More on Bibliophile Art...

Prompted by Extra Salt n Sauce, I went to see the installation at Stills Gallery, the Martha Rosler Library. It left me less than whelmed; it was a library, more or less. I didn’t feel inclined to engage with the art – I didn’t want to look at the books much, though I flicked through a couple.

I guess I really didn’t get what it was about at all. I just thought “books” – which of course I think are great – but it didn’t give me a different perspective; and as libraries go, it wasn’t a place I wanted to linger. So I didn’t.

But it worried me: The House of Books Has No Windows at the Fruitmarket Gallery – another installation composed of books – had really grabbed me: it had made me smile and laugh, and I longed to be able to open the books and read them. Why was this different?

So being just around the corner, I went back to the Fruitmarket to have another look at the Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller installations.

And I still think they are wonderful.

They were selling postcards of The House of Books Has No Windows, and since I can’t find images of it anywhere on the internet, I scanned the postcard.

© Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller. Photo by Alan Dimmick

I found the The House of Books Has No Windows more captivating than before. I went inside; I was filled with wonder. I wanted to touch the books. And it made me smile. There was a note by Janet Miller that I hadn’t read before:

I love libraries because of the layers of time and meaning they contain. I like how you can escape into other worlds in a library, how when you open a book, you’re somewhere else

I love that – it really resonates with me.

The other installations were worth revisiting, too. The Dark Pool seemed more quirky and interesting: I was in the room by myself, and I realised the extent to which the soundwork depends on the listener – standing in different places triggers different sounds; it became a game to interact with different sounds.

I saw Opera for a Small Room in a different part of its twenty minute cycle, and it was genuinely spooky.

Unfortunately, the last piece – which wasn’t working last time – wasn’t working again. Or perhaps that is fortunate: I shall have to go back again…

More on Bibliophile Art...

Prompted by Extra Salt n Sauce, I went to see the installation at Stills Gallery, the Martha Rosler Library. It left me less than whelmed; it was a library, more or less. I didn’t feel inclined to engage with the art – I didn’t want to look at the books much, though I flicked through a couple.

I guess I really didn’t get what it was about at all. I just thought “books” – which of course I think are great – but it didn’t give me a different perspective; and as libraries go, it wasn’t a place I wanted to linger. So I didn’t.

But it worried me: The House of Books Has No Windows at the Fruitmarket Gallery – another installation composed of books – had really grabbed me: it had made me smile and laugh, and I longed to be able to open the books and read them. Why was this different?

So being just around the corner, I went back to the Fruitmarket to have another look at the Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller installations.

And I still think they are wonderful.

They were selling postcards of The House of Books Has No Windows, and since I can’t find images of it anywhere on the internet, I scanned the postcard.

© Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller. Photo by Alan Dimmick

I found the The House of Books Has No Windows more captivating than before. I went inside; I was filled with wonder. I wanted to touch the books. And it made me smile. There was a note by Janet Miller that I hadn’t read before:

I love libraries because of the layers of time and meaning they contain. I like how you can escape into other worlds in a library, how when you open a book, you’re somewhere else

I love that – it really resonates with me.

The other installations were worth revisiting, too. The Dark Pool seemed more quirky and interesting: I was in the room by myself, and I realised the extent to which the soundwork depends on the listener – standing in different places triggers different sounds; it became a game to interact with different sounds.

I saw Opera for a Small Room in a different part of its twenty minute cycle, and it was genuinely spooky.

Unfortunately, the last piece – which wasn’t working last time – wasn’t working again. Or perhaps that is fortunate: I shall have to go back again…

Small World

There was something about my Monday in London that I forget to mention; I suppose it was the start of what in some respects was a strange, busy day.

I was sitting in Pret a Manger around the corner from my hotel, eating a croissant and sipping a strong cappuccino whilst reading the paper, when a loud voice said, “Hello, what are you doing here?”

It was one of my cousins. I last saw about six years ago in Wiltshire.

I knew I would be seeing her later that evening, but I hadn’t expected to share breakfast with her.

Sometimes London seems a very small place.

Small World

There was something about my Monday in London that I forget to mention; I suppose it was the start of what in some respects was a strange, busy day.

I was sitting in Pret a Manger around the corner from my hotel, eating a croissant and sipping a strong cappuccino whilst reading the paper, when a loud voice said, “Hello, what are you doing here?”

It was one of my cousins. I last saw about six years ago in Wiltshire.

