27 February 2014. The Mystae at Hampstead.

The set is most striking from the moment one enters the theatre space. It consists of a convincingly constructed cave, complete with water lapping up at one end. The three actors make their way through this onto the set and so unfolds their overnight rite of passage around a camp fire with a plentiful supply of perception-changers.

The philosophical side of the dialogue struck me as a bit tedious and what I got out of it was a convincing portrayal of adolescents' belief in their ability to engage in adventure - well away from the adult gaze.

The performance lasts a little over an hour, at which point the three depart from whence they came with no customary reappearance for a bow, leaving the audience to shuffle out slightly bemused.

26 February 2014. Sensing Spaces at the RA

I thought this was a great exhibition. Unlike most architecture exhibitions that involve viewing drawings or models, this one had a series of installations by different architects which one is invited to walk though or, in one case, climb. It afforded a real chance to explore and experience the emotions evoked by the different  exhibits. It was an exhibition that could be enjoyed by children as well as adults and it seemed - in some ways - a pity that it is not enjoying a larger audience.

24 February 2014. Don Giovanni at the ROH

This new production has had mixed reviews. I liked the singing and acting and thought Mariusz Kwiecien was excellent as the Don. The set was also striking with a lot of projection, including an amazing moment when the Don is centre of a vortex of rotating imagery - a Dr Who moment. However, 3.5 hours of essentially the same set and gimmicks also grew a bit tedious for me.

The music is lovely but my problem is with the story. Here we have a totally unpleasant and selfish man, who is not beyond murder and rape received as some kind of loveable rogue by the audience until he meets his comeuppance towards the end of the evening.  

23 February 2014. Mahler's Titan and Watkins Flute Concerto at the Barbican

This was the premiere of Huw Watkins Flute Concerto, commissioned by the soloist, Adam Walker who is the LSO's Principal Flute. In three movements, the piece demands concentration rather than imposing itself on one and I felt I very much wanted to hear it again.

The second half of the concert was Mahler's first symphony, a very lusty piece which, as my neighbour remarked, there was no chance of sleeping through.

23 February 2014. Richard Hamilton at Tate Modern

This extensive exhibition is very educational. It demonstrates very clearly the range of Hamilton's work from 1950 through to his death in 2011.He comes across as a very cerebral artist, with a particular connecton with Marcel Duchamp. It does not seem too fanciful to imagine he influenced Damien Hirst - Hamilton's display cabinet seems a forerunner of similar work by Hirst.

I was particularly struck by the political dimension to his work. It seems a shame that his Shock and Awe of Blair is in a private collection.

20 February 2014. Rapture, blister, burn at Hampstead

I had high expectations of this play, egged on by the largely positive reviews it had received and having repressed the views of the FT that this was a dull play. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/c50d9264-923c-11e3-9e43-00144feab7de.html#axzz2trLuUlfr

Unfortunately, for me, the FT was spot on. The 'play' consists largely of a rehearsal of views on feminism and whether there is a dilemma between having a family and having a career. Much of the 'action' takes place in a contrived seminar with the characters debating the issues. Really, it would have been much easier to sit down and read the ideas rather than have them fed to us by the actresses. It felt like being at the 'start the week' studio.

The action was almost non-existent apart from the two main female characters swapping each others lives for a while. But we saw nothing of what happened to the erstwhile housewife who went to New York, so the supposed dilemmas where never really played out; just spoken about.

I fear this will be quickly forgotten despite the great set which was, for me, the best part of the experience. The only other redeeming feature was that the script captured well the tedium into which relationships and people can decend. The male character who has settled for under-achievement in his career and marriage is reported to spend his time smoking dope and wanking to porn. But his wife's willingness largely to put up with this, apart from her brief jaunt to New York, seemed somewhat lame. 

7 February 2014. Triple ballet bill at ROH

The star of the night must surely have been Steven McRae in the first work - Rhapsody, with choreography by Ashton to music by Rachmaninoff. This was followed by the premiere of a  new piece choreographed by Wayne McGregor, entitled Tetractys - The art of fugue. It featured tube lighting design by Tauba Auerbach, in the mould, I thought, of Dan Flavin. The piece itself felt less engaging than Rhapsody, even though McRae was also in the company. The final piece, Gloria by Kenneth MacMillan to the music of Poulenc was a suitably sombre evocation of WWI.

