Glam!: The Performance of Style, Tate Liverpool

Celebrating the ‘Performance of Style’ Glam! purports to be more concerned with the ‘look’ of glam-rock, and the music is made highly conspicuous by its absence, despite the ‘performance’ of the title…

Upon entering the exhibition, visitors are engulfed in a vision of pure glam: from magazine covers and album sleeves, to costume designs and sequinned jackets, glam assaults the eyes from every angle. One salient aspect of the movement remains allusive, however, and this was the most important: the music. Without the music itself, the whole glam era would not have existed. The musical output from legends such as Marc Bolan and David Bowie was instrumental in capturing the attention of the world, who then went on to emulate the image of their glam rock icons. The music created the style, and without it, fans surely could not have held these stars in such high esteem.

This, on the part of Tate curators, could have been a conscious decision in order to highlight the obsession with fakery and the superficial of the 1970s, as Glam! contains memorabilia and archival evidence that people enjoyed dressing up and pretending to be someone else entirely. The opening room of the exhibition, however, makes this seem light-hearted and silly, and conceals the truth that a lot of these people (including images of transvestites) are actually trying to escape from who society has made them, and so the act of faking it is not at all superficial, but actually fuelled by larger societal issues (see the feature on ‘Kenny’ in the second half of the exhibition). I felt that the inspiration/cause behind the glam-rock scene was largely ignored and would have really benefited the collection had it been present.

The exhibition does contain some amazing pieces of glam-rock history, including a costume belonging to Brian Eno and Bolan’s top hat from T. Rex’s The Slider album. My favourite by far in this first half of the exhibition was a video made by a student in the 70s documenting his friends dressing up for a Bryan Ferry concert. The film illustrated how, for young people living in a dull urban environment, the sound of Roxy Music and other glam-rock bands created a fantasy world to which youths could escape to in their sequins and glitter. Although for these students the look was important in order to step away from the everyday, there was no doubt that the film-maker intended the message to be about the escapist element of the music.

For me, the exhibition really came into its own in the second gallery: Glamscape USA; although the shift overseas was not well documented and the chronology of the exhibition (including influences and musical progression) could have been much stronger.

Artists featured in this section included Andy Warhol, Cindy Sherman and Peter Hujar. The images and messages in this half of the exhibition were infinitely more powerful than the first and spoke volumes about the real, dark underside of the glam world. A study of the collective at Warhol’s studio The Factory was fascinating, including images from behind the scenes of his New York play Pork set to a haunting rendition of I Wanna Be Your Dog. This was one of the only audible pieces of music in the entire exhibition and was not overtly of the glam movement, but was an effective addition to the pieces in the gallery.

Cindy Sherman’s re-working of a Vogue cover starring Jerry Hall, was ironically transformed into an image of her own face, winking at the camera and subverting the conventions of acceptable glamour. I particularly enjoyed Ulay’s images of himself dressed as both man and woman, which play with ideas of androgyny and what it means to be ‘glam’, and worked well alongside images of the New York Dolls and The Cockettes. Punk artist Jimmy de Sana was also on show, with his unnerving self portraits set in bizarre and surreal situations.

The most striking and darkest image by far though was Peter Hujay’s photograph of Factory actress Candy Darling lying on her death bed, with the infamous quote: “Unfortunately before my death I had no desire left for life . . . I am just so bored by everything. You might say bored to death… I couldn’t last.” which is a clear comment on the pressures of the industry, covered up by the glamour of clothes and make-up.

Glam! is a fantastic collection of work and the second half of the exhibition especially facilitates an incredible insight into the underworld of the movement. I was disappointed about the lack of music on offer, and also the much hyped Marc Camille Chaimowicz installation, which I felt was irrelevant, but many of the photographs and film clips were stunning and provided a fair introduction into the world of glam.

Matthew Bourne’s Sleeping Beauty at The Empire, Liverpool

As a huge fan of Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake I was admittedly incredibly excited at the prospect of going to see his interpretation of Sleeping Beauty at The Empire this week, and  Bourne’s company New Adventures did not disappoint.

