Oh, London

All of us have been lingering around the city praying for the return of the ridiculous hot-flash that was last weekend. I further suppose that we were rather disappointed by the pissing down rain, the chilliness and the weak rays of sunshine that rarely bobbed out from below the clouds, like my head from under the blanket on a Sunday morning following a decent weekend. London weather seems more like a dirty tease at the moment, some heavy petting and then a total let down. But fear not. I have found a way to make all of us get over our momentary disappointment and fall right back in love with this gorgeous city, and forget all about it not putting out for once. 

The Museum of London houses the Galleries of Modern London from May 28th until 31st of August with free entry. Absolutely awesome. Starting somewhere in the mid-17th century all bits and bobs bring us up to the present day city we all know and love. If features all sorts of cool interactive technology, for example you can tap on the water-fountain complete with sensors to learn what kind of crap is floating about the sewers. Totally gross, but also great fun. If you live relatively central, you can find your neighbourhood down to the house on an 18th century colour-coded map of wealth and crime distribution. Apparently the part of Camden where I live, which is definitely is not the nicest at this point in history, featured as upper middle class with low levels of crime, while my friend living in Marylbone was semi-middle class. Urbanization bites. For my lovely hood anyway. 

It is a very interactive and personal space. There is fashion, industry, royalty and diversity. One of my favourite parts was an interview montage of what I presumed was to represent the changing attitudes and atmosphere of London. The few sentences from each participant were moving, funny, thoughtful and insightful. The one that had me snickering was one not poignantly relevant to London, but had a more universal appeal. A boy in his late teens-early 20s, from the mid-60s, was having the following (approximate) conversation with the invisible interviewer:

'Do you think girls have to be virgins?'

'Well yea, yea I think so.'

'Why?'

'Well, because then you don't know where they've been.'

'Do you think guys have to be virgins?'

Pause. Sensing a trap maybe?

'Erm, no man, no.'

'Why not?'

'Well that's different, innit, I mean you see it's different. Don't you think? ... It's different, innit?'

Glasnost and the odd Mondays

I know that traditionally we are required to whole-hearedly despise Mondays, but I have to admit this particularly delightful Monday, I would pick from a whole bundle of other weekdays (not weekends, let's not get carried away). Lovely lunch was had in Yo Sushi, where they have introduced a little thing called Blue Mondays. This means that all plates on the belt are colour blue, meaning that you can have your heart's desire that costs so much more usually, for only £2.20 a pop!

Haunch of Venison is currently housing Glasnost until the 26th of June (free entry!), a collection by Soviet non-conformist artists from the 1980s. Inspiring, thoughful and often comical (jokes being a favourite tool of dissent) the exibition spanned two floors and more than a decade of subversive and later nationally and internationally accepted and celebrated art. For me, as a Hungarian, it was particularly fascinating to see the criticism aimed at the system whose last death-throes I lived to witness firsthand, even though, at the time, I was not aware of what was actually really happening, having only the vague impressions of childhood. The Haunch of Venison is also housing exhibitions by Rina Banerjee, Forever Foreign and Spun by Thomas Hetherwick, both until the 15th of May.

To defy the despicable May weather, we had coffee in the Royal Academy of Arts, and we stumbled upon a lovely one-room show of photographs of old and new London. A heart-warmer to all admirers of this great city, hidden and not-so-hidden spots are shown on shots taken in the 1870s and 1880s standing as charming and beautifully dreamy reminders of what should be preserved and cherished about this glorious metropolis.

All in all, I have successfully avoided Monday-gloom and the oh-crap-it's-an-other-week blues. A great receipt for everyone!  

Must do tomorrow

Unfortunately, my habit of leaving everything to the last minute is clearly noticeable on this blog. Just as with Crash, where I arrived breathless on the very last day of exhibition, I got to the British Museum, the day before the last of the Revolution on Paper. Apologies, but it is a must see exhibition, so drop everything on your all-too-hated Monday, and take a walk through the wonderfully funny and socio-politically insightful prints from the early 20th century Mexico. 

