Tuesday, January 15, 2008

evident malaise

My dear friend Emma's musings on prison toilet bowls being the main actor which deters her from a life of crime have inevitably turned my own thoughts to the art world. Not as you might think because of Marcel Duchamp , but because of my own husband’s occasionally intimated wish to be a master criminal à la Steve McQueen in the Thomas Crown affair. I think I can be reasonably sure he's not going to act on this desire, mainly because he really only wants to be chased by Faye Dunaway (he does like strong women, sigh) but also because if he broke into the Tate Gallery (The proper one, not the TonyBankside or whatever it's called) he would do much more to impress our friends by stealing the coffee shop’s expresso machine for our kitchen wall rather than a pictue of some old castle. Anyway, what’s the point of going to an art gallery in the middle of the night wearing a balaclava? Who’s going to see you there? Surely better to give the old masters a miss and pinch a ‘I’m so rich and cultured I do my clothes shopping in an art gallery’ t-shirt or two from the gallery shop, which is I'm fairly sure more expensive than an original Turner anyway

Actually we did go down on the big blue train recently because my husband’s aforementioned fascination with slighty dangerous redheds led him to drag us both down to Millbank to catch the last weekend of a show of pictures of Lizzie Siddal demonstrating the various stages of consumption. It was lovely to forget The North for a day, although this relief didn’t last long as my husband insisted on dropping into the Morpeth Arms on the way from the tube. Is there no escape, sigh? It was a very interesting exhibition, the painter chap in question having been a bit of an enfant terrible, the Damien Hurst of his day perhaps, well, Damien Hurst with sideburns, artistic talent but a perhaps overly predictable tendency never to be found very far from a wet corset. It was all the more exciting because many of the paintings had travelled from as far as two or three rooms away, obviously not worth going to see when they’re free lest people should think one is a care in the community case or even, god forbid, a student or just plain poor but well worth ten of anyone’s husband’s pounds to go and stand shoulder to shoulder with talking guidebooks squeaking away in a dozen languages. Some of the models did have a look which was rather less pre-raphael than pre-menstrual but it was all a jolly nice day out. The only disappointment was when we found the gallery café had run out of sugar. No sugar? In the Tate? It’s not the same London I left behind. I miss London so much and it was very clear that day that they're not coping very well without me either...

11 comments:

aims said...

Oh dear! Not another Northerner wishing for London! Whatever could be the reason?

MommyHeadache said...

while I lived in London I found most people there unbelievably pretentious but now I kind of miss Saturdays in art galleries laughing at assholes who would look at a Marc Quinn's cast of the artist's head in nine pints of his own frozen blood and say: "So symbolic of the crisis in contemporary consumerism don't you think Tarquin?"

rilly super said...

aims, who are you calling a northerner? sob sob, rubs eyes, sobs some more.I'm sorry, Ralph Mactell was just on the radio, sigh


emma, eavesdropping is I agree so much more interesting and informative than the exhibits. By the way I bloody love you and that's all I have to say on the matter, even if you did cause me to write a post before the weekend

Mutterings and Meanderings said...

Ah Rilly, what an educational posting....

And all we've got up here is the Baltic, sigh ...

dulwichmum said...

No darling friend, it is dreadful without you, please come home and we will champion the cause of empty sugar bowls throughout this town. We can make it better together!

Potty Mummy said...

Empty sugar bowls? What's happening to this town - the lunatics are finally taking over, it seems.

BTW Rilly - loved your comment on the Lib Dem blog competition site...

rilly super said...

M&M darling, my neighbour asked me to mention Laing, Bowes and Mima as well, although why he wants to talk about Middlesbrough defenders under a post about art galleries I'll never know, sigh

dulwichmum, It's so wonderful how you are all bearing up without me though, blitz spirit I suppose. I am glad you still visit you know, now you're famous and everything

potty mummy, it's shocking and surely the start of a slippery slope that leads to running out of thise cholcolate bits one sprinkeles on the foam of one's cappucino, and then where will we be, sigh..

@themill said...

Is taking sugar one of those vulgar northern habits you have adopted, Rilly?

BTW - I think your neighbour has no taste in footie teams....

Penny Pincher said...

While we are on the subject of footie (which BTW came out as an interesting freudian slip as 'ennui' when I was texting on saturday) well, to get back to my original point - which is coming - I promise...
will you support Newcastle FC now that old Kev Keegan has come out of retirement to be their manager for the 3rd time.
Do let me know if he is wearing well for his age. I have my doubts as hh's refused to do 'promotional interviews' - I therefore assume he no longer looks like a cheeky chappy.

Swearing Mother said...

All the Tate without the Lyle?

Bugger.

Things are slipping Rilly.

Nina said...

I love your description of your day out and about, Rilly. You do know the truth of things, and tell it so well.

So sorry to hear London's not coping without you--perhaps you'll have to be there at least half-time at some point?