For those who are unfamiliar with the story, here is a brief summary of Bourne’s re-imagining of the tale: the King and Queen are in despair, finding themselves unable to conceive a child. Longing for a baby to call their own, they seek the help of the dark fairy Carabosse, who delivers them a daughter. The King, however, does not show Carabosse the gratitude she desires, and so she attempts to kill the child. Thankfully for the Princess, the good fairies are at hand to attempt to undo this wickedness, but only succeed in reducing her sentence to 100 years of sleep, until she is awoken by true love’s kiss…

In a Q&A after the performance, Bourne defined the word ‘ballet’ to the audience: a story told without words. Bourne’s version of a ballet differs from the classical view of the dance form, yet his reinventions of such iconic stories always contain a mixture of classical and  modern choreography, which enables his work to engage a whole new demographic of audience, as well as satisfy and earn the respect of hardcore dance fans. This, he says, is a conscious (not calculated) decision which he embarks upon at the beginning of each production, as he aims to widen the audience for the centuries-old theatre as well as entertain the classical enthusiasts.

For Sleeping Beauty, this combination of classical and modern worked wonders – in more ways than one. Set across 2 completely different periods of time, divided by Aurora’s century of sleep, Bourne’s production begins in 1890. The lavish sets and sumptuous costumes are in perfect harmony with the historical setting, and the first half of the show is dutifully choreographed to reflect a more classical era of dance.

This being said, Bourne’s choreography leaps off the stage, wowing the audience with not just many styles of dance, but many entirely different moods, intended to represent different themes and emotions, for every character. As with all of his ballets, Bourne chooses to subvert gender stereotypes of dance, and bring more focus than is traditional upon the male leads. Although Perrault’s story centres upon a princess, Bourne manages to engage the audience with the male characters equally well, allowing each member of his company the chance to shine.

My favourites in the first Act were the fairies, who each have a distinct personality which is expressed clearly and beautifully through their varying dance styles. The fairies were a joyous presence on stage, and their costumes were my favourite of the whole performance; delicately impish, with a gothic-romantic quality to them.

The use of a puppet for the baby Aurora is also an inspired idea, and Bourne commented that he thought it appropriate for the child-princess to have a personality from the start, as we do not meet the dancer who plays her until much later on. I agree fully with this decision, and the puppet brought some much-appreciated humour to the show, which went down well with the audience and added a new dimension to the story, as the baby puppet scampered around the stage wreaking mayhem with the servant characters.

Later, in a twist from the original tale, Aurora does not prick her finger, but smells a black rose (very clever imagery for the stage) and falls into a century-long sleep on the day of her coming of age. Caradoc, Carabosse’s son is the culprit and his presence on stage is dark and ominous, contrasting beautifully with both Leo (Aurora’s love interest) and Count Lilac (King of the good Fairies) at her birthday party. The party itself is set in the palace gardens, with accurate historical dress for every dancer. There is a lovely dance section where Aurora and Leo are left alone on stage, and their flirtatious, playful pas-de-deux reflects their age and lust perfectly.

After the interval, the story moves on 100 years from Aurora’s 21st birthday to 2011 and we see the place where she sleeps surrounded by contemporary student-types trying in vain to enter the fairy-guarded palace. I felt that this second half took a while to get going, as there was a scene in which Leo (who before the interval receives a bite from the fairy king, allowing him to become a fairy and therefore live until Aurora wakes up) is running through the grounds to reach where she sleeps. This scene is a little tedious compared to the more intricately-choreographed sequences, and did little to show off the dancer’s skill.

Following this, however, the wedding scene, in which Caradoc attempts to marry the awakened princess, is really entertaining and thoroughly different to the style of the first act. Lit by neon strips, with a fleet of dancers clothed in red velvet and black lace corsets, Bourne creates a hell-ish ceremony to illustrate Caradoc’s intentions with the virgin princess. After feeling uncertain about the need to bring the story into the present day, this scene convinced me that Bourne’s decision was clever and original, as the latter part of the second act showed an entirely different side to the story as well as the dancers themselves, who thrived at mastering both classical and modern styles.

Caradoc and Count Lilac again took the lead, their good-versus-evil dance styles working to show off some incredible dance talent. The dancers who played these characters were made up to look very alike, which heightened the intensity of their contrasting performances, lending a gothic and uncanny atmosphere to every scene they shared.

