The Blake Exhibition at Tate Modern

September 2019 - 2 February 2020

With Blake the soul is always elevated, no matter of the subject - Creation, Temptation, Fall, Satan, Hope etc - such is the Blake effect.

In poetry or in image - Blake is unfailingly awesome. Awesome like in 'the awesome power of the atomic bomb’ and not like in 'the tune is truly awesome!' *... even though, at times, there is of this second awesomeness too...like in... say in 'The Number of the Beast is 666', or 'The Temptation and Fall of Eve'.

No matter how much Blake I have seen in art or poetry books, at the exhibition I was unprepared. Unprepared for the : scale, verve, fixation, obsession, caliber and complexity of visions; quantity and quality of works presented. Generally speaking, unprepared of the fact that Blake is a painter of a different order. If he is a painter at all. And as I cannot explain it more clearly I will say: It is just like when I watch Sylvie Guillem dancing live, no matter what I have seen online, or what I remember from seeing her dance on stage the previous time, it is always more, much more than what I remember or imagine. Like if my memory and imagination are of too little RAM to maintain a truthful image of this perfection. So then I say 'Sylvie Guillem is a dancer of a different order'. For one thing is certain Sylvie is a dancee. As of Blake I can only say 'Blake is of a different order'. But I can't say painter, as his painting I perceive merely as a tool that serves him being him. While Sylvie serves Dance; painting serves Blake, not the opposite. So for me saying that Blake is a painter is like saying that tiger is a stripe.

Now on the hellish bit...the exhibition was unethically packed. Really and honestly. Up to an unfair point. I know it was Sunday afternoon, but what could I do? I work during the week. And it so happens that Tate Britain has only one Late opening per month - to go then might have been even more life endangering.

It was so packed that I got:

Hit in the face twice by rucksacks on men's backs! Honestly dudes, rucksacks? In Tate Britain? And you people at the door, rucksacks in this carnage? When there are perfect cloakrooms ?

Shouldered once by a man without a rucksack.

Ran over the heal by an electric wheelchair - I can scarcely imagine how fuming the wheelchair user was. Not sure if she was more or less upset than the children though; as the children were the other major sufferers on this battlefield. And good luck to any small person to get any near a painting when there are men meditating on 'Satan Exulting Over Eve'! - not that I blame them for the matter; Blake is made for meditation - and exactly this has not been taken in consideration by the organiser: that Blake is of different order.

Anyhow there were plenty of despairing children on the benches, and the benches looked not enough to take them and the older people - also despairing unable to compete with the fitter entranced crowd. Thinking to introduce a child to William Blake at this exhibition? Drop it. There is a serious risk for the child to refuse to set a foot in a gallery or a museum in the next ten years.

Luckily, I turned to be of the fitter and seriously entranced crowd. But at the end, at the very end of the exhibition and just when I start coming through a spot on my head (so far unknown, somewhere between my third eye and the fontanelle) while contemplating the last image of the exhibition which I call ' The Man with the Sun, the Moon and the Triangle', a bold man buttocked me, while bending to take something from his bag, sobering me out of my trance just a split second before illumination.

There, to live through this just balance of Heaven and Hell, running to 2nd of February, one should be armed with skiing boots and the ancestry armour, cary a magnifying glass and certainly fdgoyld have not forgotten one's spectacles.

The polenta orange and chocolate cake is the best After-Blake cigarette substitute. And a tasty antidote to his visionary fixations and obsessions.

*Oxford dictionaries ♤

The ancients new better and always positioned images of beasts upside down or on one side so that they don't look the spectator in the eye.

20 January 2020 = 7+ 000 + 0

I am sure no reminder is needed, but I'll still gladly do it: The best place in town come Friday night is the National Portrait Gallery.

NPG has always been my favourite gallery in town. I think of the Portrait Gallery as of the "dolly" in the company of grander ladies. Sat next to Auntie National Gallery; not far from La Grande Dame Tate Britain; cross the river from La Garce Tate Modern and more central than Nanny V&A NPG is a dolly. Une poupée quoi.

A dolly that come Friday evening turns from un petit bijou to a magically expandable jewelry box. And now more than ever so. For there are there many gems at once: the permanent exposition, the Portrait Award and Cindy Shrman, the live DJs, the drawing in the gallery, the drinks in the grand foyer, the books in the bookshop, the arty presents in the gallery shop and the unique view towards Nelson's Column and the Big Ben from the under the roof restaurant.

