Sex and drugs and earthenware; Grayson Perry at the Turner Contemporary.



 



We had a good long look at The Turner Contemporary Art Gallery at Margate and it's not bad.

 

This is Carlos Amorales' 'We will see how everything reverberates'.

 



It's a series of cymbals (mainly Zildjian if you need to know) of different sizes.

"You are invited to play the cymbals using one of the mallets provided".

Except the gallery was a bit miserable about this - you were only allowed to do this at certain timed slots.

Grrrrrrh!

So, when we first came in, me and a guy with a 'Jamaica' T-Shirt's son and me - we had a go anyway.

It sounded good.

At 2-30pm we came back for a timed slot and found there were only two mallets.

Doh!

And they didn't go very far.

So as my walking stick had a rubber tip......I couldn't hold myself back any more.

I even had the ability to hit the high ones.

I even got requests and yes it sounded really good.

This was the main attraction;

It was a full retrospective (with new work) by controversial artist Grayson Perry.

Except I don't think there's anything controversial about him.

He is a transvestite and as most of his work revolves around him and his life it's very much a part of any exhibition he does.

Hey, it's old news.

In passing I would just say that Robyn thinks he would look better as a man while I'm not so sure.

He's not afraid of being really trivial and he's certainly not afraid of dealing with the most serious possible issues.

Politics, sex, whatever.

Sadly, they didn't have any of the astounding series of pots he did about the consequences of being a victim of a paedophile attack.

But there were a lot of his pots;

Back in the 1980's when the 'Young British Artists' were showing that you could make conceptual art out of any old rubbish, Grayson was toiling away in Fine Art;

His pots are very fine art indeed - full of incredible detail and wit.

One of the highlights was watching a video in time lapse of all the immense amount of work that goes into these pots.

He is painstaking to the point of being irritating about it.

But they aren't 'pretty' pots; they deal with class and race and sex and well......everything.

It was at this stage that the gallery 'stopped' me taking photographs, which was a pain.

I could understand if it was a conservation issue but it isn't.

I'd understand if it was all about copyright - but they had a display of all the press reviews they have had and all the images the press have published which are all on the net.

So I had to lift 'The Map of Days' from one of those reviews;

It's a part of the most intricate series of imaginary maps and images, all drawn in the style of a medieval map maker except that the map is of a journey through the emotions - through a life.

Here's an extract which is very similar to 'The Map of Days' but I think it's from another work;

Of course 'No Photos' means I can't show you the bits I really liked but this bit made both of us laugh.

There was a final room - giant tapestries dealing with class differences and tastes;

These images were stolen while the attendants were otherwise occupied.

This one is just for me;

 

 

Sorry about stealing the images Grayson... I guess I'm just a 'Provincial Punk'....just like you.

 

It's astounding work - up there with David Hockney, Francis Bacon - the very best of British art.

 

Check out the Turner for the exhibition because it goes on tour in the next month or so.

 

Hey - I bought a badge and a postcard, it was that good.

 

Neil Harris

(a don't stop till you drop production)

 

Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com

Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

 

 





Margate; the coastal town they forgot to close down.

We had another day out!

I'm not sure why but we went to Margate - almost on the very tip of south east England. I think it was mainly because neither Robyn nor me had ever been there before and we both like new places.

I'm still not sure how I feel about Margate. There are different ways of looking at it;

There's the 'Old Town' with some 'heritage buildings' around the square;

There are some old cannons;

There are loads of antique shops and a few quite nice vintage clothes shops. I was very tempted to buy a pair of old second hand Levis except trying them on was just going to hurt too much.

Too tired, too much pain

I liked the old Oyster warehouse;

And I liked this shop display - they are reproductions of the first fishing floats - when they were made of glass rather than plastic - always makes me think of the seaside;

But that's not really what Margate is about. It was once the resort of choice for hard up East Enders, coming down to the sea on cut price rail fares for a knees-up. Its best days were in the 1930's and not too much money has been spent on it since.

For example; this is the old closed down 'Primark';

It's hard to imagine that Primark, which sells very cheap clothing made by workers in the developing world who are paid starvation wages.....could go bust anywhere.

It moved to Broadstairs.

Robyn called it 'The Town that killed Primark'.

It's also the home of 'Dreamland' which was once a very famous Amusement Park - it still has an early wooden Roller Coaster.

The famous (and listed) entrance is genuine Art Deco and is urgently in need of repair and love. With some work, it could be beautiful again;

It's unfortunate that so much of the seafront is taken up with slot machines lurking to exploit people....and by the way, calling your business 'The Flamingo' doesn't make it Vegas.

I've never seen so much broken glass on a beach and although I love 'seaglass' this is not a beach where the glass gets worn down.

It's positively dangerous for kids.

There was also a lot of foam that I associate with the presence of sewage in the water.

In many ways it's still the "The coastal town they forgot to close down" in Morrissey's song 'Every day is like Sunday';
                       
                       Trudging slowly over wet sand
                Back to the bench where your clothes were stolen
                This is the coastal town
                That they forgot to close down
                Armageddon - come Armageddon!
                Come, Armageddon! Come!

                Everyday is like Sunday
                Everyday is silent and grey

So when Robyn went paddling she was being rather careful.

There's yet another side to Margate - 'The Turner Contemporary' art gallery. It's intended to draw in better off, high spending arty types.

It certainly looks OK at the edge of the harbour;

I think it works a lot better from inside;

There's a real sense of space and light.

The windows are cleverly used to frame Margate;

As modern galleries go it's got some great spaces for art, there's a place for kids and above all it's free.

I'll review the exhibitions tomorrow.

After Margate we drove back  through Herne Bay; clean, tidy and Tory. We ended up at Whitstable, seaside resort of choice for the wealthy, fashionable Londoner.

Hmmmmm.

The thing is; Margate had a bizarre mix of rather burly tattooed middle aged white men, black, Asian and even a party of Chinese people. When we were eating our sandwiches I saw a family on the far beach in full Moslem outfits.

Absolutely everyone was there and having a lot of fun.

While Robyn was paddling I walked absentmindedly along the tidemark wearing my Doc Marten boots and idly looking for treasure like bits of broken pottery and seaweed.

We were leaving the beach and I came across a family where the kids had discovered that if you half buried your plastic football in the sand you could use it as a springboard and do somersaults, head over heals in the sand.

It was just the most amazing, joyous thing and it made my day;

 

 

How cool is that?

 

 

Margate is poor and in places drab and down at heel.

 

 

But it's interesting.

 

Neil Harris

 

(a don't stop till you drop production)

 

Home:  helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com

Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com