I went with a friend to the Spin Jazz Club in Oxford. The obligatory semi-slum, dark paint peeling off distressed walls, banks of unused spots amongst which a brass chandelier hangs impotently, and an overworked bar selling concoctions whose names promise paralysis. A surprisingly wide age range - more so that in the classical concerts.
The star of the show, the 25-year old Dane, Marius Neset, was simply astonishing. He moves like a rag doll high on speed, and plays with a passionate virtuosity, drawing sounds from the saxophone that ranged from singing voices to growling animals, from deep echoes to birds tweeting. Somehow, he played duets with himself in a kind of counterpoint. The quartet kept up with him!
I felt as I did when I heard Andreas Scholl, the German counter-tenor, sing for the first time. Walking on like a gawky schoolboy, he promised little. But the first notes were those of an angel.
It takes only a few moments to know that someone special has arrived.
Saturday, 25 February 2012
Greece
I have 2 former students working (or in one case being thrown out of work) and one art historian friend in Greece. The situation is dire, and we should not feel superior for not being part of it - at this stage. It seems bizarre the the old monetarist programme of austerity should be automatically applied to an economy that has no capacity to cope with it. A starving patient is being put on a diet to loose weight. This is a symptom of the bankruptcy of thinking in the worlds of government and finance. Where are the creative alternative analyses that do not predicate growth on a sinking raft of debt?
Sunday, 15 January 2012
the latest fantasy
A reply to M Domoretsky .
This search for mystic geometry is totally misguided, as, in general, is the search for "codes". None of the huge body of evidence about the design of Renaissance paintings (Leonardo's included) provides the slightest encouragement for the imposing of detailed surface geometry (using thick lines on small reproductions) on paintings in this way. The most there may be is an adherence to certain canons of bodily proportion, but none of his drawings for specific works of art contain even this. Renaissance paintings contain allegories and symbolism, but there are no "codes". The nature of a code is that it's meaning is as unlike surface appearance as possible. Allegory and symbolism convey deeper meanings that are consistent with the immediate content of the image.
"Da Vinci" is not his name - that's an ugly Americanism. It's like calling me "from Woodstock". It was not a surname.
This search for mystic geometry is totally misguided, as, in general, is the search for "codes". None of the huge body of evidence about the design of Renaissance paintings (Leonardo's included) provides the slightest encouragement for the imposing of detailed surface geometry (using thick lines on small reproductions) on paintings in this way. The most there may be is an adherence to certain canons of bodily proportion, but none of his drawings for specific works of art contain even this. Renaissance paintings contain allegories and symbolism, but there are no "codes". The nature of a code is that it's meaning is as unlike surface appearance as possible. Allegory and symbolism convey deeper meanings that are consistent with the immediate content of the image.
"Da Vinci" is not his name - that's an ugly Americanism. It's like calling me "from Woodstock". It was not a surname.
Wednesday, 14 December 2011
Radio 3 etc
I almost always work with the radio on. The normal fare is Radio 3 and the sports commentaries in Radio 5.
For some reason and on some days in the afternoon Radio 3 goes religious with choral evensong. The staple diet seems to be the tuneless dirges that are exemplary of the English choral tradition. Today's effort came from Worksop College, which I see from the internet is a private school. It is celebrating its centenary. The service included some of the worst music immaginable on radio 3. The choir, imported from Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, sung Bach's Komm Jesu in an incredibly flaccid manner, when it should be a fervent anticipation of Christ's arrival on earth and release from earthly toil. The organ playing was soupy throughout, climaxing in an unspeakably meandering and purposeless prelude and fugue. I could not believe that it was by a professional composer. It tuned out to be by Vaughan Williams, which explained all.
Then Sean Rafferty and "In Tune". I find him highly informative and intermittently annoying (well, more than intermittently). He seems to be a prime example of how people with Irish accents are allowed to get away with gratingly contrived charm on the radio. Somebody (I missed the announcement because my central heating interferes with the signal when it is switching) played the first movement of a Brandenburg at a breathlessly fast pace as if the Women's Guild were taking part in a speed knitting contest. The slow movement then struggled slowly from one seizure to the next.
