Off the shelf: January 2017

As followers of our blog will know, voracious reader Robyn has been sharing with us on a regular basis the titles that she has been adding to her For Later shelf. Here are some more titles that have recently graduated to her Completed shelf.

Frieze A –  Z of Contemporary Art

Not so much a flick through as a pick through – each letter of the alphabet has an article from Frieze magazine. So you can pick and choose what you are interested in; the Factory accent as heard in Andy Warhol’s inner circle, the frosty gaze of fashion, Sophie Calle and the stuffed giraffe that reminds her of her mother.

Appetites by Anthony Bourdain

He calls this a recipe book for home cooks who are willing to put time into it. And he’s not kidding. Three days of preparing for Thanksgiving, featuring a stunt turkey and a business turkey. But those of us who have three days to spare just before Christmas and enough money to have two turkeys might like to give it a go. Despite it all being a bit of an impossible dream I like this book. It’s beautifully produced and it has great photos. Unless you’re a vegan, or even a vegetarian.

Holding by Graham Norton

I don’t normally approve of novels by celebrities, but it’s entirely possible that Graham wrote this himself and he didn’t make a bad job. It’s gentle, funny, the story is quite engrossing (at least I wanted to know what happened) and it’s got a lovely sense of Ireland.

For Later: Stephen Burt, visiting poet

Permissible and not mad to add two poetry books by Stephen Burt, The Poem is You and Belmont, to the For Later Shelf this week because I’m giddying up to see them at a WORD event at Scorpio Books on Thursday 26th January at 6pm.

Good poet (at least I think so after attending a reading last year – perhaps I’ll know how to tell for sure after this event), Harvard Professor of Poetry and an engaging speaker, Burt will be in conversation with Fergus Barrowman from Victoria University Press.

I love poetry events – people are passionate about it so the questions tend to be on the intense side, and even better can spin out into wildly inappropriate statements of opinion. Somehow opinions on poetry are so much more interesting than opinions on non-fiction, which mostly centre on how much more the ‘questioner’ knows than the author.

“A lively discussion” is promised, but I’m hoping for a bit more than that.

Off the Shelf (4)

As followers of our blog will know, voracious reader Robyn has been sharing with us on a regular basis the titles that she has been adding to her For Later shelf. Here are some more titles that have recently graduated to her Completed shelf.

Maker & Muse: Women and Early Twentieth Century Art Jewelry

This truly is a beauty. The pieces are breath-taking but the very best thing about it is the chance to read about  women as designers and makers as well as consumers.

Weeping Britannia: Portrait of a Nation in Tears by Thomas Dixon

Who knew that the British are actually quite emotional? Not me until I read this book. Turns out they’ve been giving free reign to their lachrymose tendencies for centuries, with a bit of time off for a more martial approach between 1870 and 1945. It’s full of fascinating facts such as Queen Elizabeth II crying in public (more accurately dabbing at the corners of her eyes) for the first time at the age of 71, when the royal yacht Britannia was  decommissioned . The author is the director of the Centre for the History of the Emotions at Queen Mary University of London so he knows what he’s talking about.

Industrial Vintage Interiors by Maria Eugenia Silva

A biggie and almost a beauty, this is probably one for the true enthusiasts who can pore over page after page of metal stools. It’s a world where your cat has to be grey to (mono) tone in with your colour scheme.

A sum up of New Zealand Festival Writers Week

Observations from the 2016 New Zealand Festival Writers Week

• Every person I sat beside had a fit bit thingy instead of a watch.
• Science sells – by far the biggest attendance at any of the sessions I went to was at Adam Rutherford (no relation). The person I sat beside there went to sleep immediately and stayed that way for the entire hour. Perhaps her fit bit was able to tell her if it was REM sleep or not.
• Some sessions featured Sleater-Kinney T-shirts and Lea DeLaria haircuts, most did not.

Things some of the writers love

• Ted Dawe loves librarians – “they are my heroes”. He was reading A Little Life and he couldn’t put it down. On the strength of this recommendation I bought it at Wellington Airport and now I can’t put it down but sometimes I can’t hold it either, due to sobbing.
• Cornelia Funke loves David Almond and Neil Gaiman and The Once and Future King. Her favourite movie is Pan’s Labyrinth.
• Sally Gardner loves The Great Gatsby – “one of the great tragedies” – and Meg Rosoff and Holes.
• Mariko Tamaki – Alice Munro and Stitches and Margaret Atwood – “every man should read The Handmaid’s Tale“.

Good things some of the writers said

The power of a story teller is to build a shelter. (Cornelia Funke)

 

A geneticist is a ‘gel jockey’ and origin of life research is a fractious field full of people who hate each other (Adam Rutherford)

 

There is nothing better than a painful childhood for a creative life (Mariko Tamaki)

Things resisted

• Joe Bennett resisted the impulse to bow down before C K Stead, the Poet Laureate, when they shared a lift.
• I resisted the urge to ask Joe Bennett “How did it go Joe?” when passing him as he left his sold out session.

Recommendations

• When you ask a question, care about the answer – not how clever you are being when you ask it.

