HOME AND AWAY

As I confessed the other day, I like my art to have some element (however vague) of story-telling. Call me a Philistine if you want -- oh, you just did, did you? -- but that's how I am and I'm getting too old nowadays to be apologetic about the fact!

In that post I wrote about the Danish Pavilion's contribution to the 53rd Venice Biennale which, along with the Nordic pavilion, forms The Collectors, an exhibit jointly curated by Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset and which combines the work of a diverse group of artists - paintings, photographs, sculptures and installation pieces - are 'staged' to create an 'experience' where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

Today, I want to give you a short tour of the Nordic Pavilion, an extraordinary building with living trees growing - Lothórienlike - up through the roof...

For the purposes of this year's Biennale, this has become the sometime home of a mysterious man enigmatically referred to as 'Mr B', it has all the appearances of a expensively appointed bachelor pad and is very Sweedeny-Finnishy in style and decor.

Unlike the Danish Pavilion, this property isn't yet up for sale, but it soon will be, since Mr B clearly won't be having any further use for it...

Inside, we find one or two clues for the tragedy that greets us outside along with Mr B's collection of classic design furnishings...

Incidentally, who is that young man and what does he know about Mr B and his fate?

As can be seen from the far wall, the former owner's collection of art was idiosyncratic and includes a Hockneyesque painting of the very swimming pool in he has met an untimely and regrettable end...

As well as a raunchy collection of the drawings by Tom of Finland among them a rather well-endowed variation on Michaelangelo's David...

And those neatly-framed swimming trophies I posted the other week...

On Mr B's desk, amongst the cigarette butts and cast-aside spectacles, is a carefully ordered arrangement of photos depicting classical Greek and Roman homo-erotica alongside the abandoned drafts of a novel about a gay art collector...

Whatever the pressures on Mr B, eventually they obviously became too great.

Maybe the house itself was the problem - what with two walls made of glass and only one other door that really isn't at all functional...

All things considered, that's what I call a story!

Images: Brian Sibley and David Weeks © 2009 unloaded by flickr.

HOME FROM HOME

Just for the eccentricity of the thing, here I am in Greece, home of the arts, and I'm still blogging about art in Italy...

Among the most tantalizing exhibits at the 53rd Venice Biennale were the Danish and Nordic Pavilions, jointly curated by Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset who created The Collectors: a seamless, witty, intriguing and occasionally disturbing site-specific installation linking two adjacent buildings and representing the collaborative endeavour of more than a dozen artists working together to construct something that is less of an art exhibit and more an 'happening'.

This was, without doubt, my favourite section in the Biennale and (if I knew anything about art, which, of course, I don't!) I'd say it was the most ingenious, diverting and rewarding way of presenting contemporary art maybe because, like classic art, it tells a story. That story may be rather bizarre - even obscure - but it is, if nothing else, hauntingly memorable.

In this and my next posting, I'll give you a glimpse into what I liked about The Collectors...

The premise - more of a conceit, actually - is that the Danish Pavilion is up for sale (understandably, perhaps, in the current economic times) and Vigilante Exclusive Real Estate are offering potential buyers a chance to see around a highly individual and exclusive property.

As quickly becomes clear, the previous occupants haven't yet removed all their belongings and some of the remaining traces of their life there are weird to say the least...

There are also, it has to be said, some curious features that may require a little selling...

At the end of your visit, you are invited to view another potential property, just over the way...

However, as you will discover in my next post, things there are also somewhat out of the ordinary...

Images: Brian Sibley and David Weeks © 2009 unloaded by flickr.

TRANSLATION RITES

One of the silly joys of foreign travel is spotting English mistranslations on signs and menus.

We've already come across a couple of Greek gems...



Oh, yes, and CHICKEN GORDON BLUE

Some time ago, I came to the conclusion that there could be quite a lucratively-paid job waiting for me in most European countries by spell-and-grammar-checking the English versions of pieces of text that, unfailingly, earn the guffaws of the tourist who, of course, can't speak a single word of the national language!

