A few new paintings

I'm trying to get some paintings and oil pastels done as I hope to hang them all in our local gastropub next month. I'm still exploring the idea of revisiting the moment when the photo that Richard Hamilton's 'Swingeing London 67' was based on, by finding other photos of the same or similar moments and doing paintings based on them. The latest one is above -- it's quite big, 100cm x 50cm, all painted in black and white.

The other three I've done recently, by contrast, are highly coloured. They're oil pastel over digital prints with that ghostly effect that I like so much where elements I've covered over show through.

I haven't had the last one framed yet.

I've made the beach deserted to show up the four figures more. It's funny because in the original photo that red canopied structure was solid with bodies sheltering from the sun and now it's empty.

Before my holidays are gone for ever -- Part 2

Back in September 2010 I blogged about my 'Swedish fantasy', in which I used Google Street View to cross the Oresund Bridge and 'tour' southern Sweden. I imagined spotting Olafur Eliasson's 'Movement Meter for Lernacken' up on the right as I 'drove' towards Malmo. This summer the fantasy became reality and the above photo (actually not much better than what you see on GoogleSV) was taken from our taxi as it came off the bridge and bore us towards Malmo. I just took it to record the weird feeling of virtual reality becoming 'real reality'.

In Malmo we stayed at the Mayfair Tunneln Hotel, which I wouldn't mention except that the building turned out to have a very interesting history, having been a row of medieval shops, a seventeenth-century cellar-inn, the residence of the Governor of Skane (also in the 17th C), a sugar refinery (late 18th C), the offices of Malmo's chief newspaper and a library. The hotel was also very proud of it many famous visitors, including two of the Beatles (I think it was Paul and George) who once had a coffee down in the cellar bar after they had been refused entry to a nearby restaurant for lack of ties.

It was a very pleasant hotel (they changed the big doormat each day so that it read 'Have a good Monday', 'Have a good Tuesday' and so on) and the very best thing about it was the fantastic breakfast which was taken down in the 'Tunnel', the original medieval cellars. Sumptuous doesn't begin to describe it. I had to be dragged away each morning, or shamed into crawling away.

 We liked Malmo a lot, but some of the architecture seemed to cry out to be rendered in black and white. The centre was very good for wandering about in. Streets would open up into big squares or smaller, more intimate ones. We came across a wondrous antique shop which had piles of stuff on the floor, quite a lot of it broken. It drew us further and further in and we found some of the Stig Lindberg Salix cups that we like so much.

We also found some amazing charity shops, so huge that they were almost like department stores. Malmo has a strong recycling policy and has encouraged these big shops to try to increase the level of re-use of secondhand things. I could have spent hours in them but it didn't suit the others so much. I may have to go back for a secret charity-shop OD.

 Malmo has an offshoot of the Stockholm Moderna Museet, the Modern Art Museum, housed in this old building encased in orange mesh. I love the mesh and the strange light effects it makes.

 The beautiful ground floor space was given over to an Irving Penn retrospective, which we all really enjoyed.

 Upstairs there was a Niki de Saint Phalle show. I hadn't previously been a big fan of her work, but this retrospective caught my interest and I particularly liked her large pieces embedded with toys and other objects. These terrible photos don't begin to do them justice. I'd like to read a biography about her as the account of her life on Wikipedia is fascinating.

One of the best things we did in Malmo was to take the train to Lund, the nearby university town. Malmo train station itself was architecturally interesting and I loved the idea they'd had to play films of train journeys on the walls. The images move silently and dreamily and are very absorbing while you await the arrival of the real train.

Lund was beautiful with an older feel than Malmo. The best thing about it, for me, was Kulturen, a museum similar in spirit to Skansen, the highlight of our trip to Stockholm last year.

Like Skansen, Kulturen is an accumulation of old Swedish buildings with authentic interiors, but it had more of a museum element along the lines of, say, the V&A. There were lots of textile displays and an emphasis on handmade objects. It was all delightful. Again, I felt I could happily have spent much longer there. Just a few photos:

an exquisite candelabra

a colour chart -- wish I had it for my collection

At Kulturen, as at Skansen, I again experienced the strange feeling of being connected to a past that isn't that of my own culture. I think it's just that these painstaking re-creations make the past feel very near; also I guess there are some fairly close links between England's past and that of Scandinavia (especially in the North-East, where I come from -- there are a lot of similarities in the local food, for example, such as rollmops and pease pudding...). But perhaps I would feel the same visceral connection if I visited a recreated American Indian site or an Inca city. Maybe it's just the imagination at work.

