Howard Hodgkin at Gagosian – until 28th July only, so go now.
These are Hodgkin’s last paintings; as can be seen, there are few surprises for those familiar with his work, but absolutely no evidence of decline as far as I can see, The colours, textures and impact are as strong as ever. They are all oil on wood.
Bombay Afternoon, 2016
Love Song, 2015
Floating dots…
Darkness at noon, 2015-2016
I wonder if the title is anything to do with the Koestler classic.
I love the floating quality of many (push-pull colours) and the tracts of bare wood, and of course the way the brushstrokes wander over the frames (where there are frames).
Aftermath, Steppenwolf
Mentioned Hesse’s Steppenwolf in last but one blog; I forgot to say that the jazz dance scenes inevitably conjure Otto Dix’s Metropolis and one or two paintings at Tate Britain’s current “Aftermath” exhibition – notably, one by William Roberts, called “The Jazz Club”, I think.
Dr Strangelove, dir. Stanley Kubrick (1964) – Chill’s last flight
Chill Wills atop his nuclear bomb
This pretty much tore up anything in the way of current “satire” on show on British TV last week and jumped up and down on it. Sellers is unapproachable in his three roles as Strangelove, the US President and Mandrake, as is Sterling Hayden, as is George C Scott – but I found myself willing Chill on to his target, as “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” played insistently in a minor key on the soundtrack.
Alex Prager, and Tish Murtha at the Photographers Gallery
Prager’s large photographs are like stills from films, which is exactly what many (all?) of them are; the placid, plastic features of the girl below like something from a Hitchcock film (there is a still of a pigeon attack on another woman); struggling survivors of some sea disaster, floating in vivid green water, a helicopter’s eye view; a woman hanging in mid air from the bonnet of car.
The other type of Prager photo is the crowd scene, like the beach below. Lots of hired actors, each performing some mundane but strangely complete task (they look posed, as they are). In each picture (according to the notes on the PG walls) a woman seems to be anxious and apart – not sure which woman in the photo below. Then, I went into the curtained film room and saw that many of the photos were stills.
Tish Murtha’s, by contrast, are all monochrome and are photos of children and teenagers amusing themselves in the cobbled streets of Elswick, Newcastle in the 70s. Roughly dressed, jumping on to mattresses from derelict buildings, pushing younger siblings in old prams, playing street games – bulletins from a disappeared world before computer games and mobile phones.
She moved to London, and there are Soho photos of strip clubs, punters and performers, cross dressing acts; also powerful, but without the fascination of the Elswick pictures. At times, there is a chiming with the Prager stuff – who is the rather smartly dressed teenage girl with the glamorous shoes; what is she doing?
An Elswick picture – something rather Last Supper about this image.
National Gallery – the early galleries
Fabulous diptych – adult Christ in Mary’s arms and green Man of Sorrows on the right.
Never seen this one before – because it’s not finished it looks modern. Could be from Lord Leighton or a Preraph, maybe.
Suez Canal Zone
Blackpaint
23/718
Tags: Aftermath, Alex Prager, Chill Wills, Dr Strangelove, Howard Hodgkin, National Gallery, Otto Dix, Peter Sellers, Steppenwolf, the Gagosian, the Photographers Gallery, Tish Murtha, William Roberts
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