Review: 'Bluebird'

Climbing onto the dark stage to find your seat and then sitting still in the blue light before the play begins, it’s as if you’ve just clambered with less than decorum into the back of a taxi, and are now sitting there in that awkward silence when you don’t know if you should talk or not. You want to, but you just don’t quite know where to start.

The characters of Bluebird know how you feel. The majority of the ‘action’, or dialogue, I should say, takes place in a taxi and is between the driver, Jimmy (played by Paul Moss), and his passengers. One gets out, and another gets in. Since Moss had his back to the audience most of the time whilst he was driving his cab, it felt like we were in the back, silent passengers overhearing the deeply intimate exchanges of complete strangers.

Director Adam Usden cast his play fantastically well. David Head as the first passenger, Guvnor, delivered his jokes with understatement and trepidation that doesn’t help to ease the vague discomfort felt on sitting down. Another strong decision was casting Elizabeth Clayden as the 19 year-old prostitute: beneath her character’s feistiness she found an almost imperceptible fear that came out only through body language as she lingered reluctantly in the cab.

As Jimmy points out, people talk much more quietly in cars. Usden is sensitive to such implicit stage directions, and as a result an unnerving quietness pervaded the production – although enunciation could have been worked on a little more to avoid the one or two occasions when lines were lost. So Steffan Griffiths as Robert spoke with calm recollection of how he went to meet his daughter’s murderer with a knife, and his professed drunkenness came across only in his frank honesty and not in any slurring of his words.

The cast as a whole charted the disappearance of the initial awkwardness effortlessly. Gestures became more relaxed and body language more open, from Natasha Cowley’s anxious fidgeting to Michael Clarke’s intensely curious and philosophising Underground worker. Gareth Davies and Clare Reavey also deserve mention for their portrayal of their characters’ intense doubts – in themselves and in humanity as a whole.

As well executed as all these characters and their stories were, for me the best performance came from Lucy Cornell as Jimmy’s wife, Clare. I probably ought to examine the ins and outs of how she and Moss revealed the intensity of their relationship despite it ending so long ago, how their easiness together slipped in and existed again with the unforgivable tragedy that stood between them, and how natural her reaction to his gift felt. However, to do so would, I think, detract from the deeply powerful sadness that I, and I’m sure the rest of the audience, was left with.

The fragmented nature of the storyline was reflected effectively in the minimal set, which consisted of several car mirrors. As the play progressed and Jimmy revealed more of himself and his story to us, the light altered and more of his face becomes visible.

 From Palatinate, November 2010

It's a meaty debate for Jonathan Safran Foer

At 33, Jonathan Safran Safran Foer has caused quite a stir in several different circles. His first two novels, Everything is Illumintated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close divided the critics – for some they are pretentious and for others intellectually exciting. His most recent novel, Tree of Codes, is something of a work of art, a story cut from the pages of Bruno Schulz’s Street of Crocodiles to create a new work, though one which is rooted in and grows out of Schulz’s tale.

His excursion into the world of investigative journalism¸ Eating Animals, was first published in 2009 and is released in paperback in the UK on 27^th January this year. I asked him about the origins of the book, which details the less than appealing world of factory farming.

“For a long time it’s something I have longed to be more sure about”, he explains. “I wanted to expand the conversation about meat; we need more information and better ways of talking about it.”

Safran Foer dabbled in vegetarianism throughout his youth, torn between the ethical issues of eating meat produced under inhumane conditions, and the fact that food and eating are, for people across the world, an essential part of cultural and personal identity. The table is where old stories are recounted with a laugh or a sigh, and new ones are born. Meat is part of the food on that table, and is responsible for many of those stories. It may seem strange that Safran Foer prioritises “Storytelling” (the first and last chapters are so-titled) over issues such as the health benefits of eating meat, but to read the book is to begin to understand its significance in his life, and all our lives.

In spite of this, Safran Foer concludes that, knowing the facts, he can no longer justify eating meat. In his writing he is forceful, yet when talking about it he admits that “it’s difficult still” to be a vegetarian and stick to it. “People who deny that it is difficult aren’t fully honest.”

Towards the beginning of the book, he claims that it is not “a straightforward case for vegetarianism”, but rather a personal investigation, one that really got underway when he discovered he was to become a father. However, upon reaching the end, it is hard to describe it otherwise, as Safran Foer first argues for his own position, and then pushes for the reader to change his or her habits as well. When I open the book at a random page I read that “upwards of 95% of chickens become infected with E.Coli” when reared on an American battery farm. Perhaps this pro-vegetarianism is the logical conclusion, then? Safran Foer, surprisingly, disagrees.

“I actually thought the case would get stronger the more research I did, but small farms undermine the case for complete vegetarianism; their existence confirms the seeming impossibility of it.” Safran Foer displays deep affection and concern in his writing and in conversation for these farms, where the farmers care for their animals as individuals during their life and their slaughter. But they are few and far between.

How much difference is there between the industry in the UK and in the States? In his Preface to the UK edition, Safran Foer says that we “should not find any peace in being British”; in other words, although the books focuses almost exclusively on farming in the States and the laws and attitudes here are markedly better, many of the same practices exist on both sides of the pond. I asked him if he had done much research into factory farming in the UK.

“The UK is certainly better than the States. Meat produced on factory farms is in the low nineties [percentage-wise]. But the problem is that everywhere in the world is becoming like the States. And,” he asks, “how much better does it have to be” before the meat produced is deemed acceptable? Different people would undoubtedly have different standards and expectations.

