Category Archives: Review

The Velvet Underground & Nico at 50: A New York Extravaganza in Paris

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Filed under Andy Warhol, Art, Audio & Video, Counterculture, Film, Music, New York, Review, Subculture, The Velvet Underground

It is 50 years since The Velvet Underground & Nico album was recorded. A major new exhibition in Paris tells the story of the group which created it and of the New York scene which produced them. Parisians hold the Velvets in particular esteem and, as Allan Campbell notes, the city itself has often been the scene of key moments in the Velvets’ history, not least a legendary appearance at Le Bataclan.

 

Lou Reed, John Cale and Nico at Le Bataclan, Paris, 1972 | Mick Gold / Redferns / Getty Images

 

It’s a cold January evening in Paris. Outside Le Bataclan an estimated 2,000 disconsolate rock fans are milling around in front of the ornate Chinese-style theatre on the Boulevard Voltaire. They are ticket-less and unable to gain access to a concert which would later be considered the venue’s most famous; a title only lost on Friday 13 November 2015, when dreadful events unfolded at an Eagles of Death Metal show.

For the first time since the demise of the original Velvet Underground, co-conspirators Lou Reed and John Cale with ‘chanteuse’ Nico were to perform a one-off acoustic set at Le Bataclan for the benefit of French TV show Pop 2 and one thousand grateful fans.

It was 1972; Nico was already a veteran of three solo albums; Cale had made his debut with Vintage Violence, remixed a Barbra Streisand album and cut an LP with minimalist composer Terry Riley, while Reed – surprisingly – was yet to release a solo album.

In fact, on the night of the Paris concert he should have been at the Portobello Hotel in London for a ‘listening party’ for his debut LP, Lou Reed, with no less than Lillian Roxon, then the leading rock critic in the US.

Despite what Melody Maker described as “a minor ‘speed-freak riot’ in the foyer”, the Bataclan concert was a languid, beguiling affair but not quite as languid as the ensuing live album, which had been mastered at the wrong speed.

France’s on-off love affair with US culture was nothing new; notably, réalisateurs Jean Luc Godard and Jean Pierre Melville had already expressed it on screen. But with the Velvets, the relationship seemed to become more geographically specific.

In return for the Statue of Liberty, New York had belatedly returned the favour by sending its dark emissaries to the City of Light. And the French, who had after all defined noir, seemed especially appreciative.

 

John Cale and Lou Reed at Cafe Bizarre on West 3rd Street, New York City, 1965 © Adam Ritchie

John Cale, Maureen Tucker and Lou Reed at Cafe Bizarre on West 3rd Street, New York City, 1965 © Adam Ritchie

Lou Reed, John Cale & Nico at Le Bataclan, Paris, 1972

In 1990, when the Velvets reunited – spontaneously, it seemed – once again it would be in Paris. This time it was at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, which had mounted an Andy Warhol multi-media show and invited key members of his Factory crowd to attend.

It was expected that Reed and Cale would play something from their Warhol tribute album, Songs for Drella, but they were soon joined onstage by band mates Sterling Morrison and Mo Tucker.

“We kicked into Heroin, which we hadn’t played in twenty-two years”, said Cale, “And it was just the same as always. After I got off stage … I was on the point of tears”.

As the location for this rapprochement suggests, it seems that Parisians have always viewed the Velvet Underground as a work of art and not just because of their association with Warhol.

Now, with the 50th anniversary of the recording of their debut, The Velvet Underground & Nico, the city has again come good for the Velvets with an extensive celebratory show at the Philharmonie de Paris entitled The Velvet Underground: New York Extravaganza.

 

The Making of an Underground Film, a report about Piero Heliczer’s film Venus In Furs, with the Velvet Underground performing Heroin, was broadcast on December 31, 1965 on the CBS Walter Cronkite Show. © Adam Ritchie

 

Curated by Christian Fevret, founder of Les Inrockuptibles music magazine, with art director and producer Carole Mirabello, the exhibition places the Velvets at the centre of New York’s post war avant garde, probably the only environment which could have produced such a group.

