17 minute read
Art & Culture
ARTIST AT WORK
No.50 Jem Main MA, Migration, Myth, Metaphor
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Drawing, 45 x 50 cm
Idraw and work three dimensionally. My artwork is interrupted - as much as informed by - teaching, projects and curatorial practice. It happens in ‘themed’ bursts.
I am fascinated by the changes in meaning that juggling ideas, materials and composition generates. This occurs also during the process of refinement; though the length of time given to it can spell ‘doom’. Clarity of intention easily undermined; crowded out by ever more nuances entering one’s thinking.
I don’t save what fails - which is quite a bit! But, what’s in the bin fuels what happens next.
Migration, Myth, Metaphor exemplifies these elements. Out of the ashes of one drawing, this and a series of ten followed. Each referencing different aspects of migration; variously seeking to use the movement of air and space - weather - flight - navigation - as expressions of both a restlessness of spirit and the journey between two places and cultures.
Migration, Myth, Metaphor – A limited edition of archival quality prints (unframed) is available at £200 each. jem.5@icloud.com
Jem is imminently retiring as the Creative Director of Dorset Visual Arts in January. His final project is preparing the draft template for the visual arts programme at The Sherborne, opening late 2023.
ON FILM
Andy Hastie, Yeovil Cinematheque
Nina Hoss in The Audition (2019)
As the new year starts, we at Cinematheque already find ourselves a third of the way through our latest season of international films. We have two rather contrasting offerings this January – an American indie followed by a classic of European arthouse.
The first, showing on 4th January is Lucky Grandma (2019), a Coen Brother-esque black comedy, following an elderly Chinese widow in New York’s Chinatown eager to live her life as an independent woman, despite her worried family interfering along the way. When a local fortune teller predicts an upcoming lucky day, Grandma Wong decides – but of course! – to head straight for the casino, and manages to gamble away her entire life savings. However, on the bus home, a chance encounter leaves her with a holdall stuffed with US dollars! This money just happens to belong to New York’s Chinese mob, who understandably want it back, but fail to appreciate one should never underestimate an unflappable pensioner.
First-time writer-director Sasie Sealy’s spiky comedy stars veteran Chinese actress Tsai Chin, who appears to be having a hoot playing a wily, chain-smoking, Mandarin-speaking heroine. When she employs a bodyguard from a different gang, they form a terrific odd-couple partnership, finding themselves in the middle of a Chinese gang war. This uproariously funny, well-received film is just the sort of escapist fun needed for a dark, postChristmas winter night.
The second film, on 25th January, is The Audition (2019), an award-winning contemporary German drama by director Ina Weisse. It stars Nina Hoss, the best German actor working today, who has featured in many films shown at Cinematheque over the
Tsai Chin in Lucky Grandma (2019)
years. She plays Anna, a violin tutor at the prestigious Berlin music school. When a student, Alexander, auditions, the vote is split, but Anna sees promise and insists she can train him. Her obsessive quest draws out the unique sound she believes he possesses, however he does not respond well to her increasingly strict approach. This obsession starts to impact on her professional and home life. Anna becomes more and more unpredictable and doubles down on Alexander. Come the day of his exam, events take a tragic turn...
Nina Hoss won the Best Actress Award at the San Sebastian Film Festival for her role in this excellent European melodrama of obsession, compulsion and self-destruction. ‘Nina Hoss is impeccable’ Glenn Kenny, New York Times. ‘A superb Nina Hoss’ Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times.
Two very different films, but both excel in their own genre. If you haven’t been to Cinematheque at Yeovil’s wonderful Swan Theatre, make it a new year’s resolution to give us a try. You can come as a guest for £5, or take out a membership for the whole season, details are on the website below. We’d love to meet you!
