Picassos Portraits

Picasso's Portraits - National Portrait Gallery - October 2016 - Febuary 2017
Spanish Matador of 20th century Art could give you Eternal Life, but he may also give you the longest lingering Death

" I hate Picasso !" So begin quite a few conversations. If I am holding forth on one my Mastermind specialist subjects; The works of Benny Hill 1992 - 2002 say, or the career of David Bowie 1972 - 1977, someone invariably fancies having a little nip, a tickle around my tender parts to see if I will bite. Why would I ? You are allowed to hate him; he was a bully and a control freak. Misogynist ? Hmmm, he loved women and hated them. His career can be analyzed in terms of his muses, one woman followed another, from 1917 to his death in Mougins in 1973. The women rarely lasted a decade and once a newer, younger model had her feet on the chaise-long, the other woman was on her way out. He was a bastard and he didn't hide it, just take a look at the 1932 masterpiece Nude, Green Leaves and Bust at the Tate .

Marie Therese Walter(MTW) is in, but she is in deep. Picasso depicts her as voluptuous; curves, bosoms and dirty thoughts. This stupendous picture shows her entwined in ribbons, wrapped up like a toy girl for Pablo to play with. The dark shadow of a face dominates the outlines, Picasso has her under control, and it aint pretty. There is a decent Marie-Therese Walter portrait here, but not a notable example; no double face or malignant menace to be detected. Just MTW in profile, bright, uncomplicated in composition and colour, just straight yellow hair. Is boredom setting in? Is the glass half empty, not half full?
This show starts so well I thought we were in for a real treat. The early years are fascinating, when he moved from the bohemian haunts of Barcelona and his hangout Els 4 Gats, to Paris and the outright filthy demi-monde of Pigalle, Montmartre, Aristide Bruant, Toulouse Lautrec, the Moulin Rouge and La Bateau Lavoir. Still finding himself as an artist, he sketched funny cartoons and daft doodles which are dubiously shown here. The self-portraits of 1896 and 1906 shown together, tell a tale of hard living and lost hair. The blue period is marvelously represented with one of the real blockbuster pieces of the show. A swarthy man of high forehead and thick mustache looks straight at us with imperious self confidence, while his malnourished companion looks forlornly miserable behind his shoulder. All in a nocturne blue wash that spoke of debauchery, long nights of voyeurism and absinthe drinking, visits to Maisons-Closes after another riotous night at Le Chat Noir or Lapin Agile.

The cubist era has another top quality example - the portrait of Kahnweiler, one of the first dealers to notice his gifts. This was the only picture I had to look between other people's heads to see. It takes a lot of looking, and even then I dont really like it.
Next - Olga Kholklova gets her own room with three masterpieces telling the sorry tale. Portrait#1 is pure and beautiful, Olga looks like a classic Russian aristocrat with the hair parted and short, a la mode and ready to Charleston or Cha Cha Cha. Diaghlevs prima ballerina married Picasso, had his son Paulo, who is seen in a short film where they play in the garden. Portrait #2 is more stylized, the feel is slightly surreal, something isnt right. Portrait #3 is the killer. MTW has come along, she must have seen the pictures her husband was producing while out on his daily stroll around the Boulevards and cafes of Paris, and then to the studio, no doubt for hours and hours. The coup de grace, Portrait #3 shows ashen faced Olga with eyes popping, the ridiculous hat perched on a featureless face, perched on a neck that curves like Mount Fuji to a point, upon which the head seems to have lost contact and now could topple off any second. Imagine how she felt when she saw it, next to all those sex stuffed portraits of his mistress and mother to his child, Maya.
"Ive dispatched you Olga. You better go before I lose your head forever..."
This kind of cruelty was also brought to bare on the next woman in the line; Dora Maar. She figures large in the tale, in a sumptuously finished portrait of her sitting in a chair, anguish apparent n her body language, eyes looking one way, the rest of the face going the other. Its as if she has turned her head mid-portrait, like a long exposure photo. Dora is memorable as the thin, nervy companion of the war years, famous as The Weeping Woman, did she know this would be her epitaph? She is also the subject of a sculpture of high quality which is a more generous portrayal.