Paris, don’t forget what you taught the rest of us: if you keep an open heart it will beat forever. Goodnight.
John Cale

Music and visuals tell the VU story, taking in Reed and Cale’s first meeting in 1964 to their first show with Nico at the annual dinner of the New York Society for Clinical Psychiatry (Hotel Delmonico, New York, 1966), then their appearances at Warhol’s legendary Exploding Plastic Inevitable multimedia show and then on to the group’s eventual disintegration.

Even after all these years, the music and photographs of the Velvets scintillate.

John Cale returned to Paris to open the exhibition, with full band, string quartet and guests including Pete Doherty, Mark Lanegan and Lou Doillon. Cale, in a nod both to the city’s recent pain and its ability to inspire, reportedly concluded the concert with these words:

“Paris, don’t forget what you taught the rest of us: if you keep an open heart it will beat forever. Goodnight.”

The Velvet Underground: New York Extravaganza is at the Philharmonie de Paris until 21 August, 2016.

Nico and Lou Reed at The Castle, Los Angeles, 1966 © Lisa Law

The Exploding Plastic Inevitable: Photograph on back cover of The Velvet Underground & Nico album

Story behind the album cover [recordart blog]

Left to right: John Cale, Gerard Malanga, Nico, Andy Warhol, New York City, circa 1966 | Photo by Herve Gloaguen / Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

John Cale at Hotel Delmonico, New York, 1966 © Adam Ritchie

The Velvet Underground & Nico with Andy Warhol, Hollywood Hills, 1966 © Gerard Malanga / Courtesy Galerie Caroline Smulders, Paris

John Cale and Lou Reed at Cafe Bizarre on West 3rd Street, New York City, 1965 © Adam Ritchie

The Velvet Underground at Cafe Bizarre on West 3rd Street, New York City, 1965 © Adam Ritchie

Lou Reed at The Castle, Los Angeles, 1966 © Lisa Law

Edie Sedgwick and Gerard Malanga on stage with The Velvet Underground at the New York Society for Clinical Psychiatry annual dinner at the Delmonico Hotel, New York, 13 January 1966 | Photo by Adam Ritchie / Redferns

John Cale at The Castle, Los Angeles, 1966 © Lisa Law

Lou Reed at Hotel Delmonico, New York, 1966 © Adam Ritchie

Nico at Hotel Delmonico, New York, 1966 © Adam Ritchie

My Favourite Albums of All Time (Part One)

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Filed under Andy Warhol, Audio & Video, Beatles, Bob Dylan, Counterculture, David Bowie, Music, New York, Review, T.S.Eliot, The Velvet Underground, The Waste Land, William Burroughs

This is a tricky one. I’ve never been that impressed with ‘best of’ lists but I found myself sitting in a hotel room listening to music on my phone and I began thinking about what my favourite (and most influential) albums of all-time were. I say influential because, as some of you know, I am a musician and song-writer who has followed in the footsteps of numerous greats. It’s a hard choice but here’s my favourite 10. I’ve limited myself to two albums by the same artist or else they would probably be all by Bob Dylan ! I also realise, having completed the list, that, with the exception of the first 5, the rest are in no particular order. I’m also aware that there are countless others that could, and probably should, be included. Alright, it’s a stupid idea but here it is!

