The Great Art Debate

[William the White]

If there's a more soulless "space" in the whole Universe than the Tate Modern I've yet to find it.

Yep. That entrance is on of the least welcoming to a place of creativity and imagination that I know.
But the Phyllida Barlow exhibition is at Tate Britain. (And free!).

I kind of think that's the point. That something so mundane and ordinary gives forth into this wonderful expanse that houses so many intricate and massive delights. I quite like Tate Modern. I'd rather that than see the building flattened and another umpteen faceless, overpriced 'apartments' vomited on the banks of the Thames.

There's nothing mundane and ordinary about - it's a huge, rare, industrial cathedral.
Given how tough it is for our young artists to find space to work and exhibit in Zone 1-3 these days, unlike in the YBA era, it seems positively offensive to have a big, hulking, public space so empty and under-utilised.

I was referring to the entrance though......

Depends on the entrance you use...

[Lost Leopard Spot]

I was referring to the entrance though......

Depends on the entrance you use...

I always use the front entrance. I was, on one occassion, invited to use the back entrance by a lady I used to know, but I declined.

[Lost Leopard Spot]

contenders for Wildlife artist of the year:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-27641790

this is my particular favourite... Winged Messenger of Death

[TANGODANCER]

The lioness and the Wildbeeste is so full of life just using simple strokes. Clear favourite for me. Like the Penny Absolom "eyes" one very much too and the Vietnamese tiger. I could enjoy that exhibition very much.

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

The lioness and the Wildbeeste is so full of life just using simple strokes. Clear favourite for me.

Me too.

In fact it's the only one that does much for me.

[William the White]

Thought I'd post this here as well as in the 'Where are you going' thread... About the cinema screening of the Matisse cut out exhibition at Tate Modern, that I saw tonight...

It was a really good experience. As well a tour round the gallery there was a commissioned ballet piece - Shostakovich music, and the Royal ballet's chief ballerina clad in costumes of the Matisse palate - gold, Blue, green, Red, Black, In a nice piece of digital shooting and editing she was dancing with herself with, at the end, all five of her on screen at once, those like a Matisse giant cutout, those vibrant colours, like bursts of exuberance.

They'd also commissioned Courtney Pine to give a musical response to the 'Jazz' series of cut outs from the 1940s.

Highlight for me was a visit to the Chapel at Vence. This may now be my favourite work of Christian Art after Istanbul's Aya Sophia.

That said, it comes nowhere near the gallery experience and the real thing. i know i'll love the exhibition.

My wife has a biography of Matisse that she bought about 8 years ago, by Hilary Spurling. I'll start it tomorrow!

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

We will discuss more, Will, but my main question is why the few live bits had to be live at all?

The dance was an interesting piece but it didn't really do it for me if I'm honest. An impressive technical feat, but I couldn't help but wonder why they didn't choreograph something a bit more joyful with four dancers rather than struggle with one.

[William the White]

We discuss more, Will, but my main question is why the few live bits had to be live at all?

The dancer was an interesting piece but it didn't really do it for me if I'm honest. An impressive technical feat, but I couldn't help but wonder why they didn't choreograph something a bit more joyful with four dancers rather than struggle with one.

My guess is one - even a star - costs a lot less. We both really enjoyed the dance. I enjoyed the jazz more than my wife did.

I think you probably have a point about the live sections. For sure, they didn't go in for adventure. All static. Pretty much all set pieces. Two people talking. So none of the excitement of live performance. nor the excitement of disagreement. Not much danger around - and that's always one of the buzzes of live performance.

Maybe a gallery visit doesn't offer much chance of the live experience being special in the way theatre or opera do.

Did you enjoy the Chapel?

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

Maybe a gallery visit doesn't offer much chance of the live experience being special in the way theatre or opera do.

Well, quite - so given that so much of it (at least 3/4?) was recorded, why bother at all? I have already read of the feed failing completely in one cinema and being juddery in another.

