The Combed Thunderclap: The weekend

Well it's been a busy weekend. As I'm sitting here in a coffee bar in Charing Cross Road I reflect that it's been a varied one as well.

The highlight definitely was the May Martini Mixer party organised by Network Canada, held at Canada House on Trafalgar Square. The theme was espionage and from James Bond to Austin Powers to the golden girl from Goldfinger people looked the part. Everybody I talked to - and there were quite a few - was either interesting or beautiful, and in a few cases both. What a wonderful way to spend the evening! I have to say that the openness of the organisation (the party was accessible to anyone who cared to book online at Network Canada's website - and it was very popular, tickets were sold out a few days before already) really added to the flavour of the evening. People from countries as different as Australia and Finland, South Africa and Germany, the USA and Russia were present. And I take my hat off (yes, I was wearing a disarmingly large secret agent hat) for the organisers, who managed the party.

I'd been to Islington earlier in the day, where the Candid Arts Trust have an arts exhibit location just behind Angel tube station. A show on Resonance 104.4fm alerted me to an exhibition of outsider and raw art there - the so-called Raw Arts Festival. Now I have to admit that the terms are all new to me, but generally they seem to refer to art created by people who have had no formal training and/or simply do not follow establsihed artistic methods. I'm hard pressed to describe just what I saw there because it was all quite diverse - one guy, Ben Reche, created drawings in ink (and oil?) that are each highly detailed and very dense, black ink, with lots of little figures and shapes making up a slightly organic, slightly fractal whole. What amazed me was the level of detail in each painting - it's a series of ten, and took him 3 years to complete. They describe a spiritual journey.

It is tempting to ascribe some general meaning to, for instance, the term outsider art but I get the impression that the artists themselves do not see themselves as part of such a category. One lady in particular, when I asked her what it means, said: "I have no idea." Then a bit later I found out she is Liz Parkinson, quite a prominent artist whose works were also exhibited there!

One theme that came up a lot was spirituality - I generalise a bit, but several artists painted figures that have spiritual or visionary meanings for the artists, oh, and there were lots of eyes floating around in some paintings :-) What I personally liked best about the works I saw was the general lack of pretense. For some the artwork is as necessary a creation to communicate with the world as speaking might be. This compulsion is familiar to me - creation as necessity.

Unfortunately the exhibition ended yesterday, but I would recommend giving the place a visit anyway - even if only to have a sandwich or a coffee at the Café (right next door) which has a wonderfully friendly atmosphere and is clearly frequented by other culture vultures. And the prices are very reasonable.

Today I decided to give the Kuba installations at the old sorting office in 21-31 New Oxford street a visit. The installations, recommended by a guest at the Martini Mixer last night, are the creations of the artist Kutlug Ataman who takes people's lives as his topic and record them visually and in their own words.

I know nothing of the milieu really, but apparently Kuba started as a community of people in Istanbul lodged in “safe houses” during a dangerous period. The name Kuba is arbitrary, and one featured person in the installations said it came from a TV series or a movie. Life was tough for these people and their parents, but they've survived and now some are telling their stories. There were 40 installations in all and I only got around to viewing about 6 or so. The most arresting was the women (one just a girl) who described unhappy family circumstances, arranged marriages, and lifelong suffering when they are on their own, friendless, loveless and without the support of a husband but several children to look after. Another installation was more uplifting, a guy who has lots of ambition and who fights against the confines of his situation. He doesn't seem to mind the place where he lives, rather he tries to rise above its limitations through his self-belief.

I would have added pictures to give the text an added dimension, but I was kindly rebuked for trying to take pictures and upon enquiry was referred to Art Angel. Copyright issues.

One of the most interesting aspects of the exhibit is the building in which the installations have been placed (apparently finding unusual settings for art installations is an Art Angel trademark - see their website). The old sorting office has been empty for over ten years, completely derelict, most rooms and halls boarded and locked, and over the years a number of people have probably squatted there. There is a lot of graffiti. I was able to photograph some of the interesting evidence of building disuse en route.