With a wonderful cast, amazing design work and top notch choreography, the performance only lacked one thing: a live orchestra. Bourne explained this after the show as being a sad misfortune due to a lack of funds, and stated that a full orchestra would be something he hopes to achieve in the future. Tchaikovsky’s score is an incredible and iconic piece of music and would certainly benefit the company if it were possible to have it performed live.

Having now seen 2 Matthew Bourne productions, I am thoroughly excited at the news that New Adventures returns to Liverpool next year once again with Swan Lake, and also a new production which will grant an amazing opportunity to young, local dancers…Lord of the Flies. Matthew Bourne has certainly made his mark on the world of theatre, and with the prospect of such a project next year, will undoubtedly make his mark on the Liverpool art scene too.

The Place Beyond the Pines *****

As if things weren’t tough enough being an awkward teenager, unintentionally befriending the son of your biological father’s killer makes life a little difficult…(Spoliers)

Derek Cianfrance’s The Place Beyond the Pines is an incredible tour de force, taking place over 3 acts which follow the lives of two generations of a pair of New York families, entwined in a bitter and corrupt police cover-up.

Ryan Gosling is Luke Granton, a professional stunt biker for a travelling circus who lives a dangerous hand-to-mouth existence before discovering a son he fathered over a year ago, which prompts him to settle in sleepy Schenectady, New York. Gosling finds himself an auto-repair job in a garage with Robin (Ben Mendelsohn), a social outsider with a collection of ticks and awkward mannerisms making him a questionable employer to say the least. Mendelsohn is fantastic in the role, stealing every scene from Gosling, who coincidentally is on top form in this role, delivering contrasting traits of vulnerability and manic rage.

After discovering that the mother of his child, the beautiful Eva Mendes, has moved on and settled down with a new man (Mahershala Ali), Granton seeks a way to make a fast buck in order to win back his family and the ‘perfect’ life he now bitterly watches play out in Mendes’ home. Mendes is perfect in her role as Jason’s mother; Cianfrance somehow avoids the obvious and ignores her capacity for romantic-lead-role, instead concentrating on her talent in conveying the distress of a broken woman torn between love and security.

Robbing banks (Granton’s solution) is a short-lived fantasy for Granton, and leads directly into the second act of the film, after some excellent action scenes in which we see a vulnerability to Gosling’s hard-as-nails biker. Acts 2 and 3 recall the aftermath of Granton’s fate, as cop Bradley cooper struggles to come to terms with his guilt. After being honoured as a hero for taking a bullet, Cooper’s character Avery Cross finds himself victim to a gang of corrupt policemen, who enjoy terrorising Mendes and her family in order to embezzle money. Ray Liotta is ever reliable as the bad guy here, with a haunting on-screen presence which makes the other actors visibly uncomfortable. It is chilling to discover how far up the chain of corruption leads, and viewers are left questioning the validity of Cross’ quest in a world where every lawman has been bought out.

After wrestling with himself for killing the father of a one year old boy, Cross finds it impossible to look at his own son, creating a ghostly parallel of Granton’s story with his own son, and estrangement from the child’s mother. Emory Cohen plays Cooper’s brute of a son, AJ Cross, whose thick Detroit accent and beefy stature mark him out as the school bully after he leaves his mother’s home (Rose Byrne). Despite his thuggish exterior and frankly annoying dialect, we are forced to sympathise with AJ, who never won the acknowledgement of his father.

Granton’s son Jason (Dane DeHaan) is a victim of circumstance, as things become complicated between him and AJ once he finds out the truth about his real father. Despite having the love of a step dad, who clearly loves him as his own, Jason struggles with his identity and the idea of justice, Both young actors give excellent performances, and DeHaan’s portrayal of a troubled teen is particularly memorable, avoiding cliché in favour of raw emotion and a credible account of a lost boy in a man’s body.

The second two acts of the film, for me, were totally unexpected and really brought a whole new element to the story. Based on friends’ reviews I had expected a gratuitous action flick reliant upon the star status of the two leads, however, The Place Beyond The Pines is a truly masterful piece of film-making.

From the cast (who are mostly a collection of Hollywood heartthrobs usually associated with rom-coms) to the score (undulating drones, unnerving the viewer) to the clever motif of the forest, this film delivers high above expectations on all counts, and has got to be the best film of the year so far. Daring to be different, and upsetting the conventions of narrative, The Place Beyond the Pines poses many questions about the rules by which we live, and tells a brutal story through beautiful means.

