Saturday 21st November 2009
I never treat myself to anything exciting, so I decided that I would take myself to see an exhibition of the great Hockney’s work.
I managed to stumble upon an article online detailing the new exhibition about a week before it opened on the 14th and turned into a little kid on Christmas when I found out it was possible to go. David Hockney is a big inspiration for me in general, but what made the exhibition even better was the fact that the work that was to be shown is his 1960’s work: the work of his I love the most. And it was free.
A week past and the exhibition opened. I still really wanted to go, but I had the problem of finding someone to come with me and I had to figure out how to get to Nottingham. After asking loads of people if they wanted to come and them declining the offer due to lack of money or fear of going to Nottingham, I decided I’d just go all by myself. Train tickets were cheap(ish) and I didn’t care if I got mugged in Nottingham as long as I got to see Hockney’s work. The 21st was the best day to go as it was a Saturday so I got my tickets and left for my 3 hours 45 minutes train journey. Nothing exciting really happened on the journey so I’ll skip straight to getting into Nottingham and getting lost. I whipped my map out as soon as I got to the city and figured that the centre where the exhibition was wasn’t far at all from the station. But that didn’t stop me going the long way round; through shopping centres and into the crowds of Christmas shoppers alone. It was pretty frightening to be alone in some city that has a bad name and that I’d never been to before. But I couldn’t go back to Hereford without seeing some of my favourite artwork. After 20 minutes of wandering I found the Nottingham Contemporary Centre; a sweet little gallery right by a tram line where I saw numerous people almost get knocked down by trams. Once in the gallery the first room you enter was the shop; mainly a large collection of books and a few other bits. After a quick look in the shop there were a number of doors to different galleries; I decided to follow the signs that were put up just so the pictures were in numerical order and I wanted to do it properly. The first gallery I entered featured, to my dismay, some other artist’s work. The work in the room was that of Frances Stark. I took a look anyway as the work I saw was intriguing and just by looking I found a new artist that I liked. Once I’d had my fill of Stark’s work I went straight into another gallery space and found a smile tugging at my mouth as my eyes wandered around the room and saw a number of canvas pieces that I never thought I’d see in real life. I took each Painting one at a time; reading every caption and the information provided. Once I’d marvelled at the likes of ‘Doll Boy’ and the Homosexual Propaganda I moved onto the next gallery space where again, I took each Painting and print work one at a time and read everything. This room featured the ‘America’ work such as all his paintings of men in swimming pools and showers, his studies of men and his recreation of ‘A Rake’s Progress’. After spending roughly 2 hours in the gallery I decided I should probably leave before I concocted a plan to steal some of the paintings; but not before I brought the exhibition book, which I have to say, is a beautifully made book with too many big words in it for me. I slowly made my way back towards the train station; I did think about shopping but decided against it as it was raining and it was Nottingham after all... I spent my long journey back to Hereford thinking over the exhibition and how happy I was to have been lucky enough to have seen the beautiful work Hockney produced at the Royal College and on his travels. Not even the stupidly packed train from Birmingham where I had to stand for about an hour could damped my spirits after seeing a Hockney’s work for probably my first, and last time.
Thursday, 10 December 2009
Monday, 9 November 2009
Bloc Party
Bloc Party are a 4 piece band based in London. Bloc Party was officially a band around 2003 and have continued to grow and gain a huge fan base from then on. The band’s discography includes a few EP’s and 3 albums; including remixes. The band has a distinct, unmistakeable sound that they have carried with them through their albums, as well as expanded this sound as they changed. Each album is very different yet similar to the last; which is a huge element for their success as a band. The other elements of their success are the lyrics and the band themselves. Each of their albums is themed: Silent Alarm is slightly political mixed with love songs; A weekend in the City is as the title suggests and Intimacy again, is as the title suggests. The lyrics that front man, Kele, writes are in some cases very personal but he still keeps an element of secrecy about them and he writes them in a way that others can relate to.
The band members themselves are just genuine guys that love what they do. They started of as an honest, modest band and they have still kept that about them despite their growing fan base, media coverage and criticism from other bands. They can fill arenas if they want to, but they prefer the smaller venues where it’s intimate and they can fully engage with the crowd, because they know and are grateful to their fans as Bloc Party couldn’t work if it wasn’t for them.
