Do the ‘First Actresses’ really take centre stage in their exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery?

By Ally Crossland

The original ‘It Girls’ have found a new stage in the National Portrait Gallery’s latest exhibition. ‘The First Actresses’ celebrates women finding fame on the stages of the West End, and in the beds of the aristocracy. The Cheryl Cole’s and Sienna Millers of their day, these women were proud and defiant of the social codes which contained most of their female contemporaries. Icons such as Sarah Siddons and Mary Robinson became manipulators of their own brand, and portraiture became their public calling card. Many even forged their own careers in writing novels and plays. In the newly forming consumer market, their potent blend of fast living and loose morals was irresistible. Many of these women came from the world of prostitution and continued to use it as leverage in their personal and professional lives. It certainly is empowering stuff for the average twenty first century girl, when freedom for women to perform on the public stage has always been a given.

Sir Joshua Reynolds' Nell Gwynn 

Take for example the infamous Nell Gwynn. She used her beauty and skill on the stage to work her way into an astonishing world of social mobility and became the most famous actress of the period. She secured the position of mistress to Charles II, and bore him two illegitimate sons. In one of her luxuriously erotic portraits, Nell casually bares both her breasts to the viewer, her head coyly cocked to one side. Like Nell, the sitters in these portraits were far from afraid of using the idea of sex to further their careers. This meant however that they became ‘fallen women’, condemned socially for their publicly promiscuous behaviour. Portraiture became a medium through which the respectability of the sitter could be elevated. In Sarah Siddons’ grand portrait by Joshua Reynolds, she represents the respectable side of theatre and art, in a dignified Classical pose, engulfed in silk and pearls.

This exhibition is the first that solely celebrates women and their public role in this period. In our post feminism culture, surely this must be a positive step forward? However, if we begin to look beyond the seductive gazes and expensive costumes in these portraits, we can uncover a far more complicated dialogue that existed in this world. Who were the people watching these women perform? Who took these courtesans as mistresses and commissioned portraits of them to hang in the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition?  Who married these professional women, often forcing them off the stage and back into the private sphere of the home where they were they could be made ‘polite’ again? Could the answer be as simple as, men?

Gainsborough 'Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan'

Take for example Elizabeth Linley, who was forced off the stage by first her father and then her husband. In her exquisite portrait by Gainsborough, she reclines in an idyllic forest scene, far removed from any of the vulgarities of the working stage world.

Now I am not the raging burn-your-bra kind of feminist, but there are social issues of this period that have been glossed over by these glamorous portraits. The more sinister side of this colourful, yet fiercely patriarchal world has been discounted. The exhibition undoubtedly celebrates the beauty of women, yet fails to recognise that their beauty was the façade of a world where all forms of performance was constructed and controlled by men. These portraits are the final flourish of mans’ social authority over their female counterparts in the eighteenth century public scene.

'The First Actresses: from Nell Gwynn to Sarah Siddons' is open at the National Portrait Gallery until the 8th January 2012. Tickets £11, £9 concession.

Reflections on Frieze Art Fair 2011

Frieze Projects

By Niamh Morgan

Frieze Projects is a programme of artists’ commissions realised annually at Frieze Art Fair. Curated by Sarah McCrory, the 2011 selection included seven specially commissioned projects as well as the Emdash Award. Interspersed amongst the 173 galleries taking part in the fair, the various installations and performances that comprised the Projects offered a breath of fresh air, an alternative to the increasingly commercialised art world that monopolised the rest of the space.

Pierre Huyghe's 'Sebastian'

McCrory’s cast of artists embraced a huge array of media from Cara Tolmie’s daily performance art to Laure Provost’s inconspicuous and humorous signs, casually scattered around the temporary walls. Elsewhere, Bik Van der Pol’s live scoreboard, constantly updated by assistants with art-related quotes, idioms and maxims stood in stark contrast to Pierre Huyghe’s installation which was located at the back of the fair and offered an escape from the bustling commerce outside. Once inside, visitors were faced with a live ecosystem that hosted a specific narrative created for Frieze Art Fair, containing select seawater creatures. Placed in a darkened room, Huyghe’s aquarium created an ethereal centrepiece, inviting the spectator to peer closer, where they were faced with delicate spider-like creatures floating effortlessly among the rocks. Meanwhile, crawling steadily through the landscape was the main event; a hermit crab. At first glance, this choice seemed to be in stark contrast with its surroundings but peering closer, what first appeared to be a humdrum seawater creature turned out to be a crab carrying a replica of Constantin Brancusi’s ‘Sleeping Muse’ in place of a shell. I would constantly return to this space throughout my time at the fair to find an increasing amount of visitors glued to the glass, enthralled by the eerie underwater performance.

