Remembering Poetry
I’ve been reading the Four Quartets for the first time (why did Eliot call them that? They’re each in five parts. Is it that there are four of them and they go together to make a whole? But then they would be one quartet, surely…).
Anyway, after reading them through a couple of times with the assistance of the notes of Hermann Servotte and then reading them again right through, I set out to write down what I remembered. It went something like this:
The briar and the rose….brown edges of swimming pool….wounded surgeon….ruined millionaire…..dove…..Pentecostal fire…….frost and fire……”Yet being someone Other”……..broken king…….”Zero summer”…..blah, blah, blah….brown baked face…..jaws of sea……tin leaves……winter lightning….. You get the point; what you remember in the first instance is concrete images, plus a few memorable phrases (which might stick, like “zero summer”, because you’ve no idea what they mean).
I should say I loved the poems and thoroughly recommend them – I’m sure this TS Eliot will go far.
“From Centre”; Loud and Western building, 65 Broughton Road, London SW6, until 26th April
A pop-up exhibition of clean-cut, texture-free geometric abstract painting and sculpture. The great venue, an old works of some sort, being converted into flats, I should think; very white, wooden staircases, lovely balcony and some great abstracts.
No.317, Fold, 2012 – Rana Begum
Paint on powder-coated mild steel.
Polymorph, 2013 – Natalie Dower
For some reason, I thought these were young artists; then I checked the biogs. Natalie Dower is 84; others include Tess Jaray (b.1937), Trevor Sutton (b.1948), Peter Lowe (b.1938)… Begum (b.1977) is a mere child. Some fantastic work from major artists, and free. We paid a voluntary fiver for the excellent booklet.
“History is Now: 7 Artists Take on Britain (Hayward Gallery)
Actually, six different takes, since the Wilson sisters go together. It’s really more like journalism or history with a lot of art objects, than an art exhibition. There’s a Bristol Bloodhound surface-to-air missile on the verandah, for instance; where would you see something like that in an art exhibition? Well, there were Fiona Banner’s planes in the Tate a couple of years ago…
The artists are Simon Fujiwara – a group of objects of significance to the artist, including a huge slice of coal, Meryl Streep’s Margaret Thatcher costume from a film, a Hockney Ipad enlargement;
The Wilsons – political conflicts, including Greenham Women, Northern Ireland, social and political movements – look out for Penelope Slinger’s surrealist feminist photos, Stuart Brisley’s cage of gloves (looks like it should be about Auschwitz – actually, each glove represents 66,000- odd unemployed) and the Pasmores;
Stuart Brisley
Roger Hioorn – BSE/CJD and Scrapie; horrifying subject, mostly film and newspaper reports, with some rather tangential stuff, for example, a Lygia Clark sculpture that just happens to resemble a prion;
John Akomfrah – film, including Gilbert and George, Francis Bacon and Barbara Hepworth;
Hannah Starkey – photographs, notably Chris Killip, Bill Brandt, Martin Parr.
Richard Wentworth – great wartime, Festival of Britain, 50s and 60s stuff – Paul Nash, Paolozzi, Ben Nicholson, Tony Cragg, Eagle Annuals, early Penguins and Pelicans.
Tony Cragg
Britain from the North
Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer)
OK, I understand she (Scarlett Johansson) is an alien lifeform, acquiring skins from unwary Scottish blokes; but who is the motorcyclist and how did the Tesco man escape, if only temporarily? and why did she have to kill the Czech man in the wetsuit? Horrible attempted rape scene.
Painting
Getting nowhere except the Slough of Despond with my current effort – maybe I’ll chuck some bright paint on the canvas and ride my bike over it, and call it Aphrodite at the Waterhole…except Tony Hancock’s already used that (see “The Rebel” – essential viewing for artists).
Work in progress???
Blackpaint
12.4.15
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