Summer in winter

December 08, 2021 by famapa in looking at art

I don’t know about you, but looking at art is like medicine for me, so after being ill, the first thing I wanted to do was dose myself up on other people’s creativity. Last Tuesday morning I sat down and looked at what was on, and wrote down a list of 15 (!) exhibitions I wanted to go to. After having established the date order of when to go, I headed into town to see Mixing It Up at the Hayward Gallery. Just as I was mere meters away I thought: “Wait, isn’t the Hayward shut on Tuesdays?!” only to see that it was. I put it down to my post-Covid brain not remembering to check whether they were open or not. My other genius move was that I’d left my list at home, but I remembered what was no. 2: The Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy. So, back across the river I walked, arriving at the RA by lunch time and going straight to the café. There I sat, eating my sandwich, facing this mural by Gilbert Spencer called An Artist’s Progress, painted in 1959. Apparently it wasn't very popular at the time, and one critic called it “The worst picture of the year!.” Ouch. I however enjoyed looking at it and following the story, and how it made a good backdrop for the lunching ladies. Re-energised and rested, I went upstairs to embark on the marathon awaiting me; the Summer Exhibition contains over a 1000 artworks. I took a lot of pictures, and I’m going to post 45 of them here. “45 pictures in one post?! Are you mad?!!” I hear you say. Well, I thought it fitting, as walking through the exhibition itself is quite an undertaking. So, make yourself comfortable (maybe boil that kettle), ‘cause here goes.

*Mexican Man With Green And Red Spotted Shirt* Bill Traylor £96,500

The annual Summer Exhibition has been on every year at the Royal Academy since 1769, and for the past couple of years it’s been held in late autumn/early winter because of the pandemic. It has never been cancelled, not even during the world wars. Each exhibition is co-ordinated by a Royal Academician, and this year’s selection was over seen by Yinka Shonibare. The title of it is Reclaiming Magic, and Bill Traylor’s art worked as a catalyst of what the theme should be. From the guide book of the exhibition: “We begin our journey with the work of one artist, Bill Traylor, from whom the kaleidoscope of ideas in the exhibition has evolved. Born into slavery in 1854, he did not start making art until the age of 85. He was a self-taught artist and has come into prominence in our time as society has shifted its values. Bill Traylor’s work singularly inspired the idea of looking beyond the boundaries of Western art history.”

*Red Man With Pipe*
Bill Traylor £71,500

*Lamp, Abstract Table, Figures And Dog*
Bill Traylor £89,500

Now, if you’re a long time reader of the blog (cast your mind back to the heady days of blogging in 2008 if so), you might remember that I got given a book about him, which blew my mind, so to see his work IRL was incredible. I had no idea he was included, so it was a pleasant surprise, and I spent a long time looking at them, with my heart beating a bit faster.

Untitled (Construction With Figures) Bill Traylor NSF (not for sale)

Almost all of the work at the Summer Exhibition is for sale, and had I been a millionaire I might have considered Red Man With Pipe (see above above - ha!), a mere snip at £71,500.

Right then, let’s move on. The fun thing about the SE is that the works on display is a mixture of works from established, new or amateur artists and members of the public. Anyone can enter.

I didn’t shoot this with anything to give it scale, but it was huge - and cool.

*Prison Culture: Canteen II* by Lee Cutter £3,200

I saw some of Lee Cutters’ carved soaps at the 2018 SE. They are really something.

*George Floyd Remembered* Ian Wright £650

It has never occurred to me that you could do actual portraits with Hama beads.

*Memento Mori* Chrissie Freeth NFS (not for sale)

There’s no doubt I’m middle aged now, as I keep finding that my taste is changing. I now love tapestries, I can listen to opera without wanting to turn it off and I’ve also come round to watercolour paintings. I used to think they were so naff, and now I love how delicate they are. Anyway, I digress. I found the craftsmanship in this amazing.

Now how’s this for a fancy light pull? It’s actually quite large, maybe about 25cm in diameter. It would be so beautiful hanging in the window of a minimalist house.