1. Highway 61 Revisited by Bob Dylan.

Highway+61+Revisited+Bob+Dylan++Highway+61+Revisite

Okay, what can I say about this album apart from the fact that it is probably the most inspired piece of work I have EVER heard (notice the Dylanesque emphasis) and I’m not just talking about music! I have read reports about the session and all participants agree that something very special happened here. It contains, in my opinion, the greatest rock song of all time “Like a Rolling Stone” but this is not really the essence of the album. It stands apart and, indeed, was produced by a different person from the rest of the record. The remainder contains Dylan at his most aggressive and elusive best. The most interesting song, again in my opinion, is Desolation Row, a surreal trawl through 20th Century culture and ideas. “Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot fighting in the captain’s tower, while calypso singers laugh at them and fishermen hold flowers”. This isn’t just poetry and music it is an assault on the senses and intellect! “The Agents” and “The Superhuman Crew” check to see that no one is escaping to Desolation Row. The famous voice that people either love or hate is at it’s expressive best. Like many albums on my list this one is unique. There was nothing like it before and there’s been nothing like it since. Even the titles of the songs were a new departure with weird names like “Queen Jane Approximately”, “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” and “Ballad of a Thin Man” that seemed to have nothing to do with the lyrics of the songs but probably did have. Pop music had found Symbolist poetry and the kids loved it!! (Well, this one did). It stands alone and sounds forever modern and archaic at the same time. Dylan himself has said that he had no idea how he wrote the songs and wouldn’t be able to do them now. The musicianship is impeccable especially the electric guitar playing of Mike Bloomfield and the acoustic lead of Charlie McCoy imported especially from Nashville for just one track!

2. The Songs of Leonard Cohen220px-SongsOfLeonardCohen

If Bob Dylan in the mid sixties was on an amphetamine fueled creative voyage into oblivion Leonard Cohen was on a quietly mannered journey back from it. This album emerged in 1968 and gradually became a bedsit legend as many sad young men and women took the songs to heart. Okay, it has been called music to slit your wrists to and Cohen’s voice has probably been even less complimented than Dylan’s but to those in the know this is an album of beautifully crafted songs whose underlying message is surprisingly optimistic completely unlike the eternal whinging of say Morrissey and the Smiths who actually DID create music to slit your wrists to. Cohen’s songs deal with ideas that had seldom been dealt with by popular music before. Despair, spirituality, sexual love and he wrote like a real poet which of course is what he was. He was also a well known novelist before he became a singer and a songwriter. A very different pedigree to most of the pop singers and rock and rollers at the time. He was a remarkable performer though and managed to follow Jimi Hendrix at 4 in the morning at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival and still get a standing ovation. Producer Bob Johnson was so impressed with him that he gave up producing and joined his band as a keyboardist. This was his first album and contains classics like “Suzanne” and “Hey That’s No Way to Say Goodbye”. My favourite is “The Stranger Song” that manages to evoke feelings of loss, alienation and redemption. ” And then sweeping up the jokers that he left behind you find he did not leave you very much not even laughter. Like any dealer he was watching for the card that is so high and wild he’ll never need to deal another.He was just some Joseph looking for a manger”. It also has his trade mark guitar ripple which is quite difficult to do. The perfect song for existentialists.

3. The Velvet Underground & Nico

The Warhol Banana cover is more well known but this was the original cover in the UK.

The Warhol Banana cover is more well known but this was the original cover in the UK. The record label is wrong. It should be black.

If Leonard Cohen was the poet laureate of despair and alienation the Velvet Underground were like a sound track to the heroin drenched ravings of William Burroughs in “The Naked Lunch”. Here we have tracks like “Heroin”, “The Black Angel’s Death Song” and “Waiting for the Man” complete with drones and excruciating feed back. This is like the antithesis of pop music, both disturbed and deranged. Not surprisingly it was neither played on the radio nor bought in any quantity by the general public at the time. It has since of course been cited as one of the greatest records of all time and was a massive influence on punk rock. Famously produced by Andy Warhol (or should that be non-produced as he knew nothing about music or record production!) it also contained some sweet ballads dealing with wholesome events like “All Tomorrow’s Parties”, “Femme Fatale” and “Venus in Furs” that reference both mental insecurity and sado-masochistic sex. Not your typical pop song.! This is a truly adorable record that managed to both scare and make me smile. Lou Reed thinks that if it had NOT been produced by Warhol it might have sold a lot more as he was so universally detested at the time (Warhol that is. Lou Reed has only become detested more recently!) and his name on the record put people off. On the other hand it would never have been released as it is without his influence. Some PROPER record producer would have cleaned it up and totally ruined it.