Picasso has produced some ugly pieces - two more are in the final room which is a hotch potch of post war work. Two good friends are shown in garish and tasteless attire. Lee Miller looks like a 70 year old hag and not the uber swanky war correspondent she was at the time. And Nusch Eluard, wife of his poet friend, seen depicted in a charcoal on paper which is Picasso at his most sophisticated. But the portrait again is ugly and vicious in tone. What did these platonic friends make of their portraits?

Two male friends emerge from the story as major influences; Sebastià Junyer i Vidal is involved in much of the work, as is Sebartes, who is on the receiving end of some schoolboy humour. Some 50s posters are defaced by PP - its a daft claim to attribute these to his "highly tuned sense of humour" as the blurb does . The men have a laugh , a cartoon showing two of them catching a train to town, selling the work and receiving the dollars. There are two pornographic drawings, one pure x cert smut, another part of the Vollard suite style of line drawing in a classical style; the pope looks on from behind a curtain as a girl and boy have sex on on a couch. These are followed by serious PP, working on his versions of Velazquez' Las Meninas, as he did on many masterpieces from art history in his later years.
Dotted around this last room are pieces of sculpture, ceramics and pottery. Two flat sheet metal pieces show another muse , Sylvie David in profile in another style Ive not seen before. How can you say you dont like Picasso? You cant possibly know enough about him and his work to judge, there is so much and so original is it.
We end with a major portrait of Francois Gilot and a large work showing final muse Jacqueline Roque surveying her domain at La Californie in the hills above Cannes. Or is she contemplating eternity, as gifted to her by this Spanish matador of 20th century art. To be his subject is truly to live forever; she knew she would be contemplated by the people of the future, for they all will wonder what she was thinking as Picasso worked on his latest masterpiece, one of over 70 pieces he produced of Roque.




Her predecessor, Francois Gilot gave him Claude and Paloma, she also gave him a run for her money. She was the only woman to leave him. But Jacqueline was assistant, protector , secretary and muse. A large photograph shows  them together, with PP teaching the kids how to  paint. Another lovely piece shows the same subject, with the mother looking down and spotlighting each child in a blaze of colour - one green, the other blue. Did Pablo go soft and sentimental at the end? I doubt it.

Ambience, Price and Booking ; Two of us got in for £15.50, that was with a concession, no gift aid.
With Artfund card it was £8.50 or thereabouts.
Full price is £17 or £19 with gift aid.
We did not book and got in straight away. It is reasonably spaced out and as I mentioned, only the cubism room was quite full, but by no means packed. There are choke points in between rooms where I (accidentally)shoulder barged a woman of pensionable age and kicked a lady's bag while showing how the charleston is depicted in Three Dancers at the Tate. Beware the silent seventy year olds!

Bad Behaviour 2016 at Brixton East 14-10-2016

If I told you this years Bad Behaviour show is the best ever, would you believe me ?

Curator Araba Ocran says there were over 700 visitors to Brixton East in total over the 4 days - the opening night certainly was a popular event. Araba's own entry was a large print of "lived in" faces contemplating a burnt breakfast of sausages, bacon and mushrooms, all served on a man, I thought it would win the vote for best work. But the £250 prize donated by sponsors Elemental went to Linda Hubbard with her small, unshowy work "Alice in Poundland" . She will also get a solo show with Bad Behaviour in 2017.
This increasingly popular show has expanded to both levels of this fabulous venue. The trip upstairs was rewarded

with a quality mock Elizabethan portrait of a woman with a collar of cabbages and tongues,  with the footprints of a cockrel walking along the gold embossed borders and golden leaves cut from photos surrounding her. There is a lot of trompe l'oeil type imagery going on, you need to study it. German artist Sabina Pieper pulled off the trick of creating a work which was eye-catching from afar and intriguing close-up.

