The Commuting Dog

A big truck stopped at the end of our road this morning while we were luxuriating in a lie in with tea and coffee and the puppies. It made a bit of noise. I turned to Mirinda…

ME: I hope that’s not your new office chair.
MIRINDA: I think it is.
A RING AT THE DOORBELL
EMMA: (Frantic barking) I’m here! I’m here!
FREYA: (Looking up from the pillow with one eye open) Really? Do I really have to get up?

So, shortly after the surprise arrival of Mirinda’s new chair, I went into town (I’m not at work until mid-February for various uninteresting reasons) to check out the Guerrilla Girls’ installation at the Whitechapel Gallery. Some of it was very funny, a lot of the established thinking old and haggard as you’d expect. All round though, it was not very big as exhibitions go.

The Guerrilla Girls is a collective of women artists who wear gorilla masks and roam the world demonstrating about the lack of female artists represented in major museums and galleries. They do other things as well but this piece was essentially about that. It was about a questionnaire that they sent out to the directors of major art galleries in Europe (over 300 of them) asking them a series of questions regarding the number of women artists they display.

Less than a third answered them and this exhibition displays some of their answers. Possibly my favourite thing is the piece on the floor where they list all of the ones who DID NOT respond. On top of the list they have suggested that we all just tread on it as we walk around.

A lot of it made quite depressing reading when you realise how much of the art we see in some of the major galleries around the world is just representative of the white male idea of what constitutes art.

And speaking of old white males…

Had this been the only thing at Whitechapel then I would have also gone somewhere else because it was a very small piece. However, unknown to me, they are also hosting an exhibition of William Kentridge at the moment. It is called Thick Time and, apart from him being a white male, is very, very interesting.

Possibly the most interesting (and definitely delightful in an interconnected, Dirk Gently kind of way) thing is that he is the same William Kentridge who designed the opera, Lulu, I saw a few years ago; the Expressionist version that I loved and possibly raved too much about in this blog.

He is South African and uses all sorts of things to make his art. Or, as it reads in the exhibition catalogue:

Renowned for his animated expressionist drawings and film projections, South African artist William Kentridge (b. 1955) combines consummate draughtsmanship with theatrical brio in his multi-media installations. His experiments with drawing, film, opera, tapestry, stage design, mime, music and dance are brought together in the immersive environments featured…from the Exhibition Catalogue

While that sounds a bit arty farty, the exhibition is actually quite accessible. The first piece, called A Refusal of Time, for instance, is a series of film segments shown on three walls while music plays and a large structure in the centre of the room moves up and down and back and forth. It sounds odd and, I guess it was however, it was also quite mesmerising. A lot of visitors sat (or stood) through the entire 30 minutes.

My favourite piece was the one based around the Lulu rehearsals and design process which features two wooden frames, representing a man and a woman, which slide across a metal structure with one trying to seduce the other. Between bouts of unsuccessful seduction, footage of Lulu ‘stuff’ plays in between. The soundtrack is from the opera…I think.

Anyway, it was marvellous (though apart from Karen, I’m not sure anyone else who reads this would appreciate it) and I enjoyed it all.

I also enjoyed my Tube journey from Waterloo to Embankment during which I met The Commuting Dog. He is a regular Tube using mongrel (vaguely related to a fox terrier…I think) with a very appealing face. He was lying on his owner’s lap when I boarded the almost empty carriage. He looked up, vaguely, then settled back down as I stood at the doors.

Suddenly something alerted him and he struggled to get away from his owner trying to make his way over to me. She naturally started pulling on his lead to make him come back but he was having none of it. He sat in front of me and sniffed my jeans. I bent over and gave him a jolly good pat. He then started sniffing my hands as well. And my coat. In fact every part of me he could reach.

I explained to his owner (before she went into an apoplectic shock) about Freya being in season and I reckon that’s what he could smell. She laughed and said he’s generally a friendly dog but his behaviour with me was unexpectedly over the top. I bid him a fond farewell as the train doors opened at Embankment. His little face looked somewhat plaintive as the doors closed between us.

At the Talking Newspaper recording yesterday I discovered that (spuriously it seems) Waterloo is the business station in Europe. Well, it wasn’t anything like busy this afternoon when I was on my way home…

PS: While South West Trains might think Waterloo is Europe’s busiest, it’s quite alone in the assertion. Most people claim that, by sheer volume of passenger numbers, Paris Gare du Nord wins hands down. Even the busiest in terms of trains (up to one train every 13 seconds at peak times) is Clapham Junction. I’m not sure where SWT is getting its facts but they appear to be bogus.