Christian Jankowski's 'The Finest Art on Water'

In contrast to the serene of Huyghe’s site was the constant uproar surrounding project number 6; Christian Jankowski’s ‘The Finest Art on Water’. The most talked about artwork of the entire fair, it sparked furious debates over its price and subject matter. Working in conjunction with a luxury yacht company, the project consisted of a boat dealer selling a full-size motor yacht from a conventional gallery stand. Where the controversy arose was in the idea behind the pricing; Jankowski’s work could either be bought as a boat or as a Christian Jankowski artwork; the latter being available for €625,000 and the former for €500,000. Jankowski explained that the yacht is an extension of the idea of the readymade artwork, a glance back to Duchamp and his urinals. But whereas Duchamp was criticizing the art market of the time, Jankowski appears to have no such agenda. "I'm interested to see whether some collector has the capacity to push what they do to an extra level" commented Jankowski. His interest lies in the interaction of art and viewer ending with the new owner’s inevitable role as a participant in their own special piece of performance art.

Despite the furore over this incredible idea, to me the outstanding project this year was Lucky PDF; a collective of artists based in Peckham. During the course of the Fair, Lucky PDF invited over 50 artists to show and produce new work for a series of live daily broadcasts. Throughout the day, visitors could wander in to watch open rehearsals and live recordings, sometimes even participating in these themselves. Any visitor, who throughout the rest of Frieze would have found themselves a passive spectator, was turned into an active member of the collective, becoming a part of the various shows Lucky PDF put on. Thursday night, for example, consisted of a live karaoke act, with various members of the group furiously editing away in the background whilst Friday viewers were treated to a show to promote a wrestlers’ fight taking place the following week. For me, this was the highlight. Filmed before the fair opened, the two wrestlers could be seen rampaging through the various galleries, using art as a prop in their combat whilst viewers of the later broadcast were left to ponder the aftermath of what would have happened if they’d actually been using the galleries’ real pieces.

Frieze seems to exist in a space outside the real world and maybe this is the appeal to the diverse range of visitors who come to the fair annually. Almost acting as a parallel universe it seems not to have been hit by the aftermath of the recession. Instead artists like Damien Hirst, represented by the White Cube Gallery seem unaffected; with works still selling for thousands of pounds. This for me, is why Frieze’s projects this year were the highlight of the fair; they offered another side to an art world which seems increasingly focused on a commercial agenda, proving that there are still artists who are out there to have fun with their work and push the boundaries, instead of sit back, content and smug that with one sale of a factory made dot painting, they've just earned themselves another couple of thousand. 

Incredible!

The horrific flooding in Pakistan has causes millions of spiders to flee the rising water levels and create these delicate cocoons of webs in the trees. Not only are they beautiful, they are thought to be trapping all the mosquitos and keeping them away from the stagnant water, greatly reducing the risk of malaria. 

A review of the play 'Jerusalem', and how every town has a Johnny "Rooster" Byron

 

By Hannah Wetz

The play Jerusalem, running in the West End until 14^th January 2012, is the story of Johnny “Rooster” Byron, a gypsy who has been given forty-eight hours to vacate his trailer in “Rooster’s Forest” due to new complaints of the impromptu raves and mash-ups attended by the Wiltshire teens, for whom Rooster’s character – equally placed between drunk, selfish and walkover-able – provides an ideal opportunity for bunking, drug-taking and a flirtation with ASBOs.

The stage was wonderfully authentic, beer mugs with the dregs inside, chickens clucking around in their makeshift enclosure, a corner that has collected leaves, cans, wrappers and other debris just as it garden corners do, and of course a one-piece-per-generation furniture suite, lovingly and pleasingly used both on and off the stage. 