As would this handle type thing (see, I know all the art critic lingo). I reeaaaaally liked this. I’d love it just jutting out on a wall somewhere random at home. But obviously not in the loo, as that would be beyond middle age.

Pretty obvious who this is, eh? Also, knitted portraits! Totally deserves an exclamation mark.

Red Robin Harry Hill £50

Harry Hill is a British (very British) stand up comedian, who’s very silly and has made us laugh a lot over the years. He’s also a bit of an amateur artist on the side, and this was one of his entries. You can see him talk about it here.

*Renovation of the Headquarters of the Royal Geographical Society, Kensington Gore*
Adam Caruso and Peter St John RA (*Royal Academician*) £360

I’ve always found the architecture room at the SE quite boring, but this year was different, as I’ve become much more interested in architecture since Covid and my lockdown looking-at-buildings walks. £360 isn’t a huge amount of money for something as nice as this, but I don’t have that sort of spare cash. A photo of the print will have to do.

*UCL East Marshgate - Study Model 1:100* Stanton Williams NFS

I know for sure that in another life, Mr Famapa would have been a model maker. He’d be awesome at it.

It wasn’t madly busy, which was nice. I love the quiet in a gallery/museum on a weekday, with the chance to step away from the world outside, especially now as town is all Christmassy and busy.

*Chibok Girls: Nigeria’s Stolen Daughters* Julienne Hanson £750

Went in a bit closer on this, so you can see it more in detail. Another very large knitted piece.

Another wide shot so you can see how much there is on the walls, and also how high up some of it is. I’d be a pit peeved if that was my picture on top of the throughway like that, wouldn’t you?

*6 Works From the Vocabulary Series* Marlene Dumas Hon RA NFS

I love Marlene Dumas’ work. Talk about cool watercolours. Her stuff is so otherworldly. She’s got a big exhibition in Venice next year. I might send myself over there in the post so I can see it.

See number 284? The minimalist green and black piece. Gutted that it was hanging so high up. I really liked the look of it, but struggled to see it properly, and the reflections didn't help either. Shame.

Looooooved this wood cut. Another one I would’ve bought with my Monopoly money.

*Ada Set Of Stairs 40.11* Wolgang Tillmans RA £108,960

This massive inkjet print really stood out. I was wondering how you can even print something that big, and then when I saw that it was by Wolfgang Tillmans, and I understood that if you’re Wolfgang Tillmans you can. I overheard these two ladies saying that they found it a bit scary, as if it was about to fall down on them. I kind of know what they mean.

Tried to get a shot of this lady with her hat and colour combo, but she moved just as I took the picture.

*The Business Of Hanging Around* Terry Wood £14,750

Liked the contrast of the clean painting floating in the air and the ornate moulding in the ceiling.

*Back Of Wendover, The Aylesbury Fragments* Harriet Mena Hill £1,350

Who’s to say that you can’t paint on bits of salvaged concrete?

*Amnesiac Beach Fire (Mod II)* Mike Nelson RA £15,000

Or make a fire in the corner?

*Our Visit To The Contemporary Art Museum Did Not Go Entirely As Planned* Glen Baxter £6,800

This made me smile and think of Gary Larson.

*Troglodytes Of The Northern Desert* Stephen Farthing RA £8,000

Looking at this really messed with my eyes. Some colours put next to makes our brains very confused. This painting was like an afterimage.

Another one that I would’ve bought. It really reminded me of summer nights in the Swedish countryside. Must be the pine trees.

There were quite a few Eileen Cooper artworks in the there (I guess one of the many perks of being a Royal Academician is that you can enter as many artworks as you want) but this one was my fave.

See the half cat half human portrait? Loooooooove it.

*Seeing Red (Again)* Corneila Parker RA £666

This made me smile so much. I think this might be the third version of this concept from Corneila Parker, but she could just run with this forever and ever. It’s a dead cert to get chosen every year, but then she would be anyway, because the lady is a genius. You can read more about the first version Stolen Thunder (Red Spot) here.

Matrix IV, From: Aquatints Antony Gormley RA £2,400

Focus!