I knew I would be seeing her later that evening, but I hadn’t expected to share breakfast with her.

Sometimes London seems a very small place.

Tuesday in London...

I woke up with a hangover, the result of too much port and sleeping in a strange bed.

After breakfast of more strong coffee, I went back to Piccadilly to see the Hammershøi exhibition at the Royal Academy, The Poetry of Silence. It was a curious exhibition: all about the light (which I liked) and alienation (which I didn’t). Some of the images were exquisite: a beautiful balance of light and shadow – very washed-out with a limited colour palette.

In most of the paintings, the subject – the person in the picture – was turned away from the viewer. This gave a deep impression of absence – a real emptiness within the pictures - and made them reminiscent in feeling to Edward Hopper’s paintings.

I then spent an irritating forty five minutes in Starbucks, trying to get at my email; I succeeded in the end, but it was a struggle.

I walked down Piccadilly to Hyde Park, past Number 1, London, where I was prompted by coughingbear’s recent photograph to try my own…

I was heading for the Serpentine Gallery. I was last there at Christmas, when we went to a very beautiful exhibition by Anthony McCall; it being Christmas, I didn’t get around to writing about it then, which is a pity, because it was just brilliant: it was as if McCall was building sculptures out of light. And you could walk through them.

This time around, I wanted to see the Frank Gehry summer pavilion. I am not aware of seeing any of Gehry’s buildings before, and I was expecting something full of curves, like the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. What I saw was quite different. Still full of organic structure – it is largely built of wood – it has instead a wealth of straight lines and glass, creating angles and shadows. I stayed a while, wandering around it. There was a lot of beauty in the details.

( Read more... )

Tuesday in London...

I woke up with a hangover, the result of too much port and sleeping in a strange bed.

After breakfast of more strong coffee, I went back to Piccadilly to see the Hammershøi exhibition at the Royal Academy, The Poetry of Silence. It was a curious exhibition: all about the light (which I liked) and alienation (which I didn’t). Some of the images were exquisite: a beautiful balance of light and shadow – very washed-out with a limited colour palette.

In most of the paintings, the subject – the person in the picture – was turned away from the viewer. This gave a deep impression of absence – a real emptiness within the pictures - and made them reminiscent in feeling to Edward Hopper’s paintings.

I then spent an irritating forty five minutes in Starbucks, trying to get at my email; I succeeded in the end, but it was a struggle.

I walked down Piccadilly to Hyde Park, past Number 1, London, where I was prompted by coughingbear’s recent photograph to try my own…

I was heading for the Serpentine Gallery. I was last there at Christmas, when we went to a very beautiful exhibition by Anthony McCall; it being Christmas, I didn’t get around to writing about it then, which is a pity, because it was just brilliant: it was as if McCall was building sculptures out of light. And you could walk through them.

This time around, I wanted to see the Frank Gehry summer pavilion. I am not aware of seeing any of Gehry’s buildings before, and I was expecting something full of curves, like the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. What I saw was quite different. Still full of organic structure – it is largely built of wood – it has instead a wealth of straight lines and glass, creating angles and shadows. I stayed a while, wandering around it. There was a lot of beauty in the details.

( Read more... )

4OD ODed

I now remember that when it first came out, Channel 4's online service, 4OD, was crap. Then, I downloaded the programme, hated the way it required me to sign up to all sorts of stuff with Microsoft, wouldn't let me run it the way I wanted, and was so generally crap that I removed it from my system.

Prompted by fiendish_cat's rave review of the Channel 4's "A1 The Road Musical", I thought I'd watch it now.

Stupid f*cking 4OD service crashes as it is downloading umpteen bits of gunk from the Microsoft .NET service.

There is no way I want all that on my machine.

So I am off to YouTube, where I bet someone has deposited a copy...

Edit: well I got that wrong...

4OD ODed

I now remember that when it first came out, Channel 4's online service, 4OD, was crap. Then, I downloaded the programme, hated the way it required me to sign up to all sorts of stuff with Microsoft, wouldn't let me run it the way I wanted, and was so generally crap that I removed it from my system.

Prompted by fiendish_cat's rave review of the Channel 4's "A1 The Road Musical", I thought I'd watch it now.

Stupid f*cking 4OD service crashes as it is downloading umpteen bits of gunk from the Microsoft .NET service.

There is no way I want all that on my machine.

So I am off to YouTube, where I bet someone has deposited a copy...

Edit: well I got that wrong...