The script was golden.  The first scene of “f**ks” and “c**nts” was brutal enough to overcome any discomfiture next to my mother, and whilst the language was loud and shocking, it was also very funny and actually very accurately applied.  Moreover, the more sentimental monologues were not flowered with poetry, but still riddled with crudity and the struggle of communication that so many of us confront when we just need to make a point and the sentiment as expressed verbally is done so with a frustrated and explosive “f**k!”

The costumes were great; contemporary and timeless expectations of each character’s formulaic wardrobe, such as Johnny “Rooster” Byron, the protagonist gypsy who lives in a trailer inhabited by the huge ancestry of waster-Byrons before him, in a sweat-stained tank top, accessorised by regrettable and faded tattoos of his – dare I even suggest it – trendier past.  The kids, 15-year olds experimenting with drugs and alcohol with Byron, are trendy, in fancy dress when appropriate (any excuse).  And there’s Ginger in ‘90s combats and skater shoes, Byron’s loyal follower who partied with him when he was fifteen and forgot to move on from the old waster, ditto the year 1997.

The most remarkable effect of the stage, script and costume was its familiarity.  Every rural village has a Johnny Byron, well mine definitely did.  He lives in the same flat he grew up in, fitted over the years with appliances of his own design that most people over fifteen grow out of:  A huge empty fink tank, enormous speakers next to an extensive collection of either UK Garage or Electronic Dance cassettes, even a corner bar, for f**k’s sake!  He’s the fist port of call for pubescent kids who want to get hold of a spliff, because everyone knows that he’s been dealing since he could exchange words and money.  He’s a sweet guy; he wants to help out and he wants you to enjoy yourself with a vodka cherry-cola and a little weak pill.  But by the time you’re 21, you’re laughing at the times that you were taking his kindness then laughing at how he abused himself.  As the play depicts, pissing on him when he’s passed out, ditching him when he really needs his favours to be returned.

Jerusalem was a class act, not merely for the chemistry on stage by every single one of the talented actors, and the comic ups and downs of the plot, but also for how it made us question our presuppositions:  This drug-dealing waster might have been the most generous man those kids will ever know.  He’d made his mistakes, and he sure as hell is aware of it.  Perhaps he deserves a re-judgement.  Or perhaps not?

Link to Jerusalem: http://www.jerusalemtheplay.com/

“New Television”: The new public platform

by Hannah Wetz
At the Frieze Art Fair there was a talk about television. The proposal was this: How have artists responded New Television, considering its history of being shunned aside as arbitrary and low-end form of popular culture and entertainment? Because now, it cannot be denied that television – rather, the television show - is a platform for both aesthetic and socio-political expression.

Implicit in most accounts of what constitutes New Television is that it calls for an aesthetic response in the viewer. In doing so, the plot secondary to the imagery: High-end series such as the Wire or Mad Men, which were frequently discussed today, though fundamentally complex in their narrative, the viewer is rarely left in the dark in terms of who has betrayed whom, who is aware of it, who will be affected by it, but rather finds his or herself clinching at arbitrary details surrounding the lives of the protagonists, expecting them to amount to some great importance, as one would respond to a mostly-conceived, low-end soap opera. 

Soap operas are largely conceived of as low-end, uninteresting and unreliable accounts of the everyday. Yet millions of viewers tune in on a daily basis to follow the lives of these fictional characters, cleverly up-to-date in the “real world.” Hence it would seem that the soap opera is a very powerful tool in planting images of “real” matters, whether political, sexual, financial or otherwise. 
It is no wonder then that the Americanisation of soap operas into high-end series – the glamorisation and dramatisation of everyday life – is so successful in transposing its viewers’ responses to political and social matters that are confronted in the shows into responses to governmental action in reality. 

What are director’s intentions when they release a show such as The Wire? It seems to me that, while conceived as entertainment, the narrative has been constructed to provoke social unrest, to feed into the viewer’s mind a distrust of society. It seems to me that the real power in the director mirrors the power of artists in the early twentieth century and still today. With the aid of liberalism and the Internet, television has become the new platform for aesthetic storytellers to spread the word of injustice and inequality en masse. New Television is New Art. Directors are authors and artists, with a aesthetic style that caries a larger socio-political message. Television and the Internet is a means to present that message to almost anyone or any age, gender, religion, class, nationality, almost at any time, at the viewer’s convenience. Busy on Thursday at 10pm? No problem, watch on Friday, on almost any device, at almost any time. You’ll still see that imagery and you’ll still get the message.