Ok, there is a slight possibility that I might be a bit bias about this exhibit. Having lived in Mexico for three months, it is only natural that I may feel a deeper connection with the contents of the prints. I highly doubt, for example, that anybody would feel the sort of piss-myself excitement of looking at a nude sketch of Dolores Olmedo by Diego Rivera, had you not wondered her beautiful gardens with peacocks, house-galleries filled with a unique and magnificent collection of works by Frida Kahlo and Rivera and played with the almost-extinct Xolo dogs (that are bald!) in the shade of the maguey cactuses. Or looking at fragement sketches of Orozco's murals, and feeling the pangs of acutely tear-jerking nostalgia, recalling standing in front of and admiring the full mural of Omniscence, stretching two stories, at the Casa de los Azulejos in the heart of Mexico DF. 

But even if you don't possess this over the top sentimental attachment to the country, it is nevertheless worth inspecting a nation's struggle for independence from the point of view of shrewd visual commentary. It is also the most extensive such exhibition ever put on in the UK, and you can discover such 20th century art-celebrities as 'Emiliano Zapata and his horse' by Diego Rivera, or observe the ever-present relevance of criticism of capitalist media control, or the Churches fight against secularism and its bullying of indigenous cultures into mix-and-matching local and Catholic religion.

Emiliano Zapata and his horse, Diego Rivera, 1932, lithograph © 2009, Banco de Mexico Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico D.F. / DACSFair enough, you don't really have to 'discover' this one, it is the first thing you see as you walk into Room 90. It's good it doesn't poke your eyes out.

 

José Chávez Morado (1909 - 2002)

The Laughter of the Public - away with your nonsense

1939, Lithograph

A gachupín commonly refers to an immigrant especially a Spaniard in Mexico. The gachupín here is tooting the horn of 'Free Press', which, according to the little limerick on the side is 'Is neither free and is neither press', it is essentially a mouthpiece for pro-fascist propaganda. 

José Chávez Morado (1909 - 2002)

Symbiosis, c1940, Lithograph

A beautifully simple representation of a painfully complicated and sensitive subject. The Christianization of the indigenous population in Mexico was a forceful and sometimes violent process. It is very interesting to see how not only Christian churches were built upon the ruins of destroyed sanctuaries of the natives, but how Christian traditions and the cult of the saints were built on local ceremonies and superstitions. 

Leopoldo Méndez (1902 -1969)

Poltical piñata, 1936, Woodcut

The piñata represents President Plutarco Elias Calles and his Constituional Revolutionary Party, which is represented as a disguise for Capitalism. The worker using the baton marked 'Feliz Año 1936' is cheered on by a group of spectators, showing that the print could have possibly been designed as a holiday card, hoping for the defeat of Calles and Capitalism in the coming year. 

José Guadalupe Posada (1852-1913)

A Skeleton from Guadalajara, 1910

Photo-relief and letterpress

'The word Tapatia in the title is used colloquially in Mexico to describe people from the city of Guadalajara, which is regarded as the city that most fully embodies Mexican identity. The verses, written in the first person, recount the way in which the skeleton has defeated people from other states in fights. The scene is set in a Mexican cantina, a bar traditionally reserved for men, and a likely home for such a macho figure, even if a female skeleton is peering over his shoulder.' (quote: the little tablet next to the print)

Of course I couldn't resist the temptation of purchasing the book (it was half off!!) which contains all the prints and others not included in the exhibit, and extensive history of the era and background on its artists! A treasure for all lovers of Mexico! 

So go ahead and don't do what you are suppose to tomorrow, and enjoy the savvy puns made at the expense of political climate, capitalism, religion and everyday Mexican life, which are not without actuality for today's casual museum-goer and occasional thinker. 

A new-born Londoner and car-porn

Having lived in London on and off for over three years, I have come to realize that I take many things for granted and some essential actions of my day-to-day life have become instinctive rather than conscious decisions. Examples could include the way you hold on the stairs of the double-decker in order to avoid diving headfirst downstairs when the crazy driver is abusing the brakes, or that you refer to things half-hour commuting away as 'in the neighbourhood' and you have long stopped being (or you never really were) amazed by the efficiency and ease of the Oyster card system. So when M arrived on Monday I knew I am in for one of the biggest challenges of becoming a 'Londoner', that is guiding a new-comer in the maze and chaos of this metropolis. 