On our last evening in Malmo we went to a really lovely restaurant right on the waterfront in the newly redeveloped dock area, Salt och Brygga ('Salt and Bridge'). This restaurant serves only organic food and is part of the 'slow food' movement. Not only that, but everything about the place has been carefully thought through, right down to the candles and the seats. The candles are made of renewable materials and don't give off greenhouse gases. The leather on the seats has been tanned using bark instead of chromium. Such attention to detail is apparent in the food as well, which was absolutely beautiful, decorated with edible flowers (which we did eat).

We sat outside and had a beautiful view of the Oresund Bridge as the sun went down.

And I was excited because in the taxi on the way there, we had passed the fantastic Turning Torso tower. I stuck my hand out of the window and snatched a photo which, amazingly, actually caught the tower. What an inspired structure.

Our few days in Malmo were over and it was time to move on. We were hiring a car to drive down to the southern tip of Sweden. We nearly didn't make it out of the city as the car was so high tech we couldn't even start the engine -- then we couldn't work out how to let the handbrake off (a button did the trick eventually, after much stressful consultation of Google Translate on a mobile phone...). But eventually we were on Route E22 and heading for Wallander Land... (stay tuned for Pt 3).

A Holiday with Martin Parr in Folkestone

I'm just back from one of the best things I've ever done. I went on a weekend in Folkestone organised by the School of Life called 'A Holiday with Martin Parr'.

What a brilliant, special thing! To stay in a charmingly kitsch hotel in charmingly kitsch (though also excitingly up and coming) Folkestone with my absolute favourite photographer. Not only that, but in spite of natural fears about what I was in for, given the unknown quantities involved (not least all the other people on the weekend), it turned out to be a completely engaging two and a half days with a really fine group of people, all interesting and likeable, and not a single crazed egomaniac or unaware BO-sufferer or (apparent) psycho among them.

A member of the hotel staff, in the lobby

But I'm getting ahead of myself.
     I took Friday off work and drove down to Folkestone in the morning. The first rendezvous for the Martin Parr weekend wasn't until 6pm (drinks in the hotel, the Langhorne Garden). But I wanted to make the most of the experience and by 12 noon I was sitting on the seafront at Sandgate, a 'suburb' of Folkestone just along from the town in blistering sunshine -- already casting my eyes around for suitable subjects for photos (abandoned grannies, scrapping children, etc, etc) but not actually daring to take any photos of them. I didn't see Vic and Bob or Paul O'Grady, all rumoured to live in or near Sandgate. The night before I had done extensive research on Folkestone in preparation for the weekend, including looking it up on Knowhere.co.uk, which is something one should only do as a last resort and definitely not about one's own home town as it will kill any affection you have for the place. Thus my view of Folkestone, prior to arrival, was one of hellish levels of grimness, perhaps comparable to Albania or Dagestan, with added loveable celebrity residents. As is so often the case (thank the Lord), none of my research was borne out -- or only to a very small degree and highly photogenically.

After Sandgate, I went into Folkestone proper and made a beeline for Rennies' Seaside Modern, in the lovely 'Creative Quarter' (aka the Old High Street). I've wanted to visit Paul and Karen Rennie's amazing vintage shop for years. Calling what they do 'vintage' doesn't remotely do them justice as they are serious (world-class) collectors and purveyors of the best modern antiques, particularly graphic design. In the past we have bought one or two Festival of Britain pieces from them that I don't believe you would easily find anywhere else.

I walked into the shop and, rather daringly, I thought, said to the gentleman who was sitting there, 'Are you Paul?' And he was! So I had a lovely chat with him and was able to pay homage to his and Karen's wonderfulness in person. I met Karen too and you would have thought my happiness couldn't increase when into the shop came Martin Parr himself, with his wife Susie. Great excitement all round! I had already told Paul why I was in Folkestone, so Martin's appearance wasn't entirely unexplained. Soon they were chatting and then MP asked if he could take Paul's picture. I didn't want to intrude on this moment so looked intently into the shop window (from the inside), but it was very very interesting to hear how powerfully MP directed the mini-shoot, knowing exactly what he wanted. I stored all this away for later.
     Tearing myself away from Rennies, I toured the rest of the Creative Quarter, spotted an art gallery that I really liked the look of: Strange Cargo's George's House (with a show on that I liked too, by John Howard), and finally made it to the hotel.