Needless to say Clement Crisp did not like the McGregor piece!
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/c50d9264-923c-11e3-9e43-00144feab7de.html#axzz2trLuUlfr

5 February 2014. LSO playing Dvorak and Panufnik at Barbican

The programme featured Sophie-Anne Mutter playing the Dvorak violin concerto, preceded by the New World. Also in the programme were two works by a Polish composer who was new to me and I was very glad of the introduction. The first work, Sinfonia Sacra, is dramatic in its use of trumpets spaced around the stage. The second, Lullaby, was - according to the prgramme - written in London in 1947, repressed under Stalinism in Poland and went on to influence Penderecki.

The evening was dedicated to the memory of Colin Davis, for whom Anne-Sophie Mutter led a short silence and made a brief speech.

The programme was re-ordered to await the arrival of S-AM who was stuck in traffic created by a tube strike. Attendance also seemed to suffer at what was claimed to be a sell-out a few days before.

5 February 2014. Paul Klee at Tate Modern

I was amazed at the range and scale of Klee's work which emerged over the 17 rooms of the exhibition. One of the cards talks about a year near his death when he 'only' produced 25 works.

All sorts of influiences on him and from him can be seen in the exhibition.Apart from Kandinsky, some of his work reminded me of Chagall and his influence upon Miro seems clear.

His work as an extremely conscientious member of the Bauhaus faculty is well conveyed. He seemed meticulous in everything he did - from the preparation of his lectures to the cataloguing of his 9000 works, let alone the works themselves. These often embody tiny painstaking detail and are the product of innovaton and experiementation - such as the oil transfer method of 'tracing' a line of oil onto paper.

He died in the same year as his father (1940) but 30 years younger.  

3 February 2014. Beckett Triple Bill

This trio, transferred from the Royal Court, started in complete darkness (even the exit signs were off) with Not I. Only the mouth is illuminated, talking at the pace of brain/ the speed of thought. From the text, it is a brain looking back to her conception after her mother's impregnation by a man who 'vanished..thin air...no sooner buttoned up his breeches', fast-forwarding through a life with 'nothing of any note' to now at 70 when she 'found herself in the dark' with 'them brain......raving away on its own.....trying to make sense of it'.

The performance by Lisa Dwan takes about 8.5 minutes, about four minutes less than Billie Whitelaw and almost one third of the time taken by Jessica Tandy in a New York performance that Beckett hated apparently. It is hard to believe such a rapid pace can be heard, rattling along. And yet one gets the gist of it. The marvel is that anyone can speak so fast.

The second play, Footfalls, has the actress pacing up and down, counting off her steps, and talking to her mother. Later she (May) recounts a conversation between old Mrs Winter and Amy.

The final play, has the actress in a rocking chair. She is recounting the moment of death with the play ending:
rock her off
stop her eyes
fuck life
rock her off
rock her off

The trio lasted about 55 minutes. Hardly a cough to be heard. 

30 January 2014. LSO at the Barbican

The programme was highlighted by Brahms Violin Concerto, played with passion by Jansen. This was preceded by a new Fanfare, composed by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies. This mixed ability work was written with the intention of enabling  young musicians to team up with a professional orchestra and is meant as a lasting legacy to the Queen's diamond jubilee. Sir Peter was in attendance to take a bow and stayed for the whole concert.

Next was the violin concerto which earnt great applause which in turn was rewarded by a brief extra from the soloist. After the interrval, the LSO played Walton's Symphony number 1.

It was a great evening, with the Brahms lingering in my mind most vivedly of all the pieces.

28 January 2014. Happy Days at the Young Vic

An arresting set with Winnie (Juliet Stevenson) buried in golden sandstone with an outcrop behind her and the hill stretching in front. At suitable moments, shale pattered down from the outcrop. The rendition is, for me, of monumental existential gloom – the need for another to make sense of speaking, and therefore of being?, yet it hardly mattering what is the substance of the relationship – “if you were to die – to speak in the old style – or go away and leave me, then what would I do, what could I do, all day long, I mean between the bell for waking and the bell for sleep?”. The final scene of Willie crawling up towards her dressed in his old-fashioned City suit was one of beautifully conveyed impossibility. Fantastic but rather lost on some of the teens in the audience.

