ARTS AND MINDS- JOURNALS OF AN ARTS ADDICT 2007-13

EPISODE12 JULY-AUGUST 2009

ARTS AND MINDS – JOURNALS OF AN ARTS ADDICT 2007-13

JOHN TUSA

EPISODE 12   JULY-AUGUST 2009

Highlights include:  Human Beings on the Fourth Plinth. The Naughtiness of Cornelia  Parker. Paula Rego is forgiven by the Catholic Hierarchy. How President Mitterand contemplated his own mortality.  A Very English Country Dwelling. George Christie fears for Glyndebourne. Jeremy Hutchinson wonders why we put so many people into jail. Why we Disliked Jeff Koons and artists who worship celebrity. Why can’t the young understand the old?

 Few things in the national arts scene are more redolent of “public art” than the  succession of commissioned sculptures on the previously vacant ”Fourth Plinth” in Trafalgar Square. Typically,  the sculptor Antony Gormley, chose not to put  an object there but  a succession of actual human beings. 

Monday, July 6. Antony Gormley’s curation of the “Fourth Plinth” is under way.   We look in on the 5-6pm change over from one human figure to another.  A very English event, warm, odd, eccentric, genuine, challenging not theoretical, not ideological (German), not conceptual (German again), not over rational (French) but is, well, English. “Is it art” Antony is asked?  “You decide” he replies.  Ben and Nikki (Langlands and Bell) introduce me to the artist Cornelia Parker, with whom I once appeared on Radio Four’s “Saturday Review”. She is doing a major project for the RSC at Stratford.  First she suggested “putting Birnam Wood on the roof of the new theatre building”.  Michael Boyd, the RSC director, just buried his head in his hands. Then she suggested moving Shakespeare’s body: “After all, it says ‘Cursed be he who moveth my bones’ and I am a she!” she proclaimed.  More Boyd head buried in hands.  “Are you always as naughty as this,”I ask?  “I try to be,” Cornelia replies.

The arts and culture publishing house of Thames and Hudson celebrate their 60th anniversary with a public discussion between Neil MacGregor and Nick Serota chaired by the BBC’s  John Wilson.

Tuesday, July 7. There’s too much of the standard BBC arts news agenda – cuts, buildings, and of course, the Parthenon Sculptures.  Neil makes public mincemeat of the  “return the sculptures” arguments.  He does it through philosophy. Thus:  The British museum is a universal, enlightenment institution, dedicated to knowledge from and about the world. Most great European museums are similarly dedicated to this approach. They are inclusive of all cultures and dedicated to considering them in the round. The other tradition is the C 19 nationalist approach which sees learning, culture, heritage and art as part of national identity.  It is clear where Neil’s sympathies lie and only a brave person would take him on. John Wilson tries him on: “When you walk through the Parthenon gallery by yourself do you never think ‘these should be in Athens?’”   Neil: mildly astonished with broad grin: “No, never!”  The house collapses. Best slightly camp moment, which Neil does so well, is when Nick Serota is asked about the attitude of MPs to the arts and  says: “Why does an MP or minister invariably say what football team they support but never which museum or orchestra?”  Good point.  Neil: “Oh, I’m more optimistic.  I believe the backbenches are really filled with closet aesthetes!”

The painter, Paula Rego, is there. She is delighted with her new museum in Portugal which she calls “The House of Stories” not the “Paula Rego Museum”.  I ask if the Portuguese Catholic Hierarchy has made their peace with her? Paula:  “Oh yes, the Archbishop said he did not like the imagery but that was an artistic judgement.  But doctrinally, my pictures of the Virgin Mary are sound!!”  You have to admire the Catholic church for its adaptability. 

Dinner in Hampstead at the home of  with Hella Pick, the former “Guardian” diplomatic correspondent. Her guests reflect the extraordinary professional range of her international career.  

Wednesday July8. We are privileged to have the publisher, George Weidenfeld there who inevitably goes on a rant against Iran.  President Ahmedinajad is evil, dedicated to obliterating Israel, is beyond reason, and worse than Hitler.  He has total power for eight years and will have a nuclear weapon in that time.  The combined efforts of Rodric Braithwaite (former British ambassador in Moscow), Richard Sennett, us and Eva Novotny (former Austrian Ambassador in London) have no effect on his views. Why not hundreds of deaths now, Weidenfeld  says,  if it buys a few years of calm?  After he leaves, Rodric Braithwaite says: “Do you think he noticed that nobody agreed with him?” Eva Novotny: “No he probably left thinking he had converted us all!”

