Stuck Between Hope & Doubt

November 7, 2024
HereHare
2024, DESTINATIONS, London, UK
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Super Tuesday. (Not an election post!) Met Simon’s friend Michael in South Ken, who’s a member of several galleries/museums, so he took me (free) as a member’s guest to three different shows.

I think most people who walk into the V&A don’t bother to look up (and notice the spectacular Chihuly sculpture)

The first show we went to was a retrospective of Naomi Campbell’s career, from being spotted by a talent agent to becoming a global “super model” or, in fact, one of the first, in that the term super model was borne out of her cohort.

The notorious Vivienne Westwood shoes that caused her to fall on the runway (no wonder)

Little Burberry number to meet the Queen in

Pictures don’t do justice to this spectacular Dolce & Gabbana

The Campbell show was in the fashion wing. Afterwards, we went out behind into the new wing (2017), which includes the Sackler Courtyard (no conflict of interest to declare) to view the Elton John David Furnish photo collection (or, rather, a few hundred photos from their collection, curated by EJ).

The first thing you notice is that there are a lot of “famous” photographs, pics you’ve seen in coffee table books and albums and magazines and whatnot. Top right is Miles Davis’ hand, from a series.

Pierre & Gilles. Gosh. Just completely forgot they existed. And still making art (since 1976). They’re the Gilbert & George of France

Monty, Marilyn, Clark, et. al., on the set of The Misfits

[the late] Michael Gambon and Hayden Christensen, from a series of actors crying

“Little Joe never once gave it away, everybody had to pay and pay…”

I guess everyone and their dog remembers this photo, but to see it out of the blue, again, and standing alone in its frame, was jarring and unnerving

After we’d spent a couple hours at the V&A, we walked outside and caught the #14 bus towards Piccadilly, got off at Green Park and walked over to the Royal Academy. Michael, again, as a member, took me to see the Michael Craig-Martin show.

In the promos, on the posters (in the tube), in the info online, etc., nothing looked that catching, that interesting. But the show, wow, the scope, the scale, to use the Art Forum lingo, the sheer immersive-ness of it all. It was like a pop-art embrace.

Despite the epic scale, the breadth of work from floor to ceiling, coupled with the grand-ness of the RA, there was one final room called Cosmos, which was breathtaking. In a dark room of four black walls, the artist had created an animated version of his art to music, with images appearing, disappearing, colliding, expanding and diminishing. It was mesmerizing. Captivating. Intriguing. All the positive “ings” they put on pull quotes.

While the art looks plain and simple, the perfect lines and blazing colour and inappropriateness of the normalcy of each object was deeply interesting. Like Warhol meets Simpsons meets Anime meets Tangerine Dream.

So that was all very Wow. The RA is probably most famous for its Summer Show, an exhibit they’ve been hosting since 1769 (!!), and which includes both established and emerging art. One of the attendees at the show was a very senior man, let’s just arbitrarily say older than Biden but younger than Carter. He was shuffling about and muttering and talking to staff. Really opinionated. At one point, looking at all the images, he said “If you can stomach the art at the Summer Show you can stomach anything.” That really cracked me up.

After the RA we took the tube to the Barbican. Michael had booked us a table at the Brasserie, which sits over the fountains below, and has a clubby 1970s feel. We had a light supper then walked downstairs to the hall for an evening with Fran Lebowitz. 1900 capacity, sold out. Talk about wow (I mean £50 a ticket to hear a 74 year old crank). I told Simon’s daughter this morning that I was going to hear Fran and she said “Oh, the angry old Jewish lady.” Now that is a good line. Fran is many things, but she certainly isn’t angry. Judgmental, observant, pragmatic, and often in a rapid fire delivery and at a high-pitch, but she rarely comes off as angry. My favorite line, in respect to finding odd jobs in the classifieds section of the Village Voice in the 1970s, was, “There was never Heiress Wanted.”