27 January 2014. King Lear at the National.

Starring SRB in Sam Mendes’s production. Funnily enough, this lacked the wow factor for me. Of course, everyone was excellent but this modern-costume (black shirts and so on) production did not make me see Lear in a particularly new light. The Ian McKellan version I saw at Stratford still is the high-tide mark for me. As a detail, I also found the National’s stage quite poor acoustically when the whole stage was opened up (as opposed to with a backdrop towards the front).

Overall, the FT’s review seems spot on http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/13aa4864-84e0-11e3-8968-00144feab7de.html#axzz2rgAaaede

24 January 2014. Max Richter performing Memoryhouse at the Barbican.

A sell-out for Max and the BBC SO with an audience made of many fans. The music seems so clearly to demonstrate its roots in Glass and Part that the step forward was rather muted for me. Memoryhouse comprises 18 movements that strangely felt to me quite disjunctive and yet flowed together. However, unlike many in the audience I did not feel compelled to buy the Vinyl (or CD )and have it signed by the maestro. Somehow, I did not feel the work would convert so well from the concert hall to the living room.

22 January 2014. Richard II at the Barbican.

The RSC production directed by Gregory Doran and with David Tennant in the title role. A friend had said she thought this lacked the ‘wow factor’ but, for me, it definitely had it, thanks partly to the sopranos and musicians. The set was stylish and the acting seemed to me of a high order throughout. The issues with which the play deals (especially King by birthright or behaviour) are presented clearly and, to me, anticipated the attitude of Charles I as well as contemporary debates about titular versus effective leaders.

10 January 2014. From Morning to Midnight at the National Theatre.

A play by Georg Kaiser from 1912 and described as German Expressionist, this certainly had all the slickness one comes to expect from the NT. The focus is on a bank clerk who takes a chance to run off with the cash from his till in search of a more stimulating existence. But his attempt to find a heightened existence amongst gamblers, at the brothel and with the religious come to nothing. The set and costumes set reminded me of Otto Dix, to make the expressionist connection. It was an engaging production but I’m not sure that would have been the case without the amazing NT set.

9 January 2014. Carmen at the ROH.

I was struck by the programme describing this as an ‘opera comique’ though perhaps the opera authorities see the funny side of a rather immature young man ditching his faithful girlfriend for a sexy gypsy who he goes on to murder when she loses interest in him. A rather daft tale with people falling in love on sight and deciding love is more important than life. But an amazing production with horses and donkeys on stage and the unusual presence of a horse box outside at the stage door.

5 January 2014. Blue is the warmest colour.

I thought this was an amazing film. Almost three hours long, one becomes quite immersed in the story of Adele and her lesbian partner. The rather graphic scenes might be a bit too graphic for some and must have been difficult to ‘act’ but they certainly add to the convincing portrayal of the devastation brought about by the end of the affair. 

2 January 2014. All is lost.

The film starring a solo and virtually silent performance by Robert Redford. The film is probably more remarkable for this distinction than the detailed veracity of the plot. With hardly a word spoken, we follow for 106 minutes the partly self-induced bad luck of a single-handed yachtsman in the Indian Ocean. Holed by a stray container and then rolled by a hurricane, the poor man takes to his liferaft but rather foolishly starts a bonfire in it with predictable consequences. The ambiguous ending – did he die or was he finally rescued – seems to have people evenly divided

30 December 2013. Once a Catholic at the Tricycle.

I thought this was amusing rather than rip-roaring funny. It was quite evocative of the 1950s generally but would probably be easier to relate to for those who had undergone a Catholic education.

26 December 2013. Drawing the Line at Hampstead.

A very interesting play about the manner in which India and Pakistan were divided. The play was written by Howard Brenton who also wrote 55 days (see 29 October 2012) and stressed the unseemly haste with which the division was made by Cyril Radcliffe. He knew nothing about India and based the division on what information he could gather on demographics. However, he was, not surprisingly, leant on to finesse some of his conclusions, particularly by the Viceroy, Mountbatten. All this, while having a severe case of Montezuma's Revenge.

10 November 2013. Britten’s Bar Requiem at the RAH

With the BBC SO. An amazing composition full of poignancy and drama.

7 November 2013. Damnation of Faust (Berlioz) with the LSO

The LSO under Gerghiev at the Barbican. The tenor was excellent and the soprano was also striking (oddly, she seemed at the end to keep her distance from the others and not to be particularly happy with her applause). Mephistofeles was a late substitute and rather muted – words tailed off too quickly I thought.

