#11 Street art in Belleville

On a sunny and warmish day in Paris – where you could almost hear the spring trying to sprung we hopped off the metro in Belleville and wandered to a small alley crammed full of graffiti. It reminded me of the crowded alleys and stairwells in Valpo, more tags than murals with the odd stencil or image emerging from the overwhelming letters and colours; A flower, a sandman, a space invader.

Other street art popped up as we wandered from Cafe to cafe, wine to cheese and rounded our culinary tour of the city off with steak frites. Often it was perched high on the jutting sides of buildings – some beautiful, some identikit, some just looking like fun to do.

#10 Four at Cornerhouse

Work by Kate Sully

Press Night, previews and first looks.  It’s a fortunate place to work, the arts – especially when some of your nearest and dearest do it too. Usually I’m more likely to head there for the free wine and a chance to natter, but at the end of January (I’m so behind on the blog it’s unbelievable) I was thrilled to be visiting a friends work being exhibited at Cornerhouse. I was even more excited as her work had been selected by their young curators from an open competition.

The preview was packed and people were gathered by the bar (free wine!) to see a video installation.  I struggle with video work, so often finding it completely impenetrable and disengaging; so much so that I barely lingered and headed straight down to see Four.

Tristan Avers work, with intricate paintings of stocky pit bulls, neon tubes and stag heads would be at home in any Northern Quarter Bar.  Kate Sully’s work (the friend) clung to the walls in giant and colourful petri dishes, which exploded with wire with made and found materials.  Tempting to touch and we discovered, easy to catch on rogue bags, coats and arms – Kate had to hastily curl one of her wires back into shape on arrival.

Tristan’s intricate paintings

Tristan’s work

Another piece was completely made from pebbles and looked like a giant caterpillar.  Every time I turned around to look at it, I expected it to have dropped through the floor, leaving a giant hole in its wake.

I loved the contemporary feel of the exhibition and that it was put together by a team of young curators.  It seemed a shame though that they didn’t meet the artists until the night of the preview.  It would have been lovely to bring together the two creative halves in the development of the final exhibition.

http://www.cornerhouse.org/art/art-exhibitions/four

#9 The ones that didn’t make it

Tatton Biennial

Ah. New Year. The time for sitting back and taking stock.  How was the last year? How long did I stick to my resolutions? (I can never remember mine, which generally means I crumbled by day five) What did I achieve?

So although I can’t remember my New Year’s Resolution for 2012, I have managed to stick to my birthday ambition – I’m still here and blogging five-and-a-bit months on. On one level, success! For once I’ve stuck at something, and I haven’t ended up in a pile of my own self-loathing having fallen off the wagon practically before it has left the barn. On the other hand – this is post is masquerading as arty thing #9 because well – I should be at about #18 now as I’m about half way through my thirty second year.

As it turns out, doing The Things is the easy part.  Writing about them, or at least wanting to is the bit that’s taking much more time and practice. I’ve found that I generally only want to blog about the things I genuinely found interesting and enjoyable, as well as thinking I have something to say about them. Perhaps it would make for more interesting reading if I blogged the negatives, but as I’m no art expert, I see no point in dwelling on stuff that wasn’t my cup of tea. It’s just not the way to spread the love is it?

Still there’s also been plenty I’ve done that I have enjoyed and still not had chance or felt like I’ve wanted to blog about. So mainly to highlight for myself that I’ve ticked off more than nine arty things so far, here’s the some of the ones that didn’t make it:

• Tatton Biennial: Some stand out pieces, the helium balloons by the Japanese Garden especially.
• Making & doing: Lovely evenings with friends making fascinators (facilitated by someone from the RSC costume department no less) and magnetic noticeboards for Christmas gifts)
• Forced Entertainment, The Coming Storm at Contact Theatre, Manchester, my first time seeing them and in a venue whose programming I love.
• Bat for Lashes at Manchester Cathedral, definitely meant to blog about this but didn’t quite get round to it.
• The museums and galleries in Chile, from the strange Aztec and Mapuche snuff trays to the stranger Teatro Museo del Titere y El Payaso (The museum of puppet theatre and the clown).
• The Jane & Louise Wilson Exhibition at The Art Gallery exploring the Chernobyl exclusion zone and alongside it Hockney to Hogarth: A Rakes Progress.  The high gloss images of abandoned buildings in the exclusion zone were eerie and fascinating.