It's just possible that the natives do it on purpose: to amuse the visitors - even make former imperialists feel superior, while stinging them rotten for their "squids filled with themselfs" - but, if it is accidental, then for a very modest consideration, it would be possible to protect the dignity of shopkeepers, restaurateurs and hoteliers.

Then, for example, you would no longer find on a menu, as we recently did in Venice...

Fruit & wine jelly to play with... but only after tasting them individually!!!

On second thoughts, how boring it would be to know exactly what that really meant...

THE ILLUSTRATED MAN

Happy 89th Birthday
to
RAY BRADBURY

Today is a special day for all lovers of fantasy and science fiction literature - the last birthday in the eighth decade of arguably the greatest living master of the genre.

Ray Bradbury once wrote a book of stories entitled The Illustrated Man, centered on a character whose body was tattooed with extraordinary images capable of evoking waking dreams and nightmares.

Bradbury is the illustrated man: his vivid - sometimes feverish - imagination scribbled over with visual tales that transport us into worlds inhabited by freaks, misfits, machines, monsters, spacemen and dinosaurs as well as by ordinary, everyday folk - from children to old people - whose lives are transformed by extraordinary encounters or unexpected discoveries.

I have just read Ray's latest collection of stories, We'll Always Have Paris, and it is exciting and inspiring to find that, almost in his 90th year, the Master is still spinning yarns and telling tales.

But if you are coming to this unique writer for the first time, then I'd say start with one of the early story collections - The Golden Apples of the Sun is one of my favourites - or the novels Something Wicked This Way Comes or Fahrenheit 451 about which Ray talks in this fascinating film profile...

You can discover more about my thoughts on Ray Bradbury in my profile of him The Bradbury Machine and in my essays on his books The Golden Apples of the Sun, Something Wicked This Way Comes and The Halloween Tree.

"HERE'S ONE I MADE EARLIER..."

When you are reading this, we will be airborne on our way to Kalymnos in Greece...

Now the trouble with blogging is that it requires internet connection and, whenever I travel nowadays, I seem to expend an awful lot of anxiety worrying that I may not be able to get on-line to collect my e-mails (which is odd, because, years ago, I never used to think twice about the fact that post would be lying unread on the doormat while I was away) and so be able to approve blog-comments from my regulars...

Therefore, dear reader, if there is any delay, you'll know what to put it down to and, to be honest, I'm not overwhelmingly hopeful especially since I have a strong memory of the sign attached to the computers in interactive section of the Greek Pavilion at the Venice Biennale...

Image: David Weeks © 2009

ARTY-FACTS

Venice is, in a sense, a work of art in its own right, but every other year from early June to late November, the Giardini (Venice's gardens in the east of the city), becomes the venue for the Biennale di Venezia, an international exhibition of contemporary art.

The Venice Biennale began in 1895 and this year sees the 53rd exhibition, housed in thirty permanent national pavilions.

The pavilions were mostly built in the early 1900s (although several were added in the 1950s and South Korea's was added in 1995) and many of them - designed by significant international architects - reflect the architectural styles of the individual countries. For example (and since we are off to Greece in a few days) here is the Greek Pavilion...

None of the pavilions, however, can compare with the richly decorated beauty of the Hungarian's building...

But wherever you wander in the gardens, you get enticing glimpses between the trees and across the flowerbeds, into the worlds of the artists who are exhibiting, such as Miquel Barceló whose paintings and ceramics are to found here in the Spanish Pavilion...

Elsewhere, in the Slovak Pavilion for example, the gardens actually overflow into the interior space and became the 'art' on exhibition...

In fact, within the buildings, you might find almost anything!

Such as...

Egyptian wicker people (and cats)...

Portraits that, occasionally, blinked - unfortunately I blinked (and missed it)...

