Last night’s Turner Prize preview event was a jolly affair despite queuing in the rain and the rather hostile security guards – which struck me as funny and unnecessary – but this was the Turner Prize.
George Shaw: Scenes from the Passion
Once inside amidst a sea of friends and acquaintances the atmosphere improved markedly to the point – during my second glass of wine – where I was emotionally ready to take on more or less any kind of art, even the Turner Prize kind.
The line up this year: Karla Black, Martin Boyce, Hilary Lloyd and George Shaw were all dire to my eyes except for the work of George Shaw. I was lucky enough to see his retrospective earlier this year at the Baltic (demonstrating the very good taste of the gallery’s director Godfrey Worsdale). That was the first time I’d seen George Shaw’s work but I was delighted to see it again here in the shortlist. For those who haven’t seen his paintings the best description might be: a slice of hyper-realistic Humbrol coated housing estate life. Although the prize hasn’t been awarded yet – surely this work must win – hence the optimistic title on this post.
His images of a place that could be just about anywhere in contemporary Britain (but which are actually Coventry) create, for me, a real nostalgia for my childhood. The places depicted – rows of garages, the edges of parks and school fields, the semi-derelict houses, the fences, the little heaps of urban rubbish – all viscerally reminded me of my daily walk to school and the places I hung around with my friends. It looks terribly depressing and terribly boring but actually, for me, these scenes of urban isolation seem recognisable and comforting.
My husband likened them to 17th century Dutch still life paintings. And as fanciful as that sounds he’s right. The stillness, the beauty inherent in the ordinary everyday scenes and the luminous glaze of those Humbrol paints – very Vermeer.
I re-walked the exhibition room with this thought in mind and experienced it all again with a slightly changed sense of nostalgia.
It made me think about the connections of artists through the ages, the fact that ways of seeing are threaded through time and place and that emotions and memory can be gathered together in a single bent railing or glistening depiction of ashphalt. For me it was a moving and enjoyable experience but I guess if you grew up in leafy suburbia you’d view it all ratherly differently.
Other highlights included: chatting to Sune Nordgrun the first – and highly controversial – director of Baltic looking just the same as he did all those years ago; watching Godfrey Worsdale give his last interview of a very busy media day under the threat of a Stuckist ‘monkey man’ demonstration and viewing the incomparable Matt Stokes’ Cantata Profana installation which wasn’t in the shortlist but probably should have been.
Matt Stokes: Cantata Profana
I don’t think there’s a way of describing Stokes’ installation except for the words weird, loud, brilliant, joyful, amusing, intimidating. If you’re a vampire/werewolf movie fan, a heavy metal devotee, a sub-Malcolm Gladwell groupie – go and see it.
And to adopt my very clever husband’s views yet again – this should win the Turner Prize. Why? Because it’s got a primitive appeal that touches your inner howl…. in a very good way. It’s TS Eliot’s communal dance around the bonfire but for a knowing internet-age audience. Be free my friends and enjoy!
Tanya Garland August 29, 2011
Gadaffi Palace Disappointingly Tasteful
Maybe it’s just because they’re naturally keen on a bit of excess. Maybe it’s because their parents never let them decorate their bedrooms when they were teenagers. Maybe it’s just because they can. But your average genocidal dictator usually goes for a bit of excess. That’s why it’s so diappointing to discover that Colonel Gadaffi’s crib is quite so tasteful… according, that is, to the Daily Mash. It’s so tasteful in fact that I’m asking myself “Muammar, is your house a…..?” Did you get this on interest free credit? Is this just another example of British banks supporting an ever growing number of dictators to over-extend their lending for fashionable gewgaws and a bit of plastic surgery? Whatever! Read on to find out what it looked like to those roving reporters from The Daily Mash; first on the scene at every crime against taste.
Colonel Gaddafi’s private chambers have a stylish, minimalist look, rebels fighters have discovered.
It’s a cool but comfortable space for cursing the imperialist dogs.
The Libyan despot’s classy interiors are at odds with what is normally expected from a dictator, with understated furnishings and clean, contemporary lines.
