In Defence of Madonna's W.E. (kind of)

I can't help feeling that Madonna's main problem is that she doesn't know how to rein it in (see her performance at the 2012 Superbowl final). W.E. is her second film as a director and has everything in it and by this I mean ever idea and whim that she has ever had. It is autobiographical and historic, stylistically all over the place, a thriller and a revisionist drama. But despite what the critics say it is definitely not one of the worst films ever made (as was suggested by Mark Kermonde on Radio 5 on 20.01.12), it is quite revealing and actually pretty entertaining. AN Wilson on Radio 4's Front Row had it about right - W.E. is about fairy tales and how they don't happen.

Abbie Cornish as Wally Winthrop in W.E.

Lots of reviews of W.E. are very scathing about the complex structure of the film which combines a modern day tale of a young woman with the unfortunate name Wally (named by a family who were for some unexplained reason Wallis lovers) with the historic story of the Duchess of Windsor. Maybe Madonna should have kept it simple a la The Kings Speech but personally I found the modern tale quite captivating and the history a little dull. Abbie Cornish who I loved in Jane Campion's Bright Star plays Wally. She has the most extraordinary big face which I find visually fascinating - it's gauche and sophisticated all at once. She is trapped in an unhappy relationship and this is where a flurry of what I suspect are autobiographical references come in. It appears that her British husband is unfaithful, she wants children, he doesn't and he leaves her alone much of the time. When she spends money at an auction buying some of Wallis Simpson's gloves he goes crazy. She gave up her career as an auction house assistant - which he thought was a silly job - to live her fantasy life of the much loved wife, now he controls her - he has the money and the power. There are some really pertinent points here which male critics fail to grasp - it doesn't matter how rich or poor you are this kind of scenario is being played out in the lives of women the world over. To escape from her life Wally daydreams and even talks to Wallis Simpson. This is pure Kilimnik - a woman escaping an abusive relationship by thinking herself into another life. Of course fairy tales do not come true and just as Wallis Simpson's dream life became a kind of gilded prison so does Wally's marriage. Mark Kermode has a problem with rich people moaning about their lives - but surely you can suffer emotionally whether you are rich or poor. 

Andrea Riseborough as Wallis Simpson in W.E.

Aside from the emotional heart of the film there are some great stylistic touches and as shallow as it may be I have to admit that the clothes are beautiful. On the downside too much of the film looks like fashion shoots or pop videos, a little more truth and a little less style would have helped the audience engage a little more. A scene of Wallis and Edward on the beach is self consciously lifted from Hoyningen-Huene's famous 1930 fashion image, another scene with numerous umbrellas is taken from Madonna's video for Rain directed by Mark Romanek. Oh and making the Queen Mum a major baddie was never going to go down well in the UK, however badly history has misrepresented poor Wallis. 

Hoyningen-Huene

In a feature about this year's Oscar nominations in The Observer Bidisha noted that women have generally been overlooked with a general lack of award nominations for the likes of We Need to Talk About Kevin, Wuthering Heights and Bridesmaids and she goes on to say 'guess what, Madonna's W.E. is a thousand times better than royal borefest The King's Snooze, in which a man spends two hours overcoming a speech impediment while Helena Bonham Carter looks on. W.E. actually has proper roles for women in it – and, sorry haters, Madonna can direct.'

Mrs Simpson and Edward as depicted in W.E.

Arty is 30

Arty was first published in 2001 with an A5 photocopied and stapled issue featuring rioters wearing Mark Jacobs shoes on the cover. Friday 13 January 2012 saw the launch of Arty 30 alongside Hayley Lock's show (Now that would be) Telling: Caddington Hall at Transition Gallery. The zine is a little bigger than issue 1 and has been litho printed but it is still black and white. The theme of the new issue is The Cult of KK - KK being the American artist Karen Kilimnik. Kilminik's work is all about escapism  - Versailles with a touch of heroin chic, the hammer and sickle flying above the Tzarina - you get the picture. So really not far removed from the glamourous rioters of issue 1.

