Juliet Schubart - The Last Ten Years, 3-8 October 2011

An exhibition of Juliet Schubart's art of the last ten years takes place next week at:

Gallery 27
27 Cork Street
London
W1S 3NG

more details on the website: http://www.julietschubart.co.uk/

One Day

Film of the best selling David Nicholl's book. The story of the two main protaganists is told through describing their life on the same day each year starting with the day of their graduation from Edinburgh University. It's a nice idea which works well in the book but as is so often the case the film of a book doesn't work so well on screen. The book can obviously go into greater depth to build up the characters but the film also somehow lacked many of the amusing moments that gave the book much of its charm.

The Skin I Live In, Pedro Almodóvar on general release from 28th August.

A couple of times recently at meetings where everyone had to introduce themselves, people were asked to name their favourite film, and my answer was "something by Pedro Almodóvar", so I was pleased to be able to watch a new one, The Skin I Live In.  It is a very good film, and certainly held my attention, though it is also quite disturbing.  

It is very inventive, with scenarios which seem scarcely credible.  If someone else had made the same plot it might have ended up feeling like a trashy shock B-movie, but in his hands it is surprisingly believable, and very well-made.  The film contains very disturbing scenes, but unusual aspects mean that the director is finding a new way of looking at events.   The characters include a doctor who is a very accomplished surgeon but uses his talents in unusual ways.

The star Elena Anaya, who had a lesser role in an earlier Almodóvar film, has been given much more prominence this time, and her lead role is well-deserved.  She is very beautiful, which is a necessary part of the role due to the unusual story.  No doubt her career will be given a boost in the same way that Penélope Cruz benefited from her work with the director.  It is also the first film Antonio Banderas has made with Almodóvar for many years; after Almodóvar launched him in films, he has come back from Hollywood to work with him again, and evidently they can still work well together.

Is it my favourite film?  Well no, although I don't know which individual one would be, it's a difficult question...

Pete S

Meg Pickard - Kings Place Festival, 8 September 2011

Editors, Strangers, Robots and Friends
Meg Pickard, Head of Digital Engagement for Guardian News and Media

As well as a wide range of music, the Kings Place Festival includes very interesting spoken word performances.  Presumably as the Guardian occupies a number of floors in the building, various of their staff and journalists were prevailed upon to run a number of sessions on current topics, including the use of social media.  Meg Pickard presented an engaging and articulate analysis of the changes (and challenges) that the development of the Facebooks, Twitters and general blogs and websites out there have posed for the more traditional print media.  She went on to explain how the consumption of news and information has changed almost beyond recognition in the digital age, and how editors, strangers, robots and friends have become the key filters we use to get the information we want from the welter of stuff out there.  Editors point us to the good stuff (as always - but even more critically in this age of information overload).  Strangers can and do easily publish their expertise for our use.  Robots lurk in Google and other search engines, finding what we want through a load of incomprehensible maths.  And friends do what they've always done - point out news, articles, and information they think we would like.

As the sort of person who looks upon Facebook and Twitter open-mouthed with horror, my first reaction was to be gripped with the possibility that I'm allowing a whole new age to pass me by, and that the more time that passes the more impossible I will find it to join in.  This however was followed almost instantaneously by (a) a sense of complete exhaustion at the idea of having to add "doing social media" to my already impossibly long to-do list and (b) the certain knowledge that the "community conversations" I was missing out on were at best OK, and at worst, a load of old drivel.  Phew!  I don't have to take up Facebook and Twitter after all!

But.......dear reader:  the rather delicious irony of using a post on a personal blog to condemn social media to the "mostly drivel" category of things in life isn't lost on me.  What does that say about this and all the other reviews that I've huffed and puffed over?