4. Strange Days by The Doorsfreecovers.net

You may wonder why this record by the Doors is so high up the chart and not their dazzling first LP. Well, the answer is simple. Apart from a couple of singles like “Light My Fire” I missed the first one and went straight into “Strange Days” which I think is absolutely brilliant. The sound of the Doors is wonderful and the quality of Jim Morrison’s voice is just perfect. He described it as “sick crooning” as he had based it on the sound of Frank Sinatra. Mind you, he doesn’t sound much like Frank when he bellows out “Cancel my subscription to the Resurrection!!” He was a great lyricist who raided the poems of William Blake and created something new. The final song “When the Music’s Over” is monumental and gives the impression of spontaneity and improvisation. Morrison introduced performance poetry to pop music and created the way for great artists like Patti Smith. I just love the line “Before I sink into the big sleep, I want to hear the scream of the butterfly”. It has been said by some critics that this album is not as good as the first and they used up all their best songs on that one. I disagree, I think this is just as good and,in my mind, perhaps even better. Mind you, I also love “Waiting for the Sun” and even the song “Hello, I Love You” which attracted some derision at the time because it was seen as cynically commercial (and plagiarised The Kinks)! I guess the Doors can do no wrong for me!

5. Revolver by The Beatles220px-Revolver

In a similar way that I missed the first Doors album I also missed “Rubber Soul” by the Beatles. If I hadn’t have done it would probably have been my favourite Beatles record. As it is, I didn’t listen to it in it’s entirety until years later! However, “Revolver” still stands up as the most ambitious Beatles record until that date. “Sgt. Pepper” is probably more ambitious but it is not as interesting, in my opinion, with the exception perhaps of “Day in the Life”. “Revolver” totally knocked my socks off. From the opening count-in of “Taxman” to the wailing drones of “Tomorrow Never Knows” I was captivated. This was music I had never heard before and I loved it! It also had the first real use of Indian music. Sure, George had used the sitar on “Rubber Soul” but here we have a full Indian ensemble including tabla with George crooning mystically over the top of it. Totally brilliant!! There is also the first use of experimentation with the recording of reverse guitar tracks and tape loops. The Beatles are growing up and trying new things! This record probably has the Beatles playing together at their best. George’s lead guitar playing has improved and changed considerably. Ringo’s drumming has never been better. John and Paul’s voices are perfectly matched. It is interesting that in the same year that they gave up playing live they produced their tightest recordings ever. Songs like “And Your Bird Can Sing” and “She Said, She Said” are miniature gems of great writing and playing. Oh, and the sleeve’s pretty cool as well!

Diagram of an Artist: Roy Lichtenstein

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Lichtenstein A Retrospective at Tate Modern

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Filed under Art, Audio & Video, New York, Review, Roy Lichtenstein

lichtenstein_web-banner

I visited this exhibition last week and was very impressed. The paintings are incredibly familiar ( at least, the 60s pop art pictures) but to see them full size in a gallery is a monumental experience. They are huge. This is what gives them their power.

Lichtenstein has been accused of being shallow and only concerned with surface but there is a suprising depth in much of the work in this exhibition. The Late Nudes and Chinese Landscapes are particularly affecting. The landscapes enhance and yet subvert the Japanese originals by their sheer size  but the use of dots is incredibly subtle and project a calm atmosphere.

This is what the program notes say about the nudes:

Unlike many artists, Lichtenstein did not use live models for his depictions of the female body; instead he returned to his archive of comic clippings to select female characters as subjects – and then literally undressed them, by imagining their bare bodies under their clothes before painting them as nude.

The paintings Nudes with Beach Ball 1994 and Blue Nude 1995 are examples of his late approach to the nude, brought together at a huge scale in original compositions of single, double and group portraits. The result is a disturbing violation of conventions. The noble nude has been rendered as erotic graphic pulp; the paintings propose her large schematic bland body as an object of desire, yet she experiences desire as well, often captured in a state of reverie or bliss. Like Picasso and Matisse before him, Lichtenstein’s fascination with the painter/model relationship reaches a new level of intimacy and sensuality, meshed with the formal concerns of his painting.