I have been thinking a lot about now and then. When I watch an old film I am struck just as much by its relevance as by its obsolescence. Things change less and more than we think - all at the same time. I think we get hung up on the look of things - outmoded materials, technologies, techniques, language, styles - the surface that makes films, photos, objects, books etc seem different and old. But the essence, the story, the way that people act is usually completely relevant and consistent. The look of things however does change alarmingly fast, making an image or object from 5 years ago look strange and of its time.

Back to the 10 year old Arty 30 - everything has changed and yet it has stayed pretty much the same. This is all quite fitting in an issue about Kilimnik. Her playful mixing up of everything that appeals to her could be equally applied to Arty. The issue features a number of texts about her work by long time admirers and new devotees as well as fiction, images and even a letter from the lady herself. Kilimnik does of corse repel as well as attract and there are many people who can not stand her whimsy. I am sorry if you are one of these people because you are missing out - there is no other artist quite like KK.

Independent publishing is not a money making exercise and if you admire, respect or enjoy Arty can I please encourage you to buy or subscribe. Its available online or in lots of shops and only costs £3. Without this support Arty will become a museum piece. If you want to know a bit more about Arty there is an interview with me by Teal Triggs in a feature called Smells Like Zine Spirit in the new B Magazine (Issue 5).

Phew Christmas is over and now it is time to go naked.

Christmas has dragged on but this week it is all systems go as the art world gives itself a shake and drags itself off the sofa. Tonight there is a mighty coming together of 100 painters at The Perfect Nude show at Wimbledon College of Art. Curated (not organised?) by Phillip Allen and Dan Coombs it is meant to be an un-ironic gathering of contemporary figure painting. This is a hard ask for an artist today - irony is one of our major tools. From the images I have seen there is thankfully still quite a lot of irony in evidence.

The whole issue of painting a nude is fraught with anxiety - painting a female is pandering to the male centric ways of art history, while painting a male nude is just pretty unappealing. I compromised by painting a bit of a nude Anne Heche from Gus Van Sant's remake of Psycho (Anne Heche is showering, soon she will be murdered). It seemed kinder to hide her nudity a bit and the idea of remaking a remake of an iconic nude scene was I thought quite fitting. For some strange reason I am quite drawn to shower scenes at the moment. I have just painted David Hockney in the shower as seen in his 70s film A Bigger Splash. The painting is to go with a text I have written for the new 'Paint' issue of Garageland which is currently in production. I will tell more in a future post.

Art Fairs v Artist Led

Yesterday at Sluice Art Fair I took part in a panel discussion alongside Jasper Joffe and Alistair Gentry. Its was ‘Looking at the nature of art fairs within the contemporary art world as a whole - are they necessary? What's their relationship or even impact on art production? What's the effect on the way art is digested and understood by the wider public beyond the art world in-crowd?’ Some thoughts occurred to me that I didn’t manage to vocalise during the event – so here they are – please feel free to respond…

Transition Gallery is a not-for-profit, artist run space. When we curate / schedule shows we tend not to think about whether the work will sell but rather if we think it is interesting. Purely commercial operations do not have this luxury.

Art Fairs have become the place to buy work. More work is sold at fairs than in the gallery. A commercial gallery can not survive without doing art fairs especially a UK based gallery because there are not enough collectors in the UK to sustain the business. 

I am always surprised by the lists of British galleries showing in art fairs – many of them are pretty much ‘virtual’ – either having no or a truly tiny space or a very sporadically scheduled programmes. Sometimes they have a name which has connections to the people that matter (ie Carl Freedman) so they get the Frieze spot before other galleries who have much more interesting artists and ideas. It is all political. Incidentally even to apply to an art fair costs a considerable amount of money – this is not returned if you do not get selected.