cinematheque.org.uk swan-theatre.co.uk
___________________________________________ Wednesday 4th January 7.30pm Lucky Grandma (2019) 15
Wednesday 25th January 7.30pm The Audition (2019) 15
Cinematheque, Swan Theatre, 138 Park St, Yeovil BA20 1QT Members £1, guests £5
CONFESSIONS OF A THEATRE ADDICT
Rosie Cunningham
Mrs Warren’s Profession came to the Theatre Royal Bath, starring Caroline Quentin and her daughter, Rose. Written by George Bernard Shaw in 1893, audiences in London had to wait over 30 years for a public performance. Productions were either banned or shut down due to the candid discussion of prostitution. So, what was Mrs Warren’s profession? Mrs Warren’s daughter, Vivie, has had a Cambridge education and receives a generous allowance from her mother, who has been largely absent during her life. Her mother arrives for a fleeting visit, with her ‘business partner’ in tow, and Vivie stumbles across the truth about her mother’s business empire – a successful chain of brothels. The motherdaughter relationship is full of yearning on both sides, but ultimately can Vivie accept that her whole life has been funded by profits from prostitution? Not only is this about morality but there is a poke at class too, with Vivie, polished and refined, and Kitty Warren, course and liable to be ‘shouty’. Caroline Quentin plays this role beautifully, as she bewitches all those around her, including Vivie’s young boyfriend and the local priest, who may have known her in his youth! Her outfit may be a shade too tight, and she might have applied too much rouge, but she sprinkles playful fun wherever she goes. Rose Quentin takes a little time to settle down but is certainly a match for her mother. Simon Shepherd plays the swaggering lustful Sir Charles Crofts, who propositions Vivie, even though he might well be her father. This production is touring around the country and is well worth a trip, playing in Guildford, Cheltenham, and Truro in early 2023.
Did you know that if you are an RHS member, you can visit The Newt for free on a Tuesday? I had wanted to go and see the Roman villa for ages so on a beautiful crisp cold Tuesday morning, I finally made it. It’s about a 30-minute walk from the front gate but the going is easy. The museum, which you pass through, before entering the Roman villa, is brilliant. Interactive and informative, I spent well over an hour there. The attention to detail is magnificent although I was not a fan of the ‘actors’ who lurk around the villa, dressed in Roman attire. The Story of Gardening is close by, and the café is in a perfect spot. Whilst
Rose Quentin as Vivie Warren and Caroline Quentin as Mrs Kitty Warren in Mrs Warren's Profession
Image: Pamela Raith
walking along the elevated walkway, I heard a very strange sound, which on investigation, was a large herd of deer with the stags indulging in boyish mock fights. I was telling a friend about the amazing experience when she asked if I had visited the grotto. Time for another visit soon, I think!
I attended Damian Barr’s Literary Salon recently, which began in 2008. This is where the world’s best writers share their new books and share their own personal stories within a small, intimate setting. I watched online as Kate Mosse and Lucy Foley discussed their love of Agatha Christie, ‘The Queen of Plotting’, both of whom had contributed short stories to the new Harper Collins book, Marple: Twelve New Stories. There is a newsletter which you can sign up for, which gives you all the latest events and news.
theatreroyal.org.uk/production/mrs-warrens/ thenewtinsomerset.com/plan-your-visit theliterarysalon.co.uk/the-salon
ANYONE FOR VENICE?
THE WATERCOLOURS OF ALBERT GOODWIN Richard Kay, Picture Department, Lawrences Auctioneers
Milan Cathedral, 1901, 21 x 30cm
Many of us can recall the boom in the market for Victorian watercolours during the 1980s. It coincided with a strengthening economy and the almost unexpected realisation that such pictures were skilfully executed, pleasurable to collect, reasonably abundant at almost every level of expenditure, readily understood and were complemented by easy nostalgic themes. I recall an intensely brisk spell in 1988-1989 when it was possible to follow such watercolours as though they were booming stocks: a picture that might have made £500 in 1988 could be sold the following year for £1500 or more. You may already be anticipating that the inevitable crash was sure to come: the market tightened up in the early 1990s with greater selectivity, diminished supply and less rewarding dividends. It trundled along without much fanfare until about 2008-2009 when the credit crunch re-configured many collectors’ tastes, ambitions and finances. A new generation of buyers came to the fore and they did not warm to the styles that their parents had so embraced. Sadly, we have since seen some formerly celebrated artists’ works sell for just 10-15% of their peak a third of a century ago.