On each of those books could be written but will try to keep it short:

The permanent exhibition is as permanent as a forest. The trees stand still but the view is permanently changing. Now the 1st floors "Southern Wing" (as I imagine it is called) features a new display of portraits of film directors, rock'n'roll stars and other entertainment and politics' celebrities.

The Portrait Award finalists this year looks to me better and sharper than some previous years. I am not sure if this is due to the smaller selection presented in a space differently arranged; or the selected works are simply and really better. This year, three of my favourite portraits hang on the same wall. Of them I will mention only a portrait I nicknamed 'Repin's portrait of Repin'. Not only the painting looks like Repin's but also the person depicted looks like him. Strangely Frances Bell has named this excellent portrait of her friend Edd, not 'Repin' but 'Rumination'. (Here I would like to open a bracket and recomend a fine Finish film titled Tuntematon mestari, English title One Last Deal, 2018. It is about an elderly art dealer who dreams for one last big deal before selling his gallery and retiring. He falls upon an unsigned portrait which he believe if of ...that's it! Repin. (Strangely the portrait used in the film looks disturbingly similar to the now infamous Salvator Mundi)

Cindy Sherman about whom ignorasimus me have never previously heard, challenged me at first. With the entry in the first exhibition whole I felt strong rejection bubbling in my chest : "How could she be so self-obsessed as to represent only herself?" Then reluctance to go further in the exhibition rooms: "What now, am I expected to be looking to her face alone through a whole exhibition?". This challenge lasted just as long as necessary for me to see myself as conservative and judgemental. Four minutes later I was already realising that: 1. Cindy Sherman plays. 2. She plays with the only thing she really has - herself. 3. She've shortened the habitual journey through which the viewer goes in search of the artist's face and personality, both embedded in the fabric of the work. 4. Her real name is Cindy Empathy Sherman as through some unbelievable degree of mimicry she is able to incarnate an uncountable number of women characters. She depicts and presents thousands of faces using and manipulating nobody but her own self. Which possibly makes of her the most ethical of all artists? 5. She is a real alchemist and psychonaut.

The live DJs are "bien a leur place" at the NPG. Ideally we would have some string quartet here and a DJ there but that might be reserved for when we go to heaven. I also congratulate the NPG for the good choice of DJs and also for their intentional strive to achieve diversity. An intentional, proactive strive to reach a diverse audience is what every gallery needs. Chapeau 💕 Art Diversity Engaged Position should be every gallery's moto.

People drowning in the gallery? There is hardly something more therapeutically soothing than watching people drawing in the gallery. Luckily, there are still plenty of them around all gallery floors. May be in slightly lower numbers than previously when the gallery was providing all drawing materials.

The books in the bookshop ? There is a ton of books waiting to be read under a DJ accompaniment - quel bonheur! That must be circle two of paradise.

The shop? Ah the shop the shop... In the shop they now have this cet of ribbon&pearls necklace and bracelet in graffiti-grey and black ... at the cite of which I have to exercise will power not to neigh like a horese and clap my hands.

The view from the under the roof restaurant is like in a Disney movie. I sit there with a strawberry bellini in my left hand and a rabbit shang in my right hand and expect to see if not a dragon flying around the Big Ben at least Merry Poppins umbrelluting down from the grey rainy sky, descending to keep Nelson company.

...ah, and talking about food and grey sky... New to this particular spot in town, upon my arrival at Trafalgar Square last Friday, 19 July, I spot a Hare Krishna cart marked with "Love your vegan food" banner parked just at the corner where NG meets NPG. Thus, just before my entry in the gallery I am handed a big, biodegradable! plate of warm curcuma lentils. So I sit with a plate shining like the sun in bright yellow under a grey drizzling sky. I catch myself thinking:

In nowadays British Empire, just like in the Ancient Roman before, two things only the people anxiously desire — bread and circuses. Art and food.

A little bit later the precious energy of art and food kicks in taking me higher and higher, away from the week's manic stress and depression. Enter weekend.

For Portrait Award until 20 October

For the Cindy Sherman until 15 September

A fantastic eye-washing, heart-warming, soul-opening and nearly Brexit-free Martin Parr at National Portrait Gallery.