'I can see the modern dick building. I am outside where are you?' Liverpool Street station was possibly the most harrowing first impression that my incredibly calm and chilled out man could have gotten. 'Why is everybody running?' and why is everybody dressed for a funeral? - could also have been an appropriate question in the heart of the City. Having a newbie around is like watching Bambi learn how to walk. The neighbourhood still consists of the area within walking distance, but it is growing corner by corner, day after day. Maybe next week I can trust him to get on a bus and find his way back? Oh, the worries. 

On an other note, I went on another book-binge, and got the following treasures:

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami , because I just loved loved Kafka on the Shore, and now my friend has lent me What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, his memoir. Ay, I can't wait for the Murakami overdose! But it will have to wait, because I also have the following works jumping up and down and yelling on my shelves 'read me! read me!': The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek, The Essential Tales of Chekhov edited by Richard Ford and my current reading material Crash by JG Ballard. 

Being as awesome and horrendous as it is, I had the luck of not only visualizing the disturbingly pornographic images of scrap metal in my head, but see it interpreted by numerous artists at the Gagosian Gallery. The homage to JGB revolved mainly around the many folded visualization of the components of the equation

 

LORIS GRÉAUD

The Future, 2009

Oil on canvas

57 x 41 inches framed (145 x 104 cm)

Oddly enough I did find some of the installations, that at first glance had nothing to do with sex, erotically charged. One of the rooms consisted of 3-4 meter screens showing various massive mechanical constructions operating, and as the metallic sounds filled the space, they slowly and somewhat gracefully made you feel tiny, helpless and fragile. And a little horny. I know this sounds weird and I still don't know if I felt this way, because of my preconceived idea that I should feel this way; because let's face it I was at an exhibition about a man's work whose characters get off on car crashes. Or there is truly something sexually arousing about technology, our helplessness without it and the dangers within it.

DAN HOLDSWORTH
Untitled (Autopia), 1998
Chromogenic print
Diptych: 41 7/8 x 52 3/16 inches each (106.5 x 132.6 cm)
Ed. of 5

Pop-art and doll hair

It's Friday afternoon, and I already laboured 5 hours in SSEES , and more importantly I already had a beer, so beyond re-registering, I only have mental capacity to exploit the free wi-fi here in the British Library. It is a lovely space; the quiet and presumably highly intellectual whispering of the cafe crowd is rather soothing and I can practically feel my MA thesis writing itself from the ridiculous amount of knowledge detectably lingering in the air. 

On this note, I will dedicate this post to all the (two) cultural outings I've had this past few days. On the beautiful Sunday afternoon I dragged my wretched, hungover body to Marble Arch, which was in itself a huge effort, but I concluded that it would be a waste to turn back now. I admired my new favourite public statue (left) and then I listened to a few people sharing their ideas at the Speakers' Corner. It was actually quite dull, as religion exclusively took over, here a rabbi, there's a priest, there's a tree hugger ... well you get the picture. Nevertheless, I do believe that I was just there at the wrong time, surely there must be also other things occupying people's minds. I strolled to the Serpentine Gallery to check out Richard Hamilton's exhibition (free!) which is the first since 1992 and it is on until April 25th. His representation and commenting on contemporary events, such as riots, terrorism and international conflicts seemed spot on and his strong criticism of the media representation was a fresh air for my starved conscious in this mass-informed society. However, I was never good at understanding the workings and methods of pop-art, and his, conceptually speaking, black and white representation of certain delicate problems (such as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict) were too crude for my taste. He definitely made me think, but once that happened, he left me longing for some shading. 

Alice Anderson's Time Reversal (until April 24th) at the Riflemaker was a whole other matter. Having thought I may have issues with my mother from time to time, I figured it could be interesting to see how an other woman, especially an artist goes on to resolve or understand such relations. Well, let me say, if I have issues I don't know what this woman has. The several meter long doll hair hanging from the first floor to the entrance door was only the beginning. For a quid you get to go down to the beyond-creepy basement, where the 12-minute short film 'The Night I Became a Doll' recounts the story of a little girl, who, to obey her mother's wishes of not speaking, not eating, not blinking, gradually transforms herself into this eerie porcelain doll. Positively chilling, however highly recommended. 

Hopefully I will finally have internet at home from Monday, so you can look forward to more regular cultural banter from this page. 

Sunshine!!!