Gerard Way
Gerard Way is an American musician and an artist. He is best known as being the front man of the controversial band, My Chemical Romance. He started off as an artist, drawing comic characters and studying at The School of Visual Arts in New York. A turning point for him was the September 11 attacks which he witnessed. Seeing the loss of life and how short life was he decided he needed to get away from comics and turn to music. Not long after that the band My Chemical Romance began to take form. Many of the songs written by Gerard are his emotional release from his problems with alcohol, drugs and the death of loved ones. When second album, ‘3 Cheers for Sweet Revenge’ came out, which album cover was designed and made by Way himself, it sold millions of copies and gained MCR their success. But it also caused controversy with its lyrics which were supposedly pushing teenagers to commit suicide. Way and the band over came this and continued on with the band, although they have moved in a different direction. With the success of his band, Way has moved back to comics and has created an Eisner Award winning comic series “The umbrella Academy”.
Magritte
Rene Magritte is a Belgium painter that is well known for being part of the Surrealist movement in the 1920’s. He painted not to please people but to make them think deeply about reality and what we assume to be real. As a young teenager he lost his mother when she threw herself in to a river; the most likely source for his interest in subconscious thought and reality. His early paintings were done in an Impressionistic style which he didn’t find inspiring, so he then turned to Cubism and Futurism. His first exhibition which was held in 1927 failed so he moved to Paris and discovered the Surrealists. Here he found that the Surrealists were painters that were influenced by Freud and Jung theories and their work consisted of strange juxtapositions that lacked in logic. Paris found him little success so he moved back to Belgium and continued to find success in his work. The work he produced which gained him credit was this work that made people think; images that took everyday items and turned them into something they’re not or giving them a new meaning. The most notable paintings of this theory being “The Treachery of Images”. He painted a pipe then wrote “This is not a pipe” underneath in French. Something that looks stupid at first, but when thought about it provokes all sorts of other thoughts and it gains so much more meaning.
Bloc Party are a 4 piece band based in London. Bloc Party was officially a band around 2003 and have continued to grow and gain a huge fan base from then on. The band’s discography includes a few EP’s and 3 albums; including remixes. The band has a distinct, unmistakeable sound that they have carried with them through their albums, as well as expanded this sound as they changed. Each album is very different yet similar to the last; which is a huge element for their success as a band. The other elements of their success are the lyrics and the band themselves. Each of their albums is themed: Silent Alarm is slightly political mixed with love songs; A weekend in the City is as the title suggests and Intimacy again, is as the title suggests. The lyrics that front man, Kele, writes are in some cases very personal but he still keeps an element of secrecy about them and he writes them in a way that others can relate to.
The band members themselves are just genuine guys that love what they do. They started of as an honest, modest band and they have still kept that about them despite their growing fan base, media coverage and criticism from other bands. They can fill arenas if they want to, but they prefer the smaller venues where it’s intimate and they can fully engage with the crowd, because they know and are grateful to their fans as Bloc Party couldn’t work if it wasn’t for them.
Gerard Way
Gerard Way is an American musician and an artist. He is best known as being the front man of the controversial band, My Chemical Romance. He started off as an artist, drawing comic characters and studying at The School of Visual Arts in New York. A turning point for him was the September 11 attacks which he witnessed. Seeing the loss of life and how short life was he decided he needed to get away from comics and turn to music. Not long after that the band My Chemical Romance began to take form. Many of the songs written by Gerard are his emotional release from his problems with alcohol, drugs and the death of loved ones. When second album, ‘3 Cheers for Sweet Revenge’ came out, which album cover was designed and made by Way himself, it sold millions of copies and gained MCR their success. But it also caused controversy with its lyrics which were supposedly pushing teenagers to commit suicide. Way and the band over came this and continued on with the band, although they have moved in a different direction. With the success of his band, Way has moved back to comics and has created an Eisner Award winning comic series “The umbrella Academy”.
Magritte
Rene Magritte is a Belgium painter that is well known for being part of the Surrealist movement in the 1920’s. He painted not to please people but to make them think deeply about reality and what we assume to be real. As a young teenager he lost his mother when she threw herself in to a river; the most likely source for his interest in subconscious thought and reality. His early paintings were done in an Impressionistic style which he didn’t find inspiring, so he then turned to Cubism and Futurism. His first exhibition which was held in 1927 failed so he moved to Paris and discovered the Surrealists. Here he found that the Surrealists were painters that were influenced by Freud and Jung theories and their work consisted of strange juxtapositions that lacked in logic. Paris found him little success so he moved back to Belgium and continued to find success in his work. The work he produced which gained him credit was this work that made people think; images that took everyday items and turned them into something they’re not or giving them a new meaning. The most notable paintings of this theory being “The Treachery of Images”. He painted a pipe then wrote “This is not a pipe” underneath in French. Something that looks stupid at first, but when thought about it provokes all sorts of other thoughts and it gains so much more meaning.
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