Two London Visits

April 28, 2019 / fgrtommo / 1 Comment

I continue to be able to ameliorate my yearning for the buzz of living in London with one or two visits each month. These are often based around meetings with old friends or gigs of bands that I like but can’t see out in the country. That was the case this month and, once again, my ability to camp in my old flat on the sofa bed has proved very convenient.

During the last week I saw a couple of gigs. The first was The Antlers at Union Chapel with Middle Son (MS). This was a celebration of the ten year anniversary one of my favourite albums: Hospice. It’s a very sad album about domestic, emotional abuse (apparently) and (more clearly) terminal illness. That may not sound appetising but it’s wonderfully powerful and the stripped back acoustic version The Antlers performed was moving and beautiful. It drew on the hushed and respectful atmosphere the Union Chapel often generates and I love going there despite the unforgivingly hard pew seating.

The Antlers At Union Chapel

The next day, following a planned lunch with one old friend and then an impromptu meeting and beer with another outside Rough Trade East, I saw Malena Zavala at The Moth Club in Hackney. This is a compact venue that is an ex-military veterans club with sparkling ceilings and amusing customer signs I have mentioned in previous blog posts. The support band (Wovoka Gentle) and Malena were both good. Malena mixed the tuneful, dreamy songs I knew with warm Latin rockers that indicated her Argentinian heritage. I, and the rest of her audience, had a great, foot-tapping evening.

Malena Zavala and Support (Wovoka Gentile) at The Moth Club

Earlier in April I had visited London for another gathering of old friends. On the back of that I visited two places I had not been to before: The British Library and The Wallace Collection in Hertford House.

The British Library is vast and I limited myself to just the art exhibitions and the Library Treasury Gallery. The latter provided an insight into the types of document that is held in the enormous reserves of the library. There were beautiful illuminated books, religious texts representing all the main religions, historical documents (such as the book of Welsh Laws), important scientific papers and literature (such as the 14th century Gawain and The Green Knight) and sections covering Shakespeare and The Beatles. I was drawn particularly to the old maps and I will look out for future special exhibitions that showcase the library’s holding of these.

The British Library

One especially interesting section was on ‘Friendship Before Social Networks’. This displayed many Friendship and Student Albums dating from the mid-16th century to Victorian times that individuals used to record the friends they met and the things they saw and did. They were a little like artists’ sketch-books and many were really intricately completed and beautiful. Their aim was to record, or even show off, the social networks and activities of their owners in much the way Facebook and Instagram often do today; fascinating!

Long-Suffering Wife (LSW) tells me that I saw at least part of the Wallace Collection at Somerset House many years ago. I barely recall that and, in any case, the collection is now in Hertford House in Manchester Square. Like the British Library, the permanent exhibition of art, armour and weapons collected in the 18th and 19th centuries (and bequeathed to the British nation by Lady Wallace in 1897) is free. I love it that such attractions are open to all without mandatory charge – not least because I could visit on consecutive days rather than struggle to take it all in in one go.

The Back State Room, Hertford House (Wallace Collection)

The armoury is particularly impressive although I rather hankered for the more selective and minimalist displays LSW and I had seen in Kolumba in Cologne and in the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha. The Wallace Collection of armour and weapons is certainly comprehensive but also a bit overwhelming.

Part Of The Wallace Collection Armoury

Not so, apparently, for Henry Moore the famous British sculptor. He loved the armoury and visited it often during his time in London. It inspired his development of the head and helmet as one of his iconic sculptural forms. This was the subject of what I thought was a tremendous exhibition of his ‘Helmet Heads’ in the basement of Hertford House. This wasn’t free but it was excellent in terms of the items on display and the information about how the helmets concept influenced his ideas throughout much of his life. It’s on until 23 June 2019 and I recommend it.

One Of Henry Moore’s ‘Helmet Heads’

I’m back home now and the focus is on the last few games of Forest Green Rover’s unexpectedly successful and entertaining football season and on population of the vegetable patch and allotment. Easter saw marvellous weather and it would be nice to see a return of that so gardening and football can be followed by wine in sun in LSW’s new garden.

Old Friends And Oxford

April 16, 2019 / fgrtommo / 2 Comments

Christ Church College, Oxford

While Long-Suffering Wife (LSW) and I were in Australia, we met up with three of her long-standing friends: a school friend in Perth, a college friend in Hobart and a more recent friend in Sydney. Each reunion was refreshing.

LSW has been continuing this sustenance of her friend network since our return. Three friends who we knew when we lived in Kew near London have dropped in to see us. She has also been with other friends from Kew to the People’s Vote March in London and to Bristol to see another long-term acquaintance from work. It is time for me to match her relationship maintenance! I have the time now I am retired, and the only issue is fitting in with the diaries of my old friends who are still working.

