hang him on your wall

Andy Warhol, Korupt, Southampton

Andy Warhol used to put in regular appearances at The Corn Poppy but he's not been around for a little while.  This morning I turned a corner and there he was, lovingly stencilled by Korupt.  I turned another corner and there was another echo of Andy.

This was painted on the wall of a florist.  Obviously it could have been painted by a child. Or a florist.  But you and I know it is based on Warhol's Flowers

Here's the corner and there's the shop.  Scents of Occasion.

Here's Warhol in situ:

Not overstated at all.  Keeping a low profile you might say. Not doing anything to stand out from the crowd.

and on remembrance day here's a poppy from The Corn Poppy

the wrong trousers

 Munch, Garry Davies: Levi's Icons

Must I paint you a picture?

Warhol, Garry Davies: Levi's Icons

take the precious things we have

 Miro, Garry Davies: Levi's Icons

they never fit together again

  Pollock, Garry Davies: Levi's Icons

virtue never tested is no virtue at all

 Lichenstein, Garry Davies: Levi's Icons

the bells across the river chime out your name

 Picasso, Garry Davies: Levi's Icons

this would never happen if we lived by the sea

Beardsley, Garry Davies: Levi's Icons

I dreamt the world stopped turning

Relentless and Pot Noodles

A fair amount of the art featured in this blog is graffiti, street art, urban art. One reason for this is that some of the most interesting new visual art is street art.  There is an element of excitement in finding masterpieces on the street - there is also the element of democracy with art being on the walls around town and out of the galleries.

Lou Reed and/or John Cale channelling Andy Warhol in Songs for Drella wrote

The trouble with a classicist, he looks at a tree, that's all he sees, he paints a tree. The trouble with a classicist he looks at the sky, he doesn't ask why, he just paints a sky.

Perhaps Warhol was thinking of this picture in the Philadelphia Museum of Art by Alexandre Calame.

Calame, Oak Trees, 

The trouble with an impressionist, he looks at a log and he doesn't know who he is, standing, staring, at this log.  Surrealist memories are too amorphous and proud, while those downtown macho painters are just alcoholic.

The trouble with personalities, they're too wrapped up in style.  It's too personal, they're in love with their own guile.  They're like illegal aliens trying to make a buck. They're driving gypsy cabs but they're thinking like a truck

So, that's the trouble with classicists, impressionists, surrealists, downtown macho painters and personalities.  Did Andy/Lou/John rate any art forms?  Course they did:

I like the druggy downtown kids who spray paint walls and trains
I like their lack of training, their primitive technique
I think sometimes it hurts you when you stay too long in school
I think sometimes it hurts you when you're afraid to be called a fool

The sort of artist that exists on a diet of Relentless and Pot Noodles.

1972 - that's the way it is

In the summer of 1972 BBC 2 showed a series of Elvis films every Tuesday teatime.  It might not have been Tuesday.  It might not have been Summer 1972.  Perhaps it wasn’t BBC 2 at 6 pm, but that’s the way I remember it.  These films were bright, shiny, empty, beaty, big and bouncy, much like the gallery PopArt of the Sixties.  They looked good but there was nothing behind the façade.  Elvis didn’t really go to Acapulco, London or Hawaii; he was on a sound stage in Hollywood, knocking out three movies a year, taking three weeks over each.  There is an echo of Warhol’s silk screen rationale – bashing out product as quickly and efficiently as possible.  Don’t worry if the ink runs or the colour is too bleached or too much – we like it like that.  For the critics it is a commentary on the vacuity of modern life; for the viewer (of Elvis film or Warhol print) it is bright, shiny, empty, beaty, big and bouncy.

Elvis, Andy Warhol, 1963

Of course Warhol covered Elvis who was as American as a Coke Bottle or a serial killer.  There was a show at the Ferus Gallery in 1965 alongside multiple portraits of Elizabeth Taylor.  It didn’t go down that well.  Warhol wrote:

it was thrilling to see the Ferus Gallery with the Elvises in the front room and the Lizes in the back. Very few people on the (West) Coast knew or cared about contemporary art, and the press for my show wasn't too good. I always have to laugh, though, when I think of how Hollywood called Pop Art a put-on! Hollywood ?? I mean when you look at the kind of movies they were making then — those were supposed to be real???' 

Elvis, Flaming Star publicity still, 20th Century Fox, 1960

Warhol used a still from the movie Flaming Star, one of Elvis’ few “serious” films.  There were almost no songs in it, apart from the title track.  A song he sang to the Injuns round the campfire was dropped after it raised a round of laughter at a test screening.  The relative failure of Flaming Star against the much brighter, shinier, emptier, beatier, bigger and bouncier GI Blues released a few weeks earlier meant that Elvis stopped doing serious films.  (Note for pedants: Wild in the Country was already in production).