Blue Nude

Blue Nude

Henri Matisse, Blue Nude II, 1952, gouache déc...

Henri Matisse, Blue Nude II, 1952, gouache découpée, Pompidou Centre, Paris (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

His reimagining of works by other artists also display a greater depth than some people might have thought. He covers many different periods and brings more than just parody to the work. In fact, he shows just  how effective the use of lines and dots can be.

Still, my favourite of his is his first pop art picture “Look Mickey” to prove to his son he could paint pictures as good as in the comics. Now that is real genius! The rest, as we know, is history!

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Film Review: Zero Dark Thirty

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Filed under Audio & Video, Film, Music, Review, Television

I went to see the movie Zero Dark Thirty last week and it made me think a lot. All I knew before I went was that it was about the search for Bin Laden and was nominated for several Oscars (which it didn’t get apart from an award for sound editing shared with Skyfall). Mind you, before the award ceremony the film was mired in controversy and even managed to unite Democrats and Republicans against it (although for different reasons).

I didn’t realise any of this until after I’d seen it but I can say I was pretty shocked by what I saw. I found the depiction of torture at the beginning of the film deeply shocking but as the main character, Maya, also appears very uncomfortable with it I assumed that it was something of an exposé and taking a moral position against the use of torture. As the film progresses this is not at all certain. Maya seems to get use to the idea of it and it continues unabated until President Obama is seen speaking against it’s use on a TV in the background. We then move into more “conventional” areas of intelligence.

To be fair, this has been talked about a lot and there is a Guardian review that fits quite closely to my view of the film:

Guardian Review

The film purports to be based on truth i.e. it is a docudrama or a dramatized documentary. It has been said that the American government released classified information to help the film makers and real footage and sound has been used. In a very effective sound montage of the events of 9/11 at the beginning of the film real phone calls and other live recordings are used without the participants approval or permission. The main character, Maya, is a composite character to help the film’s narrative. It meant she was often in places that she couldn’t have been to give the film coherence.

Here is a report from Jon Boone of the Guardian about inaccuracies in the film:

Although it was described by Bigelow as a “reported film”, Zero Dark Thirty offers a feast for fact-checkers. Inaccuracies abound, largely due to the need to compress the decade-long hunt, create composite characters and make the whole thing work as a piece of drama.

A single character, Maya, is used to carry the film. She is portrayed as a lone voice challenging the CIA’s bureaucratic inertia after Bin Laden trail goes cold and she is placed at the centre of the action. She is shown dining in a poor imitation of Islamabad’s Marriott hotel even though it was blown up in 2008. Her car is attacked by gunmen as she drives out of her house – something that has happened more than once to US government employees in Peshawar, but not to anyone’s knowledge in Islamabad.

One of the CIA’s overseas “black sites” used for interrogating members of al-Qaida is shown in Pakistan itself, presumably to place Maya in both the torture scenes and where the action was in the CIA’s Islamabad station.

Her character appears to be based on a real CIA agent named as Jen in an account of the Bin Laden raid written by former Navy Seal Matt Bissonnette. But Peter Bergen, a journalist and author who has researched Bin Laden more deeply than anyone else, claims the CIA officer who worked on the search for eight years up until his death and was convinced he was hiding in the Abbottabad compound was actually a man.

In December the acting director of CIA went public to criticise the film for taking “significant artistic licence, while portraying itself as being historically accurate”.

The film, which claims to be based on “firsthand accounts of actual events” adds tantalising and colourful details that build on what has been reported elsewhere.

But it’s hard to know what to believe when the film makes an astonishing error in portraying one of the gambits used to try and identify whether Bin Laden was hiding in Abbottabad. A controversial hepatitis B vaccination programme run on behalf of the CIA in the town in an attempt to get hold of Bin Laden family DNA is clearly shown as an anti-polio campaign. It’s a truly sloppy mistake given how widely reported the incident was.