Ahhh, that’s better. I really enjoyed the times where I immediately felt something; either instantly liking it or recognising who the art was by, before looking in the List of Works guidebook to check the artist. This was one of those occasions where I instantly liked it. When I read that it was by Antony Gormley it made perfect sense - I love everything he does.

And this was one of those times when I knew who’d made it straight away - Ed Ruscha (kind of obvious I guess, haha).

*So Long And Thanks For All The FIsh* Derek Curtis £2,500

See the little painting on its own above the doorway? How aptly placed. Just that bit away from everyone else. Stupid effin’ Brexit. I hate it.

*Chris Whitty’s Cat* Grayson Perry RA NFS

I don’t hate this though. Such pleasure to also see this in real life, as I watched this being made in one of the Grayson’s Art Club episodes last year. In the first lockdown, broadcast on Channel 4 in weekly instalments, Grayson Perry started an art club, with weekly themes that members of the public could partake in, and send him their art. The end result is an exhibition of lockdown art that is currently travelling the country. There were so many good things on TV to keep us sane in those many months of isolation, but Perry’s show was probably the best.

*A Little Bit Of InfinityB/C/F* Peter Randall-Page RA £4,000 each

Noice noice. Really liking the complex simplicity of these. Whoa, I’m hitting the wall dudes. Are you? This is a flipping monster of a post. Are you still with me? Or are you scrolling going “Next. Next.”? Don’t tell me, as it’s easier for me to pretend that you find all of this interesting, because I’ve spent HOURS doing this post. We’re nearly there guys, only six more pics to go. We can DO IT.

This was a very popular piece, with a lot of nostalgic men looking at it. Made it impossible to get a clean shot of it without anyone in it.

So beautiful this, isn’t it? One thing I think I figured out is that if you’re submitting photographs to the SE, they must be very clean graphically. More like something that you put in your house because it goes well with the interior, rather than it being a good picture (not the case here though, but it falls in that bracket too). I think it’s a bit unfair, as so many of the other art works are really busy, and a thing within itself. It could also be that the photographs that get in are like this because they have to compete with busy paintings and the like, and it’s the only way they’ll stand out. They can’t all be huge like Wolfgang Tillmans’ print (which, hello, was very clean graphically!). I’d love to see what the photos that don’t make it in are like. Are they better photographs? Or is this kind of photography the only kind being submitted? Or does the photographer think about how they can easily sell their work? And actually, I’m equally guilty of thinking of the art in the exhibition in relation to what would look like in my house. I guess it can’t be helped, as if you’re buying art, it’s generally going up on a wall, in a home. Still, I think it’s interesting that there’s such a clear division between photography and the other art forms on display here, but I realise that I’m being hypocritical, seeing as all the pieces I’ve taken pictures of and have posted here, fall in the bracket “clean graphically”. “But I used to be a graphic designer” she whispers. “So I can’t actually help it. It’s deeply embedded in my visual DNA”. Pffffft.

*Fatou* Amoalko Boafo (Private Collection) NFS

I guess it’s harder for photographs to “compete” when there’s such great things around them like this painting for example. I’m sure if I had a go at finger painting it would not turn out like this.

*Experiencing British Art History* Nelly Dimitranova £3,500

OMG. This. This is epic. First it made me laugh as I know this colour chart from Farrow & Ball very well, but then my jaw kind of dropped when I looked closer at each paint chip. Every one of them a drawing of a famous British painting or sculpture. I mean, everyone is in there, honestly. If you take your time, I’m sure you’ll recognise loads of them. I recommend coming back to this and looking at them all properly, as I completely get that you might just have OD’d on all of this by now.

I did tell you. The Summer Exhibition is a real undertaking. So is a blog post with 45 pictures.

But we’ve finally made it to the end. If I find out you just scrolled through it all, I’m going to come and pinch you. And I’ll take a picture of me doing it, and then I’ll enter it to next year’s Summer Exhibition. Boom.

Out the other end

December 02, 2021 by famapa in my everyday life

Last week’s view.