As part of my January life-spring-clean I intend to blog hot on the heels of the experience, to help move things along. I might also tinge this with a touch of realism that the blog might just slip over into my thirty third year. It’ll still be an improvement.

First Cut, Second Look

Another serendipitous conversation in the pub, meant I found my way back at The First Cut exhibition at Manchester Art Gallery this Sunday. This time around I saw more of the pieces that were scattered in the other exhibition spaces. Scatterings of butterflies framing oil paintings, piles of paper feathers and dresses made from maps (which turned out to be one of my companion’s ideal wedding dress – she does love a map that girl). I also spotted a few things in the main exhibition space I hadn’t given my full attention first time around. Here’s some of the images to try to tempt you to see it before it finishes on 27th January 2013.

Susan Stockwell dress made from maps.

Wood nymphs and mushrooms

I loved Su Blackwell’s book sculptures.

#8 Paper trees, guns, skulls and what not.

(The First Cut exhibition at Manchester Art Gallery)

Wuthering Heights

I’d completely missed the marketing for this exhibition, well I’d seen it, but for some reason not looked at it twice. A chance conversation over wine in the pub is what meant I went on a rainy Saturday afternoon when I should have been Christmas shopping, especially as I’m woefully behind.

I’d been told it was about paper and paper cutting which immediately conjured up images of intricately twee Rob Ryan. I was assured that Rob was present and correct but that this was also something different and distinctly un-twee.

The exhibition spills out of the main space so that you are greeted by a sculpture of a skeleton wearing a diamond ring on the stairs in the foyer. So no. It’s not twee.

You also walk beneath a suspended icicle of paper which manages to look sharp and threatening whilst able to crumple at a moments notice at the same time.

I found the main exhibition space astonishing in the variety of works on display and I also loved that there was so much work to see.

Rob Ryan might have been the recognisable name here but I found his imagery all too familiar from countless bookshop, gallery and museum gifts.  It was beautiful and intricate but not the star of the show for me. So what was…?

The suspended forest of giant paper leaves, wood and bamboo that swayed as you passed? The astoundingly intricate tree standing out from a discarded Burger King bag? The story told through paper cut and stop frame animation? The layered ‘books’ that resembled miniature stage sets? The birds made from maps? The gun made from money?

Delicate giant leaves

I have a good friend who loves to play a game after days out and holidays – it basically involves identifying your favourite things about the experience – less of a game, more of a way to really appreciate what you have just done. I just couldn’t have done that with this exhibition, there was so much I loved. It’s a good  job she didn’t come with me, I’d have been a frustrating player.

I loved the mix od techniques, that not all of this delicate work was shut away behind glass, that it moved and responded. I enjoyed pondering the patience of the artists and wondering at how many failed attempts had been discarded to get this perfect one (surely there must have been some). I loved that is was as likely to feature skulls as flowers, and not once did I think ‘craft’ as I walked around. I’m hoping to visit again for a second look and perhaps then I’ll be able to whittle down to my favourite.

Thanks heavens for ‘word of mouth’, or I might have missed this arty thing all together.

#7 The Royal Court: NSFW* by Lucy Kirkwood

*Not suitable for work

I have to confess I think it was love at first sight when I went into The Royal Court. Outside Christmas lights were twinkling in Sloane Square contributing to my sense of anticipation for a night at the Theatre. From the iconic neon sign, to the busy basement bar/restaurant – full of warm words and cosy atmosphere – and then to the comfy leather seats in (what seemed to me) a perfectly formed auditorium. I just really liked the feel of the place. So, generally, I was well disposed to like what I was about to see from the start.

And I did like it. Set in the world of magazine media (think GQ v Cosmo) the play toys with the shallow and manipulative values of glossy publications, whilst examining what all this might mean for women, but also ultimately men.

