The Dark Monarch

Since I first read about The Dark Monarch and saw that Michael Bracewell was one of the curators I have been itching to get down to St Ives to see it. This weekend despite the storms and a delayed sleeper train I finally made it. There was of course the added attraction of a day long Dark Monarch symposium to entice me which turned out to be a really illuminating day full of quite unexpected eclectic stuff.

The subtitle of The Dark Monarch is Magic and Modernity in British Art and the idea is that it straddles historical practices over the last century and a number of contemporary practitioners who are re examining the supernatural, mystical and unexplained. There is also a close tie with both St Ives as a place of post war escape and the whole of West Penwith which has lots of ancient sites and links with various dark magical stuff as well as an amazing landscape. So there is work by Richard Dadd, Graham Sutherland, John Piper, John Nash and Barbara Hepworth through to Derek Jarman who is a kind of bridge between the old and new, and on to Mark Titchner, Claire Woods, Damian Hirst (a gorgeous baby unicorn with a gold horn in a gold vitrine) and Goshka Macuga (plus lots and lots of other stuff).

The symposium was held together by Michael Bracewell who participated in the panel discussions and introduced speakers and films. One of the early speakers was Chris Stephens , a curator at Tate Britain who was very knowledgeable about Neo Romanticism and St Ives Modernism.

Also speaking was Philip Hoare who recently made a great documentary about whales called The Hunt for Moby Dick based on his book Leviathan, or the Whale. He described how his whole body shook when he was echo sounded by a sperm whale (and apparently some new discoveries has shown that whales have large enough brains to be able to form their own religion).

There were a couple of artist presentations including one by Mark Titchner which I really enjoyed. He was commissioned to make a new work for the show and decided that he wanted to produce a sculpture which would actually influence the gallery surroundings. The piece he made features a zone of protection surrounded by a barrier containing vials of St John's wort and towering poles topped by orgonite pyramids (a substance which is claimed to absorb radiation).

There was also some atmospheric newly composed music and a screening of a rare film about The Incredible String Band and a q&a with its director to end the day. Afterwards I managed to have a few words with Michael Bracewell who told me that he had unsuccessfully tried to convince his fellow curators that the show should have contained an examination of the current vampire fascination but apparently they didn't go for it (incidently Bracewell wrote a great piece in the current GQ Style about Twilight and Robert Pattinson.) Maybe that is an idea for a whole other exhibition?

It is probably the best show that I have seen at Tate St Ives and I have managed to see just about all of them over the last five years or so. It's on until January so if you get the chance it is definitely worth a visit. If you can't visit (or even if you can) I also recommend the accompanying book which features most of the above mentioned people + Morrissey, Jon Savage and lots of others.

Speeding back home on the train I spotted a white horse on the hills - very apt as there is a similar looking painting of a white horse in the exhibition by Eric Ravilious.

Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore

I have always loved the title of Mark Leckey's Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore but have never seen the whole piece until recently. It is an amazing 'art' film getting to the crux of what it is that makes youth culture/ nightclubs so compulsive and atmospheric. Check it out below.

Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore (Mark Leckey) from Anon. on Vimeo.

New Moon Over Battersea

I went to the opening show at the RCA's new painting department in Battersea on Thursday night. Walked from Sloane Square along the King's Road and over Albert Bridge which was very atmospheric. Lots of interesting stuff by the illustrious alumni including Laura Oldfield Ford, Emma Talbot, Paul Housley, Chantal Joffe etc etc and lost of champagne and canapes - all very impressive. I'm looking forward to the current student's Interim Show which is up next.

Then on to Leicester Square for the midnight screening of New Moon the second part of what has now been dubbed The Twilight Saga. It was a crazy scrum to get in but those teenage girls are no match for the slightly more mature woman when it comes to pushing to the front of a queue. As for the film, well... I was almost inevitably a little disappointed. It was much slicker than Twilight - lots more concentration on the composition of shots to the detriment, I felt, of character development. Also thought the film score was very cheesy while the much pushed indie soundtrack seemed almost gratuitous. As for the wardrobe all I can say is that with the exception of Kristen Stewart's Bella it was horrible and wrong - someone should get the sack. Maybe when I have watched it another five times or so I might be able to appreciate it a little better. Incidentally I really recommend Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo's review of it which is here for a few more days. Overall in the war that currently seems to be raging between the various Twilight Saga director's I'm on the side of Catherine Hardwicke (and I just saw her film Thirteen which iI really liked).

