Month: April 2018

Plastered at the Tate

In 1897 when the Tate Gallery (now Tate Britain) was nearing completion they got the plasterers in. And plasterers being plasterers, did what plasterers always do, they left a hidden note to be found by future generations. They got their wish.

This was placed here on the fourth of June 1897, Jubilee year, by the plasterers working on the job, hoping when this is found the Plasterers Association may be still flourishing. Please let us know in the Other World when you get this, so we can drink your health.

Signed: N. Gallop, F. Wilkins, H. Sainsbury, J. Chester, A. Pickernell (secretary)

The writer, perhaps the secretary, is hesitant to say whether plasterers fetch up in heaven or hell and opt for the ‘other world’ but given the lovely, humorous nature of the note I reckon it must be the former.

How much of their work remains, I have no idea, but I like to think that some of the UK’s greatest paintings hang in front of their smooth plaster work. This evening I plan to raise a glass and drink to the health of Messrs Gallop, Wilkins, Sainsbury, Chester and Pickernell.

Seventy years later

Just over seventy years after this note was written a callow youth visited the Tate for the first time. I was 16 years old and a pupil at a dreary boarding school in the Midlands. A school trip was arranged to visit the Tate Gallery in London. I didn’t have much interest in art and knew nothing about the artist whose exhibition we were going to see. All that mattered was escaping school and getting to London.

I’m not sure I’d ever seen pop art before, but I knew right away I loved it, particularly when we learnt that the artist, Eduardo Paolozzi, had made robots for the exhibition and at the last moment had carved them up and dumped them in a skip. When you’re a teenager at school in Rutland you feel like carving your life up and putting it in a skip. Here was something I could work with.

I think there were also some Warhol’s on display; possibly the Marylyn screen prints. It was all so new and so fresh, I couldn’t get enough of it. I now live around the corner from Tate Britain, but I’ll never forget my first visit.

Stealing art from Tate Britain: It’s child’s play

I went back to Tate Britain yesterday to take a last look at the ‘Impressionists in London’ exhibition. (It closes on 7^th May) I was a bit rude about it on a previous occasion but wanted to see Monet’s wonderful fog shrouded pictures of Big Ben and parliament once again.

I got there bang on 10 o’clock when the gallery opens, brandished my member’s card, and made directly for the Monet’s which are in the penultimate room. Although other punters were invading the earlier rooms, I had the Monet’s and the Whistler Nocturnes to myself.

Wandering out through the Duveen Galleries, the main space opposite the Millbank entrance, I spotted a young couple with two toddlers. The kids were charging about among the statues and generally having a great time. I guess it’s the combination of the open spaces where they can run plus the colours and strange shapes of the art that appeals.

All of which reminded me of an occasion, years ago, when my three-year-old daughter and I paid a visit. We walked in to one of the galleries and were met with the unusual sight and sound of a security guard wearing a blaring walkie-talkie. Perhaps he was upset by one of the more visually arresting Francis Bacon pictures, but he was babbling into a microphone while the radio on his belt was turned up full, so everyone could hear the anodyne chat coming from the control room. There was no emergency underway.

Of course, even though people were irritated, being British, nobody said anything. If you listened closely you could just hear some gentle tutting. Finally, I went up to the guy and asked him to turn down his radio as it was getting on everyone’s nerves. He gave me a shirty look, had me figured as a poncey, pretentious git, but complied.

Meanwhile the daughter was making her way, at some speed, into the next room. When you want three-year-olds to move they stick like glue, but they can give Usain Bolt a run for his money if so minded. I followed closely to see her bearing down on an Anthony Gormley sculpture of fruit laid out on the floor at perfect toddler level.

I kind of knew what was going to happen. Just as the security guard entered, she grabbed a silver pineapple and looking very pleased with herself tore out of the room. The guard approached with a menacing look that seemed to indicate all his Christmases had come at once and that the pretentious, poncey git was going to get it with both barrels.

Deciding that discretion was the better part of valour, and before plod could say a word, I raced after the toddler, wrenched the pineapple from her hands, put it back on its pedestal and within thirty seconds the two of us were standing outside with the security guard sucking up the dust from my departing heels. There are some fights you can’t win.

Close-up of a girl's face — Jenny Saville

Last word: Yesterday I also went to see the ‘All too human’ exhibition at Tate Britain. It has spectacular paintings by Freud, Bacon and Kitaj. It also introduced me to a wonderful artist I’d not come across before: Euan Unglow.

Younger painters feature in the last room and the severe close-up of a woman’s face by Jenny Saville really needs to be seen. The exhibition is on until 27^th August: Don’t miss it.

X Rated Television

These days if you watch TV after the nine o’clock watershed, swearing is everywhere. Drama dialogue and unscripted chat shows are liberally spiced with the F word. The continuity announcers seem to relish it: ‘The next programme contains strong language right from the start’ they say, giving the indication there’s some hot stuff on the way.

This is fine with me as I swear quite a lot – too much according to my wife. But it wasn’t always like this. I remember years ago on the Old Grey Whistle Test (It was a music programme) some hairy rocker offered up an unexpected ‘fuck’ and I thought the roof was going to fall in. Even the somnambulant Bob Harris almost woke up. Now swearing is commonplace and Mary Whitehouse must be summersaulting in her grave.

Despite this we try to keep our fourteen-year-old daughter safe and have put a lock on the TV to prevent her watching 18 rated shows. As my wife says, you can’t unsee what you’ve seen. I think she might be a bit of a soothsayer.

But here’s the problem, wife and self are not technically adroit and besides that we’ve forgotten the password needed to unlock the TV. So, what do we do when we want to view an 18 show on Netflix or iPlayer? Well obviously, we call our daughter and she taps in the code.

Wait a minute…

Terror on the tube: Inspector Sands to the rescue

I don’t want to alarm you but if while riding on the tube you hear an announcer say: “Would Inspector Sands report immediately to security” you may be part of an unfolding terror attack.

Apparently ‘Inspector Sands’ is the bland formulation used to alert staff, but not the public, that trouble might be brewing. What you don’t want in times of crisis is an announcer going into the ‘we’re all doomed’ routine, so the fictitious inspector fits the bill.

I know about this because my 14-year-old daughter told me and as far as can be established said 14-year-old has never been wrong about anything, ever.

Following some in depth google-research on my part it seems there might be something to it. Apparently, it originated in theatres and was used in case of fire. The name Sands being selected because they used sand to put out the fire.

And now you’re thinking: For heaven’s sake Jim, Inspector Sands because they use sand to put out the fire? Well please yourself, but the 14-year-old claims to have heard the announcement twice: once at Clapham South and once as Waterloo. She came through without a scratch.