The redeeming features of this afternoon were the saxophonist and composer Andy Shepherd and Chapelle du Roi. Andy Shepherd played solo with wonderful speaking intensity, including a quite magical duet with a recorded blackbird. Hello rather than bye-bye blackbird.
For some reason and on some days in the afternoon Radio 3 goes religious with choral evensong. The staple diet seems to be the tuneless dirges that are exemplary of the English choral tradition. Today's effort came from Worksop College, which I see from the internet is a private school. It is celebrating its centenary. The service included some of the worst music immaginable on radio 3. The choir, imported from Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, sung Bach's Komm Jesu in an incredibly flaccid manner, when it should be a fervent anticipation of Christ's arrival on earth and release from earthly toil. The organ playing was soupy throughout, climaxing in an unspeakably meandering and purposeless prelude and fugue. I could not believe that it was by a professional composer. It tuned out to be by Vaughan Williams, which explained all.
Then Sean Rafferty and "In Tune". I find him highly informative and intermittently annoying (well, more than intermittently). He seems to be a prime example of how people with Irish accents are allowed to get away with gratingly contrived charm on the radio. Somebody (I missed the announcement because my central heating interferes with the signal when it is switching) played the first movement of a Brandenburg at a breathlessly fast pace as if the Women's Guild were taking part in a speed knitting contest. The slow movement then struggled slowly from one seizure to the next.
The redeeming features of this afternoon were the saxophonist and composer Andy Shepherd and Chapelle du Roi. Andy Shepherd played solo with wonderful speaking intensity, including a quite magical duet with a recorded blackbird. Hello rather than bye-bye blackbird.
Tuesday, 29 November 2011
exploitation of arts professionals
It is extraordinary though wholly familiar that arts professionals are expected to deliver high level services for nothing or next to nothing. Enthusiasm and commitment are exploited by those commissioning services. The most recent example is a podcast I was asked to record by the National Gallery in connection with the Leonardo show. I was asked to record items on the anatomical drawings, one of which, the vertical section of a man's head, provides a wonderful entry into Leonardo's ideas about seeing, thinking, imagination, memory etc. I negotiated the fee up to a grand £100! This was absolutely their "top fee". The gallery was unable to fix the recording at a date when I was due to be in London, and I therefore had to make the journey specially. On claiming expenses, I was told that they were not part of the deal. Given average mileage rates for travelling from Oxfordshire, I end up with £14.20 for something that consumed at least 4 hours of my time. I asked, "would you expect to employ an accountant or solicitor for this kind of money?" adding that " I am a professional speaker, writer, broadcaster now! There's something very wrong with the priorities here."
The podcast was being made by a company called Antenna, but all my correspondence was with the gallery. They have said they will claim expenses from Antenna, but to date .... no fee, no expenses.
And this in connection with a show that is sold out.
This is just one small incident in the broader picture of exploitation of artists, curators, writers, speakers and administrators. This occurs as a matter of habit even in connection with events that involve large budgets to cover substantial fees for other professionals, such as designers, publicists and the deliverers of other services.
The podcast was being made by a company called Antenna, but all my correspondence was with the gallery. They have said they will claim expenses from Antenna, but to date .... no fee, no expenses.
And this in connection with a show that is sold out.
This is just one small incident in the broader picture of exploitation of artists, curators, writers, speakers and administrators. This occurs as a matter of habit even in connection with events that involve large budgets to cover substantial fees for other professionals, such as designers, publicists and the deliverers of other services.
a long time
My schedule - speaking, travelling meeting deadlines (Studio International, Art Forum, book on the Leonardo Salvator...), book promotion, media work, general Leonardo craziness - has left no time for blogging. Deadlines come before desirables. Now a few may follow. Since I have so few followers, levels of disappointment at the previous inactivity will be minimal.
Wednesday, 2 November 2011
funny abuse
At least this one, from Fred Kline, who deals in art, is funny.
The background is that he has at least one "Leonardo" that I declined to support.
I have to say that the Leonardo meatballs have not materialised. As a vegetarian, I have mixed feelings about Mr Kline's failure to keep his promises.