Safran Foer’s book is, if not enjoyable, compelling. (“Most people don’t really know what to say about it,” he laughs. This can only be a good thing from his point of view, proving he has touched something in his readers.) He has noted that “people are persuaded” by the book; perhaps, then, he might bring consensus among his readership about what it ought to expect in terms of the treatment of meat.

Critics have praised him for his belief in the power of writing to bring about change – but isn’t this a little idealistic, to say the least?

“I think we can be simultaneously idealistic and realistic – we can want things to change but accept that they are not going to happen straight away.” He later adds that “not everyone [in the world] has the same ability to change.” For some it is a question of means – their own financial means and the means (or lack thereof) of their countryside to produce crops. Indeed, the only other place in which Safran Foer himself would eat meat is, he says, “if I was living in one of those places where it’s hard to grow crops.” (He would also have considered it if he was living fifty years ago or more).

The old days of farming are now far behind and barely visible, livelihood has been condensed into poetry on the page and on the screen. Safran Foer tells me: “Today, big bosses of farms are always away. The big companies will remove humans whenever possible, and the ratio of farmers to consumers is smaller than ever before.” As his book demonstrates again and again, farming seems no longer to be about producing enough meat for the masses and instead is an operation in generating money for the few, with no regard for the cost.

This is not an innovative book in terms of content, but, being primarily a creative writer, Safran Foer has presented the information in a personal and refreshing style.

“It was a strange thing for me to do. My career as a fiction writer was going pretty well.”

“Do you think it will affect any fiction you write in the future?” I wonder.

“No I don’t think so. Obviously fiction is influenced by the world but it shouldn’t be influenced by a personal goal.”

His latest fictional offering, Tree of Codes, certainly falls in the first category. It is a fragile object, a collection of terrifyingly delicate pages: “It took me about a year to make,” he recalls. Despite being turned away by numerous printers, he and his publisher eventually found a Belgian company, Die Kuere, which was willing to take on the text cut from Bruno Schulz’s Street of Crocodiles. There were two main reasons for the book, the author – or artist, I should say in this case – explains: “I’ve been interested in die-cutting [where holes and shapes are cut into the page] for a while. I also liked the idea of a book that had pieces missing.” The novel is Safran Foer’s favourite: “Some writers create lots of readers and some create lots of writers. Schulz is in the latter category. In his writing I always want there to be something else.”

Safran Foer’s suggestion as to what that “something else” might be is, in a seeming paradox, smaller than Schulz’s novel. The 3,000 words are “an experiment”, and not something he expects to become the norm in fiction.

Like all of Safran Foer’s contributions to literature, both fiction and non-fiction, these carefully chosen phrases are wonderfully unexpected. To talk to, Safran Foer is pensive and calm, but on the page he is gripping and turbulent. Whatever your personal opinions on vegetarianism and literary and visual aesthetics are, I can guarantee that if ever you pick up a book with Jonathan Safran Foer’s name on, you will find yourself questioning them.

From Palatinate, issue 725, 25th January 2011

Crrritic!

Crritic!” Estragon famously yells “with finality” in his comic – or is it serious? – argument with Vladimir in Waiting for Godot. It is the insult to end all insults. And deeply insulted Vladimir seems to be. It puts an end to that phase of their banter and elicits many a laugh amongst the audience, who might perchance turn slightly, trying to catch a glimpse of any man silently slipping his pencil and paper out of sight and mind as he wonders whether his kind really is hated that much. After all, who would put up his hand and volunteer to wear the badge that says ‘critic’ in the theatre, concert hall or cinema, when it could equally say ‘person who values own opinions highly’? Or outside these establishments, for that matter, especially when the adjectival equivalent has synonyms like ‘perpetually unsatisfied with everything’ or ‘pedantic old bastard’? Not Vladimir.

Unappealing connotations aside, is this insult justified? And if it is, isn’t it still a joke for Beckett, revelling in his own wit? I can see him now, the old Irish great in heaven (for some reason the image is in black and white), sitting and smoking (most likely) and watching with childish glee. And what does he see? He sees literati and critics alike feebly flailing, writhing and wrestling with his remark. They are anxious because a tiny little part of each of them thinks he is right to be serious, and they want him to be joking or else their work is, well… somewhat undermined.

It is true that one cannot simply give condemning judgments of a piece of theatre alone, and anyone who does so deserves to be insulted. But if a satisfactory explanation is handed over in the same package, Estragon’s insult becomes unjustified. Then again, despite the intricacy of theatre criticism’s subject, it is written largely for the masses to read in the paper over breakfast, mug of coffee in hand, so in many ways it works like an advert. It is not for cast and crew to use as an additional set of director’s notes after the first performance, though you could be fooled into thinking otherwise. If the review is good, said breakfast-time-peruser might perchance twaddle up to London to see the thing for themselves.

So, the reviewer’s duty is not to the theatre or producer, the director or the actors; it is to the good old British public – or the students of Durham for us. He has to write something short and sweet (or savoury, if the play is not so hot). You might wonder why I emphasise “has”. It is because in Durham reviewers are allocated plays on a first come, first served basis. In Palatinate English, this means that said person who comes first will supposedly produce a review of an appropriate length on the right day (professional critics leave the theatre at 10.30 pm and have to hand in their reviews ninety minutes later so it can all go to press on time, don’t you know, so really there’s no excuse).

