I have forgiven Morrissey

Out to the National Gallery to meet Dave#1, Heike and Tanya and later, DanF AliceandSteve, Gareth and DJJohn to see the Tom Hunter exhibition. He takes staged photographs of people in Hackney, some based on news headlines, but all influenced by classical paintings. The curator has done rather clever positioning of one photo: if you stand in front of a picture of a woman in a strip joint looking at herself naked in a mirror, you can look a little to the left and see its influence in one of the main galleries. My favourite is one based on the A Bar at the Folies-Bergère – moved to Mare St. Some of the others are just too graphic for me - I don’t want to see a re-constructed gang-rape blown up to A0 size. One could argue that the original paintings were inspired by violence, but these were fictional events, Biblical or Greek myths, not stuff that has actually happened a mile or so from where I live.

Then to the Photographers Gallery for lunch to have a gander at the Deutsche bank competition. Yto Barrada’s entry is at a disadvantage as his works are in the café and we’re too busy snacking on cake and sandwiches to take much notice. Robert Adams does small boring black and white photos. There’re millions of colours in the world – monochrome landscapes do not work. Good then that Alec Soth has used lots of trashy colour for his pics of the mid-West. The best is a beautiful mountain fronted by a decrepit looking petrol station. But it’s Phil Collins we’ve really come to see. Not the bald drummer, but the karaoke king of Istanbul. We sit in a darkened room watching a video of 17 young Turkish people covering all of the songs (except Money Changes Everything) from The World Won’t Listen in front of gaudy backdrops. We have the usual range of narcissists, freaks, oddballs and weirdos. The bare-chested young man singing Ask is very far from the shy narrator of the song. Two teenagers warble their way through There is a light, enjoying themselves tremendously. Two very odd fellows do, aptly, Unloveable, the second guy doing rap-type asides (“Yes, I know I am strange” “You are mine. I am yours”). A very tender boy with tearful blue eyes heartbreaks his way through Asleep. A strange skinny thing dances to Oscillate Wildly. A rock chick with a half decent voice covers Half a Person. For some, they’re just having a laugh, for others, it looks like the dream of a lifetime has come true. The camera lingers on each singer for just a few seconds too long and we see their reactions after the song has finished: some embarrassed, some amused, some emotionally drained. The last song is Rubber Ring, sung by a 30-ish woman in glittery eyeshadow, slightly out of tune but with an amazing intensity and at the end, she looks like she’s about to cry.

So then au pub where many drinks are consumed in convivial surroundings before a traditional post-pub prandial visit to the Stockpot, the only place in London where one can dine in 1958. Leaving, we spot the 19 crawling around the corner, so we run over Piccadilly Circus, me shrieking as cars try to mow me over and I remember doing the same about 18 years ago when we were late getting to Hyde Park to catch the day-out coach back to Doncaster.

 

I have forgiven Morrissey

Out to the National Gallery to meet Dave#1, Heike and Tanya and later, DanF AliceandSteve, Gareth and DJJohn to see the Tom Hunter exhibition. He takes staged photographs of people in Hackney, some based on news headlines, but all influenced by classical paintings. The curator has done rather clever positioning of one photo: if you stand in front of a picture of a woman in a strip joint looking at herself naked in a mirror, you can look a little to the left and see its influence in one of the main galleries. My favourite is one based on the A Bar at the Folies-Bergère – moved to Mare St. Some of the others are just too graphic for me - I don’t want to see a re-constructed gang-rape blown up to A0 size. One could argue that the original paintings were inspired by violence, but these were fictional events, Biblical or Greek myths, not stuff that has actually happened a mile or so from where I live.

Then to the Photographers Gallery for lunch to have a gander at the Deutsche bank competition. Yto Barrada’s entry is at a disadvantage as his works are in the café and we’re too busy snacking on cake and sandwiches to take much notice. Robert Adams does small boring black and white photos. There’re millions of colours in the world – monochrome landscapes do not work. Good then that Alec Soth has used lots of trashy colour for his pics of the mid-West. The best is a beautiful mountain fronted by a decrepit looking petrol station. But it’s Phil Collins we’ve really come to see. Not the bald drummer, but the karaoke king of Istanbul. We sit in a darkened room watching a video of 17 young Turkish people covering all of the songs (except Money Changes Everything) from The World Won’t Listen in front of gaudy backdrops. We have the usual range of narcissists, freaks, oddballs and weirdos. The bare-chested young man singing Ask is very far from the shy narrator of the song. Two teenagers warble their way through There is a light, enjoying themselves tremendously. Two very odd fellows do, aptly, Unloveable, the second guy doing rap-type asides (“Yes, I know I am strange” “You are mine. I am yours”). A very tender boy with tearful blue eyes heartbreaks his way through Asleep. A strange skinny thing dances to Oscillate Wildly. A rock chick with a half decent voice covers Half a Person. For some, they’re just having a laugh, for others, it looks like the dream of a lifetime has come true. The camera lingers on each singer for just a few seconds too long and we see their reactions after the song has finished: some embarrassed, some amused, some emotionally drained. The last song is Rubber Ring, sung by a 30-ish woman in glittery eyeshadow, slightly out of tune but with an amazing intensity and at the end, she looks like she’s about to cry.

So then au pub where many drinks are consumed in convivial surroundings before a traditional post-pub prandial visit to the Stockpot, the only place in London where one can dine in 1958. Leaving, we spot the 19 crawling around the corner, so we run over Piccadilly Circus, me shrieking as cars try to mow me over and I remember doing the same about 18 years ago when we were late getting to Hyde Park to catch the day-out coach back to Doncaster.