Amazing Grayson.....

Delusions. Of Grandeur?

Marlon Brando as Regulator Robert E Lee Clayton
in Arthur Penn's The Missouri Breaks

Q. When is a National Treasure not a National Treasure?

A. When it doesn't know who it is.

Grayson Perry as Shirley Smith
in Madge Gill's The Wallace Collection

The dress Grayson Perry designed for Marlon Brando
[Are you sure?  Ed]

Amazing Grayson, How sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like me.

I once was lost, but now I am found,

Was blind, but now I see.

And the first thing I see, on regaining my sight, are London rooftops, which conceal the life within.  Layer upon layer of obscurity, through which I attempt to spy something relevant.  

And so, in search of reason, we attend Her Madge's show in the underworld of the Wallace Collection, within the dusty confines of Hertford House.  Here she is. Lying in wait.....

The exhibition, on the occasion of Grayson's 65th birthday [Only a year or so to the Bus Pass. Ed], is one masked by a plurality of personae, where Ms Perrin [Shome mishtake? Ed], sorry, Grayson Perón. [Shtill not right. Ed] OK. Where Grayson shelters under a plurality of alter egos, starting with Shirley Smith, an outsider artist who believes herself to be The Honourable Millicent Wallace, rightful heir to Hertford House and its collection, including the Armoury.

Gun for shooting into the past

I have to declare something of my ignorance here. Apart from hearing that he won the Turner Prize in 2003, catching snatches of Perry's 2013 Reith Lectures, seeing some knitted bicycles and floral pots in the Arnolfini in Bristol, learning that in 2014 he was elected to the Royal Academy of Art, and that in 2019 he was appointed a trustee of the British Museum, I have not been a Grayson Perry groupie. But he is an articulate, and skilful creator and his ideas are considerable. Initially a potter,

What a Wonderful World - Glazed ceramic
(When I first came to London I was poor.  Forty-two years later, as a successful artist, I am fairly rich.  But I never take it for granted.....  Try being poor and you soon find out how all-consuming anxiety about money can become - Grayson Perry)

He has mastered many materials, such as textiles,

I Know Who I Am 
Cotton fabric and embroidery appliqué bedspread
(I imagine Shirley making this bedspread as a talismanic protection for her body and her sense of identity - Grayson Perry)

AI designed tapestries:

Modern, Beautiful and Good
(I imagined this tapestry as a seductive logo-wall, in front of which virtue-signalling aesthetes could advertise their good taste and their munificence - Grayson Perry)

Multi-media productions:

Wall paper:

Furniture:

The Great Beauty - Oak, brass and ceramic
(A shrine to friendship - No one knows what Shirley actually kept inside the cabinet, for it was found empty upon her death - Grayson Perry)

And various styles of portraiture:

The Honourable Millicent Wallace - Woodblock print
(This portrait is how Shirley Smith saw herself; it is a mirror to her self-soothing delusion.  Millicent is the essence of regal elegance.  She is desirable, stylish, rich, confident and a crack shot - Grayson Perry)

Magical Thinking
('Magical thinking' is when we believe our thoughts and feelings can have an effect on the world - Grayson Perry)

This show is dazzling, and is great fun. It has had some interesting reviews, not all of them five star. The Week UK reported thus in April: The trouble is that Perry's heart just isn't in it, said Alastair Sooke in The Telegraph [Perhaps they would?  Ed]. Indeed, "his irritation with the project is palpable": in his captions, he expresses his dislike for the Wallace and its contents, even its West End location; he describes an intentionally crude new pot he has made for the show as "a grumpy outburst in pottery form", its rough edges hewn in response to the museum's trove of exquisite 18th century Sèvres porcelain. "OK, so he hates French rococo style – but, given that this is a speciality of the Wallace Collection, why take this exhibition on?" Perry's teasing provocations are usually offset by his "famous wit", but here he comes across as stroppy.....

I am not at all sure that I agree, but that is my dilemma.  In his first Reith Lecture, under the title Playing to the Gallery, Grayson offered a mathematical formula for art in the twenty-first century:  What you do is you get a half-decent, non-offensive kind of idea, and then you times it by the number of studio assistants, then you divide it with an ambitious art dealer and that equals the number of oligarchs and hedge-fund managers in the world.....

There is an underlying cynicism in this, but perhaps it should not be disregarded. Grayson also once said: If you want to be successful in the art world you've got to look to the art world; you don't make it for the bloke next door and then hope the art world is going to look at it. That's one of the big mistakes people make.  I think that Duccio probably knew that.  And isn't that what drove Van Gogh to despair?

A Tree in a Landscape - Etching
(The tree stands in a landscape of potential causes.  We all exhibit some traits that could be pathologised - Grayson Perry)

'Twas Grayson that taught my heart to fear,

And Grayson my fears relieved.

