This is always a very busy time of year for the patrons of the arts.
Mr. Waffle and I went to see Colm O’Regan (the Irish Mammies guy) in the Dublin Fringe theatre festival. As the guy said himself, it’s comedy and it’s only an hour. It wasn’t bad but it was very light on Cork content which is, frankly, disappointing for a Cork comedian.
As part of the actual Dublin theatre festival, we went to see a one man play called “The Dead House” in the New Theatre which, the clue is in the name, only stages new work. Again, not bad but could have done with a bit more work before being presented to an interested public. It got a four star review in the paper but so did almost all the DTF shows so not the kind of discriminating review you might hope for, in my view.
As part of the festival of history (are you still with me?), I did a book and theatre focussed walking tour of Dublin run by the always brilliant Arran Henderson of Dublin Decoded. I’m not entirely sure that these tours would work for tourists (though they do draw some tourists who, in fairness, seem keen) as they assume quite a bit of background knowledge but for residents, they are superb. The guide is filled with enthusiasm. Often I see people telling him thing which I know for a a fact he knows already and he is always very polite and when he learns a genuinely new fact, he is delighted and never defensive that he didn’t know already. Really recommended.
The National Gallery is doing a big Lavery exhibition. I do like Lavery a lot and I enjoyed the exhibition but I’m not sure it’s for everybody. He’s most famous for his portraits and there isn’t a huge focus on them – although there are some – and I’m not sure that’s a fantastic curatorial choice. That said, I enjoyed the Scottish tennis players and the Palm Springs sunbathers very much.
Mr. Waffle and I also visited the big Andy Warhol exhibition in the Hugh Lane Gallery. Charlatan or genius visionary? I honestly can’t decide. Mr. Waffle seems to have a firm view. There is a room with films of various notable people where they try to stay still so that it looks like a headshot. I thought that was quite clever. One of the people given this treatment is Marcel Duchamp. The biter bit?
Finally we were at a party a while back and one of the attendees said that he had been performing at Electric Picnic earlier that day; the excitement, the glamour. We were all pretty disappointed when it turned out he had been doing a podcast.
The arts are a vexed subject are they not. I prefer mine through the prism of time so that there is a settled opinion on what is worth the effort. I decline to make an effort for anyone after the impressionists.
I had clients who were obsessed with contemporary art and it used to drive me mad. One of my more friendly clients explained that art was a wonderful way of laundering money and moving it from A to B. It certainly explains some of the very odd things that do go one. I have respectable artists in my family who are shocked, shocked, at my cynicism but when I look at some of the material produced Koons and his ilk I rest my case.
To make things worse I actually quite like The Monarch of the Glen and saw it in the National Gallery In Edinburgh. Oh I have lived a life.
I mean, is Landseer bad? Surely not. I have heard that about art and money laundering – depressing, if true.