Archive for the 'images' Category

12
Feb
12

Kusama at Tate Modern – Wonderland despite the faded white turds

Infinity Mirrored Room I spent a few hours at the Yayoi Kusama exhibition at Tate Modern this afternoon. The area just south of Tate modern seems to be an area in transition. In some ways it is very old London yet there are massive apartments blocks going up. Not many people about so presumably none of them are sold yet.

Inside Tate Modern it was the usual story of queuing for the ticket then queueing for the exhibition to be let in at a given time then trying to get past the people who think they have to queue for every exhibit. I recall prior to Tate Modern, if one wanted to see some modern art, one was forced to visit The Tate (now Tate Britain) and endure a lot of dusty old fashioned art first. To be honest all art can be good and bad and I can well remember being extremely impressed when I discovered a futurist sculpture created in 1913 named ‘Unique Forms Of Continuity In Space’ by Umberto Boccioni.

These days the art establishment like to claim that they are brining art to the masses but I think they may merely have succumbed to the obsession with profit which seems to have driven the start of the 21st century. I’m not sure that having Anne Robinson ask “Name a modern art museum in London” on The Weakest Link counts as art appreciation and justifies the congestion. …however, I digress……

Yayoi Kusama is a Japanese artist who lives in a mental institution so it says here. The first exhibits I found fairly mundane and was soon presented with what appeared to be painting from the Bollocks school of art. i.e. Since anything can be art, therefore any old bollocks I create must also be art. Monochrome canvasses with squiggles and texturing. I began to feel a little cynical. Chairs and shoes filled with what appeared to be large white turds. Thank you Ms. Kusama, we’ll be in touch.

Boat

Boat

However, things livened up a bit and the dark room with the white boat full of turds was quite striking. Later the punters were paying great attention to a video with a large sign stating that there were scenes of an “explicit nature”. So many people were paying so much attention that I never did get into that room.

I entered another dark room decorated somewhat like an ordinary living dining room with chairs and a table laid for dinner. The only light in the room came from Ultra Violet strip lights around the ceiling. What made the room impressive was thousands of dots of primary colour dabbed all the over the floors, walls, ceilings and objects. Sounds daft but I felt like I had entered an Alice in Wonderland novel. Following swift on the heals of this was another room full of coloured lights and mirrors which was also very impressive and by the time I was presented with her latest large vitally colourful paintings I had become a Kusama fan.

Obliteration Room

Obliteration Room

The Kusama exhibition runs to the 5th June 2012 and tickets are £10 with a request for a £1 donation to charity. Worth a visit.

Buy Art Photography by Nigel Chaloner

Buy Art Photography by Nigel Chaloner

27
Jan
12

travel photography – Objectifying the subject

The Long Way Home

The Long Way Home

Recently The Guardian ran an article reporting that India is to crackdown on what are termed “human safaris” where comparatively rich tourists visit the Jarawa tribe people of the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal.

The Jarawa people have long been isolated from the rest of the world and are now being affected by a major road built across their land by the Indian government. A video accompanied the report showing Indian tourists getting the tribes people to dance for food.

Of course we sympathise with the Jarawar and abhor the idea that tourists casually throw them food in order to capture a few second of video footage.

But are we so very different? As a keen photographer I keep an eye on Flickr and, today, I came across this picture which appealed to me. The picture shows a couple of Ugandan children walking down a dirt road carrying baggage on their heads. The girl also carries a large container probably for water. It’s a nice shot. The colours are subtly beautiful and the girl’s expression is interesting.

But take a step back here. How would we feel if tourists wandered around poor areas of America with expensive cameras, capturing images of people struggling with bags and then drove back to their hotels in the evening to eat and drink too much?

I am in no way condemning the photographer of this shot. I have taken similar pictures and have to defend photography as an art form and state that, while the streets of western countries are fantastic subjects for photography the scale is less and less human. The beauty of pictures such as The Long Way Home may be related to their simplicity and humanity.

I guess there have always been disparities in wealth and power between the haves and have nots but these days cheap air travel seems to allow we who live in the rich world to objectify people from the “developing world” without a thought.

Vietnamese Girls

Vietnamese Girls

03
Jan
12

Art Noise presents Pint Size: The Dirty Pint

See photography by Nigel Chaloner and others at The Dirty Pint in The Sidewinder, Kemp Town, Brighton on Thursday, 5th January. 9pm to 1am. Admission Free. Courtesy of Art Noise.

The Dirty Pint. Gritty Photography and art from the streets of Brighton with a soundtrack pf hip-hop, Jazz, Funk, Electro Swing and Chilled indie. Thursday 5th January 2011, The Sidewinder,

The Dirty Pint. Gritty Photography and art from the streets of Brighton with a soundtrack of hip-hop, Jazz, Funk, Electro Swing and Chilled indie. Thursday 5th January 2011, The Sidewinder,

Buy Poppies at Fine Art America

Poppies

01
Jan
12

Hove Prom, New Year’s Eve

Hove Prom, New Year's Even, 2011

Hove Prom, New Year's Even, 2011

24
Dec
11

Smiling Dog

Smiling Dog

Smiling Dog

10
Dec
11

Practice?

Looks like the RNLI were practising off of Hove this morning. A rib stood by while a helicopter dangled a bloke on a rope and tried to fish another out of the water. A bit chilly for such activities if you ask me.

Helicopter

Helicopter

25
Oct
11

Vinyl Love

Vinyl love..

Vinyl love..by Bella. http://www.flickr.com/people/bellakotak/

16
Oct
11

Cortina

Saw a fantastic old Ford Cortina up by the IMAX on the South Bank on Saturday night.

Cortina

CortinaCortina

Cortina

Cortina




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Lancing College Chapel - Inside the crypt

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