Review for student magazine- The Sir John Soane Museum

Holborn’s Hidden Treasure Chest- The Sir John Soane Museum

Nestled in a quiet terrace on the north side of Lincoln’s Inn Field, the Sir John Soane Museum preserves the personal art and architectural collections of its namesake, who was Professor of Architecture at the Royal Academy, and famously designed the Bank of England. At the time of Soane’s death in 1837, the house museum was preserved in a kind of time warp for the benefit of the public, just as Soane intended.

Entering via a darkened hallway into a succession of rooms crammed with curiosities, no space is left untouched by this eccentric perfectionist. In the grand library hangs the celebrated portrait of Soane by Sir Thomas Lawrence.

Exploring further back through the hushed rooms, each nook and cranny is covered in fragments of Classical architecture, columns, busts of Gods and emperors, death masks and other treasures of antiquity that Soane collected over the years. Linger in the Picture Room and one of the guides will pull back two of the walls to reveal even more treasures hidden behind. Here Soane shows off three Venetian scenes by Canaletto, and perhaps most famously, A Rakes Progress, by William Hogarth. This fascinating series caricaturing the follies and vices of the upper classes is reason enough to visit the house in my opinion. Being able to get nose-to-glass close, a rare treat.

Under the grand dome in the centre of the house, a cast of the Apollo Belvedere looks out over the colossal sarcophagus of the Egyptian pharaoh Seti I, with the full-length figure of the goddess Nut carved on the base. This priced artefact was brought from the famous Egyptologist Giovanni Belzoni for the grand sum of £2000 in 1824. Down in the crypt, the lighting is dimmed and people look around in near silence, awed at how different Soane’s little world is, away from the hustle and bustle of the London streets. Amongst more busts, death masks and models of Classical beauty, a grim pair of shackles hang on the wall, a reminder of Soane’s work as an abolitionist.

The collection itself is in the middle of an extensive seven million pound renovation period, which will finish in 2014 and open up eight more rooms that have never before been made public. These will include Soane’s and his wives private apartments as well as the Ante Room, filled with almost two hundred more works of Classical art. Thanks to a well-kept archive, the rooms can be set out as though Soane never left.

One of the many things that make this museum special is how unlike a traditional museum it feels like. This is no clinical space, constructed and then taken down by curators every few months. Exploring this house, you can see how Soane’s collection naturally evolved; although it still seems extraordinary that people actually lived amongst these art works. Another blessing, there are perhaps no more than ten labels on the objects, so you have the time to look around you properly. With you phone switched off and bags put away, it really feels as though Soane could have left yesterday, or that you have travelled back in time. What is more, each first Tuesday evening of the month, you can wander the rooms by candlelight. The fact that the museum is free, and a tens minutes walk from Russell Square, means there really is no excuse not to take advantage of this fascinating collection of artefacts on our doorstep.

The museum is open Tuesday to Saturday inclusive, 10am to 5pm. Also first Tuesday of each month 6-9pm.

Well I thought we could start with something pretty high brow...

The British Museum's 'Treasure of Heaven' Exhibition.


Even those who don't have a religious bone in their body, this exhibition, now in its final weeks, definitely has something to amaze everyone. The objects of religious devotion on display showcase some seriously impressive craftsmanship in an age long before our mass produced idols of modernity. The exhibition is under the dome of the central section of the museum, the exhibits surrounded by the eery echoing of choral music that gives these objects the devotional atmosphere that they are used to.

 The exquistetly crafted reliquaries, devotional images and altarpieces are often so detailed that you need to be nose-to-glass to really appreciate their full beauty. Many are intimate private objects with secret compartments, never intended to be viewed behind glass cabinets by hoards of non-believers. Each golden cross or jewel encrusted bust speaks of a rich history and tradition which has survived throughout Christianity's turbulent history to a point where it it still demands huge reverence today. This is of course despite the fact that since before Luther there has been a great distrust of the validity of most of these so called 'relics'. Whilst having to embrace the fact that I was definitely that youngest one at this exhibition by about forty years, it was and rare and enlightening opportunity to see so many exquisite objects in one place.