Reviews that don’t materialise have two rather unnerving effects. Firstly, stage editors become abnormally irate, they go very quiet, become sullen, sulky, ghostly pale – a bit like Edward Cullen. Then they miraculously procure a review from an unknown corner of Durham at no small effort. As I write, their cries of frustration are filling the Palatinate office, and I’m learning several new and obscure expletives that are most certainly not suitable to be noted down here. Secondly, theatre companies who have put up two free tickets for the reviewer-ghost, despite being on a tight budget, morph into enraged animals – wolves larger than bears, I’ve seen them – and start hunting the stage editors. Which is no fun for them, as you can probably imagine. It seems to me that the best solution would be for the wolves and vampires that are the theatre companies and stage editors to join forces and ruthlessly hunt down said ghost-reviewers. After all, this is a reciprocal society – you give when you receive – and they both want the same thing: a review for their money.

So, on to the review itself. Although a reviewer has a duty to support his argument, five words are enough; five sentences, too many. If he opts for the latter, no one will read it. What a waste. We don’t expect the review of the latest Florence and the Machine track or Tim Burton’s newest film to be riddled with minutiae with which only they can engage. Granted, it is interesting to have the odd article which is more penetrating than the rest, but if they’re all pushing the 700 word mark, no one’s going to make it to the end of anything. If they do, they will more than likely
a) be involved in the show
b) be a friend of cast/crew/reviewer
c) be involved in serious procrastination
d) have missed out the juicy stuff in the
middle to get to the concluding pearls
of wisdom.

‘Why do you publish such long reviews then?’ I hear you cry in outrage. ‘It’s much easier to write a long letter than a short one’ is my answer, and a problem which, with a little time and perseverance from reviewers, can be fixed.

The icing on this particular cake is that there would then be space to print the reviews which at present can only be fitted onto the website. But there is another dilemma: the anticipation of theatre critcism in Durham comes from the wrong people. And this is a little harder to resolve, for this paper, anyway.

The quandary is that we go to press once a fortnight, during which time three or four plays will have blazed up on the stage of the Assembly Rooms and disappeared with equal rapidity. Puff. Just like that. By the time the review comes out the situation is this: cast and crew are just desperate to know how well they did, those who saw it might be curious to hear a second opinion, but the majority of people will discard it to the outer recesses of the mind, along with the last essay they wrote. So the people who might read a short review to help them decide whether to see the thing or not are out. Those readers that remain want something wordy, difficult when these three or four shows are all vying equally for a chance of journalistic glory.

Having decided that there’s not a lot that can be done about this, you might think that my opening up the debate to the floor is a bit pointless. I thought so at first, anyway. Earlier I said that the reviews were waited for by the wrong people. I should rephrase that. They are waited for by different people. We aren’t in London, and this isn’t a national paper. So perhaps we should just embrace it as yet another of those quirky Durham bubble things. And anyway, you probably shouldn’t take my opinion too seriously – after all, I am a critic.

From Palatinate, May 2010

Eco-art: a visually appealing way to save our planet?

Is it ecological art, eco-art, land art or environmental art? It may just sound a bit too scientific to have anything to do with art at all. But beneath the unglamorous title, the acorn of an idea (excuse the pun) planted towards the end of the 20th century has grown into a many-branched tree. Whichever of these names you prefer to give to the work of artists who use nature as their

raw material to proclaim the precarious majesty of the natural world, its glory is inescapable.
From Japan to the USA, from Western Europe to the Poles, artists across the world have created exquisitely delicate pictures from leaves; they have ridiculed our attempts to restrain Nature’s terrifying strength by emphasising her enormity; they have tried to deepen our links with the earth.

Isn’t all this a little too late, if the aim is to increase environmental awareness and prevent further damage to the planet? If politicians and environmentalists are struggling to get through to one another and to the rest of society, then how can we expect artists to do it? At first their cause certainly seems hopeless, especially as the more obviously propagandist pieces, such as the cubes with a volume equivalent to the average carbon footprint installed in Copenhagen last year, aren’t made of the aesthetically appealing stuff that would sway those whose preferred perch is on the fence. You might say they’re nothing more than a new way of representing the statistics we’re all too tired and guilty to read anymore.

But eco-art is not just about fighting for the conservation of the planet. It is about understanding and respecting the world in which and with which we live, and constantly readjusting accordingly. And it is exactly because of there are so many motives behind it that eco-art has such a profound effect.

Take Andy Goldsworthy’s ‘Hanging Tree’. The piece, found at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, is a rectangle in the earth, bordered by a traditional dry stone wall, with the skeleton of a dead tree inside. It is an open-air coffin which commemorates the now dead tree in an artistically exciting reversal of power between man and nature. Or so it seems, until you notice the branches pushing into and through the edges of its enclosure as if trying to break free, to return to nature in a sort of regeneration or reincarnation.

Because the sculpture is primarily a piece of art, rather than environmental propaganda, the sublimity of nature appears greater. I’m no eco-warrior, and I don’t suppose most of you are, but you can’t deny that when you see something beautiful, you don’t want to act to prolong its life – and in the process you can trample on the ugliness and mundanity that is statistics.
The ephemerality of much eco-art has to be one of its most enticing charms. Built near the sea so that it will eventually be washed away or constructed from leaves and petals that will rot within days, the images and sculptures reinforce the brevity of both their and our stay on the earth, and so generate reverence for our habitat, and a curiosity about unknown parts of the world.

It would be stating the obvious – but I’ll do it anyway – to say that Mother Nature is, and always has been, one of the most talented artists around, and if its underlying meaning is something with the potential to really change the way we live, so much the better. It may seem like an exaggeration to say that without the eco-artists of the 21st century the plethora of visual possibilities and the streams which tentatively trickle out from them will disappear into nothing. But just open a paper tomorrow morning and look for the story about the tragic demise of another natural beauty, big or small, then tell me I’m being melodramatic.