Hey. How goes it? It’s finally better here; our household all went down with Covid a couple of weeks ago, with Oomoo catching it in school and testing positive on his birthday - which seemed a bit mean. He’d actually asked to have the vaccine for his 12th birthday, but we’ll take natural immunity (of sorts) as a consolation. It’s a bit ironic, as I recently had secretly been craving a lockdown (I know, it makes no sense, but I think I was just tired and wanted a break, also, with everything seemingly being even more unknown at the moment, I should be careful what I wish for), and getting ill gave me that slow time that I wanted, needed. Both me and Mr Famapa were due our boosters, but the virus got us before we had the chance to get them. All I kept thinking was how lucky we were that we had had the vaccine to start with, and how, if I felt as badly as I did, what the hell would it have been like without it? So what did I do for 10 days? I set up camp in the spare room, placing my desktop computer in there and watching hours and hours of archive programmes on BBC iPlayer, pretty much only watching old architecture documentaries from the 60’s/70’s/80’s, and other random bits of old TV. I loved every minute of it; to see and hear real people talk about their lives, and see life on the streets as it actually was (and most shows I watched were from London as well) , made me realise that our visual history is usually passed on in time through dramas or interviews with famous people. Here are some of the programmes I watched, if you’re interested and in the UK:

A House in Bayswater

Ours to Keep

Architecture at the Crossroads - 8. Houses Fit For People

Building Sights - Byker Wall

Building Sights - Trellick Tower

Building Sights - Alexander Fleming House

Three Swings on a Pendulum

Man Alive - Hyde Park

Special Enquiry - A Girl Comes to London

Eye to Eye - Now We Are Married

We also watched Peter Jackson’s Get Back epic Beatles documentary, which was actually magical. Jackson has spent the past four years sifting through 57+ hours of footage that Michael Lindsay-Hogg shot for the 1970 film Let It Be, restoring it and polishing everything up, so it looks like it was shot just weeks ago, and re-telling the story of what led to The Beatles’ last live performance on top of the EMI’s roof on Savile Row. You get to be a fly on the wall as John, Paul, George and Ringo jam and find their way to finished songs like Get Back, Let It Be, I Me Mine and Don’t Let Me Down. The footage of Paul messing about and finally coming up with the intro to Get Back was truly jaw dropping. It felt like I stopped breathing when I watched it happen; it really came out of nowhere! And to see how they create, what are now some of the most famous songs ever written, and how relaxed they are as they figure them out, is just mind blowing. It is incredibly slow at times, but I loved the mundanity of some of it. AND! They’re in their late 20’s here (in fact George is only 25, and Billy Preston who joins the band on keyboards, 23), which is also just crazy. Weirdly, after the almost eight hours were up, we were sad that it was over. I’ve been playing their music non-stop for the past few days, and will keep doing so for a long long time. The two weeks that Covid gave me time wise have been immensely culturally rewarding, and for that I’m truly grateful. Silver linings yo, silver linings.

P.S. If you can’t watch the documentary itself this article sums it up perfectly (about a 10 min read).

A day in ruins

November 09, 2021 by famapa in away from home

More from this summer. It was so different in many ways, but the main one was that Mr Famapa worked away for most of it, leaving me and Oomoo to our own devices for weeks on end. To break it up me and O drove up to York to go and stay with friends for a few nights. The weather was all over the place (mainly on the wet side) but I had a few places I wanted to go visit.

The Kilburn White Horse was one of them, and this is the best picture I got of it. Not only can you not see the horse, it’s also not white. There’s quite a story about it; a wealthy Victorian business man had been to see the chalk hill Uffington White Horse in Oxfordshire, and wanted to create something similar near the village he grew up in. The local schoolmaster, together with his pupils and volunteers, set about to cut the horse out of the hill, but as it wasn’t made out of chalk, the horse did not end up having the desired white colour. Tons of limestone was instead poured over it to have the same effect, something that has been done regularly ever since. Well, it had obviously not been done for a long time when we were there, so if anything it could probably be re-branded to a more accurate name like “The Greige Horse”.