SB

John Hegley - Kings Place Festival, 9 September 2011

We didn't quite know what to expect from a set with John Hegley (billed as a comedian, poet, musician, songwriter and unpredictable genius) - and we weren't disappointed.  John's material is sublimely ridiculous, and yet endearing, funny and warm.  Adopting the air of a slightly weary schoolmaster, John played, sang, recited his poetry and somehow persuaded the audience - in groups, and rather amazingly, singly - to do the same.   We sang the choruses to a couple of his songs arranged in two teams, and then a rather brave and patient man in the row in front of us was prevailed upon firstly to translate (from French into English) a section from The Adventures of Monsieur Robinet, John's peculiarly charming dual-language little book, and then to read out another section in French while John read out the English.  It doesn't sound like much, but reality was somehow suspended for 45 minutes while we basked in the benign, humorous but surreal Hegley-verse.  The piece de resistance was The Alphabet of Animals (unpublished as yet), a collection of silly alphabet songs.  Suffice it to say that A was for amoeba, and G was for guillemot (complete with audience arm-flapping in imitation of that lovely bird).

John Hegley is half French and made much use of that fact in his show.  But the performance was very soothingly British - just that combination of harmless silliness, irony and smiling goodwill that this country does so well sometimes.

SB

The King's Place Festival 8-11 September 2011

Liszt - Oxford Philomusica (piano:  Mark Viner; Dina Duisen; Ashley Fripp)  8 September 2011
Telemann, Watkins and Bach - Simone Lamsma (violin) 9 September 2011
Gabrielli, Crumb, Bach - Paul Watkins (cello) 9 September 2011

The King's Place Festival is a real extravaganza of music and spoken word performances and events.  Running over 4 days, there are over a hundred events to choose from - all bite-sized at 45 minutes each, and all costing a fantastically good value £4.50 each (£3.60 for bookings of ten tickets or more).  We spent a very pleasant couple of afternoons and evenings drifting from one thing to the next and hugely enjoying the variety of experiences available - ranging from Mozart's Magic Flute adapted for wind octet, through to Jazz in the 30s, delivered with panache and polish by the Jazz Repertory Company, and then onto an eclectic mix of talks, classical recitals, chamber music, folk and blues, comedy/performance poetry, and singer/songwriters.  In between we sampled the cheese and fine food in the food hall and lounged around in the beautiful canal-side surroundings of the relatively new Kings Place complex, London's newest classical performance venue (http://www.kingsplace.co.uk/home).  All in all, very highly recommended for September 2012.

Three of the performances we attended were solo recitals by up and coming young musicians, and I thought it was worth saying a few words about how striking such performances are.  We were very lucky on all three occasions to be up close and personal, at the front of the auditorium, and able therefore to truly experience the sheer physicality of the performance.  In this age of perfectly mastered recordings and huge concert venues it is easy to forget how much bodily exertion goes into stellar performance that often looks entirely effortless.  But the sound of the bow on the strings close up, the dexterity of the fingers that run across the piano keys, and the sweat on the brow of the performer say otherwise.  It was moving to witness the commitment and excellence of these young soloists.

More on the Kings' Place Festival to follow soon.... 

SB 

Nirvana - Nevermind‏

Tomorrow marks the 20th anniversary of the release of Nirvana's seminal album Nevermind (if this was an episode of Inbetweeners I'd say that it is always referred to as seminal because so many young men gush over it but this is a family show so we'll move on). Highly influential, it is largely credited with the quiet then loud style that became very popular with lots of bands in the 1990's. Personally I think it's a great album but that it falls away a little after the first five or so songs.


The really worrying thing is that it doesn't seem that long since it came out. I remember the fuss made over Sgt Pepper's 20th anniversary back in the 1980's but that didn't worry me back then as 20 years seemed such a long time, indeed it was a lifetime. Nevermind is different; I recall its appearance as if it was only a short time ago and that is a bit depressing - pass me my shotgun Courtney!

Traffic Light Tree - Canary Wharf

Designed by Pierre Vivant the Traffic Light Tree is on a roundabout in Westferry Road near Canary Wharf. It replaced a London plane tree that was suffering the effects of pollution and its arbitary cycle of light is supposed to mimic the restlessness of Canary Wharf. Standing over eight metres tall and with 75 fully working traffic signal heads this is probably my favourite piece of street art. Unfortunately it is under threat because of plans to remodel the roundabout. It would be an awful shame if it was moved to a quieter place where only a few would see it. 