Greendays Cafe, Lark Lane, Liverpool ****

After a busy morning exploring the city’s haberdasheries and antique shops, my friend and I decided it was time to feast.

Greendays Cafe on Lark Lane is an old favourite, and like most eateries on The Lane, provides fresh, tasty food at a very reasonable price. The Café resides above the local newsagents, with a stairwell adorned with images of Casablanca and Zelda Fitszgerald. Set out over two levels, the café has an incredibly relaxed vibe: shelves are cluttered with antique knicknacks, potted plants and vintage cookbooks. Throughout our stay we listened to laid back 1930′s jazz, and enjoyed exploring our surroundings with hungry eyes.

To start we shared a portion of hummus with pita breads, which was lovely and tasted freshly home-made. The dish came with a dash of paprika and a squeeze of lemon juice which really brought out the flavour of the chickpeas.

Next (after a long time deciding from the huge menu on offer) I chose the halloumi salad, which was delicious and really filling. A huge portion of fried halloumi cheese was accompanied by crisp lettuce, red onion, slices of apple, strawberries, juicy tomatoes and cucumber. This was complimented by the café’s very own home-made bread, which is soft and nutty in flavour, with lashings of what the menu describes as ‘real butter’. The whole meal was really wholesome and refreshing, and the fruit and vegetables were so juicy and sweet we couldn’t believe the price.

My friend had the garlic and chilli spaghetti, which the chef graciously adapted to her tastes, and this arrived in an overflowing dish topped with a bountiful helping of parmesan cheese. The meal came with a small side salad and fresh bread and butter, and was enjoyed down to the last crumb.

Speedy service is not to be expected in such a small, bohemian eatery, as the staff do everything with love and care rather than zealous efficiency. While we waited for our food we eyed up the cakes on offer – towering mountains of frosted goodness, including a very tempting home-baked New York cheesecake – but after our generous portions of lunch, we sadly had no room left.

The bill, including drinks came to a very reasonable £15, considering that everything was freshly made on site, and the portions were so generous. I would recommend the Greendays Cafe for a hearty breakfast/brunch (choose from continental, vegetarian and vegan options from £3.50) or a late lunch, which will easily tide you over until supper time! The menu is huge, ranging from tapas-like nibbles to sandwiches, pasta and jacket potatoes, offering a huge selection of vegetarian, vegan and pescetarian dishes to assault the tastebuds (not the pockets).

Away We Go ****

‘The three S’s are: no separation, no sugar, no strollers’. This is just one of the madcap couples that Verona (Maya Rudolph) and Burt (John Krasinski) encounter on their quest to find the perfect American city to raise their child.

After a disappointing dinner with Burt’s parents in which they discover that they are moving to Europe just a month before the baby is due, the couple realise that they have nothing tying them to the sleepy town in which they live, and seek to find somewhere full of friends and support in which to start their family. Burt’s parents are played by Jeff Daniels, (The Squid and the Whale) and Catherine O’Hara, and both deliver brilliant comic cameo performances, including a particularly inappropriate moment, asking ‘how black will the baby be?’

Highlights of their journey include their encounter with the Herrins; played by Maggie Gyllenhaal and Josh Hamilton, the pair are a hippy couple in the extreme sense of the word, with very unconventional views about parenting. Gyllenhaal is sensual as well as being excellently funny in her role, and challenges Allison Jenney as the most memorable female cameo in the movie: Jenney is superb as the brash, loud Lily, Verona’s old boss, who speaks awfully about her children in front of them as if they were animals and couldn’t hear.

The film explores the trials and tribulations of having too many options and facing the inability to choose. Burt and Verona discuss the pros and cons of parenting, exploring extremes such as morality, worries and pressures of real family life. Although they constantly compare themselves to those around them, director Sam Mendes demonstrates that no couple can ever be fully ready, as every child is unique and every family different.

Love is the answer, not marriage is the unconventional conclusion of the film, as Mendes tells a story which proves that there is no perfect way to raise a family.