To find out more, search for ‘eco art’ or ‘land art’, or go to www.greenmuseum.org

 From Palatinate 717, March 2010

Review: 'The Shape of Things'

Neil Labute’s The Shape of Things is deeply funny and full of cruel proleptic ironies. It is also horrifyingly close to reality, questioning the motives behind each individual in a relationship and showing a darkness and force of will in human nature that no one wants to acknowledge.

Under Adam Usden’s direction, First Person Theatre Company captured the nuances of power and its movement within relationships with an intensity which showed sensitive understanding of a play whose characters have no sympathy for one another. Elizabeth Clayden, as the feisty art student Evelyn, was in control from the moment she casually graffitied the scene’s location on the white wall at the back of the stage. Her American accent separated her from the other three characters with its persistent and threatening edge. This power permeated her character, from her collectedness at an uncomfortably long moment in the café to her physical dominance in the intimate bedroom scene.

This contrasted well with Steffan Griffiths’ Adam and his unfailing comic timing, which elicited much laughter on more than one occasion. Even at the end when his anger finally escaped (still with traces of Adam’s initial shyness and modesty), his words were riddled with wit which exhibited his intelligence. That Adam seemed to be completely ignorant of this – which is effectively his individuality – and conscious only of the fact that his anger might be another part of Evelyn’s creation, made the cruelty of the transformation all the more poignant. The tension between Clayden and Griffiths was never quite dissipated as Clayden left the stage without uttering her last thought, crucially transferring the uneasiness of the characters into the auditorium as all good theatre should.

Callum Cheatle and Rebecca Mackinnon portrayed Adam’s friends Phil and Jenny with an endearing sense of comfort. The cosy setting of their lounge emanated warmth (which Evelyn and Adam discreetly remained outside of). This scene posed the only real problem which was not quite overcome: although Jenny and Phil’s relationship is meant to be far more relaxed, they do have their arguments. These felt a little hurried over, as their frustration with each other was lost in the attempt to maintain propriety in their friends’ company.

Nevertheless, in her scene in the park with Griffiths, Mackinnon conveyed Jenny’s nervousness through telling body language, coyly twirling her hair moments before giving the oblivious Adam a lingering kiss. In spite of her differences from Clayden’s Evelyn, Jenny too has control over Adam, but Mackinnon’s dominance was careful and soft as she tenderly and pleadingly held his hand.

Cheatle was similarly powerful in his scenes with Griffiths. The brilliant directorial touch of sitting the two boys to one side of the stage in the campus scene to reflect their submission by the fairer sex still left room for power play between them. There was a blend of comedy and violence driven by jealousy as he stood up and sat down, ever unpredictable for the guilt-ridden Adam, who at times felt a little too restrained during this scene.

The way in which the unease reached its climax as the realisation of what her piece actually consisted of permeated through the auditorium with murmurings of disbelief for me exemplifies the strength of this production. It was subtle and unforced, and as Adam, Jenny and Phil sat with the audience watching Evelyn’s presentation, pity pervaded. The bathetic final scene in which Griffiths sat eating an apple, trying to understand, was a little too pointed for me after a play of such delicacy, and the biblical allusion felt contrived since it is such a compelling story in its own right.

However, it seems unnecessarily fussy to deliberate over such a small detail when the staging and set were otherwise strong, from the white stage which contrasted with Evelyn’s immorality to the film clips which seemed to give credibility to her relationship with Adam but distanced it further from reality by making it a production in itself. This was an oustanding piece of theatre, and is to be admired all the more for the complexity – and sadism in some cases – of the characters, which were captured so effectively.

From Palatinate, 8 February 2010

Art: worth more than bullion?

Since October 2008, or thereabouts, the British economy has been flapping and floundering like a tadpole in a rapidly evaporating pond. It is only to be expected, then, that the purchase of a picture for that irritatingly bare wall-space in the corner of the kitchen might be postponed until the drought passes.

“How could I possibly justify buying a landscape of a favourite holiday spot, when the holiday itself has temporarily been forgone?” you might ask. Admittedly, as a student, you probably wouldn’t ask exactly that. And according to statistics, the art-buying public have not been pondering the problem too much either. Christie’s global art sales for 2008 (£2.8 billion) were down on those from 2007, but were still well above those of 2006 (£2.51 billion). The crux of the economic crisis is certainly beginning to take its toll now: sales for the first half of 2009 were considerably less than half of the previous year’s takings.

Then again, Edward Dolman, Chief Executive Officer of Christie’s International, said, “While overall sale volumes have declined…sustained price levels throughout the period demonstrate that art has continued to hold its value”.

Admittedly this isn’t a particularly fair sample. Long-established auction houses sell to the rich and famous, who have been comparatively untouched by the recession. Smaller art dealers have reported drastic drops in sales with damaging consequences. The Modern and Contemporary departments have noted “falls of 50 per cent in prices [as] the order of the day”, according to Julian Roup of Bonhams.

Arguably, though, Modern art has always been something people are more likely to goggle at in a gallery rather than buy to put up on their kitchen wall, so it is no surprise that the already niche market has become more so. But why is it that, in general, the art market has not dried out?
Just look around your room at the posters of celebrity icons or eternal paintings which have become tatty with familiarity. Think of the odd collection of objects your parents have at home – maybe the splodges of paint put to paper by five-year-old you. Now imagine your room or your home without them. Dull. Unloved. Pock-marked with scars from someone else’s Blu-Tack. A physical reminder of the trying times.

Art will always be necessary, even if this necessity can’t be justified in words, or the art itself is just a pencil drawing by you.

Oscar Wilde ambiguously said, “All art is quite useless”. I beg to differ. So the figure in a sculpture can’t go out to work to get some more cash. But it can give you mental freedom to reflect and escape; it makes you smile and wonder. That unnecessary smoothie-maker should be sacrificed for one small picture every time.