Quite a few rude drawings...

And a whole garden of rude flowers...

There were also displays of rather more refined (but no less erotic) glass flowers and foliage by the brilliant American glass sculptor, Dale Chihuly...

Each country had its own voice - although America was offering somewhat conflicting messages...

Germany presented us with a cat and lot of kitchen cabinets...

While the South Koreans made a novel arrangement of Venetian blinds - how appropriate in Venice...

Whil the French offered us a series of empty golden cages...

It was, sometimes, fascinating - or, more truthfully, puzzling - what constituted art...

Hmmm!

But there was no question that this exquisitely beautiful spiral film projector that was far more fascinating than the never-ending movie it was showing...

There was art that, frankly, didn't look as if it was quite finished...

And art that didn't look as though it had even been unwrapped properly...

But, like everyone else, we looked and we pondered...

We considered and we cogitated...

Until, eventually, the time came to stop and put the feet up...

Especially after looking at things that gave you spots before the eyes...

Or which had, clearly, sent someone up - or down - the wall!

Images: Brian Sibley and David Weeks © 2009 unloaded by flickr.

PASSING COMMENT

As you may recall, my blog-friend SHARON MAIL of Storm in a G Cup has been writing a book about her friend, the late Ian Richardson.

Well, We Could Possibly Comment: Ian Richardson Remembered is now published and available and a fine piece of work it is.

Sharon takes us through Ian's distinguished career including his years in the RSC - as one of the finest Shakespearian actors of his age - and his many memorable television performances in such series as Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Private Schulz, Porterhouse Blue, Murder Rooms, Sherlock Holmes, Gormenghast and, of course, the House of Cards trilogy in which he created the unforgettably serpentine Francis Urquhart.

The book is crammed with anecdotes, recollections and tributes from those who worked with Ian - actors, writers, directors - and I feel extremely privileged to have been able to add my own memories of Ian recording a reading of my book, Shadowlands for the BBC that was to sadly prove one of his last pieces of recorded work.

But there are many more prestigious contributors to the book than myself: Sirs Peter Hall, Ian McKellen and Donald Sinden, Dames Helen Mirren and Judi Dench as well as Isla Blair, Alex Jennings, Juliet Stevenson, Patrick Stewart and John Sessions who describes the book as "A glorious and heart-warming tribute to a superb and much loved actor." I couldn't put it better myself!

We Could Possibly Comment (ISBN 9781848761841) is available from bookshops, on-line booksellers, via the publishers, Matador, or directly from the author at her blogsite.

One of my favourite quotes in the book is Brian Blessed's description of Ian Richardson's acting: "He is the only actor who has made my heart dance."

I know exactly what he means and here's a clip of Ian - as the notorious FU - confronting Michael Kitchen as His Majesty in To Play the King where he manages, simultaneously, to thrill and chill the viewer...

ARTYPANTS

It doesn't matter how I came across it (unless, of course, you're my psychoanalyst) but, the other day, I spotted an on-line clothing store advertisement in which their 'Classics Collection' - products which included bags, polo shirts and underwear - were described as being as enduring as "a beautiful Venetian painting"...


Ironically, among the art masterpieces depicted in the ad, there isn't a single Venetian painting in sight!

However, while visiting the Nordic Pavilion at the 53rd Annual Art Exhibition in Venice we did see a collection of underwear and swim trunks framed up as art...

That's art in the broadest sense of the word, of course...

Anyway, I'll be giving you a glimpse of more of the artistic treasures and travesties of the Venice Biennale very shortly.

Bet you can hardly contain yourself!

Image: Brian Sibley © 2009

DINOMANIA!

There are times when one just wishes one was six years old again! Perhaps when faced with a choice of four flavours of ice cream and it's still OK to say, "All of them!" Or when there's only one piece of chocolate cake left and you're not old enough to know that, before helping yourself, it's polite to ask if anyone else would like it!