Being ten years old I didn't worry about all that.  All I knew was that I loved the songs and it was a shame the story got in the way.  Before long I was sitting there each Tuesday evening with a cassette machine and microphone, recording the songs.

At the age of 10 I became a fully fledged record buyer.  The first were all Elvis.  First single, first EP, first cheapo album, first proper album.     The first single was I Just Can’t Help Believing.  A schmaltzy ballad for sure but quality all the way.  Bought at Rumbelows in Wallasey, a white goods shop, selling fridges and washing machines. And Phonograms. And records. You could listen to the records in listening booths, basically sheets of hardboard full of holes with a speaker behind.  They used to get shirty if you asked to hear more than one record.  They didn't have much of a range either.

The first ep was actually a maxi single.  There were two released at the same time.  My mate bought one which featured Jailhouse Rock, Teddy Bear, Are You Lonesome Tonight and a stray called Steadfast, Loyal and True.   I bought the other which featured Heartbreak Hotel, Hound Dog and Don’t Be Cruel.  Heartbreak Hotel was classic and futuristic, far more progressive than the pop music of 1972.  All music from then on was measured against this yardstick. 

The first cheapo album was on RCA Camden called I Got Lucky. 

Never found a four leaf clover to bring good luck to me,

no rabbits foot, no lucky star, no magic wishing tree

but I got lucky (I got lucky)

yeah I got lucky (I got lucky)

when I found you. 

There were a whole series of Camden albums which had a (relatively) good lead track on each side followed by four or five clunkers.  And the first proper full price album, That’s The Way It Is. 

From Elvis I started to explore Rock n Roll.  The following season's BBC 2 teatime movies were Jerry Lewis films.  I watched the season waiting in vain for Great Balls of Fire.  Apparently that was another Jerry Lewis.

Tokyo Storm Warning

 Tokyo Bar, 54 Crew, Southampton

Tokyo Bar, 54 Crew, Southampton

  Tokyo Bar, 54 Crew, Southampton

 after Warhol, near Tokyo Bar, Southampton

 after Warhol, near Tokyo Bar, Southampton

Have a nice day, Southampton

 Ragged Priest, I am the law, Southampton

We have no art, we do everything as well as we can

There's a fine exhibition of Pop Art Design at the Barbican at the moment.  Unfortunately they won't let you take pictures (because then you wouldn't buy the book or the postcard or the fridge magnets) but you can find pictures of most of the stuff on the interwebs.  Here's a little montage. 

It is a shame about the no photo rule because the works are well laid out and the juxtaposition of them is part of the appeal. For example, I would have like to have shown you a picture of a Litchenstein alongside a mirror which was reflecting a Warhol Marilyn and the red lipped sofa.  Quite frankly if you'd seen the picture that I was taking in my head you would have rushed to the Barbican to see it for yourself. 

The blurring of the lines between art, Art, design and Design is well demonstrated by the show and it does leave you wondering where the daring has gone.  Is it because it has all been done before? 

There's a lot of furniture involved including a dreadful Allen Jones chair (a piece of Misogynist Furniture which inspired the Racist Chair that did the rounds this week). I wouldn't have wasted gallery space on it.  Could have put in something with more Claes.

Exhibition is on until February 9th.  Worth going. And if you do, take the time to watch the documentary about modern computing (1956) by Charles & Ray Eames.  Interesting pair.

the pictures on the walls

the art of QE2 Activity Centre

the pictures on the walls 

   

 Over the past two decades the walls of the QE2 Activity Centre's sports hall have been canvasses displaying some mighty fine artworks.  The majority of these have been painted by Centre staff, sometimes with more inspiration than technique, sometimes with more technique than inspiration, always without utility.  There have been works inspired by Mondrian, Warhol and Hockney.  There have been works painted from photos, from the imagination and from the hip.   Some of it has been to brighten, accentuate or hide the climbing walls.

The current crop of art on the walls is dominated by a commissioned piece from outstanding grafitti artist Eldon Griffiths.  It shows three of the Centre's regular users, portrayed in a bright, almost comic book manner.  

 

Alongside this is an old master by Old Master Pete Dunnings, a silhouetted climber against a Tuscan sun. This was painted in 1995 and has survived the purges that have occurred annually since then.  That's because we like it.

    

For 2013 we have gone for a different style, based on the palettes left behind by the Hacienda Club and Shakeaway cup design teams.   Simple bands of colour, like a breath of fresh air, wafting through the building.