 As we go, Eva Novotny tells about President Mitterand’s state visit to Vienna.  To general consternation he announced he wanted “une  matinee grasse” ( a “fat” morning, an idle one). He would go for a walk.  With security fanning out in all directions he walks through leafy Vienna receiving greetings from burghers, remarks of “Vive la France”. Then he says he wants to see the Imperial Tombs in the Capuchin Monastery.  Security rush ahead, clear out the visitors, summon the learned Friars and leave Mitterand with them.  He stays for two hours deep in conversation and contemplation. Eva believes he was coming to terms with his own mortality.

Noone can choose between the multiple horrors of World War Two and say that one was incomparably worse than another. Every nation has its own special moment of national anguish. For Poland it is undoubtedly the massacre by the Red Army of tens of thousands of officers in the Katyn woods. 

Friday, July 10. In the evening to see Andrej Wajda’s “Katyn”, surely Wajda’s own valedictory and what greater subject than Katyn for a Pole to address. Formally a conventional movie but it tells various stories about loss, disappearance beautifully. Then Wajda shows how the question  of which year  you say that your loved one was killed at Katyn defines your post war fate – ie 1940 if it is the Soviets, 1941 the Germans.   Everyone in the film “knows” it happened in 1940 of course and they pay the price.  Wajda holds the actual massacre – by Soviets – until the end and then shows it in all its relentless brutality. It is hideously sad, pathetic, ghastly, tragic and never sensational or exploitative. I hid in my hands for some minutes. We all emerged shattered.

The richer and more powerful people are, the more they know that as well as a stadium, a grand prix and a museum or two, they want an arts centre too. Not that they knew what it might be for. The arts centre has become a “public good” in itself.

Tuesday, July 14. Talk about arts centres  to a group of Saudis from the planned Riyadh Cultural Centre in Saudi Arabia.  The King wants a cultural centre to give the intelligent middle classes something  to engage with beyond money, food etc and also to head off some of the  fundamentalists. Some modernity – but not too much; some outside culture – but not too westernised; some open minded, hard thinking – but nothing secular.  A tricky path to negotiate but the impulse to engage in this way is admirable.  What strikes home is my insistence on absolutely realistic business plans; don’t pretend that “commercial income will cover costs or anything like it”. They point out that the stakeholder is Aramco, the national oil company, and will expect the centre to be run like an oil company – lots of targets etc. I warn them about a mismatch of cultures between a commercial stakeholder and an artistic offshoot. If Aramco believes that the Centre is “just another division of Aramco”, with hard driven objectives, then there could be real trouble ahead.  They raised the issue; can they handle it? 

A day in the country, beguiling and beautiful, with our artist friends, the duo known as “Langlands and Bell”. Two people, one artistic creation.

Saturday, July  18.  Set off for Ben and Nikki’s new country home in Kent, discovering  areas of almost trackless Kent which we never imagined, nosing along narrow country lanes with the trees/bushes covering the whole thing like a green arch, which it was. Finally, their house, wooden, as they warned, made of silvered, weathered oak, with its back turned firmly to the lane so that it looks like a very basic wooden barn.  Facing the other way, north west, it is spacious, roomy, with glass windows, a terrace on two sides and all overlooking a 180 degree view of woodland and farmland, up to the greensand ridge that runs east/west through Kent.  They have planted their two acre plot with bushes at the edge, and sown the fields with wild flowers. Taste, judgement, a great spirit, expressing the right values about country, life and everything. Lunch, magicked up by Ben on a single Belling stove. I recall Nikki saying that neither of them draws in the sense of sketching, trying out the line to define the work. They make models, which are their “sketches”. Undoubtedly why they can work together. What lingers is the quiet, very English intensity of the mood, lyrical, reflective, melancholy, gentle, undemonstrative.

The carefully manicured and calculated lawns and planting of Glyndebourne could not be more different from Ben and Nikki’s as a view of the English countryside. Gorgeous but perhaps self-conscious to a fault?

