Making Marks

Beautiful new art in Edinburgh

I had the pleasure of seeing the exhibition Making Marks yesterday evening, at Art’s Complex on London Road. It features six artists, and I was there to support my friends Antonia Gallacher and Jemma Derbyshire. Their work is beautiful, as always, and both are exhibiting pieces which depart from what I have seen of theirs before. For both, it is a successful move.

Continuum.continuous, Antonia Gallacher

Toni has added colour, and now yellow and dark pink draw us in and lift her meticulous ink drawings. I was happy to see flocking birds and interlocking circles returning from her previous work. I genuinely love it; the geometrical abstraction is teeming with life. There is more this time, including Hang #1 and Equilibrium.Pink, two evocative pieces featuring silhouetted cranes.

Meanwhile, Jemma includes no colour this time. It makes a striking difference to the work, usually bursting with blues and purples. The two City Studies are haunting and the collages, which I have admired before, have been given the prominent position they deserve.

City Study #2, Jemma Derbyshire

Monochrome features heavily throughout the exhibition, but interest does not wane as different artists’ work is often hung closely together. The styles are complementary, and it is impressive how coherent the space is as a whole. So the City Studies find their partner in Vivienne Russell’s Undiscovered Landscape.

But Toni’s is not the only colour. Katy Anderson’s fashion-inspired works are fun and exciting. In Dazed and Confused, a tessellating figure made from varying patterned papers fills a large sheet. And the title alone of Hoody on the Run adds mischief.

A lovely exhibition. See it if you can.

Midnight in Paris

Woody Allen revisits magic and nostalgia

On Wednesday, I saw Woody Allen’s latest film at the Filmhouse. I love the familiarity that comes with each of his films, and Midnight in Paris offers plenty that is familiar. Motifs recurrent throughout Woody’s career resurface here, to my delight. We have a love affair with a city (à la Manhattan), a magical plot device (The Purple Rose of Cairo, Alice) and Americans abroad (Vicky Cristina Barcelona). Thematic similarities emerge too, romantic and nostalgic.

Owen Wilson plays Gil, a struggling writer visiting Paris with his materialistic fiancée (Rachel McAdams) and her parents. They meet Paul (Michael Sheen), an insufferable intellectual know-all. He shepherds them around museums, instructing them on why they should like things and arguing with Carla Bruni. Altogether, these supporting characters are a well-played, amusing gallery of snobs. But Gil is a denizen of nostalgia shops (as is his novel’s main character), embracing the flotsam of the Jazz Age – he wants to escape. And then, when he goes on midnight strolls away from his gross companions, he magically finds himself transported to 1920s Paris...

Over the past ten years, Woody’s films have been variable in quality, to say the least. Midnight in Paris is a pleasing peak, but unfortunately some problems recur, eroding a little the on-screen veneer illuminating the City of Light. In particular, the dialogue in certain sections is clumsy or under-developed; we are aware when Woody is not engaged. The earlier scenes suffer particularly, pesky story set-up resulting in speech which obviously serves only as exposition  (“Let’s have a toast to your new business venture here”).

It means the film takes a little while to generate real warmth, despite all those cosy shots of Paris plunging us into the world Gil idolizes before we even reach the 1920s. In fact, once we are transported, there is still plenty of exposition to get through, and it is occasionally a bit of a drag. After meeting several idols (the Fitzgeralds, Hemingway, Gertrude Stein), Gil is still so surprised.

I guess one would be.

But I willed him to relax and enjoy it – the idea had been hatched and now itched to fly. Happily, he did relax; with him, so did I. The film improved, the flow eased, as Gil became involved with these famous characters. The requisite love story began to blossom, and the comic asides seemed fresher (for instance Adrien Brody’s Dalí – broad, but zingy).

And so, with this enjoyable (and beautifully photographed) world opened up, some familiar Woody Allen themes make themselves welcome. How love, beauty and art are always worth struggling for, and how the terrifying abyss of the Universe can be banished when one embraces wonderful things. Owen Wilson (whose performance is very enjoyable) makes such a speech at one of the film’s best moments, echoing Woody’s epiphanies in Hannah and Her Sisters, Manhattan, even Love and Death.

And then there’s nostalgia. Woody Allen freely admits in interviews that the Manhattan of his New York films is a fantasy. It is as he likes to imagine it, or as he remembers it from old movies. His own childhood is romanticized in this way in Radio Days (more on that film another time). The same goes for Paris. What adds interest here is that the main character is actively engaging in the nostalgia, entering into the past from the outside. He wants to inhabit 1920s Paris, but ultimately he can only be a tourist – his ‘nostalgia shop’ perspective keeping him at bay (“I know someone who collects these in Beverley Hills”). Clever twists on the time travel theme reiterate this.

The past might be a magical place, but even Woody Allen knows the magic is only obtained when it’s become just that: past.

7.5

Tindersticks, Janelle Monáe and the intercostal clavicle

A new blog, an inaugural post. Return here loyally, regularly, but infrequently for a variety of words.

Welcome. I begin with the news that I happily won a competition to review shows at the Usher Hall for STV Local (Edinburgh West). My first assignment was on Tindersticks on Sunday (free tickets, good seats, much enjoyed); I hope to do more. Tindersticks performed Claire Denis film scores, of which they have composed six. My review is now on the STV Local website, and has been well received by my aunt.

Having not written anything substantial since c. 2005, I felt rather out of practice in putting finger to key. The review, now birthed, niggles already with bits to be improved, but I am pleased to have got this far.

My entry for the competition (copied below) was carefully composed over several lunchtimes and submitted last week. It was a review of Janelle Monáe's February concert at the O₂ ABC in Glasgow.

The android is malfunctioning. Her once-pristine pompadour has exploded and points raggedly in every direction. Embracing the New York punk of tonight’s final song, Come Alive, Janelle Monáe leaps and jerks, letting off steam after an impeccable set comprising sharply choreographed, futuristic soul and funk. 

Her first full-length album, The ArchAndroid, was critically lauded last year, but Monáe’s live performances have generated the greater buzz. Capped by her recent Glastonbury appearance, audiences have been entranced by her dancing, stage presence and phenomenal voice. Unleashing this thrashing encore on an exultant Glasgow crowd, she casts that same spell.

The experience is intoxicating. Before we start, Monáe’s image gazes down from a large video screen. She declares herself the arch-android and, introducing the opening song, reminds us there is “only one commandment: Dance or Die”. It’s an instruction impossible not to follow as we are treated to energetic numbers such as Faster and Cold War and showered with ticker tape.

Perhaps Monáe could engage more directly with the crowd, and the show seems rather short, but it is easy to forgive as you dance. The band is remarkable – tight, fun, never flagging for a second. Guitarist Kellindo Parker draws particular attention (he looks like Snoop Dogg, but plays like Prince).

But Janelle is centre stage, and her talent beguiles. Careering through Tightrope’s stuttering lyrics, she emulates her idol James Brown, magically skimming along the stage on one foot as the Godfather of Soul’s image lights the screen behind. During the slow-building Mushrooms & Roses, she paints as she sings. And from a powerful, virtuosic rendition of Charlie Chaplin’s Smile (accompanied by Parker alone) to the full-throttle finale, her voice is perfect.

The robotic theatrics excite, but we leave exhilarated by the intense human gift behind it all. She is poised for stardom.