My City - Stephen Poliakoff, Almeida Theatre, London‏

Poliakoff's latest play,the first in over a decade begins when a smartly dressed young man called Richard meets his former primary school headmistress 15 years after leaving the school. The odd thing is that she is lying on a park bench late at night.

It turns out that this dedicated and inspirational teacher – played with a sense of authority, eerie charn  and a tadge of menace by Tracey Ullman – hasn’t been reduced to sleeping rough in her retirement. She just likes to spend her nights walking the streets of London and was in need of a rest.she is also in a triangle with 2 former teaching collagues with which she has social outings.There are some key emotional displays which draws the audience in as the story develops

This emerges most movingly through the presence of one of the teachers, Mr Minken, for whom a cherished toy aeroplane evokes memories of his Jewish family's enforced exit from pre-war Vienna. But Minken also becomes an authorial spokesman when he bemoans the lack of grace and style in modern London and suggests equipping schools with 87 closed-circuit cameras and metal detectors is a way of encouraging rather than preventing crime. 

As so often in Poiliakoff’s work, there is an edge of mystery. Why does Miss Lambert keep the hours of a vampire and avoid the morning light? Why does she now seem hell bent on telling spooky ghost stories rather than offering the inspiration, information and delight that used to feature in her school assemblies?

Unfortunately, the answers to these questions aren’t nearly as startling as one might have hoped, and nor are the stories told in the course of the play quite as enthralling as one would have wished.There are times when they are lulls which are disappointing and the story has a weird sense of disbelief.

As usual Poliakoff directs his own work, and he has been too indulgent with his somewhat flabby and anti-climactic material.The set design, however, is very evocative, atmospherically conjuring up London by night, Ullman’s star turn as the mesmerisingly enigmatic Miss Lambert is well supported by Sorcha Cusack and the splendidly disconcerting David Troughton as two of her former colleagues, and from Tom Riley and Sian Brooke as their puzzled former pupils.

Nevertheless, by the end a strong feeling of anticlimax hangs over an evening that initially promised to be truly magical. Not one of Almeida's best shows and certainly this latest offering from Poliakoff will disappoint his most dedicated fans.

SC

The Selector - Leytonstone Car Free Day‏

I'm not sure how many of the original band are left apart from Pauline Black the lead singer, maybe there's one other. Whatever, The Selector gave an energetic performance of their brand of ska which brought back happy memories for those of us in the audience old enough to remember the Two Tone explosion! back in 1979/80. When it started to rain it even felt like we were at a festival!

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

The basic storyline is that Smiley, a supurb Gary Oldman, has to find the mole who has infiltrated right at the top of the Secret Service. To be honest the plot gets a little complicated at times but the film is so beautifically shot and so atmospheric and the cast is so strong that the film is enjoyable even at those moments when you are struggling to work out what exactly is happening.

The other very noticable point of the film was the demographic of the audience. It was like sitting in the middle of a Saga outing. Not so long ago we'd take the kids to a film and at times it was hard to hear because of the constant scrunching of sweet wrappers which when you're at Alvin & the Chipmonks is something of a blessing. At Tinker, Tailor the interuptions were caused by Mr Godfrey asking to be 'excused' once again.

Young Soldiers - BBC3

A series that follows four new recruits through basic training prior to going to Afganistan. All four joined the army because they couldn't find any other job which makes you think that with all the talk of cuts why don't we reduce the deficit by cutting back on our attempts to kill poor people around the world. Call me an idealistic old hippie but we could even spend a small proportion of the money saved on creating some jobs. On a positive note at least the talent pool of potential athletes for our paralympic team is expanding.