How precious did that Grayson appear

The hour I first believed.

It is hot.  London is not cool, though across the royal parks the shade makes us welcome.  I am grateful to Grayson for his interaction, for his interest in offering tools to understand and appreciate art.  Autobiography is a narrative, I think to myself, as I try to understand my fears.

And then, returning from cross town perambulations, I am driven to quench my thirst in the Mercato Metropolitano, a cultural and foodie hub in the deconsecrated church of St Mark’s, a Grade 1-listed building on North Audley Street.

It is cross-dressing in stone, an expression of the ongoing confusion of human endeavour.  Built as a temple to thought and faith, it is now an office for the pursuit of epicureanism  - but no matter: we are used to multiple personalities. 

And then, sated, it is time to follow the sun down through the quiet streets,

Past the Phantom of Liberty (remember the wallpaper?) where - according to Luis Buñuel - chance governs all things......

To stand with eager devotees to hear Pallas Athena [You mean Evita? Ed] intone her heartfelt imprecation to the people of her country as she faced her untimely death [Remember that we need not cry because (a) Evita got everything out of life she dreamed of, and (b) Argentina should cry for itself...... Ed]

Rachel Zegler as Eva Perón (Grayson's sister?)
on the balcony of the London Palladium
{Avenida 9 de Julio}

So many duplicates.  So much duplicity.  The tenuous links between film and art, between life and imagination.  Which is real?  Which is true?  It is all part of the game.  That sparkling game that is life.....

Oxford Street, early

Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them - that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.

Lao Tzu

– The Milky Way (1)

 Trains of Thought...

 

After three weeks and three thousand miles, mainly on trains, I am home.  The cats mew welcomes and I drop my bag, exhausted.  I think this may have been the longest separation from Amanda in forty years and I am looking forward to collecting her from Respite in the morning, but first I must burn some heating (the house is cold! - but can we afford it?)  I am cold.  And tired, and need to lie down.....

 

Three-thirty in the morning and I cough myself awake, unable to sleep again, not feeling good.  Seven-thirty and two thin red lines stare back at me from their plastic frame.  After three years and three vaccinations, and despite wearing a mask for three thousand miles, finally the bug has got me.  Plans change.  I cannot pick Amanda up.  

 

Time for reflection.  The point of this break was in part for me to recharge my batteries, to allow me to prolong my care for Amanda at home.  In part, however, it was to see how she got on in the local care home, conveniently nearby.  I had planned to bring her home for a few days to see how she was with me, then to take her back for the weekend while I collected my thoughts and then to make a final decision on the Monday following my return.

 

For anyone caring for someone, there are many things to consider, the first of which is to allow the cared for to remain safe in his or her decline.  A secondary consideration, however, concerns the carer.  For example, if I, or one of the dedicated carers who have been helping Amanda at home, were to become ill or incapacitated, then the situation would rapidly become problematic.  Whereas if she takes up residence in a care home, there is 24-hour assistance, and, while no one can pretend it will be as “nice” for her as being in her own home, if we are nearby and can visit, take her out or bring her home regularly, then maybe everyone benefits.

 

For readers unfamiliar with this story, Amanda was diagnosed with dementia about eleven years ago (to be honest, it’s a blur now and I cannot remember quite how long ago it was, it may have been longer). Initially we were told that it was early onset Alzheimer’s disease, but I contested this and after brain scans and extensive testing it was agreed that the correct diagnosis was Frontotemporal Dementia (Semantic Variant) a relatively rare (and long-lived) condition.  In practical terms this doesn’t make a huge difference – no dementia can currently be cured, and all converge eventually in some kind of death – but in Amanda’s case it has meant that while she hasn’t had some of the symptoms that can be so distressing in dementia – such as extreme behaviours, anxiety, disconcertingly repetitive actions – she has now lost almost every shred of language, both in her understanding and in her ability to communicate.  

 

She continued working, and driving, for some time, and apart from struggling to find the right word at times you might not have known she was affected.  It is a slow, silent, stealthy insurrection however, and day by day plaques, abnormal clusters of protein fragments, build up between nerve cells, then dead and dying nerve cells contain tangles, which are made up of twisted strands of protein.  Nutrients and other essential supplies can no longer move through the cells, which eventually die; the brain shrinks dramatically and the effects become more noticeable.  

 

We continued to travel, though our trip to Bologna and Ravenna in 2015 was a milestone as I had an epiphany at the Easter Vigil in the Metropolitan cathedral as the Paschal Candle was lit to the singing of the Exultet:

 

Accept this Easter candle,
a flame divided but undimmed,
a pillar of fire that glows to the honour of God.
(For it is fed by the holy melting wax, which the mother bee brought forth
to make this precious candle.)
Let it mingle with the lights of heaven
and continue bravely burning
to dispel the darkness of this night!
May the Morning Star which never sets
find this flame still burning:
Christ, that Morning Star,
who came back from the dead,
and shed his peaceful light on all humanity,
your Son, who lives and reigns for ever and ever.