The dialogue was deftly written, pacy and comic.  The neon lighting, flashing brightly between scenes heightened the sense that this was a slightly unreal, fast paced and high octane world we were in. If one thing did grate a little for me it was Mr. Bradshaw, an unemployed Northerner, who I just felt was ever so slightly layered in stereotypes; from his name to the blue carrier bag he carried on stage. But then I’m not sure if I was missing the point and it was all meant to be deliberate caricature. A Northerner, seen though Aiden’s London-media eyes.

Lucy Kirkwood has written a play that feels a little like a feature length episode of This Life, Party Animals or Teachers.  And at the end, for the first time in a long time at the theatre, I felt like I wanted to know what happens to Aiden, Charlotte and Sam next.  I wanted to skip to the next episode in the box set.

#6 Rain Room

Rain Room

Quite a few of my thirtytwothings post will be about London experiences I think. Not because I think London is the cultural heartland – far from it – but because this blog has given me an excuse to properly explore our Capital for the first time.

Rain Room is an installation by Random International in the Curve at The Barbican in London. A few firsts for me here, first time at the Barbican and first work by Random International.

The walk from Moorgate tube to Barbican in itself was interesting.  Firstly, I could see I was roughly in the right place, but couldn’t for the life of me work out where I was supposed to go.  Then secondly – after a friendly security guard helped me on my way – I found myself on the walkways of the Barbican estate, amazed.  I loved the lake, the concrete waterfalls and the ducks making the most of the damp weather.

The irony of going to see it rain indoors when it’s raining outside and when I’m from what is possibly the dampest city on earth is not lost on me. But, to be able to control the weather – to enjoy the childish rush of stepping out into a rain storm and not get wet – that entices me. Who hasn’t sat inside when the rain comes down in a blanket and wanted to run out into it?

The queue, for there is a queue, a long one, is a mix of families, tourists and girls in wellies, drinking coffee, chatting and reading the weekend papers while waiting for the room to open.

As you arrive at the front and wait your turn to enter, you can hear the rain – like sitting on a veranda in a storm – and you can hear the squeals of people in front of you as they get an unexpected drop of water. Because it turns out you do get wet. Just a little. Usually if you move too quickly for the sensors to respond.

When I finally make it into the room, I love the way the light silhouettes the rain drops and casts shadows of the people under the rain shower onto the curved wall.  The rain itself is mesmerising. As is watching the patterns in the floating roof as the water stops flowing when people move beneath it.

In the rain itself, if you find a space on your own and stay still, the water closes around you.  It’s comforting. The technicality of it invokes a small sense of wonder.

I love seeing (experiencing?) art like this. Something that looks beautiful and invites interaction and respect for how it’s been created.

Like Jeremy Deller’s Sacrilege, Rain Room is a leveller.  Spectacular, but completely understandable – you just have to take the risk and walk into the rain.

#5 Muralismo – Street Art in Chile

Huge mural in Valparaiso (more images at the end of the blog).

Door to door it took me thirty two hours to get from my flat in Manchester to my hostel on Moneda in Santiago. So of course the first thing I did was head out and start exploring the city, rather than getting into my nice, comfy clean bunk bed. I’ve always been a fan of immediate gratification.

Despite being dazed and slightly confused – there were more than a few moments where I was tempted to get in the map, I fell in love with Santiago on sight. Amazing architecture, some immaculate, some crumbling, sits alongside glass towers and gallerias (shopping centres). Benches in the streets and squares are used for people to sit and catch up, read the papers and watch the world go by.

Everywhere you go street art and graffiti is noticeable. Enormous murals – slightly fantastic, demonstrating influence from the culture of the country – stencil graffiti on its own or repeated in patterns on the larger murals  (I particularly liked one of a panda repeated in a larger mural in Santiago) but also graffiti as we tend to understand it in the UK, tags and scrawls on random walls and benches. I couldn’t conquer my sense of disappointment arriving at a destination I’d sought out to find someone’s name tagged across it like an author’s signature.

Later in the trip I headed to Valparaiso, a worn port city clinging to the sides of a number of Cerros (hills), and home to a thriving artistic and bohemian community. Here the murals I saw moved up a notch in scale, including one that was the length of three billboards. Stencilled direction signs to lead you to tourist attractions, garage doors, paseo’s and flights of steps up the hillside, all decorated some with political murals, and all interesting creating an interesting outdoor gallery, there to be discovered and explored.