5 November 2013. Wozzeck at the ROH.

The third time I’ve seen this arresting production since 2002. The story and music are decidedly mood-altering. Wozzeck is a poor man with a woman and small son. He is being experimented upon by the doctor and behaves on a somewhat servile way to the higher-ups of his town. His woman has an affair with a drum major and rather rubs this in his face. Wozzeck’s mind is becoming more and more disturbed and he breaks and slits his wife’s throat, then himself drowning in the pool of bloodied water which to him is a pool of blood. We are left with the child rocking psychotically on his own. Karita Mattila’s voice was powerful and engaging – (indeed she was the only thing that seemed to rouse the gent in the row in front of me from his slumbers!)

1 November 2013. GodChild at Hampstead Downstairs.

I thought this was a really good and engaging play. It features a woman in her 40s who is juggling two men in her life and whose goddaughter comes to live with her. This confronts her with issues of a 19 year old mind in a 40 year old’s body, which are very well presented by the author.

31 October 2013. Hepworth gallery and YSP.

The Hepworth had a striking exhibition of works by Dana Schutz. It is her first exhibition in the UK. Worth following, I reckon. Then over to YSP. The major exhibition was by Amar Anwar, focusing on his protest at bauxite mining in Odisha, India. His film, A love story, was poignant. Also at YSP, a strange installation by Roger Hiorns – Seizure. He had taken a redundant modern house at the Elephant and Castle, sealed it and introduce Copper sulphate resulting in it being entirely lined by crystals. Then he transported the whole thing to YSP. His work was also on show at the Calder gallery but this was very different. Objects like a bench and jet engine which were visited in turn by a naked youth who sat whilst a flame ran its course. It was interesting for its awkwardness and tedium.

30 October 2013. Marisa Merz at the Serpentine gallery.

An enormous range of work and on a massive scale for someone in her 80s. Also went to the new Sckler gallery to see the unfired clay works of Adrian Villar Rojas. It mostly left me unmoved. However, the elephant carrying the enormous load in the entrance hall was very arresting.

20-23 October 2013. Venice Biennale

Venice Biennale 2013

The Biennale was centred on the theme ‘Il Palazzo Enciclopedico’. The title is derived from Maurino Auriti’s 1955 design for a museum to house all of the world’s knowledge. His plan was for a 700 metre tall building which, of course, never happened.

The exhibition is described by its curator, Massimiliano Gioni, as concerning ‘the desire to see and know everything and the point at which this desire becomes an obsession’. The opening room presents Jung’s red book in which he records mystic collective unconscious images and featuring a large number of mandala. The next room featured a person lying on the floor with another person chanting. The room contained totems to give a mystical feel. The wall was lined with blackboard drawings by Steiner, made in 1923. Steiner was a theosophist and founder of the schools that bear his name. There were also beautiful bronze totems by Pichler in a wooden base and a Christ figure.

Room 3 featured work by Roger Hiorns – a ground up altar stone on the floor with a mandala on the wall by Lesage and circled by Hilda Klint. Based on occult images from the Masters. Outside there were bronzes by Sarah Lucas, whose connection was rather lost on me.

Room 4 had a video of blind people making painting, Pollock-like. Room 5 contained tantri paintings and objects. Room 6 showed a video by Montaron – A short study on the nature of things. Room 8 included a film by Harry Smith of a deconstructed clock and a man.

Room 9 had some slightly Dali-like paintings by a Russian, Schroder-Sonnenstern. Room 10 was devoted to Enrico David amd contained paintings, tapestry and sculpture, Room 11 had a video by Victor Alimpiev of chanting and Room 12 contained dolls by Morton Bartlett. They were disquieting without the crudeness of the Chapmans. The room also had Carl Andre’s passport.

Room 13 contained a vast collection of clay objects – Kapoor-like and humorous by Fischli and Weiss. Room 14 displayed geological slices by Roger Caillois. Room 15 was devoted to Jean-Frederic Schnyder with a huge tryptophan and other religious iconography.

Room 16 had surreal sketchings by Gnoli and room 17 had sex pictures by Kozlov and photos by Yoshiyuki of voyeurs in a Tokyo park.