And it’s also potentially dangerous. The scandal of the CIA using aid workers as cover for operations has helped to inflame deep mistrust in Pakistan’s tribal areas towards vaccination programmes. Two Taliban commanders have banned polio eradication from their areas of control. In December, six polio vaccinators were murdered by gunmen while going about their work.

Another curious departure from the truth, likely only to be noticed in Pakistan, is the decision to rename the CIA’s station chief in Islamabad who, as accurately depicted in the movie, has to leave the country after anti-drone campaigners blew his cover by naming him in a court action.

For some reason the film-makers name the character Joseph Bradley,not the real-life Jonathan Banks whose name is now irretrievably all over the internet. Could this be some small (but pointless) quid pro quo for the access Boal was granted to CIA officers and White House officials? Or just artistic licence? (Guardian 27th Jan)

However, what really annoys me about this film is the uncritical attitude to the C.I.A. and also the assumption that spending 10 years to capture or assassinate Bin Laden was somehow a worthwhile activity. If it was revenge for 9/11, which certainly was the position George Bush took in his War Against Terror, then I think it’s misplaced. 9/11 produced a wave of sympathy for America from around the World that could have been used to start creating a better and more understanding environment for change. Instead it was squandered in the development of military power and selfish, short term profit and aims. Perhaps the most disturbing fact in this film was when C.I.A analysts assessed that the chances of Bin Laden actually being in the secure compound were less than the possibility of WMDs being in Iraq, and we all know how many of them there were.

The final sequence was extremely well filmed and was quite gripping. However, it showed women and children being traumatised, men and women being shot and when they eventually kill Bin Laden they’re not even sure it’s him. They are frantically sending photos taken with their phones back to base and trying to get the children to say who he is! Well, what if it hadn’t of been him!! What then!! There are plenty of conspiracy theories floating around the internet that say it wasn’t him. In the meantime they managed to blow a helicopter up and all this was counted as a success! Really??

No, this wasn’t a film that left a good taste in my mouth!

Film Review: Les Miserables

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image

Original illustration from the book of Cosette. Notice the huge broom held by the tiny girl. This image has been used extensively to promote the musical and the film.

It had to be done. I had two free tickets for Showcase Cinema De Luxe, Leicester last Sunday. Haven’t seen the Hobbit yet or Jack Reacher but I decided to opt for Les Mis. The reason for this isn’t because I’m a big fan of the musical. I’ve never seen it! I’ve been intending to see it for the past thirty years but never made it! I’m going to make a special effort now though. No, the reason is that it is my favourite book of all time. Written by Victor Hugo in the 19th Century it is a literary tour de force, one of the best books ever written.

It is incredibly long, over 1500 pages in English and covers a multitude of things. You find out about the Paris sewer system, the language (argot) of the Parisian underclass, discussion about Napoleon and the monarchy and many other things. The main story though is that of Jean Valjean and his progress from criminal and convict to prosperity as a business man and factory owner and eventually as a benefactor and saviour of Cosette, daughter of a woman who works in his factory, Fantine, who falls on hard times and dies. While all this is happening Jean Valjean is pursued by police inspector Javert who becomes convinced that the mayor is in fact the same man as Valjean who had broken his parole years before and needed to be arrested and put back in gaol. The reason for breaking his parole is missing from the film and is quite an important omission. After getting away with stealing the Bishop’s silver he steals a small amount from a young, poor boy. He becomes totally disgusted with himself and tries to find the boy to give it back but can’t find him. The boy reports it to the police and that is how he broke his parole. This is why Valjean feels that Javert is justified in pursuing him!

The story is quite melodramatic although brilliantly told and is similar to the kind of themes used by Thomas Hardy and Balzac. The characters are very well drawn and serve to bring out the moral ambiguities of the story. Javert is possibly the most interesting character. Although he appears to be remote and cruel and obsessive, his motives are born out of total honesty and respect for the law. Jean Valjean actually respects this about him even though his aim is to bring him down.

