland.

But many other animal-types are represented. Cats feature heavily.

Including the pet lion of Mme Durand herself.

There are also rabbits and other small rodents, birds, turtles and fish

There is even a monkey and a gazelle and a fennel fox!

Perhaps surprisingly, there are also a couple of horses. On the day of my visit, part of the cemetery was blocked off as a new horse grave was being dug. Horse graves are big.

Most of the memorials echo those seen in human cemeteries; headstones, grave-surrounds, plaques and mausolea. But these mausolea differ from their human counterparts in that they represent kennels and cat-baskets.

This one even holds its cats’ favourite cushion and, in true cat style, Plume is laid to rest, sleeping for all eternity on the washing.

I visited on a dull rainy day and spent most of the time there blubbing at the thought of long-lost friends. I really know how to have fun, huh?

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 * http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/majority-of-pet-owners-prefer-animal-company-to-time-with-their-partners-1-7855205 

Cimetiere des Chiens https://decouvrir.asnieres-sur-seine.fr/patrimoine-naturel/le-cimetiere-des-chiens/ 

“The hardest work begins in dry dock.” *

Visiting Glasgow is always a pleasure for me. The rough-and-tumble of the city feels familiar and comfortable, and I have a long-ish history with it, largely through its music. But as well as the art galleries, architecture, music and foodie scenes, I’ve become very interested in Glasgow’s archaeology, and its industrial and maritime history. With this in mind, on a recent quick visit I boarded the (free!) ferry outside the Riverside Museum and headed over to Govan.

Govan may not be at the top of the list for many visitors to Glasgow, but it really should be on there somewhere, not least to see the amazing 10th/11th century Govan Stones at Govan Old Church. However, alongside these ancient monuments, there is also evidence of Govan’s more recent, industrial, history to be seen: Govan Graving Docks.

The docks are situated on the south side of the Clyde, just west of the Science Centre. A ‘graving dock’ is another name for a traditional type of dry-dock where the repair and maintenance of ships is undertaken. The ship is floated into the dock basin and then water-gates (or caissons) are closed behind it and the water is then pumped out of the basin, leaving the ship resting on blocks. These docks were constructed by the Clyde Navigation Trust in the late-nineteenth century, opening in stages between 1875 and 1898, and were used for the maintenance and refits of Clyde Steamers and other large vessels up until their closure in 1987.

I wasn’t sure how accessible the site would be but the gate was open, so I made my way in to the dock area where there are three large basins, a couple of derelict buildings and other bits and bobs of dock equipment.

The docks are a Category A listed monument but also on the Buildings at Risk Register for Scotland. In Glasgow, as in other industrial and maritime cities, many ex-industrial sites and structures have long since been sold off to developers and now command top price as luxury apartments and high-end shopping and dining areas, so the graving docks are special; a rare survival of Glasgow’s industrial and mercantile past (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-45331246).

Some of the fragments of equipment look like winch or crane bases, haulage wheels and some lengths of track. Around the basins there are stone-cut steps allowing access to the working space around the undersides of the ships’ hulls.

This basin still has its depth-markers.

The water-gates are a bit battered but still basically intact.

After some time of wandering around and generally peering at stuff, I made my way back to the gate, only to find that it was now shut! Fearing that I would have to attempt to climb the fence (an unseemly activity for a woman of my advanced years), I tried the bolt and, to my relief, it wasn’t locked*. I did get a few funny looks from the mechanics working in the garages along by the docks but I bet I’m not the first random dock-fan that they’ve seen.

For lots of lovely information about Govan Docks, have a look at the excellent Hidden Glasgow website, where you can see photos of the docks in use. Other references are also below.

TTFN

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* Sam Wineburg

** Don’t worry, I made sure that the gate was shut behind me.

Clyde docks Preservation Initiative http://cdpi.org.uk/govan-docks/default.aspx

Govan Docks Regeneration Trust https://govandocks.wordpress.com/

#Glasgow #archaeology #industrialarchaeology #river #Clyde #docks