Room 18 had abstracts by Caivano and Room 19 was devoted to Tacita Dean’s 16mm film – The Friars doodle. Room 20 had Bakharev’s relationship series of photos and  Room 21 had Qureshi’s miniatures of Pakistanis doing everyday leisure activities.

Room 22 had Byars’s zen like figures. Room 23 featured Ellen Altfest’s close ups of parts of the body – Lucien Freud like and Room 24 had Maria Lassnig’s pictures of her body as she experiences it and Merz’s pictures of women. Room 25 had Cathy Wilkes’s mannequins and found objects and finally Room 26 had Thierry de Cordie’s paintings of the furious sea.  

The curated exhibition continued in the first half of the Arsenale. In Room 5 was Matthew Monahan’s Tin Man, Phylida Barlow’s coal and Ziolkowski’s two heads. Room 9 contained Pawel Althamer’s grey man. Room 11 exhibited disturbing videos by Ryan  Trecartin of US teen hooligans and the next room had work by Wade Guyton (grey ??) and Channa Horwitz (whit). Room 13 had MarK Leckey’s amusing video of a rocking willy. The next room had Yuri Ancarani’s robot surgery and Otto Piene’s zen. Room 16 was filled with Walter de Maria’s row of rods.  

The remainder of the Arsenale was occupied by national ‘pavilions. First was Lebanon’s Letter from a Pilot. This was referring to an incident in 1982, when an Israeli pilot refused to bomb a school in the Taahir district of Lebanon that he had been told to target and instead dropped his bombs out at sea. The exhibition consisted of two films with a single chair offered to vistors, as if in the pilot’s seat. The films were made by Akram Zaatari, whose father had founded the school in question – the Saida Public Secondary School for Boys. The pilot, Hagai Tamir, was himself an architect and recognised the building as a school or hospital. The school was bombed by another pilot a few hours later.

The next space contained Chile’s extraordinary tank in which the entire Giardini emerged and submerged. It was definitely one of the most memorable exhibits and was quite riveting. Created by Alfredo Jaar and entitled Venezia, Venezia, the exhibition also includes a photograph of Lucio Fontana in the ruins of his studio in 1946.

Kosova had a tree that one walked through, Tukey had body art, and Bahrain horse portraits. Indonisia’s exhibit featured six artists, themed under the title Sakti- the primordial cosmic energy and the personification of the divine feminine creative energy. The pavilion included a work of 1200 terracotta forms laid out like a mandala.

Latvia’s room was dominated by a large suspended tree swinging pendulum-like. This work was designed to get viewers to focus on the loss of Latvia’s rural identity.

Finally, in the main building, Latin America had spices and an offering of chewing gum.

Further on, the Bahamas exhibited a polar ice wire man and China had, in the outside, bricks with sayings on them. The Italian space contained several exhibits under the overall title ‘vice versa’. It comprised six rooms and a garden, each hosting two artists in dialogue.

Over in the Giardini, Spain exhibited piles of separated building rubble, equivalent to the material in the pavilion. (Pare alike with island by Venice formed of rubble. Sacca San matia N???)

Belgium’s pavilion was filled with a huge tree on its side patched with old pillows and sacking, all in a very subdued light. Rather like a felled elephant or an old man. It felt evocative.

Denmark’s exhibition by Jesper Just, created an unsettling feeling by getting one to enter through a side entranced to find subdued lighting and the internal walls partly demolished One room showed a large video of he city of Hangzhou in China created as a replica of Paris and there were also videos of immigrants  with strange music. The whole presentation went under the title ‘intercourses’

The Dutch pavilion was the responsibility of Mark Manders and had the overall title room with broken sentence. He had covered the windows with fake newspaper and inside were a series of exhibits, such as fox/mouse/belt which comprised ads the title suggests a model of a fox lying with a mouse strapped to it by a belt. It reminded me of ??

The Nordic pavilion had small trees with microphones and speakers inside and a reconstructed tree outside.

The Swiss pavilion had a snake going through its entirety with instruments and mosaics on the wall. Outside was a piaggio bike by Valentin Carron.