My room was cavernous, with a double bed and a single, and for a while I was haunted by the terrible thought that I might have misunderstood the set-up and have to share a room with an unknown Martin Parr fan, but happily no one else came through the door. The levels of kitsch were perhaps not quite as rococo as I had been led to believe -- this may be the result of my having stayed in more lowly hotels than Martin Parr and the School of Life people: this hotel was not many removes away from others I've known. But still, pink candlewick bedspreads and Seventies wall-mounted radios must be savoured before they finally disappear.
     Going down for the welcome drinks was really the most challenging moment of the whole weekend. No amount of publishing parties and conferences will ever prepare me for having to walk into a room of strangers and introduce myself. Especially a room full of photography enthusiasts jostling for their first moment with the Great Man of the weekend. I had the advantage there in that I had already made Martin and Susie's acquaintance, in the Rennies' shop, so they said hello when they saw me. I must just say at this point that Susie Parr was the loveliest, most gracious, delightful person and added a great deal to the pleasure of the weekend.
     Before I had summoned up the courage to speak to more than a couple of people, we found ourselves walking en masse through Folkestone to our dinner venue. I thought (still in the mindset of Folkestone-as-Dagestan) that the deranged gangs probably wouldn't take us on if we stayed bunched together. Although it was dusk, I had reluctantly to accept that the town still seemed perfectly lovely and unthreatening. What on earth are they to do to dispel their online image? Soon we arrived at Rocksalt, a beautiful, modern restaurant on the harbour front (with a Gordon Ramsay trained chef). The meal was very delicious and I was keen on the use they'd made of local ingredients such as buckthorn. A jolly atmosphere soon rose like a heat haze around us. The School of Life certainly didn't stint on the wine. Then it was back to the hotel (unmolested, not to say ignored, by the ravening natives. I was starting to think my whole internet-inspired picture of Folkestone was entirely false) to sleep and prepare mentally for the real work of the weekend, which was to start at 9am the next morning.

sunrise from my room

After breakfast the next morning, we had a pep talk from Martin to arm us with confidence when we went out to suck the very essence of Folkestone into our cameras. He issued us with a challenge: to produce a 'portfolio' of five photos, which we would then view the next afternoon. The five photos were to be: a portrait, a cup of tea, a shot of the hotel, the fading glory of Folkestone, and a free choice. We streamed out of the hotel. Within seconds (literally) I saw two of us moving in on the unsuspecting rider of a mobility vehicle (I made a mental note to force myself to refrain from all such shots, however tantalising -- in any case I got my favourite shot of said mobility vehicles on a previous holiday to Whitstable -- see below) and one of us already up on a walkway above a shop (how?? Incredible ninja-like dedication to the project) to get a good shot of the hotel. The race was on. Who would get to the ice-cream van and the cockle stall first?

I spent the next two hours asking people if I could take their picture, an entirely new experience for me. It was a combination of unnerving and happy-making. Only one person said no, everyone else was fine about it.

What I realised, when I looked back through my shots, and especially after I had seen what other people had achieved with their portraits, was that I hadn't really taken it far enough. I was so bowled over at having found the courage to speak directly to people that I then just politely pointed the camera at them and didn't try to get to know them or to direct the shots at all. All this is to learn and then try out next time.

my shot for the 'cup of tea' challenge

The two days just filled up with taking photos, looking at them, rendezvous-ing for food (dinner on Saturday night was at a kitschy Italian), watching some of Martin's films, including a brilliant portrait of Teddy Gray's sweet company in Dudley. You can watch the full film online here (really worth it -- 22 mins long). We also had a delightful lecture by Susie Parr about her book, The Story of Swimming.

Still another treat was a talk by photographer Robin Maddock about his career to date and particularly his project to photograph Plymouth, which has resulted in the book, God Forgotten Face.

His work is definitely work looking up. I can't really reproduce any here because of copyright.

We had another mammoth picture-taking session on Sunday morning. There were Newfoundland dogs being trained to rescue people in the sea. I tried to take a good photo of some of the many dogs who were watching it with great interest. Didn't really come off.