Best in show IMHO were Alison Berry's works - clever and successful. Two fantastic models worked amazingly well when you peered in to a polystyrene box through a peep hole, and saw them reflected into another level. You see a luxury shopping space, with brands like Apple and Chanel evident. I felt I was witness to the space stations of the future. When you dock from the shuttle to the ISS, is this the gateway you will float through, with Chanel's latest spacesuit in the window?
David Jane's dyptych of a brain scan was the result of a disease he picked up in Brazil. This is a high quality piece which has a black centre and from

which tendrils of colour escape. Also props to Zelda Rhiando and DMK whose film in a box was both fun and popular. The portrait of Nigel Farrage as a grotesque ever gaping mouth was another piece that clearly went down well.

Best Comedy and drama - so far 2016

Best TV / Radio / Web of 2016 so far - 5 October 2016

Netflix and Amazon Prime are coming. In fact they have arrived, they are making their own programmes and they no doubt have the biggest audiences on the planet. They dont have to go through all that selling the product territory by territory like the BBC - the process that made Top Gear such a big deal when Clarkson was running the show. The net based broadcasters can get huge audiences from day one of release, and then the numbers keep growing from then on. The BBC et al know the writing is on the wall, and will have to find a way to make BBC Iplayer available to all, not just UK based customers.
Amazon Prime currently is host to my favourite comedy - Crisis in Six Scenes. I am sorry if who dont like him, for whatever reason - but (IMHO)Woody Allen is a living legend and comedy genius. His comic creation - the worry guts, irrevocably urban, middle class Jewish male has barely changed since the

60s (physically he is older , yes) when he hit the stand up circuit in the States, and then the big screen with movies like Take the Money and Run, Bananas and Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask - featuring unforgettably, Gene Wilder unable to break off his love affair with a sheep. He is always the same, worrying about what could go wrong, no matter if he is playing a South American revolutionary or a sperm. Now well into his 80s, he is more paranoid than ever, living with wife Kay ((Elaine May) in suburbia in the early 1970s, when they are visited by a communist revolutionary, played by Miley Cyrus.Two of the three episodes I have seen so far have had me splitting my sides, despite the two protagonists not having the greatest diction (due to advanced years) and my computer not streaming the programme correctly. Or is it because here in SE London we still dont have super fast connection to the net. This is the draw back of watching on your computer. Despite these things which usually would ruin comedy - all about timing and delivery as well as jokes, I love it. The scene where he goes to dinner with his pal and his paranoia develops into a full on terror of everyone and thing out to get him- including the food just put in front of them - was Woody at his best. Hilarious. The first episode is OK but beleive me  it gets a lot better. Stick with it.

The only thing this year to match it has been Julia Davies latest - Camping. David Bamber was leading my Best Comic Performance prize as the demented , increasingly disrobed host of the camp site , who falls in lust with Vicki Pepperdine's bossy wife - instead of the bossy Doctor in Getting on.
In the serious drama realm - we are still spoilt for choice. This is the golden age - no doubt. Not only do we have a new series of The Fall with the fabulous, speaking in a whisper, sexy cop Gillian Anderson. The Night Of  was tense , nasty and addictive, including some great performances - including the fabulous Jon Turturro - and dark prison scenes involving one of the stars of The Wire - Michael K Williams, the actor who played Omar. Now we have a new super series. Its going to rank with the big hitters - the Breaking Bads, Wires, True Detectives. Westworld S1 Ep1 was so packed with amazing plot developments and weird and wonderful visual effects, it made you battle to keep up. Many a scene I had to rewatch, and even then I was unsure who was robot and who was Newcomer or human guest to the theme park. HBO have taken the original