Amen.

 

Unlike Amanda, unfortunately I have no faith.  But in the dimness of that crowded place I realised that we had come to a point of no return, and that our relationship could not maintain the equilibrium we had enjoyed for over thirty years.

 

After Amanda had to retire, we visited our daughters in China and Australia in 2016, but then settled down to quiet routines of swimming, walking, and watching Escape to the Country, rowing back against the advancing deterioration.

 

Our last overseas trip was to see the Christmas markets in Krakow in 2019, after which the pandemic raised its ugly head and we were locked down, just the two of us, sneaking out for two walks a day (no swimming) and awkwardly waving and clapping on Thursday evenings on the doorstep to keep in with the neighbours....

 

During that time, while I caught up on some heavy reading (Boswell’s Life of Johnson – an ironic choice given the lifelessness of the then Prime Minister – and John dos Passos’s USA) Amanda spent her time cutting and pasting, creating Christmas and Birthday cards for her friends and relations all the way up to 2029....)

 

And then we moved, to Norfolk, in an attempt to find a home where our daughters could stay comfortably should they be able to help with care, and where we could potentially have residential carers should we reach that stage.  It was a good move, though, with retrospect, too late for Amanda to appreciate.  The upheaval disturbed her, and her condition worsened.  So that now, despite all the help and goodwill from family, friends and carers, we are faced with the trauma of dislocation once more.  

 

And so, over eighteen months since we moved, and exactly a year since I last went anywhere at all, with all this in mind, I take a series of trains to Harwich, a place of diminished charm:

to ship to the continent, with a meticulously planned itinerary to visit old friends and haunts, and to revitalise my tired thoughts.  Amanda is safely installed in a local care home for a period of respite, and I am temporarily free.  

In Amsterdam I pass a wonderfully convivial evening with a family of dear friends who we knew from Rome, though as this was almost my first social evening in someone else’s home for some years I was perhaps over-excited? 

 

 

With two other friends, by chance on a similar trajectory, we revisit the Rijksmuseum and Van Gogh, but I am already troubled.  What is it that is gained through this incessant interaction between visitors and works of art?  I don’t tire of Rembrandt or Vermeer, and Van Gogh’s frenetic output never ceases to impress.  But as I gaze at the Lowry like scene in the foyer:

or at the serious attention paid to walls covered in oils, 

I have a welling sense of futility.

 

On September 8^th at around 16.10 local time, a double rainbow rises from the North Sea.  The following morning the papers are awash with the royal story. And so they are in Germany, Austria and Italy for days to come.  I’m not the only one with problems.

 

Stranded by a Dutch train strike (yes, it isn’t only Great British Railways, though I must say this was handled differently....) I spend a night where Chet Baker died, and wander Amsterdam in the rain, seeking solace behind locked church doors, 

and views from on high....

 

Then I am away, and coursing through Germany, streaking away from my responsibilities, I spend a night in Bamberg, entranced by both the half-timbered Altes Rathaus, 

perched above the Regnitz, and jars of Rauchbier (smoked beer) in the dark and warm interior of the Hofbräu.....

 

Then on to Munich, where other beer halls attract, 

as does the rather moth-eaten Alte Pinakothek, 

once (1836) the largest art gallery in the world, though with almost every picture glazed with reflecting glass I again find it difficult to know what I am looking at, or for....

 

I reach the high spot of this part of my journey in Innsbruck, where funicular and the Nordketter Cable Car transports me to Hafelekar at 2,269 metres above sea level.  Here spectacular views across the Tyrol are crystal clear in the mountain air.  Alpine Choughs:

hop about round my feet, and for a moment I feel almost weightless, though from here the only way is down.....

 

This journey is a pilgrimage, like the wanderings of the peregrine, or like a journey down the Milky Way to Santiago de Compostela, a journey that in Luis Buñuel's film La Voie Lactée plays with time, and entertains questions of orthodoxy and heresy. I don’t mean to exaggerate, but if we are thinking beings, we should be examining the purpose of existence and trying to make some sense of our place in the universe. On my various trains my thoughts turn frequently to Amanda and the life we have shared, the places we have visited. At the top of the Karwendel Nature Park above Innsbruck, I am reminded of a trip Amanda and I made to Salzburg, before the children were born. From there we had a day trip up into the Tyrol, in shiny blue weather, like today, and we surveyed the rocky and snowy world from on high.

 

And we believed, then, in a bright future.