Ars longa, vita brevis, so they say, but here at QE2 Activity Centre the ars is brevis too.  Pictured below are some of the paint jobs that have graced the walls and climbing walls at QE2 Activity Centre.  Painted mostly by Centre staff - what a clever bunch!  However all of these fine art works are gone.

not a Mondrian

 

       

Dum de dum de dumm de dumm, the Archer, Pete Dunnings

  

in the style of A. Warhola (although those that painted it didn't know it)

  

 a nod to the mod, Tetris, Lawrence Parker 

the hills are alive. an attempt to bring mountains to Hampshire

 

Mondrian a go go

 

24 hour party people

 

Snakes & Ladders, B&Q

   

Shakaway (Kerry Lees), QE2 (Great Oaks School), Aaron (Kerry Lees, Emily Weller, from a non original photo and idea)

     

Great oak (Lees), Aaron (ibid)

   

 Jigsaw, Phil & the Green Team

   

boats, thenewcornpoppy

read it in books

This work fuses chaos with order, with lines and shapes laid randomly - at first glance. Closer inspection gradually reveals that a set of rules governs the placement of shapes and the choice of colours. Thus, the artist challenges the viewer to explore the rules encoded in the subconscious that shape our aesthetics, to consider why we find beauty in the juxtaposition of chaos and order.

Rather than any implied meaning or message, the minimalist nature of these paintings encourages the viewer to consider the visual qualities of the work - the composition, surfaces, textures and the relationship of depicted space to line and form. In simplicity, art becomes more direct and incisive in its dissection of the human mind, a more lucent mirror of our collective subconscious.  Kent Wang

 

 Aaron by Aaron, Aaron by Lees, Weller

you can't keep a good blog down

Lou Reed

Velvet Underground & Nico

 

 

They were wild like the USA

A mystery band in a New York way
Rock and roll, but not like the rest
And to me, America at it's best
How in the world were they making that sound?
Velvet Underground.

A spooky tone on a Fender bass
Played less notes and left more space
Stayed kind of still, looked kinda shy
Kinda far away, kinda dignified.
How in the world were they making that sound?
Velvet Underground.

Now you can look at that band and wonder where
All that sound was coming from
With just 4 people there.

Twangy sounds of the cheapest types,
Sounds as stark as black and white stripes,
Bold and brash, sharp and rude,
Like the heats turned off
And you're low on food.
How in the world were they making that sound?
Velvet Underground.
Like this...

Wild wild parties when they start to unwind
A close encounter of the thirdest kind
On the bandstand playing, everybody's saying
How in the world were they making that sound?
Velvet Underground.

Well you could look at that band
And at first sight
Say that certain rules about modern music
Wouldn't apply tonight.

Twangy sounds of the cheapest kind,
Like "Guitar sale $29.99,"
Bold and brash, stark and still,
Like the heats turned off
And you can't pay the bill.
How in the world were they making that sound?
Velvet Underground.

Both guitars got the fuzz tone on
The drummer's standing upright pounding along
A howl, a tone, a feedback whine
Biker boys meet the college kind
How in the world were they making that sound?
Velvet Underground.

Wild wild parties when they start to unwind
A close encounter of the thirdest kind
On the bandstand grooving, everybody moving
How in the world are they making that sound?
Velvet Underground.

 

Jonathan Richman, Velvet Underground

tangerine trees and marmalade skies

 

Continued:  above is a mobile phone snap of the view I had yesterday morning.  I took the picture because I liked the view.  The phone had no camera settings, so there was no technical input from me, point and shoot, point and shoot.   For me the view was a pleasant one, the image is a pleasing one.  Where does the art come in?  Was there an intention to create Art?  Or did I just want to share the view there and then with facebook so that other people would know I was somewhere with a better view than they had? 

 

 

Above is Warhol's Flowers - well, one of many Flowers pictures created by Warhol (yes, yes and Gerald Malanga and Billy Name), this one from 1967. Or maybe 1970.  Alongside is Patricia Caulfield's original photo, found by Warhol, photocopied until the detail was gone and then transformed into something else.   Patricia Caulfield was upset that her photo had been used without acknowledgement, without consideration for the photographer behind the photograph. But Caulfield's photo is not the same as Warhol's.  Warhol used the photo as inspiration, a starting point for something new, interesting, attractive. 

 

The river photo above relies entirely on the reality of that view.  Nothing is added. In part the limitations of the phone/camera softens the image (in the same way that Warhol's multiple photocopyings did) and takes something away.  Does the picture stand alone as an artwork? 

If I had painstakingly painted a painting of the view then I think most people would consider it an artwork (although not necessarily a good one).

 

Similarly a pencil sketch or charcoal drawing, even if it didn't look as good as the phone camera photograph, would be art.

 And if I'd put it through some photoshop edits so it ended up with tangerine trees and marmalade skies then it might be a piece of art. 

 

 Is it enough to just point and shoot? I think so. I think the selection of the image is enough.  The first picture below is taken from the same spot exactly 24 hours later (ie, 10:00 am this morning).  It is nowhere near such a pleasing image. 

 

The final picture is from the same spot (more or less) a few weeks ago, looking in a slightly different direction. I like the image but it lacks the feel and definition of yesterday's refelctive picture.  Remember, yesterday morning's picture contains the spirit of the wagtail.

A bird is natural

in the wild above

and when it sings

we look up

Devon Sproule, Mike O'Neill, You can't help it 2013