 From Palatinate, 8 February 2010 

Everyone's a winner

Today, like any other day in the twenty-first century, artists will emerge from dusty, unassuming alleys with a self-conscious sigh as they wonder if anyone will ever appreciate their genius. Others will swagger confidently through the halls of their art school, deep in thought or conversation about meanings of art and life, and in the old chests in the corners of their minds the dream of recognition pushes at the heavy lids. A select few will take a turn in a grandiose gallery with a little more mature confidence as they know that there, on that huge wall for everyone to see, is their work.

In the past wealthy patrons had the most sway over who or what was worthy of the utmost praise. Looking at the Titians and Monets and Rembrandts that we have today, their decisions were not unwise, and we all feel very intelligent and blessed with intuitive understanding when we see a painting on a wall or a sculpture on a pedestal and are able to say, “Oh, do look here dear, it’s a Vermeer. It caught my eye from across the room” (I confess that I fall into this group).  In the storage rooms of Florence’s Uffizi Gallery, there are enough works of art to fill the gallery proper many more times over. So, how will we decide which works of today will be exhibited above ground, and of which will be said, “It’s a what?”

BBC 2’s School of Saatchi propounds my theory of how the revered come to be revered: the winner, Eugenie Scrase, wowed the judges with a ‘found object’. Admittedly it was striking and shouted at you from across the room, but it was not so much art as a media stunt. And it seems to be, by and large, the media who decides which category each artist drops into.
Art competitions are less affected by this, however. They exist in their multitudes, acting as financial incentives the individual to explore and exploit artistic talent.

After speaking to Peter Monkman, the 2009 winner of the prestigious BP Portrait Award, I’m beginning to think that my assumption that all artists want to join the museums of the masters is itself commercial, or anti-aesthetical. Art is an expression of thought, marks on paper become the intangible and bizarre ideas that shape our lives. To suggest that the aim of all artists is to achieve recognition as he plays in the pots of gold at the elusive end of the rainbow is perhaps a little naïve on my part.

For Monkman, an art teacher who had been entering the competition since 1996 before winning last year, the greatest reward of competitions is the external acknowledgement of his work’s brilliance, itself “an incentive to keep going”. Without showing off to those outside your family it is hard to “[objectify] things. Competitions help you to move on” from a piece you might be lingering over unnecessarily.

Winning the award has not lessened Monkman’s desire to develop his work. Despite being a “fairly well established artist previously, winning has opened up [his] work to different strata of buyers, and there is more pressure” as a result. In fear of becoming “typecast” as a portraitist, he has “played around with other ideas and media”, such as the video art he created for the Venice Biennale. Far from nestling into the comfy, cosy corner of a style familiar to him, Monkman has reacted to his success by keeping up with, even ahead of, forms of expression.

Richard Wright, winner of the 2009 Turner Prize, expressed a slightly different view in an interview with The Guardian. “It’s a double-edged thing, I feel very happy… but also a strange sadness as well”, he said with a shrug of the shoulders, as if, on attaining the pinnacle of recognition, all dreams slid slowly down the side.

In spite of the potential financial gain of artistic competitions, what they stand for is something greater: the fulfilment of potential in both the artist and his style of choice. Undoubtedly Monkman and Wright are exceptionally talented and their work will outlive both them and us. We can only hope that long-standing competitions such as these will continue to highlight true excellence, allowing talent to emerge in force rather than be submerged by aesthetically unappealing media whims.

 From Palatinate, January 2010

A lesson from Saatchi on the meaning of modern art

Charles Saatchi is the “kingmaker” of the art world. Previously he has crowned Tracey Emin, Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst amongst many others, and has now sent his courtiers forth o’er hill and dale in search of new ‘talent’ in conceptual art.

   I confess now that I dubiously tuned in to School of Saatchi with the sole intention of finding a mine of evidence from which I could dig out a tonne of gold and heap it up in the face of anyone who says there is value either in modern art or the dearth of the twenty-first century that is the reality TV talent show. I must then concede that the mine was not as rich in said evidence as I expected. Still, Saatchi’s aspiring kings and queens struggled to excavate much of this meaning on which their work is founded, creating somewhat of a quandary.

   The judges were slightly more accomplished at this. “Art is an expression of the intention of the artist” according to Kate Bush, head of art galleries at the Barbican, (thereby silencing my remonstrations as I watched builders erect one of the installations in the second episode, while the artists lingered below). Tracey Emin, another panelist, pounced with dominating enthusiasm on anything that looked new and exciting, simultaneously silencing any squeaks from her fellow judges with a sideways glance that threatened to develop into a growl. Presumably, this lust for the new idea comes from the argument that all (or most) things bright and beautiful have already been achieved in other centuries and continents, but Emin came at the brawl against public perception from the other side; already a convert, she didn’t think to look at it from a cynic’s point of view. Art critic Matthew Collings and collector Frank Cohen likewise insisted on the wholly original, though in a more sceptic-friendly manner.

   Emin’s understanding is clearly great, however, and though she might be the show’s Simon Cowell, her ability to explicate convincingly the work of the twelve young artists in the second round at least puts the art world’s show above that of the music industry.

   The majority of the finalists being art students, they (naturally) resented being asked to define what modern art is. The extent of their outrage suggested the judges might as well have asked a handful of fully qualified doctors to name all the parts of the human body, rather than patronise the group with questions such as, “And why is this film art and not just a film?” Yet once the grumblings and mumblings of frustration had subsided, silence filled the air. Two or three of the twelve then poured convincing arguments into the ether. The rest fumbled with words and shirt sleeves and looked ashamedly at the floor. Surely one of the first steps along the path of conceptual art should be understanding why one is doing what one is doing?