Sunday, July 19.  Afternoon to  Glyndebourne  to see Purcell’s “The Fairy Queen” as George and Mary Christie’s guests.  Formally, the worlds of Shakespeare and the world of the courtly masque are so chalk-and-cheese separate that it makes a mess of a work which Purcell did not try very hard to integrate. George Christie is very disgruntled: “Years ago, Bill Christie (the conductor, no relation) told me that  ‘Fairy Queen’ was the ideal Glyndebourne work. I told him ‘Over my dead body!’”  And rolls his eyes.  Mary Christie said  more than once: “Don’t you think it is very long!!?”  George again: “ Bill also thinks Rameau is just right for Glyndebourne. I always said, ’Bill, over my dead body!’  But I feel it coming on.!”  Only a brilliant production such as this could make it work at all.  A cast of scores, dancers, singers, actors, and the right kind of irreverent invention to deal with the rustic yokels and lovers in the masques.   This was a brilliant “one off”. It is not Purcell’s best music either. George: “Bill has absolutely no conducting technique!” But he gets sounds out of the orchestra that others don’t.

My treat in the long interval supper is sitting next to the 90-something years old lawyer, Jeremy Hutchinson QC. He is on rampagious form. The House of Lords needs reform and much of it easy;  why do the wives have to be roped in to the title!  On Jack Straw: “Rather slow on the uptake!  I would brief him on some matter and he would then ask a question that showed he hadn’t taken most of it in.  So I would have to explain it to him all over again!”  On crime: “When I was Chairman of NACRO 30 years ago, there were 40,000 people in jail.  We thought that was far too much!! Now look at it, 80,000 and they want to go higher!  The Dutch regard a 7 year sentence as huge.  Why can’t we?”     

What do musicians do after a concert? They need something to help them climb down from the “high” of performing

Thursday,23 July. The tenor, Ian Bostridge, has put together a rare collection of Schubert songs, a mini-“Winterreise”, for this performance with Julius Drake at Wigmore. We think Ian’s voice has continued to develop a burnished, bronze quality lower down without ever losing its top clarion quality.  Some “don’t like the way he moves!!” but I get increasingly irritated with those who can’t see that Bostridge and Drake are great performers and interpreters and that you don’t have to remain in the “missionary position” to sing Schubert! 

We take John Gilhooly, the Drakes, Bostridges, and their friend, Daisy, to the “Union Cafe” in Marylebone Lane afterwards. Ian confides that he has “sticky mucus” vocal cords and his jaw hurts through over singing.  He will pull out of a Salzburg performance of Haydn’s “Creation” just to get a rest. Julius Drake revels in the sheer joy of Schubert’s pianism; after a week on holiday he just has to get back to the piano.

A party in the (rather remote) countryside of Warwickshire. To say it is a “long way from London”  is only to confirm our existing prejudices.

Saturday, July 25.  Off to Compton Verney for Celia Goodhart’s 70^th birthday (she was head teacher at Queen’s College, Harley Street). The legal/political establishment is out in slightly gerontocratic  force. The gents, mainly distinguished lawyers and civil servants, in awful “light weight” brown canvas jackets is a sight to behold.  Annie says: “Yes, but look at the women!”  She is in her dashing, multi-coloured Top Shop jacket; I am in my Canale orange striped jacket from Pesaro. Happily, Willy Goodhart, Celia’s husband, is in a pink jacket, with a pretty pink and blue striped shirt, he looks terrific.

Mary Moore, ex-Principal of St Hilda’s, Oxford asks me politely why I chucked in the presidency of Wolfson, Cambridge (in 1993).   I explain what happened.  She nods, yes she had a lot of that sort of donnish behaviour in her time but as the college was in dire financial straits, she felt she had to hang on in. Then: “My father was a don at Balliol.  I remember very clearly him saying, ‘Ah, today is Wednesday, the day the College Council meets. I must get in early to find out what the Master is planning and stop it!’“ How our Wolfson experience is now part of Oxbridge college folklore.

Wisest saying of the day, as I complain to the banker, Charlie Goodhart, about banks, idiocy, incompetence etc. Charlie: “Oh, I tend to think the quantum of human stupidity remains pretty constant”.   True, but one gets less patient with it!

Valery Gergiev brings the vast forces of the Maryinsky Opera to Covent  Garden for  Wagner’s “Ring”. Not sure about Valery as a true Wagnerian.