The background is that he has at least one "Leonardo" that I declined to support.
I have to say that the Leonardo meatballs have not materialised. As a vegetarian, I have mixed feelings about Mr Kline's failure to keep his promises.
From: Lear’s Fool Society, Princeton on the Pecos
To: President, The Crazy Leonardo Club-Principessa Division (kindly distribute)
OFFICIAL NOTIFICATION 2010 LFS IGNOBLE PRIZE
Dr. Prof. Rev. Martin Kemp, Cardinal of the Unauthorized Church of Leonardo da Vinci Orthodoxy,
Your Eminence,
As you are the current President and Editor-in-Chief of The Crazy Leonardo Club-Principessa Division, please accept the sincere congratulations of the Lear’s Fool Society (LFS) on your club’s winning the 2010 LFS IgNoble Prize for Leonardo da Vinci Theory, a newly established category for gold-plated gobbledygook.
Along with a limited edition tin-plated lead medallion depicting Leonardo’s Parachute for each of the members including the shadowy Mr. Peter Silverman, you and your fellow alchemists—especially citing the contributions of Mr. Pascal Cotte and Mr. Peter Paul Biro—will receive a year’s supply of gift-boxed Leonardo’s Meatballs made entirely of organic bullshit, which as Leonardo instructed in his Notebooks, “the meatballs can be burned as fuel, used as cannon balls, or boiled and eaten during cold winters of discontent.”
Martin Kemp was again cited as author and editor of The Story of the New Masterpiece By Leonardo da Vinci: La Bella Principessa, an unctuous and slippery-tongued tome with proofy illustrations and pseudo-scientology. The LFS says three cheers for your well-done hoax! Martin Kemp’s book receives as well the 2010 LFS IgNoble Prize for a Book on Leonardo da Vinci, a newly established sub-category for gold-plated hard-cover gobbledygook. We feel IT will live in infamy along with other LFS IgNoble Prize winners: Hitler’s Diaries (Hitler-Tagebücher) and Clifford Irving’s (exceptionally well-written) The Autobiography of Howard Hughes, among others. For this original anti-achievement, Martin Kemp is banished to three years of carefree life in Antarctica at Ellsworth Land Lodge and Weasel Farm (350,000 scenic square miles of mountain and enthralling high plateau with live-in arctic weasels for company (all-expenses-paid/clothing and weasel food not included). This entitlement also comes with mandatory monthly weekend visits from Peter Silverman; the Italian art historians and politicians and other smoothy expertiseans associated with your prizewinning gobbledy-book, including the impeccably imperious and pompous couple Nicholas and (faux-book designer) Jane Turner; and of course your choice of relatives, students, and sycophants. (complete all-expenses-paid+$250 cash).
The awards dinner will be held on Halloween Evening, October 31, 2010, at the clandestine Bernard Madoff Estate, Port-au-Prince, Haiti. In honor of the occasion, the awards ceremony will be held in the dark Ballroom at the Madoff main house. The Voodoo Shamans Chorus will provide entertainment with voodoo incantations and handmade effigy dolls with a packet of poison pins. Please note that the evening will be illuminated only by flashlights held by Lear’s Fool Society members, each of whom will be supplied with red paint-balls and a slingshot. All award recipients are required to wear white shirts and no pants (including underpants) and to submit to the tattooing of one of Leonardo’s ugliest grotesque caricatures on top of the right forearm (no exceptions). Transportation and bodyguards provided courtesy of The Swiss Bankers Swisscheese Hedgefund and Worse Angels Security & Torture Laboratory, Inc.
Again, congratulations to you and the whole package of wieners. “Nobody roasts a wiener like LFS!”
Yours sincerely, and most assuredly,
Fred R. Kline, Sergeant at Arms
Lear’s Fool Society
Princeton on the Pecos
The Leonardo da Vinci Library and *Abattoir
Dragon’s Lair #1
New Mexico, U.S.A. 87504
*Visitors Welcome
Ars longa, vita brevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile.
(Art eternal, life short, opportunity fleeting, experiment treacherous, judgment difficult)
Hippocrates (b. 460 BC- d. 357 BC)
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