   These installations ranged from a film of hundreds of starlings flying up round and down together in a delicate yet definitely undulating flux, while seeming to be in stasis, to two magnets holding one another in the air by way of their magnetic fields – without actually touching. I could see that they were art, the first beautiful and the second conceptually fascinating, but the artists’ inability to explain them gets at the crux of modern art’s problem: it does not have intrinsic characteristics which reveal that it is art. Therefore, we must speak for it, and attempt to express the ideas; these are often by nature more abstract than words know how to articulate, and herein lies the trouble. If the artists can’t explain the meaning, then what are we, the public, to measure our slivers of understanding against?

   Perhaps I am missing the point of it all. In the second episode, the group, now whittled down to six, had to install public works of art in Hastings. Two of the three pieces did not work as intended, and as a result the artists seemed to be constructing ideas to fit the haphazard objects rather than eloquent installations to complement the thoughtful conceptions. The judges had few qualms about this. If I am to see their reaction positively I can only suggest that rather than having implicit meanings, installations of this kind are intended as personal exercises in thinking rather than a desire on the artists’ part to portray universal truths.

   This inherent uncertainty leads me to another. X Factor hasn’t unearthed The Beatles of the day, so is it likely that Saatchi will pull the previously unnoticed talent which has wandered the dusty side streets of the art world in to the town square? Perhaps it is, perhaps it isn’t. Arguably, though, the intention of School of Saatchi is not to beam a spotlight down on the individual but to garner good press and deeper understanding for the modern art world as a whole.

   The British public loves to hate it, but it is the direction in which we are ineluctably headed. Saatchi et al are certainly fostering, if not adoration, much curiosity and thought beyond the commonplace dismissive attitudes, and for this they must be admired.

From Palatinate, issue 713, December 2009

On the edginess of cats

Strolling the sunny streets of Paris in the summer, I came across the Le Chat Noir café in Montmartre and thought of the celebrated poster, ‘La Tournée du Chat Noir’. Beyond that, though, I was as ignorant about it as the black cat himself would be about Quantum Physics. Then, returning to Durham and finding the very poster on sale, I felt it my duty to make its story known.

Commissioned by Rodolphe Salis in 1896, the poster became the epitome of all that Salis and his cabaret, ‘Le Chat Noir’, stood for: literature, art, and sexuality.

With echoes of the work of Baudelaire and Edgar Allan Poe, and of the ‘shadow’ theatre of the cabaret, the black cat in Théophile Alexandre Steinlen’s poster ‘La Tournée du Chat Noir’ has – or had – a certain edge.
But is that edge still there? And is it there for the right reasons? Originally an advert for a theatre tour, it’s now everywhere, from student rooms to Montmartre’s tacky tourist stalls. Yes, it is clearly admired, but its ubiquity suggests it has been trivialised and lost artistic value. Arguably, if it was intended as a publicity piece and not solely as a work of art, then it has acquired value rather than shed it. The angular features and yellow-green eyes that threaten to pierce through anyone and everyone deserve conscious praise, rather than an arbitrary, “That’s cool and vintage. I’ll stick that on my wall”.

   Think of the letters which curl like the cat’s tail and share the lightness of his well-preened whiskers, and of the animal’s quiet confidence as he sits. Quietly ominous, this is perhaps characteristic of Stienlen, who was no idealist, and often portrayed the unappealing aspects of life in Montmartre in his works. This sinister nature lurks silently and persistently in the cat’s frighteningly mesmerising gaze.

   The cat also has religious symbolism, highlighting the popularity and following of Salis’ troupe. Marcello Dudovich’s ‘Vermouth Bianco’ has similar religious allusions. Dressed in an understated gown, the figure, with her relaxed slouching shoulders, wears an expression of acute pleasure, as if she is tasting sensuality itself. However, this is a pure experience, or so her Buddha-like pose implies. A contemporary of Steinlen, Dudovich is also an artistic and advertising genius, as the Buddha’s usual lotus flower is exchanged for a delicate glass of the ambrosial liquid.

Both seem worthy of the deified status bestowed lavishly on them by us students. But next time you acquire one of these treasures, be sure to think a little of its history and its charms. Who knows, you might even find yourself succumbing to some sumptuously golden liquor as a result.

From Palatinate, issue 711, 6 November 2009

Careering towards a career?

"Job? Did someone say job? Where? Where is it? Get out of my way, it's mine."

It’s the week of the Careers’ Fair. The one by the end of which all finalists dream they will have been handed a job over the table (or stand), based purely on the outstanding quality, originality and (probably feigned) interest of their five minute conversation with the recruiters. Something to the tune of, “Don’t bother applying online, son (daughter doesn’t have quite the same ring to it), we’ll have you right here, right now. In these last five minutes you’ve clearly demonstrated your fantastic organisational skills, ability to work in a team and charm your way through any conversation.”

Backtrack slightly. This may be everyone’s dream, but in terms of the Careers' Fair, is only realistic for those who relish the idea of selling their soul, since they're more or less the only companies there. Souls can bring in good money, I grant you, but Faust’s death knell echoes far too loudly in my ears for such a career to appeal. (The fact that I cannot do Maths, which most of the exhibitors, for want of a better word, require, is beside the point).



"If I look thoughtful and teeming with ideas, someone will snap me up…"

In spite of the perils of soul-trading, the honeypots that are Deloitte, KPMG and BNP Paribas, to name a few, were not wanting for a new intake of worker bees. Unfortunately for the bees, said companies do not, I think, actually hand out jobs over the table for them to get stuck into. This results in a very loud, anxious buzzing emanating from the room. It's as if all the bees in the world have buzzed on over to the same place because that is where the only flowering plant left in existence grows, and they're all just desperate to be the ones to earn their place in the hive by getting a little bit of nectar.