New Moon Fan Party

It was a rainy night and as anyone who has followed a 'red carpet' event will know there is often a terrible foaming up of all the old detergent that has been used to shampoo the carpet as the rain water become agitated by the guests feet. This was exactly what happened at the New Moon fan party in Battersea Park, London last week and despite the efforts of a man with a broom, spooky white footprints appeared all over the carpet. At the end of the night we spotted a forlornly abandoned sheet of paper lying amongst the footprints (maybe one of these prints was from the shoe of Rob himself... we will never know.)

Film Diary

Since the middle of August I have been keeping a film diary. A rather grand name for a list of all the films I watch. The inspiration for this came from an invitation to take part in the show 'The Days Before' which opens tonight at The Grey Area in Brighton. The show's theme is basically the everyday and my initial adea was to make a series of paintings of 'indecisive moments' (a kind of reversal of Cartier Bresson's decisive moment). As time went on I realised that I really didn't want to make these paintings - the idea was just not inspirational. So I re wrote my proposal and the Film Diary was born. Here is a bit more about it...

Everyday life is boring. This mind numbing drudgery needs to be punctured and deflated. A relief that can be provided by episodes of escapism – events and situations encountered not in actuality but as an observer and then lived out within our heads. The most powerful and easily accessible escapist experience for most people is provided by film – 90 min slices of someone else’s life. I decided to keep a diary that listed all the films that I watched (I had to see the beginning and end for them to register).

This could be seen as one of those hugely un-scientific arbitrary exercises that artists indulge in. But as with any other recording of everyday events the choices that I make in watching one film rather than another says something about me and probably defines me at this moment as much as anything could. I selected one image from each of these films. This provided a further indication of what it was that drew me in and kept me rapt. These images then became small-scale paintings that make up the series Film Diary.

Heart Throb

I'm currently putting together a show called Sehnsucht which opens this week at JT Project 09. It's about what could be described as the dark secret that we all hold inside, the thing that just to think of is thrilling.

My work for the show is a series of paintings of a brooding young man. They are made from the same image and although initially they may appear to be identical they all have their own hand made foibles. The series is called Heart Throb and some of the names of the individual paintings (of which there are 10) are Byron, Elvis, Shelley and Jim Stark.

Writing this description is complicated. I want to reveal the name of the image that inspired the series but to do this feels like a betrayal of a secret and to betray the secret is to risk destroying the thrill.

Jayne Mansfield Day at the Chiswick Flyover

I spent a bizarre day in the middle of a roundabout in Chiswick last Wednesday. It was the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Chiswick flyover, which way back in 1959 was opened by Hollywood star Jayne Mansfield with the line 'its a sweet little flyover'.

I am a bit of a Jayne fan and recently made a series of paintings based on her life called The Inevitable End of a Love Goddess. The Mayor of Hounslow got wind of my paintings (thanks to the fab Alli Sharma) and invited me to exhibit them under the flyover during the commemoration celebrations. So aside from a little confusion around a couple of Jayne Mansfield lookalikes it was a really fun day with drinks, canapes, Imogen Stubbs planting a tree, ceremonial robes and a cute commemorative sign immortalising Jayne's words.

Arty Film 2

There is a new issue of Arty out this week featuring one of my Rosemary Woodhouse's Wardrobe paintings on the cover. I've also written a piece about the project which is all about the 50+ outfits that Mia Farrow wears in Rosemary's Baby. It all seems amazingly topical now with Roman Polanski's arrest in Switzerland - strange how these events happen.

It's Arty's second film issue - the first was Arty 6 back in 2002. It has all the eclecticism that you would expect from Arty and as well as Rosemary it features Film threesomes, Twilight, films depicting American presidents and lots more. It will be in the shops at the end of the week or you can buy it here

Incidentally I have just come across an Arty usurper online. It seems that there is a Brighton based magazine calling itself Arty. I have mailed them to let them know that we already use the name (they started last year, we have been around since 2001). Not quite sure what to do next... Anyone have any copyright advice they can give me?

Marlene

Thanks to Holly Johnson for reminding me of this fab clip of Marlene Dietrich singing Where Have all the Flowers Gone, which incidentally was a song that I remember my mum singing when I was growing up.

Have just tried to find the video for this again on youtube and it has gone! It is so fab - please let me know if you come across it anywhere.