It had been believed that all tyrants furnished their homes from the same shop full of Ming-dynasty-on-crack gold things and fantasy art. It is based at a secret location somewhere beneath the Arabian peninsula and is also a favourite of Donald Trump and the Rooneys.
A rebel spokesman said: “Although this is a glorious day, we feel a bit cheated that Gaddafi’s eye for good design is beyond reproach.
“Usually when a despot falls the first thing that happens is the Western media prints lots of pictures of all their gaudy palaces, with suitably withering captions.
“Because it is only through the medium of tasteless interior design choices that middle class Western newspaper readers can begin to grasp that a foreign leader is a bad person.
“Here however we see that, although Gaddafi may be the son of a jackal, he has created a home which is simultaneously grand and intimate, making excellent use of natural light. So reluctantly we must give credit where it’s due.
“When we capture him I fully intend to find out where he got those rugs in the torture wing chill-out zone.”
Interiors expert Emma Bradford said: “If you’re one of the oppressed masses, is it more galling if your oppressor spends stolen money on a giant platinum statue of Conan fighting a crocosaurus, or really nice stuff that you’re actually quite jealous of?
“Then again, who cares? That sofa is lush.”
Tanya Garland June 5, 2011
Advertising war crimes
I wanted to thank Mr Giles Watson of Uffington, Oxfordshire when I read his letter in The Independent at the breakfast table this morning for shining a light on the fact that children of 16 can join the British army; and can be shown glamourous adverts that encourage them to enlist. When I read the article on May 29th to which his letter refers I too was incredibly angry that it’s possible for children so young to be recruited in this way. Here’s Mr Watson’s letter:
“It is rightly illegal in this country to sell cigarettes to children under 18, and tobacco advertising is not permitted in any of our media. So why can children walk into a cinema and see advertisements that glamourise the activities of the armed forces, and how can the Army be permitted to recruit 16-year-olds and even send under-18s to battle zones (“One in six recruits to Army is aged 16″, 29 May)? Why do some organisations that deal in death have their recruitment activities strictly regulated, while others are subject to no such control and are even permitted to recruit potential victims in our schools?”
It’s time to stop and think about what’s acceptable in advertising terms because preparing teenagers to die horrible deaths via a quick stint in the Army is morally abhorrent. However, the reason for the banning of tobacco advertising for under 18s is probably based on the cost to the State of providing medical care for people with lung cancer; it’s a lot cheaper if you just die at 19 (the age of the youngest British soldier to die in Afghanistan so far) than it is if you have to be cared for on the NHS for a few years first.
Tanya Garland May 28, 2011
Eat my building
‘The List‘ in today’s FT brings together several things that I love: cake, jelly, gingerbread and architecture. I’m definitely going to keep track of the www.cakebook.org event taking place at the National Trust’s Gibside where landmark buildings re-made in cake will create an architectural map of the North East.
But I’m not so sure about Mitchell Joachim’s use of fatty cells to grow insulation material and his suggestion that sphincter muscles could be used for windows and doors – back doors presumably? The scary thing is he’s very convincing. It’s a dangerous man who can make something so seemingly wrong sound perfectly sane and agreeable. Be careful if you’re thinking of inviting him to dinner. See what you think in this TED video.
A Cakebook competition entry cake
Tanya Garland
The PR and plant lovers’ guide to the Chelsea Flower Show
PR is as prevalent as peonies, primroses and sweet peas at the Chelsea Flower Show. Haute champagne producers, stealth-wealth banks and even principalities (Monaco – get you, and your rooftop-sized pool) use the show’s best stands as nightly opportunities to woo their guests into a rose-scented malleability, gentle ambassadorship or in some cases raising awareness of ‘issues’ (I’m thinking of you, Green & Blacks). What a superb way to win friends and influence people – and so easy too – just spend around £200k and notice how quickly your social stock rises.
But this experience of the show is very far from the day trippers’ reality where the tremendous swell and heave of vintage M&S swathed middle-class middle -England attacks the stands in a very un-British ‘elbows out and no apologies given’ kind of way. It’s all very Martin Parr at the Grand National…. and generally demonstrates that no amount of unisex Panama hats can take the edge off the fact that the British en masse don’t really do tasteful or elegant…and are very vocal when they think something is rubbish. This was nicely demonstrated by the many candid comments I overheard about the toe-curlingly awful British Heart Foundation garden.
