A very short trip (and more)
In which I spend three days in London and accumulate a bunch of stuff
Earlier this month, I spent three days in London to serve as a jury member of the Mack First Book Award (that’s the jury above (r to l): Polly Fleury, Ellis Jones, Joana Piotrowska, Michael Mack, and me). I previously had been a jury member for similar awards before, once at Unseen and once at Cortona on the Move (this isn’t the last time you’ll see Unseen mentioned in this email). At Unseen, I was a member of a five or six-person jury (I forgot the details), in Cortona, there was only me.
Judging dummies is not necessarily the easiest job, because you will have to look at a large number of books (hundreds), to identify the one(s) that should end up in the shortlist and/or win. Without going into the details, in London, I spent the better part of two days looking at books. I enjoy looking at books very much, especially since it gives me an idea what people are working on. Still, it ended up being a lot of work (the first day, I started coming straight from the airport after having not slept on the plane).
The shortlist is going to be announced on 18 February.
I had an extra day in London after the jury, so I decided to go to London’s Tate Modern to see the Dora Maar exhibition. I had read good things about it, which left me genuinely curious about what was on display. And it turned out to be a hugely enjoyable experience, marred, however, by how the whole Picasso connection was treated. You can read my write-up here.
At Mack’s office, I managed to snag a copy of Day Sleeper, a book that contains photographs taken by Dorothea Lange and edited by Sam Contis — something else I had been genuinely looking forward to. The book doesn’t disappoint at all; see my review here.
Books like Day Sleeper often have me struggle with how much politics I want to read into it: can a book about the United States be read apolitically in a day and age where the Republican Party has openly embraced authoritarianism? I don’t think so. Despite its lyrical tone, the book includes images such as the one shown above, the crucified eagle (or falcon — whatever, it’s a bird of prey). How can one not read this image as a blistering commentary on what’s going on in the country right now?
Speaking of art and politics, I had completely forgotten about Kara Walker’s Fons Americanicus at the Tate Modern. I walked in, and there it was. Absolutely incredible.
The fountain comes with this wall text.
If you would like to read some smart writing about Kara Walker, here’s Zadie Smith in the pages of the New York Review of Books: What Do We Want History to Do to Us? Seriously, you want to read that.
Also on view was Nam June Paik, whose work I hadn’t been very familiar with at all. In a nutshell, his focus was on the role of media, with a generous dose of politics sprinkled in. Most of the technology used by Paik dated to even before my days (alas, this didn’t make me feel any younger); but once you look past this, this type of art still resonates very strongly with me. Lewis Bush had recommended this exhibition, which had me look more carefully.
I don’t know if this is very clear from the picture, but the left screen shows the feed of the camera, while there’s an actual egg inside the shell of the monitor on the right (the screen has been removed). In a variety of ways, this idea of mediation is just as relevant today, except that the technology has changed. And isn’t this also related to photography, with its idea of indexicality: when talking about pictures, people often talk about what’s in the picture while simply omitting they’re talking about a picture.
Speaking of Unseen, on 11 February 2020, a blistering letter by Felicity Hammond appeared on ASX. Here and there, I had heard a few misgivings about the fair. That it had been this bad I hadn’t known. Hammond writes:
You contracted me to make a commission that was displayed all over the city of Amsterdam, advertising Unseen. I was heavily pregnant when I travelled to make this work. You never even paid for my train ticket, let alone my fee. You also sold editions of my work. I never received payment. Further to this, you asked me to adapt the project to make an installation that would form a central exhibition to your fair. I completed this during the first three weeks of my daughter’s life. The birth was difficult and my body hadn’t recovered. I justified my decision to work because of the promise of financial security. You lied about the status of my invoice for months.
Honestly, words escape me. But apparently, the fair is supposed to come back this year, after it was bought out by Art Rotterdam. Here it what Fons Hof, director of Art Rotterdam, had to say about Hammond (quoted from the article I just linked to):
The story of Felicity Hammond has reached us and we wish her a lot of strength and hope that she will be partially compensated.
I almost threw up in my mouth when I read that. Well, if you hope that Hammond will be compensated, director Hof, then fucking do it! Honestly, it doesn’t surprise me that an art fair uses the same passive-aggressive bullshit language so commonly employed by corporations, but still, it’s pretty damn infuriating to see. The world of Unseen: Trump-style casino capitalism at play.
Coming back to the trip to London, on the way back I browsed the airport’s book shop as I often do when having to wait for a flight (at Gatwick, they don’t tell you about your gate until shortly before boarding, so you’re forced to wait in one of the innermost circles of hell, an airport mall). I didn’t really need another book — I had brought two and started both of them, but what the hell, let’s just browse, right? There were two tempting ones, one by Mary Beard (SPQR) that I almost bought, and the other The Volunteer: The True Story of the Resistance Hero Who Infiltrated Auschwitz by Jack Fairweather which I bought and read (if you’re on a plane and you find yourself sitting next to a guy who’s trying not to cry while reading a heavy book, then just ignore me). I had heard about Witold Pilecki, but I didn’t know anything about him. He’s rightfully hailed as a hero, and I don’t… actually can’t contest that. What moved me a lot more than his heroism was what drove it, namely a conviction to do the morally right thing even under the worst of circumstances. We shouldn’t feel the need to call this heroism. But of course, it is heroism because it’s so rare. Couldn’t recommend the book more, even though it will leave you shattered for a few days (at least) when you’re done reading it.
Well, this has been a nice collection of mayhem, has it? Between very political art, an artist getting screwed over by a casino-capitalism photo fair, heroism while aiming to prevent the Holocaust… So let me end on something a little light (but profound), a recording of the Händel aria Se bramate d'amar, chi vi sdegna from the opera Serse. This is not the kind of classical music I usually listen to. But somewhere on Twitter, I found a short compilation of videos of conductor Pieter Jan Leusink; with a little sleuthing I found a full video (that features some of the parts used in the compilation), the one above.
Now, this is easily one of the most amazing performances I’ve seen in a while. Both the countertenor and the conductor engage in what can only be described as a mix of sheer artistic brilliance and joyful eccentricity. I’ve watched this maybe a dozen times, and I still start laughing seeing the conductor briefly do a chicken walk, around 20 seconds in. Absolutely brilliant!
Remember, you can email me with comments, suggestions, or whatever else might be on your mind. And feel free to share this with people who possibly aren’t on the list, yet. Compiling these emails has already become something I treasure very much, and I hope you’re getting at least a fraction of that enjoyment out of reading them.
As always thank you for reading!
— Jörg