Later on the narrative becomes about the love story between Cosette and young middle class revolutionary Marius who is rescued by Valjean from the barricades of the 1832 rebellion against the restored monarchy. This is NOT the French Revolution as many people think but an event that might have been forgotten were it not for it’s inclusion in the book of Les Miserables. It was a storm in a tea cup. At the end of the story both Javert and Valjean, in very different ways, experience a kind of redemption and the world is left a better place. Apparently, Hugo based the two characters on the same person and this is a reason why they are so intrinsically linked. They are two sides of the same man.

In many ways the film is very good and it has really affected audiences emotionally. It is impossible to make a film of the book without seriously compromising the story in many ways but the basic meaning of it remains. I would say the second half is much better than the first although there are some strong episodes in the first like the opening galley scene and Fantine’s rendition of I Dreamed a Dream. I found this very powerful even though the song has become devalued and over familiarised by the Subo and X Factor effect (or was it the other one. Can’t remember!). Anne Hathaway’s performance as Fantine is astonishing! Despite winning Golden Globes recently I think Russel Crowe and Hugh Jackman are miscast. I think Crowe would have been better as Valjean and Jackman as Javert. An earlier French version had Gerard Depardieu as Valjean and John Malkovich as Javert. This is a superb version and worth seeing if you can get hold of it. Somehow I ended up with a DVD of it that had been given away free with the Daily Express and I have never knowingly bought the Daily Express so I don’t know where I got it from! It is a condensed version of a TV series and gets very close to the original story with some brilliant performances.

Seeing the recent film has renewed my interest in seeing the live theatre production. Film rarely captures the atmosphere and excitement of a live show but, with the live singing on set which is a first, this film is moving in the right direction. Although flawed I think this film is well worth seeing.

Richard Hamilton Late Works at the National Gallery

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Filed under Andy Warhol, Art, Marcel Duchamp, Review

I had a lovely time visiting London this week. Like New York it is a place that makes me feel good just by being there, walking around! This time I went to The National Gallery to see the Richard Hamilton exhibition before it closed.

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Richard Hamilton is one of the first artists to describe what he was doing as Pop Art a long time before Andy Warhol started using the term. His iconic picture from  1957 is called “Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing?“

Just what is it that makes todays homes so different so appealing

Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing? Notice the word Pop on the lollipop.

Here is his potential manifesto for Pop Art written in January 1957:

“16th January 1957

Dear Peter and Alison,

I have been thinking about our conversation of the other evening and thought that it might be a good idea to get something on paper, as much to sort it out for myself as to put a point of view to you.

There have been a number of manifestations in the post-war years in London which I would select as important and which have a bearing on what I take to be an objective:

Parallel of Life and Art
(investigation into an imagery of general value)

Man, Machine and Motion
(investigation into a particular technological imagery)
Reyner Banham’s research on automobile styling
Ad image research (Paolozzi, Smithson, McHale)
Independent Group discussion on Pop Art – Fine Art relationship
House of the Future
(conversion of Pop Art attitudes in industrial design to scale of domestic architecture)

This is Tomorrow
Group 2 presentation of Pop Art and perception material attempted impersonal treatment. Group 6 presentation of human needs in terms of a strong personal idiom.

Looking at this list is is clear that the Pop Art/Technology background emerges as the important feature.

The disadvantage (as well as the great virtue) of the TIT show was its incoherence and obscurity of language.

My view is that another show should be as highly disciplined and unified in conception as this one was chaotic. Is it possible that the participants could relinquish their existing personal solutions and try to bring about some new formal conception complying with a strict, mutually agreed programme?

Suppose we were to start with the objective of providing a unique solution to the specific requirement of a domestic environment e.g. some kind of shelter, some kind of equipment, some kind of art. This solution could then be formulated and rated on the basis of compliance with a table of characteristics of Pop Art.

