Filed under: Arts, family, music, stories, theatre | Tags: Add new tag, art, christmas, ghost story, ghosts, theatre
I will be performing on Saturday night at 7.30 in the Forth Adults Theatre Christmas fundraising show which promises to be a right good Christmas heart warmer. It’s at Holy Cross Church Hall in Bangholm Loan, but if you want tickets best make contact before the night as it will sell out.
My fellow uber-talents will be singing a range of Christmas crackers, but singing solo scares me too much so, perhaps appropriately I’ve decided to scare the audience in a different way. So I shall be debuting a freaky ghost story that is a real chiller.
I’m shitting myself just thinking about it.
Filed under: Arts, photography, stories | Tags: art, bacon, bacon art, develish food, the devil
One of my Flickr pals posted a deeply disturbing photo this morning.
His bacon took on the resemblance of the devil.
Look closely. (Third rasher from the left.)
You can see the original here.
Filed under: Arts, life, movies, politics, stories | Tags: art, Belfast, Bobby Sands, British movies, Film 4, H block, Hunger, Hunger movie, IRA, Michael Fassbender, Steve McQueen, Thatcher, thatcherism, The Blanket Protest, The Dirty Protest, The HungER Strikes, The Maze, the trouble, tories
1981.
The H block in Belfast’s Maze Prison.
This film captures the development and escalation of protest by the ‘political’ prisoners held here as things moved through ‘The ‘Blanket protest’ onto ‘The Dirty Protest” and finally to ‘The Hunger Strikes’ that claimed Bobby Sands and eight of his compatriot’s lives.
As the end credits of the film show, the enemy, in the form of Margaret Thatcher was ‘not for turning’ and did not grant political status to these men that she considered no more than murderers. They did, however, lead to many concessions – bit by bit.
This astounding movie falls into three very clear sections; the gut wrenching blanket and dirty protest; a long and deeply personal conversation (in one 20 minute take) between Sands and his priest where Sands is asked to justify and then walk away from the impending hunger strike; and finally Sands’ ordeal itself.
Each section has a different pace and personality. Each is desperate in its own way.
This film pulls few punches. The stench of shit is almost palpable in the opening act and the way in which Michael Fassbender brings Sands’ death to the screen is almost unbearable.
But the real triumph of the film is that it takes no political sides and makes no judgements but does not sit on the fence. How? Because it invokes the viewer to do that themselves. Sands is neither a figure to pity or to vilify. It really is quite remarkable that the artist Steve McQueen can achieve this so consistently.
And this is art with a capital A. Every scene is stunningly rendered. The pace, at times snail-like, allows you to consider in real detail the situation these men found themselves in (or created however you want to look at it).
Fassbender’s performance is miraculous.
McQueen though, is the star of the show. One scene in particular when the men slop out by pouring their night’s urine under the doors of the corridor simultaneously is quite beautiful, as is the Hirst-like art that some of them create from their faeces (that’s what makes up the poster image).
Film of the year. No contest.
Incidentally we saw it in the DCA’s Cinema 2. What a cracking screen.
(As we scoffed coffee and fudge doughnuts. How’s that for irony?)
Filed under: Arts, life, photography, videos | Tags: am taylor wood, art, modern art, south bank show, video art
In a totally unilluminating South Bank Show I was nevertheless enthused by Sam Taylor Wood’s work.
It is on the money.
This is quite beautiful, and it’s only one of many balletic pieces. Nonetheless some twat on the South Bank Show pointed out that the shadow of her arm didn’t cover the chair.
I guess he thought it was a real insight, actually he came across like a real American… er… wank.
Her response was good.
“Yes, I know, it’s deliberate.”
You might think this is boring;
I saw it at The Tate Modern in London (I think) and, for me, this is modern day classicism.
It’s really, sorry I’ll say it again, beautiful.
Filed under: Arts, Rants, Scotland, family, humour, jokes, life, photography, stories | Tags: acid, art, drugs, duncan of Jordanstone, dundee, dundee art college, graffiti, painting, youth
On our recent visit to Duncan of Jordanstone art college these two pieces of pretty creative graffiti caught my eye.
This is nice.
But this is perhaps a little too subversive…
Filed under: Arts, Rants, Scotland, life, stories | Tags: 7th Duke of Sutherland, art, Diana and Actaeon, national galleries of Scotland, national gallery, painting, paintings, renaissance, titian, titian appeal
When me and my mates, David and Adrian, ran 1576 Titian was a hero of ours, because he died in 1576.
He paints a nice picture too.
I’ve seen (and hugely enjoyed) lots of them. In London, Edinburgh, Venice (loads in Venice). The fact is, they are not in particularly short supply. Not like the Shroud of Turin for instance, which is a strictly limited edition.
No, old Tish, he’s run a few off.
The world ain’t gonna be worse off, particularly, by the loss (in public terms) of one of them. And it’s not going to disappear, it’s simply going to be sold and, in the process further line the coffers of its owner, the 7th Duke of Sutherland.
