Rupert Everett: The Happy Prince: Unapologetic love of life

Three girls are talking at the table next to mine, in this cinema bar, where they happened to be coincidentally, tables outside. They talk of how great of a deal she got on her new car. £7500. They are all dressed identically, fake-vintage denim skirts and they are 20.

The sun is exploding. The sun is still. England won the match. Groups of men, topless, pass by, chanting groups that seem one moment joyous, next moment aggressive.

‘ENGLAND!’ he shouts through the open window to the older woman in a parked car, also possibly English.

‘We moved the TV, that’s HD you know’.

The group of topless men kept walking, chanting, shouting, would that be the group of men that hunted down and bullied Oscar Wilde in France?

‘You look so nice, you are so tanned’, she exclaimed to her newly arrived friend.

All, seem trapped in a pre-defined role of gender macho-power, slutty-needy, playing it out on a stage for nobody.

A group of children passing by, one mockingly says ‘let’s go to the cinema, let’s watch a movie’.

PROM TIME. The sign on the florist’s across.

If there is a God, it is the God Oscar Wilde envisaged in his fairy tales. Powerless to the world we have made, but passionate. Fair. Later.

Most narratives of his life are sympathetic but always hold a hue of pity.

Poor Man.

So sad.

The beauty of the Happy Prince is that it is unapologetic.

The author is never presented as sad, pitied, no. He is completely, utterly, passionately in love with life. His addictions are choices. His troubles societal. His traitors small. His friends loyal. His lovers ecstatic. His wife a victim, like him. His crowds adoring, then mobs, then adoring. Different crowds. The high classes, all classes, the underclass, men trapped in class, men depressed, men oppressed, men with lust for life.

The film is sad. Yet at no point do you feel pity. This is the magnificence of it. Any sadness is an attack on the societal norms and a homage to the abysmal pain of unrequited love.

But Love.
Love.
LOVE.
Love of life.
Love of a man.
Love of men.
Love of joy.
Unapologetic love.

‘He is still going out clubbing! so sad, he is 43! at his age!’ a friend told me. A friend that spent all his 20s clubbing.

‘At his age’.

Partying, enjoying, pleasures have to have an expiry date.

After that, oh dear. Loser. Sad.

Not in this film.

And most of all, apart from its subject matter, the direction, to me, was superb. Flawless, with arthouse elements that accentuated the subject, playful tricks, visually and choreographically stunning.

Celebrating Decadence; Beautiful, exquisite Decadence. Feared by all. Because Decadence is a choice against continuation, against the species, against all that is supposed to be.

It is the yellow books; the numberless nights that are a blur; the tortoises painted gold.

And all this, not in contradiction, maybe that’s what life is about. Exactly, those tortoises painted gold. Statues that love so much they give away their emerald eyes to help others. Birds that love so much that choose to die.

That is a life worth living. Even if short. All the rest, a sensible, boring world.


‘When did you lose sight of Him?’ he was asked on his deathbed.

‘In Clapham Junction’



more info:
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/the-happy-prince-review-rupert-everett-delivers-moving-and-surprising-biopic-of-oscar-wilde-a8397086.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Wilde

Modernity, Croydon and A Journey Through Brutalism, RISE Gallery

Saffron crocus is unknown to the wild.

An island city in between suburbia, built for cars, proud of its multi-storey car parks: Croydon, the space-age city prided itself in a Utopia that never happened.

Post war optimism got its golden child in Croydon. Lunar House, Apollo House, semi-brutalist structures, the sister to the Royal Festival Hall, the Future.

https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-the-new-croydon-1963-online

The National Trust backed tour ran by the RISE gallery is a love song to that intention but also to a different future that now might be waiting. It was refreshing to hear people knowledgable about and loving towards where they live.

A place snubbed by many, is now a place changing; old buildings are resurrected, office blocks are turned into housing showered with promises of affordable prices and no foreign investor interference.

The Saffron flowers are sterile. They reproduce only by human intervention.

As with all gentrification-suspect projects, you wonder if changing the built environment is a way to alienate some and make an area unaffordable to even more so there is more space for the wealthier to move in.

BoxPark. A temporary, precarious state of prosperity, while a woman sitting on its steps keeps screaming ‘save me’ in distress. Parallel lines, worlds that will never meet.

There seem to be a ripple effect stemming from, I believe,a genuine wish to improve the everyday life of residents by this entwined group of developers, councils, art patrons.

For instance, the public art endorsed and produced is impressive, intriguing and insightful.

Yet, I wonder if it somehow feels too conceptual and detached from the majority that views it. Like in a way a superficial paint, that doesn’t fix a wall, just makes it more appealing to outsiders.

Is it the middle class ‘Saviour Syndrome’ that is the driving force behind Croydon’s reformation process, even if there is good will? Are these efforts making any of the established population there happier or is the middle class making itself more comfortable thus inviting more middle class people to move in? The tour, we were homogenous. Some had SLR cameras hanging from their neck. Though with no exploitation agenda, still, Tourists.

