Lichtenstein: A Retrospective - Tate Modern

I do like Lichtenstein, best known for his comic strip paintings, but the downside of this large exhibition, apart from the usual problem with Tate blockbuster's - the crowds, 'hell is other people' indeed, is you will already know the good stuff. There is lots to look at and enjoy here but not much to take you by surprise. I did like Lichtenstein's reproductions of well known works by other artists but in his own style though, those based on Van Gogh and Mondrian shown below.

 

Public Service Broadcasting at Rough Trade East

Public Service Broadcasting are a musical duo comprising drums and guitar/banjo/synthesiser who sample old public information films and other assorted archive material and blend it with their  music to come up with an orginal and interesting sound. They played at Rough Trade East (a great record shop near Spitalfields market, if you like that sort of thing) as part of 'record store day' (a day to celebrate and promote record shops) so we trotted along with assorted other hipsters (or possibly nerds depending on your point of view) to check them out and rather spendid they were too.

Further information on PSB can be found on their website - http://publicservicebroadcasting.net/

Dorothy Iannone: Inncoent and Aware - Camden Arts Centre

Dorothy Iannone is a self taught artist, orginally from America, who met Swiss artist Dieter Roth on a trip to Iceland in 1967. This meeting transformed her life and she moved to Europe to be with Roth where she has been ever since, she is now based in Berlin.

Her work is tremendously vibrant, reminding of indian erotic art and psychedelia, she documents her relationships giving free expression to this celebration of her (erotic) life.

A life affirming exhibition, only slightly spoiled by the arts centre attendants continually popping up as you move around, like the shopkeeper out of Mr Benn. They are very friendly and helpful but I prefer to be able to look around an exhibition without the feeling that I'm not to be trusted and need to be watched.

Gaiety is the Most Outstanding Feature of the Soviet Union: New Art from Russia – Saatchi gallery

I found this a varied show, at times moving especially the portrait photographs of poor Russians by Boris Mikhailov, and being a Saatchi show it was also at time rude, horrific but always interesting. I liked Dasha Fursey's jars containing pickled traditional Russian food's.

 

Like a lot of this exhibition there is always the spectre of the history of Russia and the Soviet Union and it's shortages in Fursey's work. The USSR also looms large in Sergei Vasiliev's photograph's. He was a prison warder under communism and he continued a project begun by a collegue to document the tattoo's of the prison inmates. Tattooing was illegal, so the images were made using scalpels and melted boot heels, these were hard men who often did not expect to ever be released. The tattoo's were a form of defiance to the state.

On the top floor of the gallery there was another, related, exhibition which has now unfortunately closed, Breaking the Ice: Moscow Art 1960-80's. As much of 'Gaity' looks back to, and is informed by the Soviet period the two exhibition's complemented each other very well but to be honest I prefered Breaking the Ice. Things somehow always become more interesting when they are from the Soviet period as questions always occur such as 'what were the artists permitted to produce?' 'how careful did they have to be to avoid censorship?' etc. Having said that perhaps I'm not the best judge as I'm always more interested by anything from the Soviet period ... wouldn't wanted to have lived there but always fascinated by it.

A Walk on Part: Arts Theatre, WC2

Very enjoyable adaptation of ex-Labour MP Chris Mullin's diaries of the New Labour era. The actor playing Mullin manages to keep the pace going throughout and the supporting actors can somehow capture the array of other MP's who make an appearance.

What was the feeling I left the theatre with? That Tony Blair, who let's be honest none of us ever trusted, was an outstanding politician with the gift of being able to communicate and connect with people on a personal basis and on the big stage. He also had the advantage that no Labour leader has ever had before of a huge majority in parliament... and what did he do? He blew it by being too conservative, and more tragically, by getting into bed with the most right wing president in America's history! And after taking us into a disasterous war that costs hundreds of thousands of lives on the back of dodgy evidence that had been 'sexed up' we now read in the Financial Times weekend magazine that he feels it is time for him to return for a big new role. Tony, do you honestly think so? At least it makes you appreciate what Harold Wilson achieved in the 1960's by managing to keep the UK out of Vietnam, even though, no doubt, he was under huge pressure to join in a 'coalition of the willing' or whatever stupid phrase they would've come up with, especially as the UK at the time still owed the USA a huge debt from WWII. Blair didn't even have that as an excuse.

Attila the Stockbroker at What's Cookin'

Birkbeck Tavern, Leyton, E10

With Michael Gove threatening to bring back O levels and then seeing that poet/musician Attila the Stockbroker (who’s 1^st album I bought many years ago) was due to play just down the road from me it felt like back to the 1980’s. I was hoping to hear ‘Russian’s in the DHSS’, Attila’s ode to cold war paranoia in order to take me back to my days in the ‘department’. A long time ago, since when the Russian’s who were our enemies, have become our friends and are now back to, I’m not sure, wariness on both sides I think – an Orwellian shifting of alliances. It turns out however that worringly it’s me and the odious Gove who have nostalgia in common, Attila on the other hand is always moving on, tackling the latest outrage such as 'Bye Bye Banker' about the recent financial scandals . His poems are still angry, political and above all humorous, the subjects are often personal, for example moving poems about his mother’s dementia and subsequent death and then moving onto his aunt coming to visit his mother, ‘Poison Pensioner ‘ which magnificently deals with the difficulty of dealing with a relative whose views he finds abhorrent and then a poem about his relationship with his stepfather who he came to like and respect after many years during his mother’s illness. I also particularly liked Comandante Joe, his ode to Joe Strummer, someone Attila never met but a lovely tribute to someone many of us still revere. Attila’s out on a nationwide tour soon, I recommend you catch him if you can.

http://www.attilathestockbroker.com/

The Dictator - Sacha Baron Cohen

‘The heroic story of a dictator who risks his life to ensure that democracy would never come to the country he so lovingly oppressed.’ The film raises some laughs, often in spite of yourself but the only really bit of decent satire was when he (The Dictator) lists the advantages of America becoming a dictatorship – tortured foreign suspects, fixed elections, 1% of the population own virtually all the wealth of the country etc … all of which has already happened of course.