The Time That Remains - Leytonstone Pop-Up Cinema

Dir: Elia Suleiman (2009)

Cleverly and artistically shot, this film traces the history of the director’s Palestinian family from 1948 through to the present day.  The film opens in 1948 outside a cafe with scenes of Palestinian and other Arab militia men fighting the Jews that were taking over Palestine.  Although it was clearly a terrible situation, the film managed to portray a true beauty to the surroundings of the time.  As the film progressed into the 1970’s and the family were living under an oppressive occupation, the same beauty in the landscape and surroundings remained despite all the horrors and annoyances, big and small that they experienced. 

The director managed to portray the huge difficulties that ordinary people had to endure in a humorous way without diminishing the gravity and bleak outlook for the Palestinians. As the story continued into the 1980’s, the feel of Nazareth where the family lived changed and became decidedly unattractive and even ugly at times.  This was partly on a personal level as the director’s parents became increasingly old and infirm. This was skilfully complemented by showing unappealing scenery in places where there was elegance and charm previously.  The director used clever techniques like cutting scenes from different periods and a repetition of the same scene though different periods often in humorous way.  All in all this made for a touching and extremely enjoyable film!

RB

Richard Hamilton 1922 - 2011

British artist Richard Hamilton, pioneer of Pop art, has died at the age of 89. His best known work was his 1956 collage 'Just What Is It That Makes Today's Home's So Different, So Appealing?

He also designed the cover for The Beatles' White Album which is the only Beatles album not to feature the four band members. He explained  "Peter Blake's album sleeve (for Sgt Pepper) was crowded with people and very colourful. I thought it would be appropriate to present an album that was just white."

Hamilton was also distrustful of the political establishment. He produced works about, among others, Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair. Shock and Awe (2007-08) featured Tony Blair wearing a cowboy shirt, with guns and holsters. Hamilton said he produced the image after he saw Blair "looking smug" following a conference with George Bush. Tony Blair looking smug - surely not!

Orlando Chamber Choir Summer Workshop

Latin American Baroque
20 August 2011
Musical director: James Weeks

The Orlando Chamber Choir summer workshop reflected all the hallmarks of the choir - high musical standards, fascinating repertoire, inspirational, interesting and well-informed leadership, and great fun and warmth.    While some of the repertoire was "traditional" baroque, the rest - notably the works by Juan de Araujo and Juan Garcia de Zespedes - although written in the baroque era, reflected the many other influences to be found in Latin America at the time, including African and Native American rhythms, styles and text.   We stumbled over some of the words and rhythms but enjoyed these unusual pieces tremendously.

James Weeks directed with the usual energy and commitment.  Choir members supplied their guests with the usual extremely high standard of cake.  All in all a wonderful showcase for the values, standards and ethos of Orlando Chamber Choir - see http://www.orlandochoir.org.uk/concerts.php?20110820.

For more from Orlando, why don't you join us at our next performance on 24 November at St James' Piccadilly?  Our concert, "The Power of Music" features "Alexander's Feast", an oratorio by that genius G. F Handel.  For more information and tickets see http://www.orlandochoir.org.uk/concerts.php?20111124.

SB

Thomas Struth - Whitechapel Art Gallery

Photographs 1978-2010

Thomas Struth is a German photographer who orginally studied painting under Gerhard Richter. He turned to photography and this retrospective is, I believe, his first major exhibition in the UK. As you would exect from photos taken over a long period there is a wide range of different types of photo, from tourists dwarfed by the size of a cathedral, huge technology projects, black & white photos of quiet sheets, impenetrable jungles and portraits of family groups.

Struth seems to have two main interests, photos where people are shown to be tiny or absent, their place in the universe a very minor role, the epic photos of inpenatrable jungles or urban scenes; and family portraits. I enjoyed the exhibition especially those epic photos.

MI6 Building, London

The MI6 Building on the River Thames at Vauxhall, designed Terry Farrell, looks like a Mayan or Aztec temple and it is said that in a cunning piece of design Farrell was able to make it ugly from every angle.