For many years, a small group of friends who I got to know shortly after I first moved to London over 40 years ago have been getting together on a regular basis. For the last few years we have been meeting up every few months in a restaurant chosen alphabetically based on country of cuisine. We are up to P for Portugal. I travelled up to London last week for the latest instalment of catching up with personal developments, railing against the inequities of the world and solving (in theory) a few current newsworthy issues. It was fun and informative as usual, and an excellent excuse to spend time in London.

Also, I have also managed to get together with two friends from my college days. My goodness; now we are talking about 45 years ago! We have stayed in touch intermittently since then. Some years we have been completely out of contact with each other and then we have had periods when we have been close. One of these friends was my Best Man (BM) at my wedding and, as those who have read earlier posts will know, I see him off and on at his house near Cambridge. The other now lives with his wife in Oxford and that is where all three of us met.

I have only been to Oxford a few times in recent years. Then, the visits have been mainly to the outskirts to see Forest Green Rovers Football Club play Oxford United or to drop off or pick up Youngest Son from Oxford Brookes University. This latest visit allowed me an almost full day wandering the city alone and then further sightseeing with my mates the next day. It’s a lovely city.

Oxford Scenes (Ratcliffe Camera, Bodleian Library, Bridge Of Sighs)

Upon my arrival, the weather was cold and I decided to go for a brisk walk to warm up. I ended up walking a few miles up and down the Oxford canal. This is a much scruffier walk compared to that along the Thames which we did together the following day. Along the canal are mainly dilapidated barges. Some sustain human life but almost all are covered in detritus and the romanticism of living independently on water looked rather battered. The wildlife was plentiful though and the oblique view of the city through small canal-side workshops and back gardens was interesting.

I went to an exhibition of Jeff Koons’ work at the Ashmolean Museum and continued to warm up. I am not sure I like Koons’ work but it is certainly striking. Regardless of whether the pastiche or banality is deliberate, his work isn’t the sort of thing I would want in my home. However, the exhibition explanations of the pieces on show, and a short video interview with the artist, helped me understand at least some of what he is trying to achieve.

Pieces By Jeff Koons At The Ashmolean Museum (Balloon Venus, Ushering In Banality, Rabbit And Ballerinas)

Much of the rest of the Ashmolean Museum – apparently the world’s oldest museum – is rather like a stately home with sumptuous furniture, display cases and huge paintings. I didn’t explore all of it but wandered a little aimlessly though impressive collections of porcelain, musical instruments, and modern art by a number of artists I admire such as Bacon, Kandinsky, Matisse and Hepworth.

I dwelt only in two galleries. The first held a small but lovely, lush collection of 12th and 13th century Italian art which had some unusual pictures (one apparently depicting God himself and another showing a time lapse series of poses following the crucifixion). The second covered the Pre-Raphaelites and included accounts of some of the salacious and scandalous relationships between the artists and their partners. I saved the rest of the museum for another visit.

We ate well in Oxford but I walked many miles to work off the calories. The sun came out for our walk around the north end of the city (including a brief stop at the remarkable and rather thrillingly cluttered Pitt Rivers Museum at adjoining the back of the Natural History Museum) and then along the Thames to a pub called The Perch. It was great to get together with these university alumni, together for the first time in years, and to catch up with our ups and downs (in my case, thankfully, almost all ups).

Inside The Oxford Natural History Museum And Pitt Rivers Museum (Dinosaurs, Stuffed Dodos, Stuffed Human Heads And Other Marvellously Higgledy-Piggledy Collections)

Walking By The Thames At Oxford

Today LSW and I are off to Cheltenham to see some more old friends. How personable I have become since retiring!

Marvellous MONA

April 4, 2019 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

Long-Suffering Wife (LSW) and I have been back from our Australia trip for about two weeks. Those weeks have been spent quietly slotting back into a daily routine. I have been getting a fork into the vegetable patch, strolling around the neighbourhood to spot the small changes that took place while we were away, catching up on a couple of Forest Green Rovers FC games, and recovering from the jet lag. Once again I feel so relieved that, having retired, I can do all this without the worry of having to catch up at work while negotiating jet lag muzziness.

Though these two weeks, the memories of Australia have lived on pretty vividly. They are reinforced by each retelling of our exploits down under to friends and relatives. We’ve had some very good holidays in recent years but our Australia trip was one of the best.

One of the most exhilarating days that we had in Australia was that we spent in Hobart visiting the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA). This was set up by and is run and financed by David Walsh, a millionaire Tasmanian who made his fortune through gambling. He is passionate about art and giving something back to Tasmania. Visiting the gallery is free for Tasmanians and it has become a huge tourist attraction.

