Brum, here we come:I caught the train down to Birmingham, via Wolverhampton where I saw Wolverhampton Art Gallery’s Sea exhibition. Some inspiring work in it. Two luscious c-type photo-prints which approach the quality of painting, taken from a cliff looking down on distant bathers & the wide sea. Some fine boxed work; old surgical impliments […]
Archive for February, 2002
Not Helpful Service
NHS, Not Helpful Service:Today I had a first-time encounter with the new ‘NHS Direct’ service. They sent me a useless reply, merely containing a web-link to services in Wiltshire (why, I have no idea, as it’s nowhere near the Midlands), and a link to a page which gave a “404 not found” message. Needless to […]
Photo blogs
Photobloggers:I found some more photoblogs…. phase : visceralhushsuper-saturateThe Attic Windowdymo lovebase thirteenlhabia
Micro photographs
Micro images:I’ve added a new set of seven images, titled microscopic, to my gallery.
Icarus Photoshopus
Current reading:I’m currently reading Homer’s The Odyssey, which tells of the epic homeward journey made by Odysseus after the battle of Troy. Yesterday evening I made my own (not quite so epic) journey to Keele University’s Art Gallery, in the company of photographer Mark Wood. It was the launch-party for the Three Counties Open photography […]
Zeitgeist reading
Quotes:Instead of reading a sackload of Valentine’s cards (none again), I’ve been sampling the zeitgeist in the latest crop of art & design & fashion mags and journals today: rural life and landscape is very big (Tate Modern is ‘right in there’ with a Hamish Fulton retrospective from mid-March); male & female nipples are everywhere; […]
MyBrum
Portal shmortal:Birmingham arts portals, eh? You wait years for one, and then along come eight at once (artsnet, B’ham What’s On, BAM, BBC, B’ham .org, Lycos What’s On Birmingham & B’ham Alive). The eighth and latest is the rather tasty MyBrum. It’s headed up by the very street-savvy Roifield Brown (Interview, New Media Age, 31/01/02) […]
Dreaming spires
I must have Release:Get into some intimate duo oral action with The Pet Shop Boys, in a greasy trucker’s caff. (He he… If that doesn’t get my blog’s hit-rate soaring on the search-engines, nothing will). With similar Clary-eque double-entendre, the PSB have named their forthcoming must-buy album Release. To paraphrase Bowie; Oh, you witty things. […]
Surprises
Boot boy:A rip-roaring article in The Guardian by sacked ICA boss Ivan Massow. The “brutal Afghan winter” that wasn’t:Over in Kabul, it’s warmer than the West Midlands is. We have fun:Go to see the We have fun show at Walsall’s New Art Gallery if you can, nostalgia-fans. Harry Wingfield’s solo show (1st Feb – 17th […]
Blue Sky
Blue Sky!:While the rest of the country suffers flood warnings and severe weather alerts, I get a dash of blue sky. In which I take a picture of a shed and apply some putty to some window-frames. Suffice it to say that I have not won a Bloggies 2002 award. Time for the comfy slippers […]
More arty stuff
Anita & me – the movie:Excellent news! Midlands writer and multi-talented creative Meera Syal’s very enjoyable semi-autobiographical comic novel Anita & Me is being made into a small-budget £4m film. The book is the story of a Hindu girl growing up in a 1970s Staffordshire mining village. Very funny, well worth reading, and a refreshing […]
Intervention
Citibank Prize: Elina Brotherus, who I made a portrait of last year, has been nominated for the Citibank Photography Prize. I have to say, though, that my money’s on the excellent Roger Ballen to win. Whatever next?: Way back in August 2001 I told D’log readers about… “the incipient ‘1980s revival’, which is due to […]