 (Small, largely unconnected aside, triggered by the mention of nectar: The Durham Revue, on the other hand, demonstrated in their Returners' Show last week that they have exactly the right idea about what nectar is: a stream of thought-provoking questions that cause the juices of the brain to flow abundantly with wonder and curiosity, expressed beautifully in song form by Ben Whittle)

The thing about the Careers' Fair is that everyone (myself included) seems to forget that these stands are not in fact the only flowering plants left in the world. Even if the garden of jobs is somewhat barren at the moment after the drought of the last couple of years, there are other jobs; it's just that most of them don't seed themselves on your doorstep.

If you are not one of these worker bees then your dream job will probably fall into one of the following categories regarding application:

a). A military career, which has a rigorous but not quite so cut-throat application system as City jobs.

b). There is a plentiful supply of graduate schemes in your field, advertised and to be applied for online.

c). Nepotism (not a bad thing, as long as it's you getting the job and not someone else).

d). None of the above. You are still panicking.

Mine falls into category d), which means looking for weeks and weeks of work experience. But those weeks are interesting and, dare I say it, exciting. The only downside is that while the soul-sellers are earning themselves a nice pile of cash on an internship to fund their final year, I wince every time I have to top up my Oyster card.

Still, the way I see it is this: 'career' is a terrifying noun. But, it is also a verb, one that implies a certain lack of control, as opposed to direction. As in the internal monologue, 'I am on my horse careering towards a fence and I can't stop. Shit.' Or the newspaper report, 'When the steering and the brakes stopped working his car careered off the road.' Since there's nothing like a bit of adrenalin to liven life up a bit, careering seems to me to be the best way to arrive at a career.

Plus, while careering is an electrifying experience for you, it also provides mountains of material for inducing merriment in the work place du jour. You will be able to tell tales of how you careered towards a fence on a horse (or similar work-related adventure such as bumping into Boris on his bike/Ellie Goulding in a cafe, asking him/her for an interview and getting it published in your local rag). This, naturally, will demonstrate your fantastic organisational skills, ability to think on your feet and charm your way through any conversation, just as in the sugar-coated thoughts of the wannabe City-workers.

Think outside the box, the hive, or what you will and then, as if by magic (but actually by a wonderful adventure of roundabout, up and down careering), you have… a job.

The case for classic recycling

Imagine a world in which there was never again a new novel and no more plays that capture the age in which they were written. Stare helplessly as the sources of lilting poetry from the round earth's imagin'd corners dry up, and the swords of cynical essayists are put up.

Do not go so far as to picture the ever-increasing global population descending into a sort of warped barbarity sprung from cultural thirst. Desperate individuals would not be trading pounds of flesh to get their bloody fingers on one of the last remaining Complete Works. A hundred years down the line, one would not find one's neighbour executing a brutal murder in a quintessential town or village and subsequently setting out clues by which the perpetrator may be discovered, just to give others something akin to the thrill of deciphering the latest murder mystery before the detective himself. There would still be copies of Shakespeare and an incessant supply of Ian Rankin thrillers.

In this parallel world, publishers would continue to publish, booksellers to sell, and the masses to buy and read. It is only the voices that rise up from the ivory white pages in inky authority that would cease to exist. Mr McCall Smith would never pen another 44 Scotland Street story, Mr Dawkins would choke on the chaff that he has yet to share with us, and there would be no post-Iraq/Afghanistan-war elegies to match the nostalgia and deep sadness of the likes of Brideshead Revisited. (This last, I realise, assumes that there will at some point be a time post-Iraq/Afghanistan-war, but never mind). Nothing new would ever be written, in any form.

Now here's the reason for the creation of this hypothetical dystopia. A while ago I came across an article envisaging a world in which there was no new music. Tracks already in existence could be endlessly rerecorded and rereleased; I can hear now a dubstep version of Day Tripper, a violin concerto that sounds distinctly like Insomnia, and a sat-nav-esque selection of voices for each and every pop song (English man/English woman/Irish man/Irish...you get the idea). I saw at once that this would by no means be a tragedy. If all the many dances of the world were brought together in one riotous tangle of limbs, swaying and leaping and jumping, it would be as if four dimensional fireworks were covering the sky, each giving a blazing glory to different aspects of the others. Display over, this glory would then be forever visible, a halo glowing for all time. Likewise, if all the lyrics of the world were married with all the melodies and beats, each would reveal some previously unnoticed diamond on the sole of the other's shoe. A new sort of musical intertextuality would appear. Imagine!

Glancing through from the office into the bookshop where I work, I realised this wouldn't quite work for the world's literature. Poems could perhaps be expanded into novels, and novels condensed into poems or plays. Yet literature has only the medium of language, whereas music boasts words, sound and rhythm. Fleetingly I doubted the worth of all the books around me; there just didn't seem to be enough scope for development. I felt like that narrator - whatshisname? readitatschool? - like him, I would be borne back ceaselessly into the past...

...Nick Carraway. The Great Gatsby. Relief washed over me like a bucket of cold water on a hot day as my thoughts danced through the movements. The Great Gatsby... the photo on my Penguin edition that I love... the man and the woman sitting on a diving board and looking out over the water. I dived into the shop and cooled off after my panic. Of course there would be scope, for I also love the leather-bound special edition copy of Gatsby, there on the shelf. From across the room I heard a copy of Moby Dick, a book I've never been inclined to read, suddenly calling out to me like the sirens to Odysseus, with its rough-cut, rip-look pages.