I enjoyed the footage of the magnificent Vence chapel but no more than I have enjoyed footage of it before. One of the things the exhibition should be more honest about is how poorly the chapel is represented by those preliminary designs.

[William the White]

Maybe a gallery visit doesn't offer much chance of the live experience being special in the way theatre or opera do.

Well, quite - so given that so much of it (at least 3/4?) was recorded, why bother at all? I have already read of the feed failing completely in one cinema and being juddery in another.

I enjoyed the footage of the magnificent Vence chapel but no more than I have enjoyed footage of it before. One of the things the exhibition should be more honest about is how poorly the chapel is represented by those preliminary designs.

We lost about the first 5-8 minutes in Bolton - well, we had audio but no visual. worked ok after that. A very decent audience as well. More than I was expecting.

Do you think it should be a more genuinely live event or that the medium is so resistant to that the attempt should be abandoned in favour of a more adventurous documentary approach?

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

We lost about the first 5-8 minutes in Bolton - well, we had audio but no visual. worked ok after that. A very decent audience as well. More than I was expecting.

Do you think it should be a more genuinely live event or that the medium is so resistant to that the attempt should be abandoned in favour of a more adventurous documentary approach?

Well doing a live broadcast comes with expense (how much were your tickets? Mine were £15.50 each) and technical risk - yours is yet another anecdote about the technology breaking down.

All of this might be worth it if the 'live' element injected some excitement and potential for the unexpected into the production, which I don't think it did. If anything, it slightly lowered the quality of those interviews and links. Serota was fine, I suppose, and Howard Jacobson was even 'good', but nothing would have been lost by recording these bits.

Then I ask how much advernturous could their documentary approach have been? They made a pretty good, wide-ranging documentary that accounted for over three quarters of the content.

I think the audience who have not been and won't go to the actual exhibition would have benefited from a more lingering look at the actual pictures rather than the speedy, blurry shots through the rooms.

I also think it was case of too many cooks - did we really need that 'art historian' (Sotheby's director and Antiques Roadshow expert) Philip Hook when Nicholas Cullinan (the guy I intervied in my film), one of the three curators and one of the young stars of global modern art curating (now in charge of modern art at the Met) was so under-utilised?

[thebish]

must learn to dive so I can go here!

http://grenadaunderwatersculpture.com/

[TANGODANCER]

must learn to dive so I can go here!

http://grenadaunderwatersculpture.com/

Fascinating. But why do the divers look like they've come straight from golf?

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

Whisper it quietly, but this lunchtime I spotted a notorious clown walking around my offices saying insightful and positive things about Tracey Emin...

[Lost Leopard Spot]

Whisper it quietly, but this lunchtime I spotted a notorious clown walking around my offices saying insightful and positive things about Tracey Emin...

?
Boris Johnson?
Damien Hirst?
Anjem Choudary?
Dan Quayle?
Jeremy Clarkson?

no... you're going to have to narrow it down a bit.

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

Even more infamous than any of that lot.

[Lost Leopard Spot]

No, not... Bobo!

[William the White]

Redemption is possible. Even for clowns. But this is only the start. Next up is the trip to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and a large and graceful dose of Henry Moore!!!

[Montreal Wanderer]

Redemption is possible. Even for clowns. But this is only the start. Next up is the trip to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and a large and graceful dose of Henry Moore!!!

Toronto has one of the world's largest collections of Moore's sculptures and Murray McLauchlan write a song about one of them (Down by the Henry Moore). Just in case you ever come over this way.

On the same album Murray sing Sweeping the Spotlight Away, basically about Bobo.

[bobo the clown]

Redemption is possible. Even for clowns. But this is only the start. Next up is the trip to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and a large and graceful dose of Henry Moore!!!

I'll have you know Willy that I don't mind Moore .... as far as oversized doorstops go.

What mummy failed to mention was that one of the works on display wasn't finished. Like a paint by numbers that the artist got bored with.

... and I was all set to use a pair of doors which were actually painted onto a wall !!