Michael Crichton idea and film and fleshed it out, thought it through, and given it a 21st century spin. Pure quality and not to be missed by sci-fi fans and anyone who has loved HBOs recent big hitters.
Not so mighty but worth a mention is another Amazon Prime production; The Collection. Again my internet troubles are not helping my enjoyment but this is interesting and a bit different to the usual fare of bodies piled high. Set just after the war in the Paris fashion scene - I am unsure who it is really about , if anyone , but there are some great scenes and intriguing characters and plot lines. Frances De La Tour is back - looking great in the Matriarch role of "over my dead body" tied with "he's my boy" type scenes with the gay creative sibling (Tom Riley stealing the show, but he has the best part). I cant help feeling the main character - Paul Sabine as played by Richard Coyle is miscast but its early days.
More to come next time - finally a word re Gary Shandling. It was great to see The Emmy's give him an acknowledgement, after his untimely death was swamped by that of Prince.Larry Sanders Show

was comic perfection, and it always revolved around his likeable narcissist host, who blazed a trail for so many to follow - he was on Seinfeld I think, or was it Curb Your Enthusiam? Are Larry David and Woody Allen massively different ?  Re Gary Shandling - he is much missed.

Turner Prize 2016

Turner Prize 2016 - Tuesday 04 - 10 -16

The new idea of letting visitors either pay the usual entrance fee - £10.60 or more than £12 with gift aid, or pay what you feel is appropriate is a good one. Thank you Tate Gallery - it feels less elitist, more for everyone, art experts or casual browsers. It doesnt cost fortunes when the Prize travels to different cities on alternate years, so why should it cost so much to see new artists trying new ideas when shown in London? Just show up on Tuesday, go to the ticket desk and offer what you feel is right - we paid £1 each .
The Turner Prize is awarded annually to an artist - aged under 50 with an association to Britain - who has had an outstanding exhibition in the past year anywhere in the world.The Prize has had an uneven past, sometimes putting upcoming artists on the map - Anthony Gormley, Cragg, Hodgkin, Hirst, Kapoor, Whiteread, Deller - the 80s and 90s are like a whos who of British artists. But it has also gone disastrously astray in the last 5 years. The worst example has to be 2014, when three of the four artworks were films which focused - it transpired after starting too close or out of focus - to be  of rectums, genitals and many other body parts on top or as well. To subject the fee paying public to this seemed perverse, in the crudest sense.
I am pleased to say 2016  is a vast improvement, definitely a return to form. Even the huge arse is good fun. Entitled "Project for a door(After Gaetano Pesce). Anthea Hamilton's room is divided into two, in one half the walls are covered in a brick pattern wallpaper and the brick patterned ladies suit was well executed and would have looked great if worn by Kate Moss or Grace Jones - in this space anyway. The other half has blue sky on the walls and curious objects hanging in the space. They could have been for many purposes or none, I couldnt tell and nor could my companion.
The first room by Helen Marten left me cold. I couldnt find much to look at or it didnt kick my brain into action. I looked, I saw, I moved on.
Josephine Pride's scale model of diesel train was much more worth taking the time over. Titled "The New Media Express in a Temporary Siding (Baby Wants to ride)" was classy. Had the rest of the work been of this standard i would give her a good chance.

The favourite for the £25k prize has to be Michael Dean. His room worked the longer you spent in it. At first its all a bit of a mess, but as you wander among the upstanding objects, made of concrete, plastic, pipe, polystyrene, I could go on, the more you wonder what is going on. Then you start noticing small hands are on the floor, as are plastic bags with marijuana logos on, mixed with Bob Marley logos. And in the middle, a huge pile of coppers, tuppences and pennies. The value is in the works title ; "UK poverty line for two adults and two children £20, 436 sterling as published on 1st September 2016". The artist then took one penny out, so poverty is literally represented in this installation. Hmm, OK , I am prepared to accept the thesis. More importantly, it works as art in its own right. Ingenious.