The US pavilion featured Sarah Sze with a work entitled Triple Point. (www.sarahszevenice2013.com)

France and Germany swapped pavilions. The French offering (in the German Pavilion) was called Ravel Ravel Unravel. It was two film works – Ravel Ravel and Unravel. In the first, two pianists played Ravel’s left hand concerto at different tempos, ravelling it. In the second a DJ attemopts to play the two recorded pieces on turntables, correcting for the different tempos and unravelling them. In the French pavilion, Germany presented four works. The centrepiece was Ai Weiwei’s installation which consisted of 886 stools slotted together to form a dominating double helix. The stools refer back to ‘old China’ when each family had a stool, passed between generations.

Venezuala presented urban art and sounds.

Russia’s pavilion was amongst the most memorable. One entered to find a man perched high above on a rafter. Then one walked through to the main exhibition which involved watching those women visitors who were up for it being showered with coins – Danae – that were dropped off a conveyor belt. A good allegory. Danae were imaginary coins referring to the mother of Perseus who had been impregnated by Zeus

Japan had a consideration of 5 people doing things like playing the piano, making pottery, writing poetry etc., getting one to consider collective acts and sharing uncertainty. Some of the works went under the banner of ‘precarious tasks’ – such as the random act of getting a group of friends each to bring a tea bag and add it to the pot to see what drink results.

Great Britain’s pavilion was the responsibility of Jeremy Deller – he of the bouncy Stonehenge. In the pavilion, he had a poke at Prince Harry’s slaughter of a hawk harrier but the pavilion was dominated by a film (ooh-oo-hoo ah-ha yeah) with a hypnotic steel band soundtrack (http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/video/2013/may/29/venice-biennale-jeremy-deller-english-magic-video). Visitors were also offered a cup of tea. The title for the presentation was English Magic and Deller also referred to Abramovich’s arrogant parking of his yacht outside the Giardini at a previous biennale with an image of William Morris preparing to hurl the yacht into oblivion. There was also a room referring to the death of Dr David Kelly and another featuring an imaginary invasion of Jersey by UK citizens enraged by Jersey’s tax status. Visitors were encouraged to make their own ink stamps of some of the images in the exhibition, including the Abramovich yacht. .

Hungary exhibited un Exploded bombs under the title ‘Fired but unexploded’ by Zsolt Asztalos – as the programme describes a collection of objets trouves. Canada’s presentation by Shary Boyle under the title Music for Silence was described as exploring “ideas of silence, isolation and solitude”.  

Korea’s pavilion was the responsibility of Kimsoola, whose work was entitled To breathe: Bottari. The standout was a black room that also absorbs all audio waves which the audience experienced in contrast to the rest of the pavilion, bathed in natural light.

 . Greece had three films of different episodes. Romania created a memorable exhibit of people in line while Poland had hugely amplified sound of two hand-made bronze bells. The work by Konrad Smolenski, under the title ‘everything was forever, until it was no more’ was only allowed at specific times. The Venice pavilion was filled with silk and a tardis and Egypt had a sarcophagus. Serbia had a clever wall made of razor blades and Austria had a fantasia-like film – I’ve got a feeling you’re fooling.

Outside the main Giardin and Arsenale, Iraq’s ‘pavilion’ was dominated by a political cartoonist, Abdul Raheem Yassir, as well as Kadhim Nwir’s paintings. The exhibition, entitled Welcome to Iraq also featured several artists, including the painter (Kadhim Nwir) and WAMI – a partnership that make installations of furniture made out of cardboard. Also an extraordinary film of people who smuggle alcohol into Iran on horses, made by Jamal Penjweny.

Ukraine had a monument to a monument.

Wales was represented by Bedwyr Williams whose piece The Starry Messenger took one through a series of rooms at Santa Maria Ausiliatrice. Pondering on the silent contemplation of the nebulae, Williams invites people to consider looking downwards to what is beneath their feet – the millions of fragments making up a floor. Bedwyr Williams The Starry Messengerhttp://vimeo.com/69550189. Visitors pass through a series of installations, starting with a large white observatory with the sound of a person in distress. Then through a darkened rock garden, a Stonehenge room, a very dark corridor into a room with a film featuring a mosaic dentist who gets crushed by rocks among other happenings. He was influenced by the floor of the building in which his exhibition takes place.

Thailand’s exhibition was accompanied by a very tasteful stitched booklet. The exhibition featured two artists whose works were entitled, Poperomia and Golden Teardrop.

Mexico occupied the 6th century ex-San Lorenzo Church and consisted of a four metre tall machine – Cordiox – that produced unamplified sound to reverberate inside the old chapel.