Poor chap, he must be down to his last £230m.
In fact, he is.
That’s why he’s decided to ‘diversify his assets’ and offload his Titian’s. Either to the state for a mere £100m or to the highest bidder if the state can’t afford it, for around £300m.
Bless. So generous.
After all it must have really hurt his family wealth when he bought them.
He is, according to Wikipedia, the 357th richest person in Britain, which is interesting because his wealth appears to be wholly inherited, and even then through not entirely direct family connections, well, second cousinishness, because the original Duke of Sutherland’s bloodline ran out.
Anyway that’s by the by. I’m sure he enjoyed his Eton education.
The fact is…the debate that is currently raging about the enforced sale or otherwise of Diana and Actaeon smacks a little of art world imperialism. It’s ours, hands off – if you look closely into history, Titian was Italian, so it’s not as if it’s even a true national treasure
You might like to call it snobbery (but that would be the last word I’d use.)
It’s rather tough times that we (as an economy) find ourselves in right now, and so a national indulgence of £50m of public money to secure a painting for the ‘people’ has been stirring up rather a lot of opinion. (The £100m kicks in five years from now when we have the ‘option’ to buy the sister painting.)
My view is a simplistic one.
It’s a wonderful painting.
It’s inspirational.
(Actually, I’m just saying that. It’s fine.)
But the vaults of the National Galleries of Scotland and England (presumably of Wales and Northern Ireland too) are so full of rich treasures that never get shown that I think we can just about survive as a nation without one painting and perhaps invest that £100m a little more wisely.
How about building an art gallery somewhere that doesn’t have one for example.
Or employ 100 curators for 1,000 years?
Or put it into Creative Scotland.
But no, the art establishment in Scotland (and beyond) is up in arms. They’ve even made badges about it.
Come on guys. A bit of common sense please?
Filed under: Arts, Scotland, family, humour, life, photography, stories | Tags: art, Arts, blue, contemporary art, DCA, Dundee contemporary arts, gravity always wins, installation art, modern art, spencer finch
We saw this last week (click through on the picture for better quality image).
Jeana and Amy were more interested in “fooling about” than grasping the monumental aesthetics of blue film, clothes pegs and fluorescant light bulbs.
Well, it made for a good photo.
Filed under: Arts, humour, jokes, life, photography, stories | Tags: art, blasphemy, paintings, ymca
Filed under: Arts, life, photography | Tags: ansell adams, art, black and white photography, Edinburgh, Edinburgh art, exhibitions, mountains, the moon, yosemite
You know as well as I do that Ansell Adams is a great, really great, photographer. I suspect that the difference between you and I though is that, as of Saturday, I have seen his work in the flesh.
So what, you might say.
So everything I would retort.
Have you ever seen a real life Tission? A Boticelli? A Caravaggio? A Canaletto? Have you ever seen a reproduction of them? If you have you will understand how visceral the experience was of seeing the real thing is in the flesh. So imagine seeing not one but 150 Adams’ in the flesh.
Here, In Edinburgh, for only £4, with no more than 300 people in the gallery.
All of his most famous work is on display (until April). The first surprise is the size of the prints, few are larger than 10 x 8.
The second is the low lighting conditions. (Quite challenging, but these prints need to be protected.)
The third is how gobsmackingly brilliant the execution of these photos is. It’s one thing composing and capturing these brilliant shots, it’s another thing entirely developing and printing to this level of excellence. I actually cannot describe how breathtaking it is. The skies are often black, pitch black, against grey mountains and small pools of razor-sharp, piercing light.
One can concieve, just, how this can be achieved in Photoshop world, but in 1945? Honestly, the techical achievement is unreal. Almost literally.
As for the photos, what more can I possibly add to the huge body of slavvering adulation?
Nothing.
But, for the record, both Jeana and I had these shots as the highlights.
You simply would not comprehend how beautiful the effect of the moving water is in this image.
No, not ‘Half Dome’.
Your computer screen will not even remotely do this photo justice.
There is only one way. Get on a plane to Edinburgh.
Now!
PS. He is not perfect. A significant chunk of the exhibition features his experimental work on parchment coloured Kodak paper that, for me, killed his shots. The paper does not hold the contrast of his skies and they appear insipid compared to his silver Gelatin work.
Filed under: Arts, independence, photography, politics | Tags: Andy Warhol, art, Che, Che guevara, icons, Jim fitzpatrick, Mona lisa, popart, posterart
One of the greatest iconographic images of all time was created by Jim Fitzpatrick in memorium of Che Guevara’s death 40 years ago today.
It’s a perfect image and the photographer who took it has a Flickr site that tells you much of the story.
Worth a look if you’re interested. Here
It’s better than this, but look what it has inspired…
This too…
And allegedly Andy Warhol simply ripped it off and passed it off as his own…