The British Heart Foundation garden looks like a scene from the Rocky Horror Show
I have to agree with one lady who I heard commenting to her mother ”why not hit us over the head and take money from our pockets, it would be simpler and kinder than inflicting THAT garden on us”.
The general mood and tone was akin to the Christmastime party scenes at Bridget Jones’ parents’ home i.e. it embodied the British persona writ large in all its glorious eccentricity – which brings me neatly onto who accompanied me on this foray into British traditions.
I was being feted by no other than the Cary Grant of northern architecture and design, Alan J Smith, who grew up in a Durham mining community but who has gone on to become an indisputable social A Lister as well as one of the UK’s best architects www.redboxdesign.com / http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_J_Smith_OBE,_DL. He regaled me with tales of the previous evening’s starlit dinner at which he’d hosted a table chock full of luminaries of British sport and which subsequently turned into a late, late, late, late night of the best possible sort.
This storytelling seemed to me to represent the essence of the show and a very British trait: namely, showing off whilst being extremely self deprecating, talking about fancy stuff in a casual low-key ‘I come from a Durham mining village’ kind of way and so I am immune to glamour and not that impressed by it. Another way of seeing it is as ’feet firmly on the top rung of the social ladder but with enough grace to leave the bottom rung available for you to get a toe on’…it’s a very British characteristic and intensely particular to us northerners. But it appeared that the best gardeners at the show were also like this…they know everything there is to know and are also happy for you to know a bit too, though you’ll never ever know as much as them and that’s the way they like it.
But Alan’s very real charm, intelligence and knowledge marks him out as a ‘leading man’ and polymath – in other words the type of man who is rarer than a Nightingale in Berkeley Square but who could tell you who wrote the song, some interesting facts about Nightingales and also have the best tablebooked at The Square.
An old hand at the show (Alan won a silver medal last year for his garden for Gateshead Council at his first attempt; but he’s not happy with silver, no not at all…gold next time) and with him acting as a guide the show took on a different dimension – the structure, materials, the interplay of light and shade and the overall composition of each of the major stands became the focal point rather than the flowers and foliage. The effect of this was like visiting Paris with a native – all the things you thought were going to be shown and impressed by were dismissed in the wave of a hand, but what was revealed was far more interesting, smaller in detail but bigger on impact.
A stand inside the Grand Pavilion
And this is where the circle was squared. Although the flower show on one level is just a massive money making illusion that bears little resemblance to the type of gardening that most of us might know or understand - when you get beyond the paparazzi-popping corporate schmoozing and into the Grand Pavilion it’s actually jam-packed with quiet specialists manning their stands year after year, and who know everything and anything about their particular flower species that even the keenest gardener is ever likely to want to know.
They love their plants, they adore their work, they believe in the tiny details and nuances that transform their ‘gardening’ into an art form. They do it because they live and breathe plants and flowers and enjoy the most sensual of relationships with them. It’s easy to be blinded to this authentic connoisseurship because the glare of money of the main exhibition boulevard can dazzle and distract.
And this is what I choose to take home from Chelsea: not the Cameron Mackintosh West End musical version of it, but the quiet thoughtfulness of the true plant and flower specialists to whom this show is not really about being showy at all it’s about sharing the obsessive love of the true gardener’s heart.
I think that Alan, my tour guide for the day, known for his garrulousness was revealed to be amongst friends with these growers - another, quieter side, of his character was pleasingly revealed as he talked lovingly and knowledgeably about the work of various specialist producers, the different characteristics of the plants and flowers that he most enjoyed growing and the physical and emotional effort it takes to create a beautiful garden. I began to see what makes him such a brilliant architect - his simple deep-rooted passion for honest elegant beauty.
It turned out to be the best kind of day: generous-spirited, heartwarming and liberally peppered with laughter, gossip and fun. A truly memorable show. Thanks Alan.