Walking up the steps up to it (and down like here) was quite an experience. They went on forever and were ridiculously steep. Quite a workout!

From there we continued to Helmsley for a spot of lunch, and walked past this ruin of Helmsley Castle.

Twice.

We didn’t stop as we had a bigger ruin on our itinerary: Rievaulx Abbey. In the depths of the third lockdown I savoured watching Winter Walks, where you got to follow various people in the public eye go for a solo walk in Yorkshire and Cumbria, accompanied only by a 360 degree camera they were filming with themselves with, and a drone. This blogpost describes exactly what it felt like for me to watch these beautiful, soulful programmes in the bleakest of winters (let’s hope this coming one won’t be as bad, because the last one was ROUGH here), and the programmes proved handy with lots of suggestions of what to explore in Yorkshire.

Rievaulx Abbey did not disappoint.

A Cistercian monastery since 1132 (!), this extension of the cloisters was completed in the 1220’s. At its most populous point around 650 people lived there, with the minority being monks, and the majority lay brothers.

Shut down by Henry the VIII in 1538, it was quickly dismantled, with the roof lead and church bells saved for the king.

It didn’t occur to me that maybe it was a bit unsafe to walk around like we did, but the upper walls were reinforced with hidden concrete beams in 1918, to preserve the ruins for the future.

Dotted around in the grass were signs showing where different areas used to be.

Must be quite something to live so close, in these houses, right next to it.

After the dissolution of the abbey, it continued on as an iron forge, which already existed, as the lay brothers at Rievaulx forged their own tools, nails and cutlery. Eventually it too got closed down, and the land was handed down generations of landed gentry, and finally given to the state as a historical monument in the 1900’s.

Lastly, in the grounds café afterwards, in a really well designed seating area. Those windows!

I’m so glad we’re finally exploring England more (and I hope we get to travel round the rest of the UK soon too), as in the ‘Before’ we usually went abroad for our holidays. I always knew that there are so many amazing places to visit here, and it’s crazy that it took a pandemic to make us appreciate what’s closer to home. But I guess sometimes you have to learn the hard way.

It's a Kew, Kew summer

November 04, 2021 by famapa in london

Quite soon after the school summer holidays started, me and Oomoo went with friends to Kew Gardens. I’m guessing it won’t be long before he’ll pass on the offer of going there though. We’re almost exactly a year away from him turning into to a teenager (gasp), and I’m sure he’ll rather do something less walk-y by then. But then he might surprise me. Let’s hope so.

There’s still enough interesting stuff there for an almost 12 year old.

Like cool sound installations hanging in trees.

You had to stand underneath the sound domes to hear the amplified recordings of the inner workings of a tree, including the rumble that can be heard under the bark (no, I didn't know there was such a thing either) or the popping sound of water as it travels from the trunk towards the leaves - mixed with music.

We then finally made our way to Queen Charlotte’s Cottage, one of the last places within the gardens that I’ve not yet been to, but sadly it was shut. But L was happy anyway, as you can see here. In fact, maybe she was happy because it was shut… The cottage was used by King George III and Queen Charlotte in the late 1700’s, as a pit stop for a cup of tea and a rest when they went for walks in the grounds of Kew Palace, their summer holiday home. In spring the cottage is surrounded by blue bells and I hope I time it right one year, so I can see it in all its blue glory.

There were also unusual planting installations dotted around the gardens.

Noice.

And one really comfy continuous bench.

Seeing as green is going to fade away in nature’s winter palette, let’s take some in now. Delicately, like this

or layered, like that

or bright and punchy, like here

or curly and swirly, like there.

And I’ll add some nice orange and white too - before I say “Hasta la vista Kew”.

Finally, no visit is complete without a picture like this from the Hive. Standing underneath it I initially couldn’t make out if this was Oomoo or not, but then I noticed the undone shoelace. That’s him alright.

While typing in the post title I had Bananarama going round in my head, so here’s a link to Cruel Summer, from 37 years ago (OMG!). I love how their outfits are so in fashion again (like seriously), and after watching the music video I’ve got a serious girl crush on Siobhan Fahey. How could you not?!