Sometimes when reality is crushing, those affected are left with no energy. So why not that the ones that can afford it, offer their energy for a positive, as they believe, change. ‘Don’t be ashamed of your privilege. Just use it to help others’.

Croydon allegedly has got its name from the Crocus, the Saffron flower cultivated there. I love thinking of Croydon as the Saffron producing town of the past. And I love to think of it as the post-war optimistic project it was. Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all I’d say to those that believe it is a project failed.

The more time I spend in East Croydon, the more I see it as London at its truest; the same embrace that also took me in as well as the immigrants, the destitute, the new middle class families, the kid with his hand inside his pants trying desperately to show off, the screaming woman, so many that try their best, all in pursue of a better life. Many visiting:

South London ICE,
Home Office
Lunar House, 1st Floor
40 Wellesley Road
Croydon
CR9 2BY

or

Electric House.
Home Office
UK Border Agency
3 Wellesley Road
Croydon
CR0 2AT


An electricity showroom of mid-war years, then an immigration office. With cells. An art deco facade, futurism turned into authoritarianism and, now, to desolation. The building might rot or might get a makeover. People passing by are surprised by our interest, given that its front is covered in garbage. It’s hard to see beyond this. Garbage is the reality now and maybe that should be the future of any Immigration Office.

In a London increasingly gentrified, beautified, streamlined, a Soho where LGBT people and sex workers are edged out by eateries, a Hackney/Shoreditch where artists, minorities and the working class are pushed out by fashion trends, where Elephant and Castle is to be torn down for luxury flats in the sounds of Nine Elms, maybe it is imperative that people like the RISE strive to strike a balance.

Naked of all above sub context, their tours and exhibitions are a unique, excellent opportunity to visit a place that is repeatedly saturated with Modernity. While there, be respectful. To the eye safe from harsh everyday struggle it is a place easy to dismiss or look down upon. And yet it is of the most truthful of realities London is.

Let’s celebrate it and breathe it as it is, before it is irreversibly gone.



Photos by Globbie Dcw.

more info:
https://www.rise-gallery.co.uk/exhibition/a-journey-through-brutalism/
http://jonathanmeades.co.uk/Artwork.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croydon
https://thecroydoncitizen.com/culture/event-review-launch-journey-brutalism-exhibition-rise-gallery/

Martina Amati: Under: Somewhere In Between, The Wellcome Collection

until 27 08 18


100m
Breathing is the soundtrack.

When I was seven
I asked my mother
To trip me to the bay
And put me on a ship
And lower me down
Lower me out of here
Because when I was seven
I wanted to live in a bathysphere

Beautiful in unmatched visuals, Under fills up the room as in a tank, immersing you in a limited but still a place with no horizon. I advise us all to sit down and breathe back, in turns.

This depthless space, where light seems emanating from instead of refracting into, is serene. It is timeless, it is where we go when we dream. Or maybe when we are afraid. There is no direction, no orientation, no azimuths, no nadirs. Just a white line, a blade cutting it deep, a place safe from gravity and fall; you can never fall. You can never hurt.

Between coral
Silent eel
Silver swordfish
I can't really feel or dream down here

A school of fish sweetly breaks this meditative state for a second.

Three figures, trapeze, ancient frescoes, animalistic, walk the white ropes in processional dance; they are the Rites of Demeter, the nymphs tempting the passerby, the Ballets Russes, the kids you want to follow, the mermaids that will never choose to dissolve into foam.

And if the water should cut my line
Set me free
And if the water should cut my line
Set me free, I don't mind
I'll be the lost sailor, my home is the sea

An upside down world that makes more sense than the one we know. With an exit route, a ring connecting you to the line guiding you out of it, the line we might choose not to follow. Even if for the duration of a breath.

A world where we are finally weightless again.

When I was seven
My father said to me
'But you can't swim'
And I've never dreamed of the sea again



Lyrics: Smog ‘Bathysphere’

more info:
https://wellcomecollection.org/exhibitions/WhvoAykAACgAlDoo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Callahan_discography

The White Darkness: Spirit Possession in Haitian Vodou: Gabriel Toso, Treadwell's 22 Mar 18

Light hearted but at no sense any less serious or disrespectful, Gabriel Toso gave a captivating, enlightening and demystifying lecture on a subject and a religion so repeatedly misrepresented, misunderstood and marginalised in the popular mind.

Possession, the sense of self, notions further than the body and the soul, notions non euro-centric or western; like the ‘kick in the neck’ before the god or spirit possesses you.

Then, you let them in. Macho men embrace femininity, older people the vitality of youth, younger people the invincibility of the elder experience in a collective act resisting imposed religions; deities are now taking the form of acceptable catholic figures while the rawness of the act remains primeval and the drums reaffirm their dominion.

In an everyday where we get obsessed with presenting a self image, with anxiety on missing out, displacement of personal contact, focus on careers, and a society of the spectacle still reigns, maybe the notion of letting go, of letting a god take over for a bit to represent your opposite or your real self, to dance manically like the Maenads in a context where this is trivial, not exceptional, is the antidote: Accepting your insignificance in the magnificence of the shared act.