Portugal’s exhibition was tied up outside the Giardini. It was an old Cacilheiros – a boat used to ferry commuters across the Tagus. The boat had been decorated by the artist, Vasoncelos, with tiles to become an assisted  readymade artwork, entitled Trafaria Praia. It offered visitors a trip down the Grand Canal in an atmosphere of good humour.   

Luxembourg occupied the Ca del Duca and the artist Catherine Lorent presented a sound installation with guitars suspended from the ceiling and a room of three pianos. The instruments are set t play by the movement of visitors

Lost in translation. Themed on the plastic islands forming in the oceans.

Slovenia. The whole exhibition space by Jasmina Cibic is interior decorated with the motif of a small beetle that was t be the nationals, icon but for its name- Anophthalmus hitleri. The exhibition itself consisted of video of Slovenian bureaucracy and some traditional floral pictures from an official art collection. The pavilion also included films shot on official state locations.

Montenegro. Three rooms, each very simple and impactful. The first (further than beyond) with thin strands shown up by the spotlight, the second (image think) very dark and covered in black cloth with small pinpricks the third (ecce Mundi) wallpapered with the tiny motif of a person – like an Hermes tie.

Ireland’s entry was ‘The Enclave’ – a multi screen film installation of footage shot by Richard Mosse in the Congo of warfare, using infra-red light. Everything was real; everything was disturbing.

Azerbaijan had an installation entitled ‘The Carpet Interior’.

Iceland presented a sculptural installation called ‘foundation’ in an old laundry, reached going through the grand entrance of the Paslazzo Zenobio. The artist had added a platform covered in tiles to the outside of the building and had created an Alice in wonderland experience with doors and windows at the wrong height for floors.

The Maldives presented work by Josephine Starrs and Leon Cmielewski making an appeal about global warming under the title ‘A global map of nature’. Its theme was of archipelago endangered by rising sea – SOS

 http://maldivespavilion.com/blog/a-global-map-of-nature/

Bosnia and Herzegovina – The garden of delights

Estonia – Evident in advance

Cote d’voire – Traces and signs

Newfoundland – About turn

Then there were the following collateral exhibitions I visited;

Pedro Cabriti Reis. A remote whisper. The top floor  of the Palazzo Falier is used for an installation of aluminium beams and strip lights.

Hong Hong’s Lee Kit presented an exhibition entitled ‘you (you)’

Zhong biao’s visions at the Chiesa Santa Maria della visitazione.

Catalonia’s 25% referred to the Spanish unemployment rate. The work consisted of prhotgrpahs and film of eight unemployed people with their stories, pictures (including a large portrait) and a museum object of their choice. Impactful for their stories, especially that of a Senegalese who had settled in Spain having fallen for it on his way through to France.

Bart Dorsa’s Katya, featured photographs of the Moscow girl of the title that had a slight waif-chic feel. She had moved as a 13 year old from the Far East of Russia to Moscow and since engaged in various forms of body modification.

Pedro Cabrita Reis – ‘A remote whisper’.

Macao was represented by Carlos Marreiros and his exhibition PATO.MEN – an  for PAlace Theater Of Memorory ENcyclopaedic.

Ink Brush Heart was an exhibition by Simon Ma inspired by the rainforest of Xishuangbanna in Yunnan and included a collaboration with Julian Lennon

For New Zealand, Bill Cutherbert’s ‘Front door out back’ was a series of light installations in the eight rooms of the Instituto santa Maria della Pieta. The artist made use of everyday household objects pierced by fluorescent lights. 

The Biennale ‘office’ at Ca Giustinian had an exhibition tracing the history of the biennale with posters, letters etc. under the title ‘amarcord’.

Completed outside the Biennale was an exhibition of work by Anthony Caro at the Museo Correr. Caro died during my visit to Venice.

8 October 2013. The Wasp Factory at the Linbury.

This was a bit of an ordeal. The tale of an insane killer hardly puts a spring in your step. But, it was visually arresting with a stage that slowly went from horizontal to vertical and some extreme electric music as well as a less deafening live quintet. I didn’t leave with the feeling of being affected or in another world, however and think I will have to struggle to remember it in a few month’s time. A deadly review in the FT matched by a more encouraging one in the Guardian.