 

A Dish of Tea With Dr Johnson - Arts Theatre,London, WC2H 7JB‏

This wonderful piece adapted from the writings of James Boswell by Russell Barr, Ian Redford and Max Stafford-Clark has been touring Britain for the past 6 months starting off in the attic of Johnson's home on Gough Square. Now at the Arts Theatre until 24th Sepember Ian Redford gives a cracking performance depicting the melancholic character conveying the rage, humour and ready wit so often associated with Dr Johnson.

Redford draws the audience in very conversationally calling himself "dictionary Johnson"and gives a larger then life image of the18th century icon. Unfortunately Russell Barr has been indisposed for the past week but all credit to the character who stepped in and covered the host of characters ranging from James Boswell to Joshua Reynolds to King George 111and Bonnie Prince Charlie be it on occasions with the script.

Trudie Styler gives a passable performance as MrsThrale the society's hostess who was Johnson'sfinal unrequited love but the real star of the evening is Ian Redford for his sublime performace!

Go see!

SC

Petreon Sculpture Park, Cyprus

We found this little gem on a recent trip to Cyprus. Savvas Koulendros began sculpting in stone as a hobby when he turned fifty in 1996. The majority of his sculptures use sandstone, limestone or basalt which has been smoothed and shaped over millions of years by the sea. He soon found there was insufficient room for his large sculptures at his home in the town of Larnaca so he moved with his wife Stvroula Mbirou-Koulenfdrou, an artist who also makes mosaics, to a house he built on land they owned in Mazotos in 2003.

The orginal idea was for somewhere with enough space for the sculptures but after a while Savvas decided to open the sculpture park to the public. The park is now almost full but Savvas told us over a cool drink in the shade of his house that he is planning his largest work yet which will go on adjacent land, as well as working on a couple of other smaller, works.

http://petreonsculptures.com/home.html

Leytonstone Pop-Up Cinema - Weds Sept 7th 2011‏

Leytonstone Pop-Up Cinema is showing 'The Time That Remains' by Palestinian film director Elia Suleiman this Wednesday, 7th Sept:

“The Time That Remains is a semi-autobiographical film, in four episodes, about a family, my family, from 1948 until recent times. The film is inspired by my father’s private diaries, starting from when he was a resistance fighter in 1948, and by my mother’s letters to family members who were forced to leave the country. Combined with my intimate memories of them and with them, the film attempts to portray the daily life of those Palestinians who remained and were labelled “Israeli-Arabs”, living as a minority in their own homeland.” – Elia Suleiman.

Starting time 7.45pm at Leytonstone Library, E11
Entrance £5 (£4 concessions)

You can watch a clip of the film here.

http://www.leytonstonefilmclub.com/

The Vorticists - Tate Britain

Manifesto for a Modern World

Vorticism was an avant garde art movement that emerged in Britain in the wake of Cubism and Futurism. The term Vorticism was first coined by American poet Ezra Pound in 1914 and shortly afterwards the self-proclaimed leader of the movement, painter and writer Wyndham Lewis, launched the journal Blast setting out the ideas of the movement, 'blasting' and 'blessing' aspects of traditional culture.

Vorticism glorified the modern world, the machine age, even war but it only lasted four years, barely surviving the end of the First World War. War, it turned out, was anything but glorious especially the modern version using machines.

This exhibition focuses on the only two exhibitions of the Vorticist group in its lifetime and the two issues of Blast, emphasing the fact that this was not simply a movement of visual artists, but also of philosophers, poets, novelists and dramatists.

Wyndham Lewis - Workshop

What's Cookin' - new venue

What's Cookin' the East London music venue dedicated to country, blues, bluegrass and old-time rock'n'roll has a new home, the Birkbeck Tavern in Leyton, not only that but Stephen & Ali will shortly be taking over the managing of the pub, below is an extract of the email from Stephen & Ali breaking the news, keep an eye on their website for further developments. 