 

Now I am home, alone.  I really do not feel that well.  It’s time for bed.....

[All photos, except that of the two of us in the Tyrol, taken either on my iPhone SE or my Canon EOS R5]

Beyond Surreal

 You couldn't make it up.....

A Surrealist manifesto was written by André Breton, [French poet, essayist, critic, and editor, chief promoter and one of the founders of the Surrealist movement] and published in 1924. The document defines Surrealism as:

Psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express — verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other manner — the actual functioning of thought. Dictated by thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern.

The text includes numerous examples of the applications of Surrealism to poetry and literature, but makes it clear that its basic tenets can be applied to any circumstance of life; not merely restricted to the artistic realm......

Which brings us to the now.....

I am in the shell of the Tate Modern, once a power station, now a vacuum cleaner for the school holidays, sucking children and tourists into a state of dusty confusion, where the received wisdom is that a person is better for attending some 'artistic' event than for playing with mud and leaves in the woods.

So, me too....  My guilt is post-prandial, so I can trade excuses.

The show is Surrealism Beyond Borders, possibly subtitled:

A telephone receiver morphs into a lobster.

A train rushes from a fireplace.

Nah.  I don't think so....  Lobster phones and fireplace trains don't really interrogate political or social systems, despite their imaginative delights.

I'll tell you what is Surrealism.  Surrealism is Nadine Dorries.  

Or, if you prefer, Ms Nadine Dorries, who tweeted, on April 12th:  

PM has been clear about what happened on 19th June 2020 & offered a full apology. It was a brief gathering in the Cabinet Room, less than 10 minutes during a busy working day. PM is at his best when delivering on the priorities of the British people which he will continue to do.

And then there is the MP for Lichfield (birthplace, I believe, of Dr Samuel Johnson - no relation - so not famous for its idiots) Michael Fabricant (stylist to the early seventies) who defends Boris Johnson over party gate, saying he did not think the Prime Minister thought that he was breaking the law.

He said: At the time, just like many teachers and nurses who, after a very, very long shift, would tend to go back to the staff room and have a quiet drink, which is more or less what he has done.

Having been a teacher for most of my misspent adult life, I have to admit, I liked a drink at lunchtime almost as much as I did a few in the evenings, and I have to say that it would rarely be a quiet drink and it would never be in the staff room.

Who are these appalling genetic mistakes?

I learned to admire surrealism through the slit cornea of  Luis Buñuel and  Salvador Dalí, but this exhibition nods to neither.  It is a serious manifestation of how many artists in the mid 20th century wanted to express some kind of revolution against conservative ideology, without there being a hard core to their shared concepts.

I will admit that I was not emotionally moved by this exhibition. I found it to a certain extent depressing, and certainly tiring. I love exploring art works where the artist has invited me to enter a different world, but I find it difficult (and I know this is my limitation) to engage with artists whose intellectual route is primarily an exploration of their own subconscious.

Having said that, this is not an exhibition to dismiss, and many will gain much more from it than I did.

In the end I emerged enlightened by the discovery that surrealism was not just Dalí's dripping time, nor the brilliant cinematic fantasies of Luis Buñuel.

To bring this down to the mundane, I now see surrealism all around.  A millionaire chancellor of the exchequer accepting that he broke the law that prevented ordinary people from holding the hands of their dying partners and parents, while simultaneously presiding over the biggest cost of living increase in living memory: a prime minister who dreams of himself being an international statesman, smirking at the camera in his grace and favour mansion while he confesses to being apologetic that he unwittingly broke laws he himself promoted..... 

These things are beyond surreal.

Having said that, I turn to the great Dr Johnson (no relation) who might well have been a tutor to both the Prime Minister and the Chancellor:

Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.

Or, should that be a bit too la-di-da for my average reader, here's one from Nadine Dorries, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (you couldn't make it up):

My blog is 70% fiction and 30% fact. It is written as a tool to enable my constituents to know me better and to reassure them of my commitment to Mid Bedfordshire. I rely heavily on poetic licence and frequently replace one place name/event/fact with another.

Nadine Dorries

21 October 2010

Nadine, honey is that you?

Oh, Nadine, honey, is that you?

Seems like every time I catch up with

You are up to something new

Chuck Berry

The phrase: Psychic automatism in its pure state, as quoted at the head of this piece, is the core tenet of Surrealism, and is also, I venture to suggest, the essence of the current embolisms in Downing Street.

Though, to me, another definition of Surrealism takes me back to 1460 and the poster of Piero della Francesca's Resurrection that I have on my bedroom wall (well - I might as well live in a monastery). Christ rises from a classical sarcophagus, four soldiers sleeping at his feet, while behind him nature goes from winter to spring as Easter brings us new life.

Which is why we like eggs so much......

Happy Easter!