Or, sitting in the O2 Arena on Wednesday and watching a battle between a life-size Allosaurus and a Stegosaurus such as one might have seen any day of the week if one had been around 208 million years ago in the Jurassic Period!

Yes, I've been Walking with Dinosaurs!

My friends Richard and Christine took me on this amazing, time-traveling expedition back to the age of reptiles and to say it was breathtaking is a chronic understatement!

Kids have always loved dinosaurs: they are the tangible link between the dragons of the fantasy worlds of myth and fairytale and the grown-up world of scientific knowledge.

They are, and always have been, the source of sheer wonder whether in the form of towering fossil remains, or in their filmic representations from The Lost World and King Kong via One Million Years BC and Jurassic Park to the BBC TV series that gave it's name to this awe-inspiring arena spectacular.

The show is 'educational' in tone: an actor playing a paleontologist named 'Huxley' (yep, we got it!) accompanies the audience back through time to the Triassic period (245-208 million years ago) and then on through the subsequent Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods to that day (some 65 million years ago), when a damn great comet crash-landed in the Gulf of Mexico and changed life on earth for ever - or, at least until the next time...

There is no story other than that inherent in rise and fall in the fortunes of these great beasts - no overlay of Conan Doyleish or Spielbergian adventures - it is the spectacle that carries the event.

It's questionable whether there would be room for any stars alongside the dinosaurs: powerful, majestic, formidable, there they are - just as we know them from the paintings in the dinosaur books we pored over in childhood - right there in the flesh, before our very eyes, and decidedly red in tooth and claw...

Of course, I ought to be writing at length in praise of the skill with which this extraordinary show has been created: the craft, artistry and technology employed in designing, building and animating the dinosaurs, but - and I'm sure the huge team of artists, engineers and performers will forgive me - I would rather forget the nuts and bolts of the enterprise and, reverting to that state of mind which only the child can truly know, wonder at the opportunity to visit, albeit briefly, the marvels and terrors of the time when dinosaurs ruled the earth...

And I'd better leave the last word - or roar! - to the king - Tyrannosaurus Rex!

JUMPING JELLYFISH!

"Plundering porpoises!
Scuttling cuttlefish!
Battling barnacles!
Harrowing hurricanes!"

How can I have possible have overlooked the recent passing of the cartoonist, illustrator and animator, JOHN RYAN...?

He was the creator of almost three decades of childhood icons, first in the pages of comics like Eagle, Swift and Girl with Harris Tweed, Sir Boldasbrass and Lettice Leefe and then as one of the masters of BBC Children's TV with Mary, Mungo and Midge, Sir Prancealot and the long-suffering Lady Hysteria.

But, above all, John Ryan gave us that kind-hearted (yet basically cowardly and inept) buccaneer, Captain Horatio Pugwash, who sailed the main in his ship, the 'Black Pig', and whose exploits were always introduced by that memorable hornpipe theme tune as played on the concertina by Tom the Cabin Boy.

John, who died on 23 July, aged 88, was a modest, witty, gentleman who - long before the age of high-tech animated kids' TV shows - created charming little films brought to life with cut-out cardboard figures enacting their simple dramas in a world of painted story-book settings.

I had the pleasure of meeting John on a number of occasions when we shared judging honours at an annual competition for young pavement artists.

I always enjoyed talking and corresponding with this engaging man who, with his cravats and fly-away hair, cut a somewhat dandified figure but who was also a sensitive, serious-minded man and, as a devout Christian, was the resident cartoonist on The Catholic Herald and the author of several biblical-based picture books for children. John was always most at home talking to his youthful fans and drawing them pictures of Captain Pugwash and his arch-nemesis Cut-Throat Jake.

Here's a snippet from one of those Pugwash adventures as a reminder of a talent that brightened the young lives of so many of us...

Thanks for all the fun, John, and I wish your spirit a calm sea, a following breeze and a safe harbour in which to drop anchor...