London is going totally crazy. It is sunny, and warm, and dry, and generally just not very London-like. It is truly hard to get any work done, all I want to do is wonder around, preferably in a park and offer my face up to the warm strokes of the sun, sit around and recharge my solar-power operated batteries. I think it is due to the, on average, way too many rainy, cloudy or foggy days in this city, that you can tell without much difficulty, who are the ones who really live here. No true Londoner will ever put on sunglasses. You will look around on a day like this and you can instantly pick out the squinting, happy locals, with that goofy smile on their faces. The only people that will actually put on shades are tourists and fashion-victims. And me, when I am insanely hungover. 

Which was the case on Sunday, so after a healthy, long walk in Hyde park, my dehydrated brain couldn't take it anymore and I had to escape into the Victoria & Albert, to soothe my pounding head with some coolness and darkness. I checked out the Digital Design exhibition, which is running until the 11th of April in Porter House. It was pretty damn cool, although the lot of flashing and beeping didn't exactly help my hangover. I had difficulty of understanding some of the technological lingo posted as explanations, but I sure had a hell of a time playing around with all the interactive stuff. I always love seeing adults shedding their adulty-pretentiousness and becoming children again, which was added benefit of the exhibit as grown-ups laughed, jumped around and played with the pieces. My personal favourites were the dandy-lion whose seeds were blown away and flew according to the direction of your movements, as you were holding a working hairdryer. 

And then there were the little spermatozoids and eggs digitalized on a screen, under sand that you could move. The little baby-makers sensed where there was no sand and they started multiplying there. Unfortunately, not a lot of people made the effort to actually read what the point was, they just liked touching the sand, so there was a lot of smiley face drawing going on, which didn't really allow the little things enough sand-less space to go play. Oh and the montage of hundreds people (couples of 50% woman-woman, 30% woman-man and 20% man-man if I remember correctly) almost kissing. As you walked past, a sensor picked up on your movements, and the couples started going at it. Some, rather heavily.

But I could go on and on. The point is, go and see it, it is a great feeling, playing like a child inside, and then stepping outside and continuing on like that in the blazing London sunshine.

Sunday, Monday, happy days...

So I fell off a curb today, because this is how I spend my in-between library time. And I realized that before my own clumsiness or a London cabbie kills me, I think I should update my blog. Oh, the priorities. I spent a day and a half recovering after a weekend long high school reunion, which left me broken in body, but quite uplifted in soul. 

Naturally, the first, Friday, night was a bit awkward, trying to sum your life up in the past 7 years, to people you are not even sure care, can be dull. Of course this was only until the boy arrived who makes everybody drink. Heavily. After that conversation became more or less meaningless, but a whole lot more entertaining. S, my true best friend from those days, and I caught several night buses until we made it from Brick Lane to Notting Hill, but time flew by as we drunkenly stumbled around London. 

Saturday, we spent the whole, beautifully sunny day, trying to get from NH to Barbican to check out Céleste Boursier-Mougenot's new installation, The Curve. A musical composition with zebra finches flying around, decking out and feeding themselves sick on top of electric guitars connected to amps and creating some truly weird sounds of Mother Nature's rock'n'roll. Dinner was pleasant, but the banging club music at Tiger Tiger a little later didn't really help the long over due catch up, but the vodka sure flew abundantly. So much, in fact, that true to form I tripped on some stairs and ended up breaking off my boot heel completely. Thank god, S found it, but as there wasn't anyway of reattaching it I elegantly limped around for the rest of the night. I'm not sure I fell because the heel came off or I just TUI (Tripped Under the Influence haha) and consequently the boot fell apart. It is a very egg or chicken conundrum. Not surprisingly, I didn't remember this significant moment until the next day, when looking for something else, I found the missing part of the footgear in my bag.

Sunday turned out to be much more debaucherous than planned. Instead of a quiet stroll through Camden market, we managed to get tangled up in several bottles of wine with two other old mates and ended up having a rockingly great catch up time, which really felt like how a reunion should feel like.  

Monday brought a hangover to die from after my head has rolled away to an undefined location. S, left in the morning, I'm not sure how; I was still dying. Was dying through most of Tuesday too, although that may have been only a case of severe laziness, and Wednesday I finally got my ass to the library. So now that I most carefully, and less so entertainingly walked you through my week, here I will stop, and promise not to write anymore, because, well I will be in the library. And I try not to use 'boring' as a deadly weapon. Cheerio. 

