Anders Hanson

Thanks to Liberal Democrat Voice for this, but it is so utterly bizarre and funny that I had to link to it as well.

Look out for the man 31 seconds in.

In the last week I’ve been to quite a few different exhibitions as a part of the Art Sheffield 08 event. Since I’ve lived in the city centre my knowledge and appreciation of different forms of art has grown massively, and it’s all down to the great advantage that most art galleries in the city are within a 5 minute walk of my front door. Instead of having to decide whether to both travelling to see an exhibition that I am unsure whether I will appreciate, I can instead just give it a go.

Art Sheffield 08 is an exhibition held at various venues around the city and includes a lot of art by Sheffield based artists, as well as those based elsewhere. This week I have visited the exhibits at the Millennium Galleries, Winter Garden, Site Gallery, End Gallery, Sylvester Space and Bloc - three of which are places I have never been to before.

The general idea underpinning the different exhibits seems to be that modern work is not just about doing particular tasks but it is also about performing, and so many of the exhibits take ordinary life and show them as performance or they ask what would happen if we refused to perform as we should. I confess to not being sufficiently cultured to fully appreciate the overarching theme of the exhibition and how everything links in. But at the risk of sounding pretentious, I have as a result of visiting a lot more exhibitions over the last few years, moved from seeing art purely on the basis of whether I think a painting is beautiful or not, to enjoying more different forms of art and appreciate them much more on an emotional level. I often find that I enjoy something simply because it is strangely compelling even if I cannot explain why. That is the case with much of the Art Sheffield exhibition. The give away is when I find some of the exhibition has got inside me so much that I find I have to keep going back to see it again and again. That has also happened with some of this exhibition.

For me the exhibits that you have to see are: George Henry Longly’s ‘tertiary matter‘ at Bloc, Katy Woods’ ‘Sailing Dinghy Hawk 20…‘ at Sylvester Space, Ines Schaber’s ‘Picture Mining‘ at End Gallery, Katie Davies’ ‘38th Parallel‘, Sean Snyder’s ‘Analepsis‘, Phil Collins’ ‘they shoot horses‘ and the wonderful ‘Insults & Praises’ and ‘Promises and Threats’ by Tim Etchells and Vlatka Horvat, all at the Millennium Galleries, and the sadly only week-long ‘Failed Fall‘ by Roman Ondak at the Winter Garden. But I would advise anyone to go and see as much of it as you can before it ends on the 30th of March. It is also free to get in.

Going to these exhibitions has certainly helped rekindle my own interest in photography, as many of the exhibits I have enjoyed have either been photographic or film. But I am also finding myself get quite a lot of pleasure from installation art as well. I think the exhibition helps me look at things differently and can be pretty inspiring and a break from normal life.

Art Sheffield

Photo credit: Tim Etchells and Vlatka Horvat, Insults and Praises (2003) Image courtesy of the artist.

I’m shocked to see the reports of the fire in Camden Town last night. It’s always slightly surreal when somewhere well known or that you know personally is destroyed in this way. From what I’ve read it seems as though the main damage is to the Hawley Arms and only a part of the market, with most of it escaping damage, but that is bad enough with this place being such a huge attraction that is not only unique in the UK but a real icon of London.

I have been to Camden Town quite a bit over the last few years as it was where I would always meet up with one of my friends when I was in London. Even if you never buy anything, it’s just a fascinating place to spend time just wandering and enjoying all the sights, sounds and smells…. oh and the pancakes too.

There is more about the fire from someone who lives nearby on Ben Greening’s blog.

I’m not sure if I am the only person who has eventful bus journeys to work, or whether it is just that I notice things more than others. But every week I have at least one story to tell.

Today’s came from the 25 minute wait for a bus that should be every 10 minutes, when someone who looked like a builder stood at the bus stop whilst swigging out of a bottle wrapped in a carrier bag. This looked bad enough at 9.30 in the morning, but he then spent a lot of time on his mobile telling one person who was fitting some plumbing to “ignore what it says in the diagram, that’s just done by someone sitting in an office. Do what I tell you instead” and “just cut another 50mm off the length if it doesn’t fit” and “yeah, I’m running late today. I’m so pissed I’ve got to take the bus instead.” I have no idea where they were building, but wherever it is I hope I don’t ever live there.

Later on the same journey we went past a bus that still had passengers on it, but seemed to be parked diagonally across a busy main road and partly on the pavement, whilst the driver stood in the middle of the road waving his arms around. Our driver ignored him and drove on.

It didn’t seem that long since I last went to Sheffield’s Graves Art Gallery, but when I went today I was amazed to see that it had changed completely. For those who don’t know it, the Graves Art Gallery is essentially Sheffield’s main art gallery and takes the name of JG Graves, the mail-order pioneer whose philanthropy gave the city its Central Library, Graves Art Gallery (which are both in the same building), Graves Park and a number of other institutions around the city.

The Graves Art Gallery has now been completely refurbished and renovated, but more crucially the paintings have been rehung, with it now showing paintings as a progression from the 16th century to the present day as you pass from one gallery to another. It also now also tells you a lot more about the important features of art through history, and so is a lot more educational as well as being a pleasant place to visit. Space is now also given over to some important, albeit lesser known, Sheffield painters, such as Derrick Greaves.

Although the gallery now includes some paintings that haven’t been on display for some time, I was pleased to see that some of my favourite paintings are still on show:
The Execution of Marshal Ney by Jean-Léon Gérôme
Mount Etna from Taormina by John Brett
Nemours, Seine et Marne by Henri Le Sidaner
Ypres after the bombardment by Christopher Nevinson
Helter Skelter by Stanley Spencer
The Hermit by Patrick Caulfield

At the moment there is also an excellent exhibition called ‘Hidden Narratives‘ which includes the impressive Backwoods by Sophie Lascelles, which is a film projected on to the wall using an old fashioned projector, but through using paper cut-outs it takes on a clever 3D effect. Well worth seeing.