Tagged “art”

He was a prince.

Alejandro Innaruto’s description of Ryuichi Sakamoto puts it perfectly.

This BBC Sunday feature offers a fascinating insight into an amazing man. I loved it!

It starts with how 1952, the year of Sakamoto’s birth, was an important year in Japan’s post-war transition. It explores his influences including Debussy, his exceptional talent for melody combined with a taste for experimentalism, and how with YMO he satirised anti-Japanese prejudice. It covers his anti-nuclear stance, and how he is a huge icon in Japan where they see him holistically for everything he represented.

Most of all I just marvel at his music – it perfectly captures my taste (and I realise after this documentary that I still have so much of his to explore, which is a happy thought). I loved the parts where the commentators gush at the beauty of his Last Emperor soundtrack (“every note is like paradise”) and when Alejandro Innaruto relates his experience of first hearing the opening two notes of his soundtrack for The Revenant.

Having a lovely Sunday morning stroll with Clair and Rudy through Crawick Multiverse, a land art installation. Here’s a bit about this interesting place:

Nestled within the rolling hills of Upper Nithsdale in Dumfries and Galloway, this major land restoration project has transformed a former open cast coal mine into a spectacular artland and public amenity.

A renowned cultural theorist, land artist, architectural historian and co-founder of the Maggie’s Cancer Care Centres, Charles Jencks was commissioned by the Duke of Buccleuch in 2015 to design an inspiring landscape on the former open-cast coal mine near Sanquhar in Dumfries and Galloway.

We made our way through the Amphitheatre and between “landforms” with names such as Andromeda, Supercluster of Galaxies and Omphalos. And we stopped to enjoye a lovely wee picnic atop The Milky Way. Most definitely something different, and Rudy seemed to enjoy his first spacewalk too.

Clair and I, along with our pal Fiona, just went to see Banksy’s Cut and run exhibition at the GOMA in Glasgow. I loved it!

Banksy describes it as follows:

I’ve kept these stencils hidden away for years, mindful they could be used as evidence in a charge of criminal damage. But that moment seems to have passed, so now I’m exhibiting them in a gallery as works of art. I’m not sure which is the greater crime.

He mentions that one of the main reasons he chose Glasgow’s GOMA is because the ever-present cone on the head of the Duke of Wellington statue outside is his favourite work of art in the UK.

…the statue out the front has had a cone on its head continuously for the past 40 odd years. Despite the best efforts of the council and the police, every time one is removed another takes its place."

I really enjoyed the way the exhibition was arranged and presented with the various use of corridors, rooms, concourses and other objects such as elevators and phone booths.

I liked Banky self-effacing introduction saying that really he was cheating and gets (steals) all his inspiration from others, or real artists.

I loved where he talked about the light-switch moment about not needing to add a background but rather to make the real-life location the background, and how that then fires the imagination with the challenge “How much of the environment can you integrate into the piece?”. How much space could there be between the girl and the balloon?

Lastly, the final area is a treat. It simulates Banksy’s bedroom growing up and the music, art and films which influenced him. There’s a great description of how the graffitied sign in Jaws – where a sign presenting Amity Island as a paradise is doctored with a shark fin and “Help!” speech bubble – was an early example of art that really spoke to him. In this graffiti he saw a wonderful combination of satire, powerless people finding a way to make their voice heard, humour, art and rebellion.