That brisk resumé should not be applied right across the board, of course, but fashion is now a much more critical determinant of value than quality, age, subject matter or past performances. Some artists’ prices may never return to the glories of the past but a notable exception should be made for the work of Albert Goodwin (1845-1932). A child prodigy on a par with Edwin Landseer (who showed a picture at The Royal Academy aged 13) or John Everett Millais (who showed at 17), Goodwin exhibited Under the Hedge aged just 15. That title alone indicates an obsession with ‘truth to nature’ that had motivated the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood: direct observation, a focus on colour, keen attention to meticulous draughtsmanship and a reverent admiration for a subject on its own terms. Rather to my surprise, Goodwin observed ruefully in 1909 that he had `suffered all [his] life from having started under Pre-Raphaelite superlatives in colour. They emphasised the need of scenery and painting and rejoicing in colour.` Nonetheless, that education had served him well for it had drawn him towards John Ruskin in the 1860s. Ruskin, a patriarchal critic with a stern approval of his own judgment (a judgment sound enough to be wholly justified), was an artist of exceptional skill who had praised J M W Turner since he (Ruskin) had been
The Day’s End, 1916, 42 x 60cm
a lad of just 16 and Ruskin had even worked at the master’s elbow. Goodwin accompanied Ruskin on an Italian tour in 1872 and so Albert learnt from a man who had learnt from, arguably, Britain’s finest exponent of watercolour.
Goodwin’s innate talent and his excellent instruction have rewarded him with a status of high renown amongst collectors. It is heartening to observe that distinctive brilliance is still sought for its own sake. With a skill that bordered on artistic alchemy, Goodwin invested his compositions with an ethereal glow, gauzy mist, tenebrous moonlight or numinous shadows. He showed a command of the medium that was so subtly effected that his pictures almost defy technical analysis. After applying the watercolour, he picked out details in ink or pencil afterwards (a technique as quirkily unconventional as putting on your socks after your shoes but Turner had also made it work well). True to Pre-Raphaelite principles to the last, Goodwin never lost his precision of technique, he never faltered with his colour sense and he never squandered the luxury of his viewpoints by producing a quotidian scene. In most of Goodwin’s pictures, one feels immersed in the glory of the place, awed by the grandeur of the heavens, overwhelmed by the ineffable splendours of nature or simply enchanted by a view of a city that one may never have the good fortune to visit oneself. An observer may even be tempted to think that Goodwin could not have had such luck to be outdoors with brushes and paper when such evanescent effects were arrayed before him. Yet it is impossible to imagine his not being there for his subjects, invariably semi-magical, retain nonetheless an insistent quality of truthfulness. A dozen examples from the Estate of Lord and Lady Peyton of Yeovil offered in our October auction, all found buyers. Subjects as varied as Abingdon, Milan, Cairo and Niagara Falls were bought for up to nearly £6000. But it was a magisterial view of Venice from 1892, exhibited at London Guildhall in 1896, that enchanted collectors the most. The bright, clear, summery light of a perfect Venetian day, the happy family group on the foreground terrace and the immediate sense of a scene described with perfectly nuanced watercolour washes lifted this gem to £19000 – the highest price paid at auction for any Goodwin watercolour in over a decade. Just for a moment, it felt like 1988 again.
Jim Newberry/Alamy
COUNTER CULTURE
Paul Maskell, The Beat and Track
No.17 Steve Albini - ‘Pay Me Like a Plumber’
Steve Albini is a world-renowned sound engineer (not a record producer – more on that later). He is also the founder member of the American hardcore band Big Black and is currently lead guitarist and vocalist for Shellac. He has gone from being a photographic touch-up artist to an independent music journalist to a well-respected musician in the hardcore/ punk scene to one of the most sought-after sound engineers in indie/punk rock music. It’s unlikely that you’ve not heard his work in one form or another. Throughout his career he has maintained a very staunch position regarding the ethics of the music business and how bands and musicians are treated.
Italian American Steve Albini spent most of his early life in California and later in Montana. It was while recovering from a broken leg that Albini started to take an interest in music and started to learn the bass guitar while he had time on his hands. He continued to follow what became a passion for him and played with several bands in Montana including a couple signed to hardcore label Touch & Go records. He later moved to Chicago to gain a degree in journalism and proceeded to write for several punk fanzines in the area. He soon started to take an interest in recording other bands and co-managed a punk record label for bands in the area. He did this while managing to hold down a steady job as a photographic touch-up artist.