Museum Of Old And New Art (MONA)

The visit started on a purpose-built jetty from which Youngest Son (YS) (who paid for the excursion), Long-Suffering Wife (LSW), and I boarded a strangely shaped and coloured ferry. As we boarded we were invited to load up a MONA app on our phones and, as we started to look through the web site pages, we could see we would be in for a fun time. This feeling was underlined by the presence of a full size cow sculpture on the boat and seats that looked like sheep.

The journey itself, up the Derwent River, gave us a new, interesting view of Hobart’s industry and huge river side mansions. Then, as we approached MONA on its own island in the middle of the river, we could make out a series of balconies, walkways and low-slung, rather strange looking buildings. As we left the ferry and entered one of these I was reminded of Thunderbirds and Tracy Island; it all felt slightly off kilter and unreal.

Inside it quickly became apparent that the bulk of the cavernous space for the art, the bars and the selection of restaurants is carved deep into the sandstone rock of the island. There are spiral staircases, long corridors, small and huge rooms and, everywhere, fascinating sights. I loved, for example, the slot machine beer dispenser which took one’s money and took its time to decide whether to dispense a lovely, expensive craft beer or a can of bog-standard Fosters lager. I didn’t try it but was entertained by the relief or the frustration of others who did.

Lucky Dip Beer Dispensary

As we moved around, so all the art was labelled, described and explained by the location sensitive app on our phones. This provided various levels of detail – as much or as little as you wanted – on whatever was nearby. I experienced something similar at the Opera exhibition at the Victoria and Albert just over a year ago but nothing as slick, comprehensive or amusing as this.

Screenshots From The MONA App

And so onto the art! Incredible!

The first exhibit, Mummy and Coffin of Pausiris, required application for entry on the MONA app. When my turn came I was let into a dark room, alone, and made my way around a platform with black water on either side. In the middle of the room was, on one side of the platform, an Egyptian mummy in its shroud. On the other side was a CAT scan of the same mummy that presented layers of the mummy progressively so that the mummified flesh was peeled back gradually to reveal organs then bones. Some of these were damaged and indicated the cause of death and that, plus the irregular drips of water in the silent, dark room, made this lone experience really eerie and memorable.

Perhaps the best exhibit was Artifact by Gregory Barsamian. I think it was YS’s favourite too. It was a large bronze head on its side with several portals so you could see inside. From each portal one got a different view of what resembled a rotating machine with birds, balls, hands, heads and wheels all moving around in sync in a quiet whirlwind of stroboscopic light. It was riveting but I couldn’t grasp what I was seeing then and can’t hope to describe it adequately now. It was astonishing and brilliant.

Inside Artifact by Gregory Barsamian (But I Just Couldn’t Capture Any Of The Movement or Impact Of It Here)

That was unsettling but even more so was the tattooed man, Tim. The gallery has bought the tattoos on the back of this man and he is paid to sit all day, silently and still, to exhibit it. It raised some deep ambiguity about ownership, slavery and art.

Tim, The Tattooed Man By Wim Delvoye Overlooking One Of The Restaurants Cut Deep Into The Sandstone

Other exhibits were also designed to keep one off balance. Near Artifact was a bowl of water on a chair with a large sharp knife and two red and orange goldfish in it. It was a simple piece (by Jannis Kounellis) but unnervingly reminiscent of blood in water.

Untitled, By Jannis Kounellis

Another exhibit (Kryptos by Brigita Ozolins) was a room set up as a small black maze with niches holding ancient vases. When one got to the middle of the maze there was something unconscious that prompted one to look up. Above was a mirror reflecting my upturned face; it scared the living daylights out of me.

I could go on. There was the room half full of dense, black oil by Richard Wilson. There was a grave stone at which we could throw glass bottles. There was a huge room of tables with moving pellets, stroboscopic lighting, vast noise and hundreds of digital displays filled with alphanumeric characters (Supersymmetry by Ryoji Ikeda). There lovely set of pieces by an Australian artist called Patrick Hall with opening drawers with recorded sounds, words and inscriptions. There was a room with smelly hanging bowls linked by tubes and being fed food so that they reproduced the workings of the human digestive tract from start to finish (Cloaca Professional by Wim Delvoye). There were skeletons making love, corridors with ever changing wall colours, a fat red car and hundreds of other works of art that surprised, enthralled and unsettled.

Fat Car By Erwin Wurm and Cloaca Professional In Action

It was simply the most engaging and enjoyable art exhibition I have ever seen. It was huge but my attention didn’t drop once over about 4 hours. I’d love to go back and I recommend it to all.