Wednesday 7 October 2009

reflections on art, theatre food and family and friends

Life is just so rich. In the past few days we have had a ball. Don't we always? Just so lucky.

So as at the weekend we took Beth to London, to see her Uni friends, who were up for tea at the Ritz. She has a fantastic time.

Fetched up at Cranley Gardens where it was great to see Kate for the first time since her arrival back from South America. She seems to be in a really good space, although wants a job in Bristol to help pay the bills.

Joined for afternoon tea, by Alex and Murray. Not quite the same standard as Beth was having down the road in Piccadilly needed Lorraine there to deliver that.

We went to the Kapoor exhibition at the RA. Wow, some if it is just so stunning. I loved the various mirrors, they were beautiful, fun and I would say high art. The great thing is that everyone was smiling they made people happy. I commented to one of the room attendants that it must be great to see everyone so happy. He commented that that was true but they were nervous as the art was so appealing yet fragile that they had a real challenge to prevent the visitors from interacting with it, and stuffing it up. So he said for them it is the hardest exhibition. One persons pleasure is another's stress I guess.

Onto the National Theatre, where we met Kevin and Lorna. We ate together near by before going onto see Mother Courage. A fantastic production. Not a happy play, in fact it gets more depressing every 15v minutes. But it is wonderful theatre and extremely challenging. Sad really that we, human kind simply seem unable to learn from the experience of previous generations.

Then on Sunday caught up with Julia. It was good seeing her again. We had a good lunch a the Oxo Tower, then took in the Pop exhibition at the Tate Modern. What an interesting thing that it as a concept. Is it art? Probably but how can anyone compare it to the beauty of even Caravaggio and I hate what he does. But it is emotional powerful and brilliant. Pop Art seems to me to be crass, exploitive and shallow. The porn component was more interesting, at least that is disturbing, challenging, and Sue and I have talked much about it. Coming to no real conclusion, other than it is well over the top and in your face. Probably unnecessary, but why do we find it difficult?

I am enormously blessed by my family and friends. We have had had a huge week, talking to so many of you. Learning so much from you all. Thankyou. But in this blog I want specially to mention Nick whose own blog started me on this path. Anyone who reads it has to be inspired by his writing his candor and insights. He is very brave blogging in this way. And we all love him all the more for his emotional maturity and sheer brilliance at conveying complex ideas and emotions so well in this way. What is more the bastard can be amusing too while doing it.

2 comments:

  1. Wow David, you do lead a busy life.I like the sound of thre Porn show you went to. And all in the name of art!

    Thanks for the praise. I was quite nervous about posting the last one, scared of offending people but I decided to do it anyway.

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  2. I LOVE Mother Courage - never seen it live but it must be challenging, as you say.
    I agree - POP art is NOT art.
    Looking forward to you next post!

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