At the end of September just past, we made our first visit to an art gallery for six months. With my having thought, maybe three months ago, that the Hayward Gallery exhibition about trees ought to be safe enough. Not least because for us, visiting the South Bank Centre involves neither tubes nor buses and we were reasonably comfortable with the train.
As it turned out, a rather dull day, with rain a distinct possibility, not realised in the event. So folding umbrellas was the right choice. A bit surprised at the number of hospitalities around Waterloo which were closed, including Benugo on the Waterloo mezzanine, the Archduke under the arches and the Brasserie Blanc, more or less outside the Hayward Gallery, which had been our first choice. Open according to their web site but definitely shut on the street. Which was a pity as it was both new to us and looked like the sort of mid-range operation which would have suited.
Happened to notice that UBS, to which we have a family connection, was posted up as a supporter of the Southbank Centre. But were they in the lowest circle at a modest £300 a year or the highest at £2,500 a year? Was lowest listed first at the top or last at the bottom? What does 'ant' terminate, given that the current supporter options don't seem to have one of those? The Street View camera man had been all around, but I could not spot the poster in question, let alone all of it, so that one will have to wait until we are next in the area.
Somewhere along the way we had picked up a Guardian review of the tree show, a review which gave it 5 out of 10. Not bad, but could have been better. Which is about where we got to after we had spent an hour or so there. But I still bought the book of the show as a souvenir.
Rather more crowded than I had expected, rather more crowded than I was comfortable with, perhaps the result of it being one of the few shows in town. But we don't seem to have come down with anything untoward as a result.
A mixture of paintings, photographs, montages, films and installations. With what I thought was a bias towards Japanese scenes and Japanese artists, but I have not counted.
With the right hand work in the snap above being a wall panel being mainly made out of woodland materials and spray painted a uniform brown. At least that was what I thought. Actually, I find now that it is all cunningly wrought out of cardboard - so quite a feat of workmanship as far as that goes. But beyond that, not so sure.
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Tree one - bottom
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Tree one - top
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Tree two
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The two flashiest exhibits were two video installations, complete with bird song, each occupying a whole wall. I was slightly irritated by the first not having bothered to splice things together properly, so that the image of the tree ran smoothly from left to right. Plus, I thought the impact was much reduced by the tree being on its side. While the second puzzled me. At first glance you had time lapse photography spanning a year - but how could photography of that sort produce nicely waving branches? How much computer trickery was required to turn the snaps into moving pictures? Clearly need to study the book of the show to maybe find out what was going on.
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Coal effect gas fire
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While this one reminded me of the coal effect gas fires which, in various guises, are so popular in the suburbs. Indeed, we own such a thing ourselves - noticed for the second time at reference 3 as Fake No.2. No doubt there was an important message from the artist about the state of the woodland world coded into it somehow, but that passed me by. Once again, the book of the show is called for.
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| An olive tree born at about the same time as our Lord |
Another feat of workmanship, this time a casting of two thousand year old olive tree, executed in cast aluminium and finished in white. It would do very well as the centrepiece of a suitable atrium, perhaps that, for example, at the National Archives, decorated with live trees last time I was there. No trace in Bing or Google, so perhaps the trees were swept away by new management - there having already been a shift from professional archivist to management consultant in my day.
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More irritation
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More irritation in the form of a tree trunk which someone had sliced into several hundred slices then carefully stuck them back together again. Much more telling to my mind if the finished product had been a square cylinder, a long brick if you will. As it was it just looked a bit silly - '... a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing...', as the Bard would have it in Macbeth, Act V, Scene V.
Some of the photographs were rather good, although I don't think I would want such things on my walls at home. Not a very good fit. And some of the montages looked to me as if they involved something very like the 'remove background' feature I have recently discovered in Microsoft's Powerpoint. Used as a crude wheeze to highlight whatever it was the artist wanted to draw the eye to.
Perhaps I will give the show another go before it comes to an end at the end of October. In the meantime, off to the Pizza Express, next to Brasserie Blanc, which was open, if very nearly empty.
From our seats we could see the the London Eye was open. Some, but not a lot, of customers.
Bruschetta and pizza La Reine for me - this last not involving any foreign ingredients like spiced up mince, so good. Olives and chicken Caesar for her. An adequate tiramisu to follow, seemingly half of a whole. I thought rather dear at £7.25 for a portion.
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The wine
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The lord
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For wine, we went for a Picpoul, a reasonably reliable wine in the sort of public houses and restaurants that we frequent. Or at least used to frequent. As this one proved to be. However, on checking at the web address provided, that is to say reference 4, I could find no trace of this wine, which may have been named for some ancient French nobleman, as per reference 5, one Guillaume do Guers, described somewhere as 'seigneur de Castelnau-de-Guers' - which does, at least, seem to be in the right part of France. Google tried to help by turning up a French version of Debrett's, but on closer inspection this turned out to be the 'B' volume of a very long and very old book. Perhaps the French are even more obsessed with posh families than we are. So one is left with the suspicion that the name is simply an export brand name cooked up by the marketing people at reference 4. Perhaps their way of calling an export beer something like 'Windsor Castle Pale Ale' - or perhaps 'Downton Abbey Stout'. As they used to on cross channel ferries, for the consumption of ignorant but impressionable foreigners.
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The tiramisu
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Spot of Jameson's to finish up with, to keep company with the BH Earl Grey.
Décor good, rather fifties, reminding me of Ponti's in Great Castle Street, a place we used to visit in the margins of visiting the Wigmore Hall.
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The ivy
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Indicator board
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All in all, a good meal, given all the circumstances. Bit of company in the margins, in particular an older lady and a young man we took for her grandson.
On the way back to Waterloo we passed a bank of ivy in full flower which had attracted a lot of bees - but even at full zoom this snap only reveals some brown smudges. Sometimes it pays to have a real camera. Waterloo Station was still quiet and I managed in Foyles to fall for a rustic book for BH by a chap called Rebanks. Reference 7. Seemingly a Lake District sheep farmer who discovered he had a gift for writing and probably makes a lot more money out of his books than he ever did at sheep farming. No doubt it will join our small collection of rural memoirs of this sort, mostly inherited from my parents. Books like reference 8 - a book which I don't think I would retire but which I cannot just presently put my hand on.
I was also pleased to find that the station approaches indicator board hung off the platform railings had been upgraded since I last bothered to look. Although I have yet to look hard enough to work out how it works.
I must have had a little too much to drink, as on the train home I managed to get really cross about the behaviour of a tiresome young estate agent's clerk, perhaps fifteen years ago now. At risk of sounding sexist, a plain, short, plump and bossy female. Luckily a flash in a pan, a crossness which flared up and died down again in the space of around five minutes.
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Pick me ups
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So a good day. Arrive home with an interesting seed pod (from the walk home from Epsom Station) and a very battered washer (from the ramp at Waterloo) to add to my collection. Need to pump BH for the source of the pod. If that fails, it was probably picked somewhere between the station and home, so I can walk the route again to find it.
PS: later: reference 8 has now been located, so has not been retired. Umpteenth impression, 1958, Cambridge University Press of all people. Would they publish such a book now?
Reference 6: Dictionnaire de la Noblesse, Volume 2, second edition, Paris, 1771 (that is to say M. DCC. LXXI). The French Debrett's. From which we find that various Guers appear to have married into the B's. So probably quite respectable.
Reference 7: English Pastoral: An Inheritance - James Rebanks - 2020.
Reference 8: The Wheelwright's Shop - George Sturt – 1923.
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