We're now the proud managers of the lovely Birkbeck Tavern in Leyton. This has all happened quite quickly, but what I can say for now is that if ya don't know it, it's one of the best pubs in E11 (our spiritual home), and soon to be one of the best pubs in east London. It's a great old boozer, has a stunningly lovely beer garden, a fab music room, and does real ales... it's planned for us to take over around 14th/15th September

BUT...before we take over completely we might just trial a couple of low-key What's Cookin' nights upstairs in the function room. I'm thinking Sat 10th Sept and Wed 14th Sept

The Birkbeck Tavern is at 45 Langthorne Rd, London, E11 4HL (5 min from Leyton tube). Check it out at http://www.beerintheevening.com/pubs/s/34/3403/Birkbeck_Tavern/Leyton  

http://www.whatscookin.co.uk/wchome.html

Government Art Collection: At Work - Whitechapel Gallery

The Government Art Collection is the largest, most dispersed, collection of British art in the world, featuring over 13,500 works spanning five centuries. It is displayed in British Government building throughout the world and is a resource from which government ministers, ambassadors etc can choose the art they would like for their office or official residence.


Government Art Collection: At Work features work selected by seven public figures among them Nick Clegg, Lord Mandelson, Lord Boateng and Ed Vaisey. The works in the exhibition are varied in age, style etc, but I found myself going into the exhibition with pre-conceived notions of what I wanted to find, i.e. easy to pigeon hole selections which justify my expectations, so the Tories should select grand older pieces, portraits of 'great men' or landscapes of ye olde England and Labour figures should select slightly more daring, up-to-date works and hopefully Nick Clegg would select pieces you hate. But the pieces selected defy easy categorisation.
The first picture I saw as I walked into the gallery was a picture by Osmund Caine of soldiers in barracks during the Second World War which Lord Boateng tells us 'operates on so many levels' and straight away my pretentious alarm went off. But then his next two choices are the striking 'Peas are the New Beans' by Bob & Roberta Smith and a drawing called 'Jazz Fans' by Edward Burra and you warm towards Boateng for his choices. Nick Clegg is not everyone's cup of Darjeeling at the moment but one of the works he chose, a photo taken by Zarina Bhimji (below) on her first trip back to Uganda after she and her family had fled as political refugees is both beautiful and thought provoking.

The same with Mandelson, he chooses a portrait of Queen Elizabeth I as you might expect but then he also chooses a lovely painting by Cecil Stephenson done for the Festival of Britain in 1950. Ed Vaizey, the Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries has chosen perhaps the most cutting edge works, a couple of prints by Tracey Emin and possibly my favourite work in the exhibition 'Compulsory Obsolescence' by Michael Landy (below) which records some of the public and press reactions to his previous work 'Break Down' when he destroyed all his possessions, an act to provoke fear, horror and disbelief in our consumer obsessed, materialistic society. Imagine no possessions indeed! Oh and btw - you can pick up the book that goes with the exhibition in the Whitechapel Gallery bookshop on the way out.

An interesting exhibition although unfortunately I'm a bit late getting to it as it closes on Sunday 4th September. However it is the first of five displays of works from the Government art collection that will be shown at the Whitechapel over the coming months so if you don't manage to catch this one look out for future shows.

Art is...the art of Cyprus through the ages - Nicosia, Cyprus

Selections from the Marfin Laiki Bank Collection

Art is...the art of Cyprus through the ages is an entertaining exhibition that presents the evolution and the social role of Cypriot art from antiquity to the present day. Celebrating the 50^th anniversary of the Cyprus Republic the exhibition is presented in the compact, traditional, sandstone building of the Marfin Laiki Bank Cultural Centre the exhibition traces the art of many periods of Cypriot history from antiquity, through the Byzantine, the Middle Ages, the Ottoman, the Colonial period and finally the modern era.

An enjoyable exhibition running until June 2012; I thoroughly recommend a visit should you find yourself in Cyprus.

  

32 Byron Avenue, 1096 Nicosia, Cyprus

http://www.marfinbank.com.cy/EN/TheBank/CulturalCentre/Pages/Home.asp