Like the speaker and myself, many having had an epileptic fit understand this to the core: the complete loss of self, loss of memory while in fits/ecstasy; the way the possessed get helped by the segregation reminded me of how I was helped then, too by a beautiful man. You come out humbled and thankful. There is no glamour in being chosen. The beauty comes later, in the realisation of the role of the collective in support and in invocation.

We go on daily, brushing off on each other’s tragedy, happiness, struggle. Emotional, physical, health worries, each one of us carries their own cross. Whatever we try, we feel we have no control. And there is where Treadwell’s, a constant for decades amidst the whirlwind of the world has its door wide open, with Christine and her team always welcoming, to slow us down, make us smell again, the candles, the night, the air, look again at stars, plants, ourselves, invite us to see ourselves as part of a whole not as singularities, and for a moment, doubt reality as we know it.

Somehow, while there, in that basement, in commune with the speaker's passion, the idea of a possession by a deity, temporarily, felt comforting and sweet. Like a familial embrace when you’re lost, a blanket pulled towards you by a lover, a song from the past you smile to.

A promise we are not alone, we are not abandoned. Even if we know we are.





more info:
https://www.treadwells-london.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Vodou

Altruism, the Postman's Park and Susan Hiller: Monument 1980-1, Tate Modern

The Postman's Park, near the Barbican, is always, patiently waiting for passers by in its quiet dignity.

On one of its sides there is a wall of tiles; it is commemorating impulsive acts of self-sacrifice that end up in self-demise.

These extraordinary acts, performed in circumstances of the everyday are far from trivial. And their succinct and poetic descriptions are emotive, draped in a sweet melancholy.

Susan Hiller’s installation at the Tate is a lovely tribute to the Postman’s Park. However it seems a weird omission that there is no mention of the park by name in any of the captions.

I did not listen to the audio part on the bench. By then, I admit I was already put off by this exact fact of no mention. My reasoning, I admit, possibly very unfair.

‘The Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice’ it is called.
‘Monument’ is how Susan Hiller called her installation.

The difference in naming seems telling of a difference in intention.

A monument, implies wishes of grandeur. Implies will to be immortal.

In the Postman’s Park, the dead do not want grandeur or immortality. They never looked for it. They only want dignity.

Heroic.

Apparently, the word heroism was introduced only in the 18th century.

Self-sacrifice.

It always implies intention. Self-Perishing is optional.

But would you, or me?

Recently, while attending a talk, a person collapsed. I was not the closest in proximity, there were a few others in-between but still I was there. Close. I am first-aid trained. I did nothing. Froze. Others stepped in and helped wonderfully. I felt scared and hopeless, numb and ashamed afterwards.

The people commemorated in the tiles did not freeze. They are the glue. The invisible ink writing human history.

So many squares, parks and streets are hosts to vulgar statues of heroes. Most of them butchers. Yet the heroes in the Postman’s Park don’t mind they are on no squares. They do not need or want recognition. They want to have left their last breath knowing their loss saved someone else. Most of the times, it didn’t.

Altruism, selflessness and self-sacrifice are often mentioned in dictionaries as interchangeable notions.

There are schools of thought (George Price, WD Hamilton etc.) that deny the existence of altruism. They believe that all acts of altruism are in reality evolutionary acts for the preservation of the species; that self-sacrifice is a misplaced belief together with the idea of preservation of the species in an individual, reproductive narrative.

The installation is a reminiscence of the park experience but far from it; the pictures of the tiles are pictures of the tiles. Someone else’s (art)work. There seems to be no real added value to the original. The concept/declaration that the listener on the bench is being part of the installation is naive as the identity of the audience is obvious.

The Park is a Cenotaph. The installation is placing this cenotaph to the personal in a way that, to me, is trivialising the subject, assuming an identity that cannot exist in in such concepts but in actions.

During the recent shooting in a Florida school, a man, Aaron Feis, a coach, put his body in-between the kids and the shooter, also a kid. He died of his wounds. His death will survive in the memory of those involved he saved, and his name maybe in some news pieces, but then he will embrace oblivion and his beloved’s laments will become a faint whistling at night, a hiss barely noticed.

Not in the Postman’s Park. His name will not be there but he is everyone and each tile is him. He is the one sitting on the bench watching the passers by. Content or regretful, either way immortal.

On a table opposite me, a man sits now with friends, sharing a wine and conversation and he is a man obviously dying, from his looks possibly cancer. He talks trivial everyday things as I overhear. He sips his sips, each sip a quiet, serene, deafening act of heroism.

And I am reminded that heroism is silent. Is instant. Or a daily occurrence; things that the rest of us take for granted.

Heroism is Love. It does not boast. It is not proud. Love never fails.



more info:
https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do/green-spaces/city-gardens/visitor-information/Pages/Postman's-Park.aspx"
http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/susan-hiller/susan-hiller-room-guide/susan-hiller-monument"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-reviews/8311816/Susan-Hiller-at-Tate-Britain-hidden-voices-lost-worlds.html"
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/bmjanm/george-price-altruism"

Thanks to DP for additional editing.