Mural in Santiago

Mural with different styles in Valparaiso

The mural shows the city of Valparaiso, with it’s colourful buildings and ascensors.

Quizzical alien in Valparaiso

Paseo in Valparaiso

Chilean lady giving the sense of scale

Mural on the outskirts of Bellavista in Santiago

#4 Preston

Closing of Preston Guild 2012

I had never been to Preston before 2012. Well other than for a job interview (obviously I didn’t get it).  This year I have been three times. One of these times I went there for a two hour visit after I’d been in London all weekend.  It just shows what a once-in-twenty-years event can do for you.

In fact, 2012 was a particularly special year, because not only was it Preston Guild but thanks to the London Olympics’ (a once in a lifetime event none the less) we also had the Cultural Olympiad and We Play.  And the AND festival.  Blimey, it was all going on in Preston.

The Preston visits started in March after hearing about Global Rainbow, a light installation at the Marina in Preston (a marina, I know! It was news to me too). Arriving on a damp evening, I have to say my heart sank a little as I got out of the car and saw some dim beams of light, half-heartedly trying to make an impact over the water. It turned out I was coming at it from the wrong side, or so it seemed to me, and as you moved your way round the impact of the beams of light heading out into the sky became clear. The marina was busy with people. I have no idea whether it’s usual for couples and families to be strolling there on a damp March evening usually, but it seems unlikely.  What I loved about this was the simplicity. Light and water.

Global Rainbow

Global Rainbow

On another rainy day, I headed to the park to watch Bicycle Ballet. Celebrating the opening of the Guild Wheel cycle route, the ballet involved community performers who just loved to cycle. More National Trust than National Theatre but like the old adage the show went on despite the increasingly heavy rain.

Bicycle Ballet

The Accident

Finally, I headed to Preston for the closing of the Guild (& We Play), the draw this time being  Jeremy Deller’s Sacrilege – something I’d been trying to jump on most of the Summer. A bouncy monument for everyone, and opportunity for adults to be children and just hugely good and exhausting fun.

Prepare to bounce! Sacrilege 2012

Everything I did in Preston this year was free.

Of Sacrilege, someone asked me if it was art.  I think that given the limited access we have to Stonehenge – a monument that is part of our Cultural heritage; I think it was art because it had something to say about cultural entitlement and access for all.

#3 Raise the Roof

It’s becoming quintessentially British to have a least one festival on your summer itinerary. An interesting habit given that the one of the main features of a festival is that they’re filled with the things we love to complain about (that other ubiquitous British trait), queues, overpriced food and horrible toilets (with more queues).

As a festival fan (Glastonbury 2013 will hopefully complete my thirtytwothings year), I pondered on this as I waited patiently in a twenty minute queue for a pint at Raise the Roof, whilst listening to the complaints of The Trackside’s regulars around me.  All I could think was it gave me time to work out which of the TEN tasty ales I was going to sample first. This was a challenge, I’m hardly known for my decisiveness.

Raise the Roof was a gig night on the platform of the East Lancs Railway in Bury, all in aid of the restoration of the 19^th Century Station canopy. The crowd was almost as eclectic as the beer selection and the music even more so. Especially the reverse programming logic that saw the best two bands of the evening (the ones who could actually play their instruments, write their own songs and sing and the like) on first. In fact I missed most of the band I was looking forward to seeing, Dr Butlers Hatstand Medical Band, because I was in the twenty minute beer queue and they were over and done with by 7:30pm. I can only guess they thought the flow of ten hand pumps would make us more forgiving.

Between the good bands and the bad bands there was something else entirely – an old chap on his own, wearing white jeans and a striped convict style jumper shouting about babies coming from prams as he played the theremin. All this set against a backdrop of vintage luggage, station signs and a steam locomotive.

The juxtaposition made me smile and I thought this is what I hope for out of the next year.  Surprise, a little madness and to stand in a crowd that thinks it’s ace an old punk is playing the theremin on a steam train station platform.