7 October 2013. Handbagged at the Tricycle.

Brilliant play on the imagined relationship between the Queen and Thatcher. Two actresses (at the time and later) for each character, the older ones were incredibly convincing, particularly of the Queen. Probably would not make you think about Thatcher’s views but it did draw the audience’s attention to the Queen’s commitment to the Commonwealth and to protocol/good manners – e.g., Thatcher not contacting the Queen after Mountbatten’s assassination; Queen uninformed about US using England as a staging post to Libya.

5 October 2013. Don Quixote at the ROH.

I really enjoyed this traditional ballet. It provides an excellent vehicle for the stars and although the story is a bit strange, to me, it is a lot more engaging than most classic ballets. The lead pair were Roberta Marquez (Kitri) and Alexander Campbell (Basilio). He seemed slightly the better of the two – somehow she – to me - lacked passion. It would have been interesting to see the Nunez/Acosta pairing for comparison.

4 October 2013. Hysteria at Hampstead.

Although well-received by the critics, this play did not quite work for me. Maybe I just don’t like farces. My po-facedness was summed up with the line ‘It’s a Freudian slip’ from one of the characters, brandishing a piece of underwear at Freud. The deeper theme of the play was quite well-presented – his change of mind from hysteria being the result of actual to fantasized sexual abuse. This was presented as a result of Freud’s own thoughts towards a daughter and his repugnance at the thought of his father abusing his sister. However, it seems unlikely to me that the father of psychoanalysis would have been unaware of such obvious motivations. I also thought the presentation of Dali as a Spanish buffoon was a bit clichéd. However, it was definitely worth seeing, especially for Anthony Sher as Freud.

3 October 2013. Concert in memory of Stephen Dodgson at St James’s Piccadilly.

Introduced me to a composer of whom I had never heard but who is well-respected by musicians, particularly of the guitar, recorder and harpsichord. For me, it was music that was pleasant enough to sit through but it lacked great / lasting impact on me.

3 October 2013. Australia at the RA.

I really liked the aboriginal works as well as the contemporary work. The Victorian paintings left me somewhat cold.

2 October 2013. Bacon and Moore (Flesh and Bone) at the Ashmolean, Oxford.

I felt this exhibition had been a bit oversold by the critics. Of course, it was great to see three rooms of work by Bacon and Moore but the only thesis really was that they had common influences (Michelangelo, Rodin and Picasso) rather than that they had really influenced each other. So I got more from the individual artists’ works than from the theme of the exhibition – the relationship between them.

1 October 2013. Elektra at the ROH.

Excellent music and singing (especially Christine Goerke who played Elektra). However, there is very little action in the 110 minutes without interval. Essentially, the story is that Elektra is seeking revenge on her mother, Klytamnestra and her mother’s paramour, Aegisth for their killing of Agamemnon, Elektra’s father. Her sister, Chrysothemis, does not have the resolve and rage possessed by Elektra but nothing much happens until their brother, Orest, arrives, having been mis-reported as recently dead much to the delight of his mother and particularly Aegisth. Orest goes on to kill the two of them, at which point Elektra dies and the curtain falls.

23 July 2013. Strange Interlude at the NT.

A fantastic production with the usual NT polish – amazing sets and sound effects – the departing plane seems to fly through the theatre. The play itself is a cut down version (3.25 hours from 5) of an experiment by Eugene O’Neill that reflects extensive use of soliloquy. This was very well done in this production and introduced a note of hilarity in revealing the characters’ private thoughts. The story centres around the female character – Nina – who had been in love with Gordon who was killed in the War (WW I) and never quite lets him go. The man she later marries has madness in his family so she aborts their baby and conceives with a doctor with whom she goes on to have a lengthy on/off affair. The only blot was that the star (Anne-Marie Duff) was ill and the understudy seemed to me to lack conviction in places and I thought she muffed her lines occasionally.

8 July 2013. Children of the Sun at the NT.

A play by Gorky of a group of middle class Russians, rehearsing existential arguments while the revolution brews outside their gates. An excellent production with a pyrotechnic ending as the mob invades and blows up the leading character’s (Protasov) chemical laboratory. Protasov reminded me a bit of a friend, thinking that his work was all that mattered as his marriage and domestics generally went to pot. His wife was having an affair with an artist and his sister was disintegrating; meanwhile he is the object of infatuation by the local vet’s sister.