The Art of Pop Video @ FACT

The Art of Pop Video is a surprisingly definitive collection of music videos housed at Liverpool’s FACT gallery, in collaboration with the current Glam! exhibition at the Tate.

The collection, brought together by curators Michael P Aust and Daniel Kothenschulte, showcases every conceivable sub-genre of the medium; from narrative to abstract videos, political to parody, animation to live action, the collection illustrates the diversity of an entertainment form that is as engrained in our culture as novels and paintings.

The exhibition itself is as immersive as the MTV channel it chronicles, as visitors step into a gallery filled with over dozens of television screens, each displaying a music video entirely different, yet related to its neighbours either side. When MTV launched on 1 August 1981, music lovers were bombarded with images to accompany their favourite tracks: this was music for the eyes, not the ears. Despite the term Music Television only coming into being in the 80s, however, music videos as a medium have been in existence since the 1920s with the advent of ‘talkies’ and even soundtracks to silent films.

An early clip of Duke Ellington in 1929 is one of the first videos on display, and illustrates an early connection between music and film as it captures some reactions to the music being played. This video is followed by an eccentric collection of others, all dating between 1929 – 1936, including a clip from the 1935 musical Tophat where music and film are inextricably linked. The absurdity of the musical as a narrative form is addressed throughout the exhibition, as Aust and Kothenschulte strive to prove the validity of the genre as part of the history of music video.

These early clips include a lot of animation, which is something still common to music video. The earliest offering in the gallery is directed by Len Lye, entitled ‘Rainbow Dance’ (1936) in which an actor moves on the screen, surrounded by animated colours and shapes, perhaps intended to create a visual representation of the sounds produced by Rico’s Creole Band. Animation is a recurrent theme, and videos by Peter Gabriel (1986) and The White Stripes (2001) explore other possibilities within the medium.

The importance of animation to music is most apparent when viewing Gorillaz’ ‘Clint Eastwood’ (2001). Without the popularity of music video, the animated characters of the band Gorillaz perhaps would not have gained such notoriety for their very unique approach to promoting themselves, and the novelty of the ‘super-group’ may have soon worn off.

In Gallery 1, we are encouraged to question the connection between what we see and hear – are the images playing out before our eyes really related to the sounds of the music? And can what we see affect our opinion of the track? This is an interesting point to consider when walking about the gallery space, as visitors can choose to stop and ponder a certain video whilst wearing headphones, or simply gaze at the screens all around and consume the images. The only tracks that one cannot choose to ignore are the songs being played over the speaker system, whose videos have been projected onto huge screens at the other side of the gallery. Listening to these songs whilst watching other videos can be disconcerting, but I could not shake the realisation that as soon as I heard the track, I could instantly picture the singer in the video. Should this be our reaction, and how important is video to music?

The connection between image and sound is also explored in Bob Dylan’s much-copied 1967 video for ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’. In this video, Dylan stands before the camera, but his lips do not move; instead, he holds up a series of flash cards emblazoned with the lyrics of the song, jarring our perception of his relationship to his own voice, much like the marriage between film and melody in other videos.

The Art of Pop Video next focuses on the rise of amateur-style filming, and how this has affected the video as we know it. With the advent of Youtube, thousands of amateur film-makers all over the world suddenly shot to fame when their home movies went viral. This in turn influenced the music video, and ‘amateur style’ filming became an art-form in its own right. Videos such as OK Go’s ‘Here It Goes Again’ undoubtedly would not have been so successful without their viral presence, and this style of shooting has become the go-to technique for artists who want to appear gritty and ‘real’.

The amateur video has been utilised by a number of artists, from those making a mash-up or parody of another song, using internet clips, to bands wanting to send out a political message, like Russia’s punk group Pussy Riot. Although banned from Russian TV, Pussy Riots’ video is ironically a huge internet hit and their message has been broadcast all over the world. The curators here explore the way in which music video is a constantly adapting genre, evolving to suit the social, technological and political climate. Sometimes artists even make a video where the images seem completely irrelevant in connection with the song itself, yet are significant in the socio-political context.

Upstairs in Gallery 2, The Art of Pop Video explores the line between self-promotion and art. There are undoubtedly countless music videos that can be considered as works of art in their own right, and countless others which parody and reference iconic pieces of art in order to make a statement, such as Franz Ferdinand’s ‘Do You Want To’ (2005). Many videos in this section of the exhibition work as standalone pieces of art, with a narrative arc and beautiful cinematography that are just as important as the music.