Carried away by the Brexit folly I wasn't aware how much my soul was squeezed and tormented until I entered the NPG rooms brightened by Parr's photography.

At the sight of the series Oneness and Dance Floor I was close to tears. And the tears remained there clinging at the edge of my eye through Celebrities, Portraits and Self-portraits.

Parr's lence briskly reminded me how is good, generous and fun life is.

My English friends often hint to me, discretely, as an Indian elephant in a Venetian glass store, as goes a Bulgarian saying, that it would be more interesting if I review small galleries and unknown artists; they send me announces for small exhibitions in distant galleries. And to be honest I go. To most of them. But then to write about them seems as a little bit, to put it discretely, too much to ask from me.

And also, honestly, why would I encourage people to go to Bermondsey Project Space to see a sad "1/3 MeelPress Portuguese Contemporary Artists Curated by João Silvério" instead of NPG where they could see a happy and humane Parr?

Bermondsey as whole though is an excellent good-weather walk with its many galleries, Glass and Fashion museums, bars and restaurants and the London glassblowing studio.

In bad stormy weather though always bet on The National Portraiy Gallert.

Martin Parr is at NPG until 27 May

6 April 2019

About Jesse Darling I won't speak with own words.

About her I will quote Nadia Choucha writing about Duchamp in her book Surrealism & the Occult:

"Duchamp's 'Fountain' represents an act of iconoclasm, attacking the notion of art as a precious icon, to be venerated and removed from life in the artificial environment of the gallery. It also gives art a sense of anarchic wit. Humour is one of the most natural, direct and spontaneous forms of communication, which may be one of the reasons that Duchamp applied it to art, to make it more immediate and accessible."

Well, about Jess Darling same same, I would say.

Thank you Jesse Darling, your art made my day 💕💕💕

Thank you Nadia Choucha, your book made talking about Jesse Darling so easy💖💖💖

Thank you Marcel Duchamp you showed Jesse Darling the way 🖤🖤🖤

Thank you everybody. Thank you for the 🐟🐠🐡

I was actually at Tate Britain to spy on their Christmas decoration setting.

The faithful reader doubtlessly remembers that last year it was precisely Tate Britain that wan LAAF's beast Christmas Decoration Award with funny white animals around its facade.

Who cares to spy on Kim Kardashian when one could spy on Tate Britain?!? Honestly.

One thousand and one days and one thousand and one nights I was about to mourn the sanctions imposed on Iran; flooding LAAF with endless Hafiz poems and countless Farshchian paintings, when...Lo, a museum saved the day again!

The new Islamic Art Rooms at the British Museum (3rd floor, South-East corner) opened doors on 18th of October this year.

The collection is brilliant, though miniscule. What absolutely enchanted me, are the inscriptions in a relevant language, Arabic, Farsi, next to the pieces.

At last, at last Farsi and Arabic inscriptions next to Persian and Arabic artefacts.

Thank you, thank you, British Museum. There is hope.

There is hope in the temples of humanity - the museums and the galleries.

If what you see in the new Islamic Art Rooms is not enough to cheer you up and distract you from the last battle of the War of Civilisations and the misery of the ever shortening autumnal day; the nearest drinking ditch is London Cocktail Bar, where I am not too keen to send you unless there are at least six of you, all under twenty. Alternatively, а few yards further down Shaftesbury Avenue is the Freud bar, where you might possibly find the mixed and shaken, temporary, liquid remedy to all international and local-climate problems.

5 November 2018

Whatever religion or politics might tell you, life is never about one thing and truth does not abide in one - god or party.

Certainly, truth is not to be found at the bottom of one only stemware.

One, in nature, automatically generates two then multiplies.

Thus, YOU WILL FIRST GO to the National Gallery AND SEE The Chalice of Gods by Thomas Cole and SECOND, YOU WILL GO AND DRINK Porn Star Martini at Topolski, Concert Hall Approach.

You will need 90 min as in: 40 min for Cole, 10 min travel, 40 min for two Porn.

You may take your children to Cole, but don't drink your first Porn elsewhere, and certainly not in "children friendly" establishments where it features in the menu disguised as Rock (!!!) Star Martini. It's less creamy when under cover.

Porn Star Martini, arrives with a tumbler of prosecco, and we could call it Giant and Midget.

25 August 2018