Imagine the high excitement, the hopes, the tension when we had all given in our five selected images and gathered in the hotel lounge to view them all on the large screen. Martin Parr announced that we would all vote on which ones we liked best in each category, points would be awarded for first, second and third, then the points would be tallied up and there'd be overall winners. You could just tell everyone was really hoping their images would be liked. Martin gave some comments as we went through -- very positive and very helpful, with pointers on composition that would really have helped me, if I had just had him there at the moment the shutter opened. I found it very difficult to choose which shots to put forward, and when I got home I showed D, D and C the ones I had 'shortlisted' to see if they would have chosen the same five images as me. In almost every case they disagreed with my choices. As for my photo which actually came top in one category, they all agreed it was rubbish. A good counterbalance there, then. I won't tell you which one it was of the ones I've posted here. The people who came out as overall winners were truly deserving and had taken the most beautiful photos. Lots of the photos across the board were brilliant. I think a Flickr page is going to be set up for us to post to, so I'll let you know if that gets up and running. I was left with an intense desire to try to take some better photos. I couldn't have asked for a more enjoyable, stimulating weekend and I didn't put on the TV once, or go online, or go in a shop (apart from Rennies' Seaside Modern, which is exceptional).

"These associations" -- I've been Tino-ed

On Tuesday I went with my daughter to see the Damien Hirst show at Tate Modern. I didn't really want to see it, to be honest, but D is doing an Arts Award, one part of which is to write up something you've been to see. Damien's pills and sharks and butterflies seemed likely to provoke responses.
     As we were walking towards the ticket desk to get our tickets, down in the lower level, I suddenly sensed, without really seeing it, a kind of collective movement. There was no extra noise, but a definite sense of intention. People were striding down the slope towards the Turbine Hall. Quite a lot of people. I felt excited -- 'Is it a flash mob?' I hissed at D. I was very much hoping that all these marching people were going to break into song. Even an impromptu performance of 'Thriller' would have thrilled me.
     Still watching to see what might happen, we went to stand in the ticket line. Just then a woman of about my own age came up to me and launched into an account of how her grandmother had given her a purple suede mini-skirt forty years ago and how it had empowered her. She stood right in front of me and stared into my eyes. It was very disconcerting to be addressed at random in this way and held captive by the narrative. I felt an incredible sense of obligation, that, as always, I should be polite and listen. But at the same time it wasn't a normal interaction. I didn't know what it was but I tried to signal to D to catch it on film. I think I mouthed 'Film it!' at her, but was too polite to speak over the woman. By now she was saying that she had recently given the purple mini-skirt to her own daughter or granddaughter (not sure which -- it was hard to take it all in as I was too busy trying to process what sort of incident I was now part of). D didn't film it!
     The woman came to the end of her story and wheeled away, joining the marchers again. By now they had been up and down the length of the building a few times and were running round in circles, following a leader, I think. Who the leader was was hard to work out.

We watched for a few minutes longer. By now I had decided that it must be some sort of happening laid on by the Tate, although I had no idea what. You could see other visitors were being stopped by people from the group and spoken to intently. I wondered what stories they were being told and whether they were more interesting than 'my' story, which I hadn't really liked. The experience of being buttonholed and given a story, whether I liked it or not, was very strange and I guess that's the intention. It isn't an entirely 'fair' interaction because the person on the receiving end doesn't know the 'rules' of the game, and they don't seem to be encouraged to participate, to ask questions, to tell a story in turn.  In a way, you are 'assaulted' by the story -- but at the same time you feel special, privileged to have been singled out, for whatever reason, to be the receiver of this unique moment.
     Later on, at home, I discovered that it had been the first day of the latest Turbine Hall 'installation'. The group of people (or similar groups) will be marching and running and telling stories to people every day until October 28th. I had a particularly intense experience of this 'artwork', which is titled 'These associations' and devised by Anglo-German artist Tino Sehgal, because I knew nothing about it beforehand and had to find a way to respond to it whilst immersed in it. It was quite provocative, but not really as 'dangerous' as the Director of Tate Modern has proclaimed it: "the most complex, difficult and dangerous project we have ever put into this museum". One is taken by surprise, discomfited, possibly entertained, but not threatened or even asked to do anything other than look and, possibly, listen. I felt I would have liked to be part of the group, marching down the slope and back again, running round. I started to think about what stories I would have told people. Maybe that's enough.
     Reviews have started to appear: Guardian, Telegraph.

Holiday report parts 2 and 3 will follow soon.