'Strip', Transition Gallery's presentation at Sluice 

Art fairs tend to be – as far as I am concerned - terrible places to see work. Work by gallery artists is bundled together without thematic concerns. I like to see a show with work made by one artist or a group of artists assembled with an interesting curatorial idea. (At Sluice Transition are showing ‘Strip’, artists grouped together with the binding idea of work made in series, often with a filmic theme). At Frieze this year one of my favourite spaces was The Modern Institute – the work was interesting and well curated.

Artists make work in lots of different ways. For some really interesting artists the high-pressure (often production line attitude) world of commercial galleries does not suit them or their practice. These artists would be invisible if it were not for small not-for-profit and artist led spaces. There are also some artists whose work has a strong political ideology – I always feel that this sits uncomfortably in the commercial art world of oligarchs and art fairs.

There are some very successful artists who like to get involved with the artist-led scene. They have contemporaries who may not have had their success and want their work to be seen as they think it is good. These interesting shows happen in the artist-led gallery world.

There are good and bad commercial galleries. The good ones nurture their artists the bad ones try and sell, sell, sell.

Artists whether ‘commercial’ or not tend to want their work to be seen and responded to – this is why most of us make it. Independent spaces and art fairs such as Sluice are brilliant for this – they get more people in and get the work seen.

And finally artists can either wait for their careers to be controlled (or rejected) by the art elite (which in the UK is made up of what one artist I know calls ‘gentlemen gallerists’) or stop moaning and take control of how their work is shown and presented by setting up their own organisations.

There is lots more of course but these are my immediate thoughts.

Venice and brightly coloured blocks

Karla Black

I've just returned from my second Venice Biennale (my last visit was in 2003). It was a really sunny weekend and the city was heaving with tourists. The art bits were however pretty quiet which was a welcome relief from the cruise ship travelling / gondela riding masses.

My favourite thing by far was Karla Black's exhibition for the off-site Scottish pavilion. I love seeing contemporary work in ancient buildings and Venice's palazzos make brilliant gallerys. As you go up the stairs directed by hand painted Karla Black posters you are hit by a wall of smell - soapy perfume and sugary talc. The first room has Black's trade mark polythene sheets covered in various candy coloured powders. Subsequent rooms have large translucent blocks of soap cut into chunky shapes and standing on thin layers of compost and wafer thin paintings strung from fishing line.

William Eggleston

The chunky soap against its dark compost background reminds me of a William Eggleston photograph of brightly coloured plastic animals on a dark table. This is relevant because I saw the Eggleston image in a book of animal photography which I was looking at as research for the forthcoming Zoo show at Meter Room in Coventry.

Sutton House and Mock Tudor

I'm into all things Tudor at the moment, in no small part inspired by the TV series The Tudors (which I know is a tad trashy but I love it). I visited Hampton Court a few weeks ago and really enjoyed it - it is just the right side of the line of unacceptability which so many museums have crossed when it comes to making history more interactive and enjoyable. I am also reading Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall which focusses on Thomas Cromwell (not to be confused with Oliver) who was very much part of the Henry VIII story and was eventually executed by him. Today I visited Sutton House which is Hackney's only link with The National Trust and apparently the oldest surviving house in East London. I have been before but not for ages and had forgotten how nice it is - really quiet and intimate. What I hadn't realised was that the house was actually built by Ralph Sadleir who was a kind of apprentice to Thomas Cromwell and I have just been reading about him. Weird synchronicity.

The result of all this Tudor stuff is of course an exhibition which is called Mock Tudor and is a Transition Gallery offsite project, opening at 60 Ravenscourt Road in west London on 17 June. I'm making a series of Tudor inspired portraits. Mock Tudor is of course a derogatory term for the kind of suburban houses that have black wooden beams added as a decorative feature. Our interpretation is definitely more of a tribute than a critical annihilation. There is also going to be a FAKE themed issue of Garageland to further examine the themes of pastiche, copy, mock, original, authenticity etc etc.

Ralph Sadleir

Haydee

Haydee 1922-1975 from The Count of Monte Cristo. Appearing soon at the Phoenix Gallery in Exeter.