Banksy, Lights, Hip, Camera. Action?

I remember the Leake Street tunnel, near Waterloo, when it was a convenient shortcut to get from the side of the Thames to the Cubana on the other, but it was just as dodgy. The old taxi station, abandoned when the Eurostar moved from Waterloo, smelled like piss, and the presence of the many homeless was all the more accentuated by the trap-like feeling of the tunnel. For a moment both them and I were stuck half-way towards the light. Then I emerged, had a drink and tried to shake off the feeling with some heart-lifting Latin music.

Now the tunnel is one of my favourite spaces in London. There is still a faint whiff of piss lingering but the cigarette and spray-paint smell almost over-powers it, and rather than speeding off towards the comforting other end, I loiter from side to side wishing it would never end. And it doesn't. The changes occur in front of the eyes, new sketches emerge, covering old ones, day after day; depicting, criticizing our world in a cruel and direct way, that seems to be largely absent from any form of media that is poured down our neck minute after minute. Pictures say a thousand words, because the words are ours. We are not told what to think, our mind is shocked by an impression that can trigger thousands of individual interpretations. One of the few things praised by the works is the individual. The thoughts we can think, the love that we make, the changes we can create. But the fear is detectable. You are capable, but what you do with your gift remains a question.

Graffiti is a form of expression (artistic or not, let's not get into it here) that is, through its originally clandestine nature, temporary. Then came Banksy. You think of rats making political statements, you think of kids with balloons flying over the Western Wall, you think of some chick sitting on the Queens face. Banksy made it huge with his talent, and the somewhat elegant style of cruel criticism of basically everything, and because nobody new his face. If he is really Gunningham or not is quite irrelevant. He turned the art of graffiti from illegal destruction into constructive hip. 

Banksy makes a load of money. (Or at least I would think so, he published a number of books, and his works are being sold for crazy amounts.) Good on him; his art can be dispersed to an even wider audience, making hopefully more people think. His works haven't seem to lost the piercingly cynical attitude, just look at his recent 'pet shop' in New York, where chicken nuggets eat ketchup, the monkey watches monkey-porn and Tweety still dangles in the cage, some 20 years on. The twisted relationship of man and his animals. Some we dress up, some we eat. 

The Cans Festival kicked off sometime in the beginning of May last year. It lasted for three days at the Leake Street tunnel, with large installations and the possibility for the spectators to participate with stencil works of their own. It was a day or two before my Italian orals, but I just couldn't miss it, so I queued for a couple of hours with my quickly purchased Il Resto del Carlino. When I got in finally, in my momentary crowd-spirit I regretted not bringing a camera. Everybody seemed to be taking pictures around me. After a while, it just got very bloody irritating. I couldn't spend time reading, looking, admiring something, because there was always one sucker who, glaring at his digital screen, was flashing around like a maniac. I kept ducking, until I had enough. I emerged on the other side, had a drink and tried to shake off the feeling with some heart-lifting Latin music. 

Apparently it was 'hip' to be at the 'Bansky-exhibition'. There was of course a number (countless actually, including the participant turned spectators) other artists involved. But Banksy is famous, he is controversial, we don't know who he is, but I was there, therefore I am cool by association. It is besides the point, that I can't remember anything I saw without looking at my camera. 

I need to emphasize, as an enthusiastic amateur photographer myself, that there is nothing wrong with taking a photo, as long as it is a personal interpretation of the world as you see it. When applied in this context, it is the perversion of the concept and intention of graffiti on a number of levels. First and foremost it denies the inherent quality of graffiti as temporal, and therefore destructs its value in leaving an imprint on your mind rather than your camera. The spectator who is asked to be the interpreter remains a spectator, hiding behind a machine, not coming into worthwhile direct visual or emotional contact with the work. 

Feel the atmosphere, reflect. Let the work speak to you. Let yourself appreciate what you see, and how it is making you feel. Take a picture if you want. But enjoy it first. It maybe temporal, but it won't disappear in the next 5 minutes. Graffiti is hip, fashionable these days. But it can speak to you through the same clandestine channels about the different ways to see the world as it did decades ago. Just listen.