Books, films and exhibitions - re-entering the SubStack sphere
It's been a minute yet I am inspired to pick up with SubStack again and write about things that have caught my interest of late. I wish you a happy 2024!
Books and the glory of Goodreads
Each year I set myself a challenge to read 50 books via the Goodreads app and I managed to read 43 books in 2023. I was hindered by moving three times in one year - private renting in London keeps you occupied - however books had proved yet again to be a stabilising force amidst the change. I’ve set myself the same challenge for 2024 and feel optimistic given I had managed it in 2022. My top five reads of 2023 are as follows:
Recollections of My Non-Existence - Rebecca Solnit
Chroma - Derek Jarman
Bacon in Moscow - James Birch
Rain: A Natural and Cultural History - Cynthia Barnett
Too Much Too Young - The 2 Tone Records Story - Daniel Rachel
Films
In the first week of 2024, I’ve watched a number of films. Having only watched one film Ali: Fear Eats the Soul by Rainer Werner Fassbinder I felt it was time to plunge further into his filmic canon. I felt I should start my own Fassbinder season including The Marriage of Maria Braun, The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant and Querelle.
The first was a magnificent watch, the second compelling and the third slightly arduous yet I couldn’t help noticing an aesthetic dialogue of style between Jarman’s Sebastian and Querelle, wondering if either were inspired by the other and indeed had they ever met? I am on the lookout for a good Fassbinder biography so if anyone has any suggestions feel free to mention in the comments.
Exhibitions
My first outing of the year has been to The Whitechapel Gallery in Aldgate. It is one of my favourite galleries due to the types of exhibitions they put on and its accessible reputation. There are a good number of free exhibitions on at any one time and I always come away with an appetite to find out more about the artists. Here are some that I saw this week:
Anna Mendelssohn: Speak, Poetess
Her works consist of pen and crayon drawings, written poems and typed prose, housed in one room on four walls and in glass table cabinets; they were subtle yet simultaneously found a space of their own.
Mendelssohn b. 1948 - 2009 was one of the Angry Brigade and was imprisoned for 10 years (serving five) in Holloway Women’s prison for her alleged participation in the group’s bomb campaigns during the early 70s. I later learnt that the AB were based in a house in Stoke Newington’s Amhurst Road where police found arms before the trial that proved to be one of the longest in British legal history. Mendelssohn later found resolve for her anarchistic leanings through art and language encouraging her audience to see how both are created, torn up and hidden and re-discovered through political, historical and personal events that eclipse personal control.
“My eroticism is stirred by paint / I am not good with words, words of love / …but show me a wall of paintings / … show me a millions paintings and / I would truly love”.
On until 21st January 2024
Nicole Eisenman (b. 1965, France, lives and works in Brooklyn, USA) works across painting, drawing, installation and sculpture. The Whitechapel had the below work on show for free in Gallery 7 (top floor) with the larger show combining100 works in Eisenman’s What Happened on the ground floor. The sculptural installation was arresting for its implication of the act of artistic labour - the sculptor at the spinning wheel - surrounded by the remnants of their productivity.
On until 14th January 2024
Other installations in the gallery included a section on textiles and community incorporating some lovely photography and wall of ‘zines. I sat down to read Grrrl Zine @grrrlzinefair by Lu Williams @luwilliamsdotcom, the edition focussing on Queer Utopias and it was a very interesting and mind-opening read. I think it would be wonderful if public libraries had a selection of ‘zines available since they do foster ideas that are mostly limited to the underground and certain age groups. Being of a certain age I have to seek these things out. Thankfully places like the Whitechapel Gallery create access to these sources and long may it continue.
Upcoming this month
This month I am partaking in Candid Gallery’s Not The London Art Fair exhibition which runs from 17th-21st January. I will have two paintings on show and look forward to meeting friends and fellow artists. The private view will be held on Thursday 18th January from 6-10pm and all are welcome!
3-5 Torrens Street, Islington, London EC1V 1NQ
Welcome back!