Aust and Kothenschulte here explore the crossover between film and music in greater depth. There has always been a strong link, from early musical and Disney pictures, to the 1960s Beatles movies; and in modern pop videos, this link is further developed. There are many types of crossovers between music and film: soundtracks will inevitably feature clips from the film they represent, some artists choose to play out their video with a film-like narrative, and others rope in a famous actor to star, or director to create their musical film.  The ever-evolving form of the music video suggests that it is an entertainment just as important and influential on society as features from the movie industry, as stars use their videos to promote themselves and their lifestyle, their beliefs and as an outlet for other creative talent.

These endless examples of intertextuality lead to the statement posed by the curators at the end of the exhibition: ‘it is no longer certain which medium plunders which aesthetic’, as it has been proven that art, film and music are utterly intertwined.

Written for http://www.artinliverpool.com/

Sara Devoreux-Ward, The Bluecoat, Liverpool

Sara Devoreux-Ward is a North-West based artist and printmaker, currently enjoying her first exhibition at The Bluecoat; Are You Connected?

The exhibition deals with the social and cultural impact of communication technologies, and how the development of such technology hinders social contact.  Devoreux-Ward examines through printmaking, the correlation between traditional, mechanical processes and their modern, digital counterparts.

The first experience as one enters the space is a quotation from EF Schumacher:

“…now everything and everybody has become mobile. All structures are threatened, and all structures are vulnerable to an extent that they have never been before”.

In the context of her work, this quotation yields a lot of truth: as we move forward technologically, our reliance upon mobile, vulnerable objects is paramount to our existence. Communication and social interaction have become mobile: we communicate with one another whilst on the move, whilst absorbed in other things, and whilst ignoring the reality around us.

In a series of prints, using PCB etchings, collagraph and letterpress, Devoreux-Ward addresses this isolation from reality, and connection to computer screens and electric devices. The artist playfully explores our relationship with technology by giving gadgets a voice; a dark and controlling voice. Why Do You Turn Me On and Are You Hungry explore the idea of technology communicating with us, rather than us using it as a tool to contact other people.

I found Are You Hungry particularly unnerving, as the television set asks the viewer the above question – to me, this is a direct assault on the use of technology in advertising, and how we are constantly injected with ideas forced upon us by large corporations; we are no longer thinking for ourselves. This theme is echoed in Push My Buttons as a games console implores its owner to engage in a virtual reality.

Touch Me, which is an image of a television set projecting these words, with a cat turning its head away, I found very significant. The cat, uninterested by technology and therefore not susceptible to its allures, disregards the screen in a way that we as humans and mass-consumers of technology should envy.

Devoraux-Ward uses the image of the pylon to denote the correlation between technology and the transmission of language, but most importantly (returning to Schumacher), the vulnerability of what we rely on, in a work ironically titled Tower of Knowledge, where a pylon is depicted exposed to the elements, in a natural country landscape. In a series of 3 photopolymer etchings, entitled Mother of Invention I, II, III, the artist toys with the idea of motherhood through the use of the pylon as mother. The pylon symbolises how we communicate through technology, and there is one golden question encouraged: what has this given birth to? The pylon itself is cold, grey, mechanical, destructible and seems old-fashioned compared to how we now think of communication today: as intangible words and codes floating through space and time via satellite.

I also enjoyed the final series of prints, which communicated to one another across the gallery space, finishing each another’s messages. Many a true word is… is an image of a vintage type writer, here heralded as the link between the written word and computer processing; the invention that first distanced us from human communication. This piece is then answered with a similar image entitled Spoken in Jest, completing the sentence and the thought process of the viewer. Similarly, images of an old computer are captioned Jack of all trades…Master of none, perhaps suggesting that human skill still trumps technology.

My favourite in this last collection are the images of the Iphones, entitled You can’t teach an old dog… and New Tricks, which pokes fun at the iconic accessory-cum-gadget, which at the end of the day, is still a phone.

A brilliant debut at one of Liverpool’s top galleries, I highly recommend this collection of work, which promises to engage the audience in a dialogue far removed from gadgets and machines.