In 1981 Albini formed his first band, Big Black
and self-recorded and released their EP Lungs. At that point the ‘band’ consisted of just Albini who played all instruments on the EP other than the saxophone, played by a good friend. During the following six years Big Black recorded five EPs, four singles and five albums and made a name for themselves for playing uncompromising punk rock, full of songs with interesting and sometimes controversial subject matter. Renowned for doing things his way, Albini played his guitar with a nickel coin instead of a plastic plectrum to give it a more abrasive sound and also wore his guitar on a strap around his waist giving him more flexibility. Big Black released their final studio album, Songs about… in 1987 shortly after which they ‘disbanded’. 1987 and 1988 saw the sound engineering side of Albini’s career begin to gain momentum. He worked with bands such as Slint, the Membranes and Urge Overkill. He also engineered the classic debut by protogrungers the Pixies, Surfer Rosa. With this album he established himself as the go-to guy if you wanted an authentic album that sounded like the band playing live, exactly as they mean to sound. The album is as popular now as it was then and many comment on the drum sound and overall raw, punchy quality of the recording. When you put on a Steve Albini-engineered record it really is as if the band are in the same room as you.
While recording other bands Albini formed Shellac with bandmates Bob Weston (bass guitar) and Todd Trainer (drums). The band recorded three EPs that cemented their very raw style as sparse, minimalist noise rock – a band of no compromises following in the footsteps of Big Black. They went on to record five albums and continue to play live, visiting the UK once in a much anticipated blue moon. Shortly after the inception of Shellac and the recording of ‘local girl done good’ P.J. Harvey’s album Rid of Me Albini received an invitation of gargantuan proportions. Kurt Cobain had requested that Nirvana’s record label hire Albini to record their third album, In Utero. Nirvana had already seen huge success with Nevermind produced by Butch Vig. The record label was unsure of this choice but honoured the band’s request.
This is where the ethics of Steve Albini come into full effect. Albini insists that he is not a record producer but that he is a sound engineer. His job is to capture the sound of the band as they want it, as the band sound live. Not how the record company wants the band to sound but capturing the true energy and feel of the band. He is not a member of the band and should have no artistic contribution to the record. Kurt Cobain specifically wanted Albini because he had engineered his two favourite albums, Pixies’ aforementioned Surfer Rosa and ‘Pod’ by the Breeders. Cobain liked the way that Albini captured the ambience of the room in which the music was recorded using several strategically placed microphones. This was something that previous Nirvana record producers weren’t very enthusiastic about experimenting with. Before accepting the invitation to engineer the album Albini had several stipulations, some of which were highly unusual within the music industry. Firstly Albini suggested a very isolated studio in order to keep visits from label representatives to a minimum. Secondly and most unusually (although not for Albini) he stated that he would not take a royalty on the album. He has never and will never take a percentage of sales. He stated that most producers will take 1 or 1.5 points on all subsequent record sales. In a letter to Kurt, Krist and Dave he stated – ‘I think paying a royalty to a producer or engineer is ethically indefensible. The band write the songs. The band play the music. It’s the band’s fans that buy the records. The band is responsible for whether it’s a great record or a horrible record. Royalties belong to the band’. He continued ‘I would like to be paid like a plumber. I do the job, you pay me what it’s worth. The record company will expect me to ask for a point or point and a half. If we assume three million sales that works out at 400,000 dollars or so. There’s no ******* way I would ever take that much money. I wouldn’t be able to sleep’. And so Albini made it clear that he would not play the industry game and fleece the artist for all they’re worth. Not a common occurrence in the industry. The album has gone on to sell in excess of 15,000,000 copies worldwide.
He’s right, 2 million dollars would have been pretty excessive for a plumber, even an excellent one.
Albini now runs his own recording studio in Chicago called ‘Electrical Audio’ and continues to record a huge variety of bands including Black Midi, Mono, Ty Segall, Sun O))), the Breeders, Metz…the list goes on. He operates under the same strict rules putting the band first at all times. He is very outspoken regarding the music business and regularly takes part in conferences and writes essays regarding the state of the industry. He remains a highly respected anomaly within music. A great ‘tradesman’.
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