Pop Art is:
Popular (designed for a mass audience)
Transient (short-term solution)
Expendable (easily-forgotten)
Low cost
Mass produced
Young (aimed at youth)
Witty
Sexy
Gimmicky
Glamorous
Big Business

This is just a beginning. Perhaps the first part of our task is the analysis of Pop Art and the production of a table. I find I am not yet sure about the “sincerity” of Pop Art. It is not a characteristic of all but it is of some – at least, a pseudo-sincerity is. Maybe we have to subdivide Pop Art into its various categories and decide into which category each of the subdivisions of our project fits. What do you think?

Yours,

(The letter was unanswered but I used the suggestion made in it as the theoretical basis for a painting called Hommage á Chrylsler Corp., the first product of a slowly contrived programme. R.H.)”(Collected Words 1953-1982)

The exhibition for the Late Works was in preparation before Hamilton died on 13th September 2011. It seems odd to have such contemporary images in the conservative National Gallery but it is based on his studies of works that are in there. There is a particular interest in Renaissance perspective. There are also allusions to work by his hero Marcel Duchamp.

I found the exhibition very interesting although I know some others were disappointed. I am most impressed that right into old age Hamilton was still experimenting and using computers and Photoshop to create his images. I was particularly impressed by the culmination of the exhibition Le chef-d’oeuvre inconnu in which three great painters contemplate a reclining nude. This is very evocative and emotional.

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Le chef-d’oeuvre inconnu

Richard Hamilton_Venus

Le chef-d’oeuvre inconnu

An evocation of Marcel Duchamp

An evocation of Marcel Duchamp

An annunciation

An annunciation

The Passage of the Angel to the Virgin, 2007

The Passage of the Angel to the Virgin, 2007

Yes, I am very impressed by these pictures and would recommend this exhibition if it moves somewhere else although I think it was particularly curated for the National Gallery with it’s many references to pictures in it’s collection and the building itself.

Music Review: Bob Dylan’s “Tempest”

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Filed under Audio & Video, Bob Dylan, Music, Review
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Graffiti ad for Bob Dylan’s Tempest. Is this the first time this has been done?

The other day I came across a review of this album on the Guardian web site. Written by Alex Macpherson it is almost totally negative. There is a link to it here:

Bob Dylan’s song about the Titanic makes you wish you’d been on board

The article shows an almost appalling lack of knowledge of one of the most important artists of the 20th Century, but compounds that with a total lack of understanding of what Dylan is saying and how he is saying it. Possibly Macpherson is deliberately being provocative but it is hardly an excuse for such ignorance and stupidity.

No, in my opinion having only heard it a few times, I think it is one of the best albums Dylan has ever made. Sure, his voice is a rasp but it is a supremely expressive and musical rasp. Macpherson implies that the lyrics look better on paper than when they’re sung. I think he can’t be listening to the same album as me because I would say the reverse. In fact, I think the lyrics are amongst the best he’s ever written but they still work best as songs.

At the moment I wouldn’t like to say exactly what many of the songs do mean but they are supremely evocative and conjure up a doom laden scenario with elements of self doubt and black humour. Like the best of Dylan the meanings change and shift with each hearing. At least two of the songs Scarlet Town and Tin Angel draw on traditional folk songs for their inspiration. I absolutely love Scarlet Town which takes the song Barbara Allen and turns it into an almost apocalyptic film scenario but still uses some lyrics from the original song. In some ways it is like an update of Desolation Row. The music and accompaniment to this are superbly atmospheric. Tin Angel uses the song Black Jack Davey and creates a twisted tale of jealousy and deceit that is almost cinematic in quality, again with a brilliant repetitive accompaniment.

I think it’s time the Dylan Can’t Sing Brigade pulled there head out of the sand and stopped complaining. Dylan is possible the most unique performer of the past sixty years who single-handedly changed what a pop song can be about! His position is unassailable and his new album is a towering achievement.