Visualising my bookshelf at home I saw the elegant edition of Orwell's Critical Essays I'd bought, chiefly because of its cover. It matched his Narrative Essays, so I'd had to have both. I've dipped in and out of them, but I won't pretend I bought them because I just had to read them from cover to cover. My mind's eye is currently oggling the Vintage edition of Shakespeare's Sonnets, each page a delicate yet resilient and understated frame exhibiting fourteen lines of the most powerful poetry in existence. And all that space to be scribbled on!

You might call me 'a sucker for marketing' - though I'd rather you phrased it as 'an admirer of beautiful objects' - but that still isn't quite right. A publisher could put the most glorious jacket ever conceived on Martin Amis' London Fields and I wouldn't buy it; I just don't like the book. In an ideal (and probably realistic) world, the above scenario would never arise. But if it did it would by no means be a dystopia. The covers that encase the words we love would multiply, each one a visual representation of an interpretation of the text within giving it a new and lasting light. The written word and the image would grow closer together, intertwine even; a system of classic recycling would take root in society.

I shall never again be ashamed to judge a book, in part at least, by its cover. Obviously I'd rather the twenty-first century had its own Evelyn Waugh, but if that wasn't possible, I could quite happily settle for Brideshead Rejacketed.

Roundabouts and traffic lights

Roundabouts are capitalist and traffic lights are socialist. So said my father on a recent family road trip through France. It wasn't a question, or even a ponderous effusion of a flimsy idea, but a self-assured statement of fact.

And he was right. Roundabouts are the epitome of capitalist theory (albeit simplified). When trying to get a leg up into the heady heights of the 'real world', you will put your foot on whoever or whatever is close to you, whether they be a relative stranger in physical proximity or a long-standing family friend. Likewise, as you cruise through town in, let's say, your banged up Renault Clio, you might perchance find yourself tailing a fat cat in his 4x4 as you approach said capitalist junction. Take full advantage of the other roundabout drivers who delay their entry for a split second while they curse the gas-guzzling monster (in the countryside this happens less frequently, 4x4s being a necessary aide to country life in many cases) and mouse-like, slip in behind him. Lorries cars bikes vans stream in from the opposite side: exploit them as they obstruct the traffic immediately to your right. A roundabout is like society - or human nature, more specifically: it's a survival of the fittest, a car-eat-car world.

The traffic light, however, favours the lazy, the bleary-eyed, those whose reactions are as slothful as a sloth hanging heavily from his branch. And as these sloths slope slothfully into the road, the rest of us must sit there in our cars vibrating and pulsating at the violet hour. I have not been driving long in the grand scheme of things - a mere four years - and yet I am certain that as many hours of my life have been frittered away, the seconds and milliseconds drummed out by my fingers on the steering wheel with a patience for their task, born of an impatience of the situation at hand as I sit at yet another red light. Four hours. That's long enough, by my calculation, to make and eat 120 pieces of toast, read a novel from beginning to end, watch two films (plus bonus features) or make love several times.

Such thrills must remain fantasies for those of us faced with the ubiquitous red eyes of Sauron that are traffic lights. We must tap feet, fiddle with gearsticks and fire off expletives at the car in front (who is oblivious to the fact that the light has actually now turned green). I'd like to take a picture of one, upload it onto photoshop and edit it using red-eye. I'd make it sea grey-blue or mossy green with scratchings of brown bark. Then I could gaze lovingly into its persistent eye. I can't deny that I am filled with a glee that surpasses the rewards of roundabouts when Sauron's eye is turned away and I am faced with his green other half. But it is nevertheless a glee full of hatred for something that is nothing other than an enemy, and even if I do defeat him from time to time, I'd rather he wasn't there at all.

The roundabout, though, there's an inspired invention. (I am discounting the mini roundabout, the feeblest of the feeble, as it submits to being driven straight over without raising an eyebrow, thereby failing entirely as a junction and succeeding only in inflating the egos of road users who get a kick from walking all over people). But as I was saying, the roundabout is truly magnificent; the king of the road, crowned in glory. Driving along, you spy a green, flower-topped mound ahead. Aha! Slow up, get in lane, indicate. You look right, your foot hovers, tentative, over accelerator and brake - will there be a gap, won't there? Yes! - no, Disappointment loiters above your passenger seat, ready to sit down and strap in. Yet you don't stop, accelerating at the last minute, and he flies out of the open window with a whining scream lost in the buzz of other engines. Slam your foot down and revel in the roar of the revs as you follow the artful curve. None of those right-angled, stop/start, traffic-light-controlled crossroads. Feel the immeasurable satisfaction as you glide seamlessly from one road to the next.

A roundabout by any other name certainly would not smell as sweet - there would be no initial 'r' to roll and recreate the revs, you would not be able to drive round the curvaceous 'ou' or to exit with the clipped, business-like 'about'. 'Traffic light' says it all, too. 'Tr' is the noise a silent adolescent makes when he is unimpressed and unamused and the hard 'c' rudely forces you to stop abruptly. Having 'light' in there is just plain misleading, light bulbs being synonymous with good ideas.

I'm not a political person. However, I am convinced of three things. One, that roundabouts are indeed capitalist and traffic lights, socialist. Two, that I infinitely prefer the former. Three, that therefore I must be a capitalist, and so in some vague way be a politicised person. Wouldn't it all be so much easier if instead of agonising over the pros and cons of academies, free milk for under-fives and the funding for Trident and choosing the best of a fairly unattractive lot of politicians that way, we just selected our preferred party based on their similarities to road junctions?