Open See
Jim Goldberg’s Open See, the latest exhibition at the Photographer’s Gallery comes as a great surprise. After a couple of decidedly average exhibitions I wasn’t sure what to expect of Goldberg’s work, although the Magnum connection got me interested. I’ve been a fan of their group of photographers for many years and the draw of the name was enough to get me over to Soho for a visit and a coffee in their excellent café.
If you’re passion is documentary and reportage photography then this is an exhibition you should see — Goldberg’s Open See explores the lives of some of Europe, Asia and Africa’s millions of displaced people and migrant communities. From Bangladesh to Ukraine and India, his eclectic mix of large-format photography, video pieces and Polaroid images brings to the fore the daily struggles of the men, women and children of countries who seem to have been forgotten by the western world.
Distressing in places, uplifting in others, the mix of media, words and image plays beautifully with the tempered calm of the Photographer’s Gallery. It’s a disquieting feeling drinking your decaf latté as you ponder the words of 12 year-old girls trafficked into prostitution, of men tortured by the Taliban, and of countless other stories of bodies and minds taken to places beyond our worst nightmares.
Goldberg’s photography and image-making is excellent, and you can’t help but wonder at his composition and timing — the formats chosen are prefect for their subjects, and allow them to speak loudly and colourfully of their hopes and dreams, whatever they have endured. Excellent.
The Long way round
Alcohol and art — a perfect match. On Friday we found ourselves at the Tate Britain for Late, a long running monthly evening of drinking, entertainment and art. This month’s theme was “The Story of London” — represented in movies, cabaret and archive material from the Tate collection. What got us really excited though, apart from some very tasty free Courvoisiers, was the Richard Long exhibit which has just opened.
In his first major UK exhibition for 18 years we are taken gently through his body of work since his first piece in 1967. The black and white photographs with beautifully hand-rendered type, the carefully annotated maps detailing geometric journeys crossing contours made real, and the centrepiece stone works set out in the large central space. For the typographical fetishists, of which I include myself here, there is type everywhere, from the minute hand-rendered lettering of the earlier pieces to the giant site-specific wording of the more contemporary pieces. Gill Sans dominates and evokes thoughts of classic information design of the 30s and 40s, of wartime posters and pamphlets — “Heaven and Earth” is a well travelled exhibit, but has a distinctly British flavour to it. New site-specific pieces are sewn throughout, bringing the outside in and involving the very fabric of the Tate.
Long’s work reminds me of a simpler time when I dreamed of art that connected directly to the world around us — you can’t help but feel that fantastic 60’s optimism in almost everything that he produces. It transports me back to those yellowed book pages full of black and white images of work by Smithson and Oppenheim, which I pored over for hours in the art college library. Maybe this is why he comes in for so much criticism — his work sits somewhat uncomfortably in these cynical days of production line pieces and an English art market so dependent on the chequebooks of a few London dealers. His refusal to join the auction-led frenzy cannot have made him many contemporary friends, evidenced by some rather bitter reviews of this show, but his core audience is still with him.
Is his work too comfortable? Possibly. Has he trodden the same literal path for the majority of his career? Undoubtedly. An idealist? Of course, and he’s a better artist for it. Long sees the world around us in a beautifully uncomplicated manner, and in this increasingly volatile world his work will only achieve greater relevance to anyone looking to understand how we can reconnect with it. He might just become a man of our times after all.
Ultimately I find his work just so satisfying, I don’t want him to change for anyone. I can’t imagine for a minute that he wants to either.
The little grey cells
The Hayward Gallery has featured in these posts many times recently and with good reason — with consistently solid shows and some great curation they’re giving the Tate Modern reason to be worried. On the bottom level is Annette Messager — The Messengers, a show that I caught a couple of years ago at the Pompidou and has finally made it to this side of the channel. It’s a wonderful wander through Messager’s imagination.
From her stuffed toys and inflatable body parts, to her delicately arranged sparrows with their knitted bonnets, there is much to enjoy and intrigue here. My favourite piece from the show, Casino, was a very relaxing diversion — the gently undulating red fabric was mesmerising and I sat in the darkness and happily experienced the show a few times.
After Messager you should head upstairs the excellent The Russian Linesman — this show has been curated by Mark Wallinger and it’s another feast for your eyes. There’s some pretty diverse content here, and you’ll have great fun playing around with the different forms and media. Wallinger’s giant TARDIS dominates the main room, but there are videos and books, and strange little pieces of rock, and even a series of stereoscopic images set into the wall. Video of the famous tighrope walk between the World Trade Center Towers sits opposite Albrecht Dürer’s illustrations, and around the corner a series of Ronald Searle ink drawings from the Death Railway.
Aernout Mik’s footage from the former Yugoslavia is disturbing in its banality. Using extensive filmed sequences which were never used by the news channels, he reduces the actions of conflict to everyday moments as common as shopping or taking the rubbish out. Houses burn as soldiers sleep in the shade, bullet-riddled bodies are retrieved from the river, and snipers smoke cigarettes in between the occasional shot at some distant enemy. Everything is just so calm, so normal, so dull, so everyday, you have to keep reminding yourself that you’re watching footage of a brutal conflict — it makes it all the more morbidly fascinating.
Two excellent shows to get those little grey cells working again.
Heading home
29.03.09 — Overnight in Algeciras 11:45pm
A brutally early start to the day was followed by an excellent journey from Marrakech to Tangier, with a stop in Casablanca. The first-class compartment was extremely cosy and I dozed my way through the Moroccan countryside to Tangier.