Friday, July 31.  We chose “Siegfried”, the third opera in the cycle as a work that we knew slightly less well than the others. Act One was fine, a good, athletic, suitably boorish, feckless Siegfried, a too beautifully sung Alberich (the voices need to be characterised) and a good Wotan but with none of the necessary duplicity that our own John Tomlinson brings to the part.  The stage is littered with huge Easter island gods, pitted with fetish nails. Act Three finds Brunnhilde all too obviously walking onto the stage to take her place supposedly asleep on top of the mountain. When she opens her voice, the wobble is as wide, one critic fairly wrote, as “the mouths of the Rhine”.  Valery where are your ears? What a puzzle! And the obsession – megalomania? – of his “four day Ring with triple casting” shows that he doesn’t really know how such a work needs to be treated. It is not a circus performance of endurance and stamina. Here they sang the notes but without performing in character!

 Just because you look at a lot of art doesn’t mean that you can or should like it all or all of the time. Indeed you should actively seek out art that, as Annie and I defined the day ahead to ourselves, “we almost certainly do not like but need to look at to confirm that we are right not to like it”!

Saturday, August 1. So, Jeff Koons at the Serpentine.  Well, too right, we don’t like it because these rubber, poolside toys, cast in aluminium have no point, no texture, no irony – oh God, for some irony! -  no understanding that we can see.  Dull to look at, dull not to touch, they are nothing.  And he tries to make his paintings  interesting (sic!) by indulging in Pollock-esque swirls of paint to enliven the otherwise inert Koonsian surface. If you want to play with the notion of what happens when you realise a familiar object in an unfamiliar material – ie a telephone made out of cloth! – then Claes Oldenburg did it really well, far more thoughtfully.  

Next to the Whitechapel gallery to see Elisabeth Peyton, the  wispy, American portrait painter of the notorious, the famous, of “celebrity” in other words.  God, how the Americans love and feel validated by celebrity! “They are famous therefore I exist!”  Actually some are rather deft, photographic sketches, often based on photo-images. But when she takes on Napoleon or Queen Elizabeth, “my icons!”, meaning really celebrated people from history, Omigod!!!  the emptiness of her response is embarrassing.

 A classic play, a vivid translation, a great director, a stellar cast. The perfect theatre matinee?  Greek tragedy remains stubbornly universal in its understanding of human character.

Sunday, August 2.  To the National Theatre to see Nick Hytner’s production of Ted Hughes’ version of “Phedre”.   You can feel the heat burning off the Greek sandstone, wonderful version of the text and superb acting – Helen Mirren of course, but Margaret  Tyzack and John Shrapnel act the young ones off the stage.  Seriously, the oldies do know “how to pro-ject!”   Recently, a friend was told by a young-ish acquaintance how much she enjoyed Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” and “all the actors were really old!”  But then I recently had to tell the “Clore Four” cohort of fellows that in devising arts policies “for the old”, they might remember that many of “the old” were able-bodied, fully competent, very curious, well off and a good audience to get in touch with.  Do the “young” and the “not so young” really live in such a cocoon that they carry only a fantasy idea of the senior world?

Mid August. We never go on holiday abroad. Relish the English summer while it lasts. Shakespeare was right: summer has ”all too short a lease”. And the countryside is at its best.

Wednesday, August 12.  A brief excursion southwards to Chichester. We flee Goodwood House, less eccentric than rather gauche, and from a guided tour of hideous patronising condescension to “His Grace, “Her Grace”, “Lord March” etc etc, English middle class snobbery and acquiescence at its worst. At the neighbouring Sculpture Park we immediately run into the owner, Wilfred Cass, with whom we tour the grounds. No snobbery with Wilfred. It is a delight, with some exceptional commissions including a large, pivoted Lynn Chadwick metal sail-like structure, with a hinged cut out that swings very slowly even in the lightest of airs.  Wilfred is commissioning some 20 new sculptures for the Olympics, but cannot find the LOCOG people (qv) ready to cooperate.  What are they thinking about?  I know Wilfred is a one-man band – two with his wife Jeanette – who can spend his money as he wishes, but it seems plumb crazy not to harness the Casses of this world into the great Olympic arts project. 

JT   25 October 2024

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