…but I feel like I need a holiday :(
Half Term: Up North to visit family, two days at uni for my course and a full day of gaming. Didn’t do the work I should have but at the same time I feel like I didn’t get enough time to veg out, though, this is what I do most weekends so i’m not entirely sure why i’m complaining. I’m tired.
Stoke-on-Trent and the old Spode pottery factory for the British Ceramics Biennial:
Some great work yet-again, however I wasn’t as taken with the work selected… I can’t put my finger on exactly why, but the ideas weren’t as interesting, the pieces not as visually intriguing? Don’t get me wrong, there was some fabulous stuff, but, I dunno, it just didn’t excite me quite as much as last time.
I paid my first visit to the new Whitworth Gallery, which was interesting in that the building has a brand-new extension (pictured) that works very well with the old building, and the use of natural light was rather lovely.
Getting there meant taking a bus ride through the mind-boggling student ghetto and medical hub that is the Oxford Road – for about a mile it’s nothing but multiple universities and hospitals… a weird mix and super busy.
The Whitworth had a intriguing array of temporary exhibitions that played with ideas really well – for example on the colour green and also including one on art textiles – useful! What wasn’t so good was the kids running everywhere – they had an outreach thing going on for boys/young men and dance, which meant that the usual haven of gallery peace was absolutely nowhere to be found. I couldn’t see the artwork because there were bloody kids hanging off stairs, striking a pose or writhing around on the floor. FML.
I mentioned this to the woman serving in the gift shop and she said she agreed that she didn’t think it was the most appropriate, and told me that they’d had lots of complaints. Outreach is super important, as is getting young people into museums and galleries, but there’s a right and wrong place and time for everything, and quite what value the kids were going to get out of it I was very unsure.
Sicario
I saw, loved, and absorbed through my pores the wonderful Sicario – best film i’ve seen in a long time – beautiful, brutal, and full of ambiguity and hideous tension that was well-amped up by a great score. I think it was better than Mad Max (my previous best) and I enjoyed it more – I connected with it a bit more perhaps? I know they’re horses-for-courses, and yes, I celebrate the feminist reading of Max, so maybe it was the stillness, aesthetics and general sadness I liked more. It was a deeply sad story.
I also Spectre, which was, okay.