Not so impressive was our Straits crossing which left half-an-hour late and ran an hour and a half late, leaving us stuck in the bay outside Algeciras waiting for a berth to dock. We arrived at out hotel two hours late — too late to get any food from their kitchens. Luckily the fantastic hotel barman was able to give us the number for pizza and we had one delivered to the hotel. The hotel Reina Christina is bizarre, straight out of The Shining. It has a very odd feel to it — as though we’ve missed the party sometime in the 1930s — but it has a lot of charm and I’ll sleep well tonight in my art-deco room.
30.03.09 — Leaving Madrid 7:00pm
After so many days of travelling I have been surprised at my alertness and pleasantly pleased that I’ve not hit the wall — well, until a couple of hours ago. I finally succumbed to the strains of the trip home and needed a restorative café con leche to bring me back to life.
Our day started well with a nice journey from Algeciras to Madrid through some of the most beautiful countryside southern Spain has to offer. The train weaved its way between lush green hills and deep valleys, presenting us with some amazing views. As we passed into central Spain and neared Madrid the landscape became noticeably more arid, the greens replaced by browns and yellows. The major drought Spain is suffering from was much in evidence. We arrived in Madrid with five hours to kill before the overnight train to Paris, which we filled with a visit to a museum focussed on Goya’s work, and then a final visit to Sol for an excellent café con leche before catching the Francisco de Goya back to Paris.
We’re weaving our way through the northern suburbs of Madrid now, the sun setting over the distant hills. I feel I know Spain a lot better than I did a couple of years ago — with two visits to Barcelona, two to Madrid and even the dubious delights of Algeciras, I’ve got to know a whole lot more than I did. This is a lovely country, filled with genuinely lovely people. They understand the need to balance life, to find that happy medium between working hard and kicking back. This country has a beautiful heart and their reputation for hospitality is much deserved. I dare say another trip to Barcelona, or even perhaps Bilbao, where the Guggenheim beckons, is looking likely later in the year.
Mopeds and donkeys
28.03.09 — Marrakech 10:00pm
A day in the Medina–cries of “bonjour”, “hello” and “saluté”, people and smells, light streams through the roof slats, perilous corridors, souq mosques behind curtains, leather and metal, fabric and silver. Food, hastily cooked on rusty grills, smoke drifts across the souq, wood turned in tiny workshops, thé de menthe brewed on tiny stoves, shared between friends. People, sounds everywhere, movement, mopeds, donkeys, bikes, pushing, pulling, horns honking.
The souqs were everything I remember, but without the level of hassle I remember, making it a very pleasurable experience. We headed north through the main souq, coming out of the north gate. We visited the Ben Yousef Medersa which was an amazing building, hard to imagine 800 religious students in such small cells, the detail in the main courtyards was phenomenal.
We followed up our Medina morning with another trip with our friend Christian. We took the road to the south to a lake half-an-hour outside Marrakech, Barrage Cavagnac. There we had lunch, looking over the lake to the foothills of the Atlas mountains — the view was superb and only slightly spoiled as the rain clouds descended on us again.
Returning to the city we headed into the souqs again for some more mayhem before our appointments for hammams and massages. I had an excellent full-body relaxation massage, bizarrely to the soundtrack of The Godfather and A Fistful of Dollars. I stifled laughter as she pummelled me into submission. A very nice massage, one of the best I’ve ever had.
Our final meal in Marrakech was in Restaurant Jame, a little family-run place on Rue Riad Zitoun el Jdid which was quite difficult to find, particularly in the torrential rain. The tiny streets of the Medina quickly turned to muddy rivers as we negotiated huge holes in the street (they are replacing the sewers slowly, leaving gaping holes in the street).
The restaurant was a delight, and dry. We sat in the converted riad garden and each of us ordered a tagine, myself a lamb and fig dish and the others a lovely looking vegetable dish. Delicious. The harira soup was spicy and thick, and we followed it all with an orange salad and the obligatory thé de menthe. A fantastic way to finish our time in Marrakech. A wander around the Djemaa el Fna, the sounds, smells and sights still fresh in our minds, was the perfect nightcap.
Marrakech and Morocco have been a different experience for me on this trip — my first visit here in 1997 was amazing, but there were occasional frustrations and upsetting attitudes from a few people, which have not been in evidence this time. It has been an extremely relaxing and easy-going experience this time — Morocco has welcomed us with open arms and we’ve embraced it entirely.
Marrakech Medina
28.03.09 Arrival in Marrakech
With sadness we left the Riad de la Mer behind in beautiful calm Essaouira. The Supratours bus crashed along the dusty half-built roads to Marrakech, making the journey in three hours. The pollution of Marrakech hit us like a brick and we quickly sought respite in our riad, Jnane Mogador, a bargain place to stay right in the middle of the Medina.
We’ve certainly done very well for accommodation, finding two very well priced places which fit our needs perfectly. I slept very well, especially given the noise of the locals and their homicidal mopeds continuing long into the night.
After visiting a couple of historic sites, the Bahia and the Tombs, we met with Vicki and Ralph’s Italian friend Christian who took us into the Ville Nouvelle and showed us an entirely different side of Marrakech.
A series of expensive bars and restaurants, frequented by rich Moroccans and Europeans, followed. Odd in their style and immature in their sophistication, they were the price of a gastro pub in the UK and are the height of sophistication here.
It was fascinating as an experience for one night, but not one I would want to repeat. It seems to be a lifestyle which many European expats are entirely used to — the European post-colonials live well here.
28.03.09 Marrakech 10:30am
After a brilliant stormy night we had breakfast on the terrace in Marrakech for the first time. The sun is attempting to break through and I’m browsing the souqs with my shorts and flip-flops. I’m not sure how easy it will be to go back to wearing jeans and shoes.