“For Later” lately (5)

In an attempt to tame her ever-growing For Later list,  Robyn has decided to share with us on a regular basis the titles that she has recently added to her list. The theory being that, even if she doesn’t ever get round to reading them, she can perhaps do so vicariously through you… So please do share your opinions of her picks – are they worthy, do you think, of inclusion in that lofty list?

Added to the For Later shelf recently:

Pink Up Your Life: The World of Pink Design
Embarrassing but irresistible. Who knew there was such a thing as Pink Design? I’m game though. “Pink for old and young. Pink for everyone!” Perhaps a pink feature wall is just what I need.

The Hollow of the Hand by P. J. Harvey
Polly’s poetry combines with the images of photographer/film-maker Seamus Murphy to tell the story of their travels around the world between 2011 and 2014. Harvey wanted to “smell the air, feel the soil and meet the people of the countries I was fascinated with”.  Should be interesting.

City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg
Over 900 pages long – who am I kidding? But this highly hyped first novel is getting mentioned all over the show and the author looks to have good taste. He was in Vogue wearing a Comme de Garçons blazer; he likes Hilary Mantel and Patti Smith and he mentioned Philip Hensher‘s The Northern Clemency in an interview. And City on Fire has been called ‘a punk Bleak House‘.

The Face of Britain: The Nation Through Its Portraits by Simon Schama
Portraits and Simon Schama seem like a good match; Schama has a lovely light touch with art and history. This book has been produced to accompany an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London where Schama considers what makes a successful portrait, grouping portraits from the gallery’s amazing collection into themes: Power, Love, Fame, Self and People. According to The Times reviewer Schama’s approach here is “not systematic but wonderfully compelling” and the book is “entertaining and idiosyncratic”. Let’s see about that.

Off the shelf (2)

As followers of our blog will know, voracious reader Robyn has been sharing with us on a regular basis the titles that she has been adding to her For Later shelf. This time she reports back on some of the titles that have graduated to her Completed shelf.

An art theme to some books that came off the For Later shelf recently.

Gothic Wonder by Paul Binski
A beautiful book. All the images are lovely to look at but my best ones are the gargoyles and the manuscripts. Favourite chapter is called the Pleasures of Unruling, featuring the unforgettable phrase ‘genitalia in marginalia’.  Gothic Churches were so expensive the monks were “very eager to highlight any financially winning miraculous or semi-miraculous events”. Finding a cache of coins was popular – a sure sign that God would provide and it was O.K. to just keep building.

Everything Is Happening by Michael Jacobs
It’s good to look at things in detail sometimes, but lots of words on lots of pages on one work of art can be very daunting. This look at Velásquez’s painting Las Meninas (‘the maids of honour’ in Spanish) is both detailed and short. But it still manages to say some fresh things about a work that has been analyzed more than most.

Francis Bacon in Your Blood by Michael Peppiatt
Francis Bacon is a great and terrifying artist. He is also reputed to have said: “Champagne for my real friends, real pain for my sham friends”. Two reasons to read a book about him.

What books have moved off your For Later shelf recently?

Looking forward to looking

On the weekend of the 13th and 14th of February 2016 the Centre of Contemporary Art will re-open in its beautiful ’60s modernist building on Gloucester Street.

Recently Paula Orrell, the new curator of CoCA, gave a talk about what we might see when the doors open to the public for the first time in five years.

Art galleries are places for the curious and there will be plenty to satisfy that curiosity if Orrell’s previous work in the United Kingdom is any indication.

She’s worked with Lucy Orta, Steven Claydon, Matthew Day Jackson, Eva and Franco Mattes and the starriest of the art stars, Marina Abramovic. Then there are projects like The River Tamar Project.

There will be lots of community involvement at the new CoCA and there will be all kinds of art forms related to the visual arts; film, installation and performance. “Will there still be flat work and sculptural work?” came a nervous question from the audience.

Yes, there will. In fact there will be quite a lot of sculptural work in the opening show, but beyond that Orrell wasn’t giving anything away. We’ll just have to wait and see.

View of Gloucester Street including CoCA’s roof [2014]. Flickr 2014-02-21-IMG_2193

In the meantime, listen to Paula Orrell talk about her vision for CoCA.

Swot up on the the history and legacy of the Canterbury Society of Arts in Warren Feeney‘s book The Radical, The Reactionary and the Canterbury Society of Arts 1880 – 1996.

And get ready to see art inside an art gallery in 2016.

The (very) long list

Books I couldn’t resist adding to the For Later shelf this week.

Every Time a Friend Succeeds Something Inside Me Dies: The Life of Gore Vidal by Jay Parini
Because the title is a deathless quote, because the cover features Gore Vidal with a cat on his shoulder, because the author has written a biography of William Faulkner.

Vintage Paua Shell Jewellery: Art Souvenir, Tourist Kitsch, Kiwi Icon by Elly van de Wijdeven
Because the words vintage, paua shell, art, souvenir, tourist, kitsch and kiwi are irrestistible. Icon is overused. Now where did I store all those collectible fern leaf brooches?

4 Real & True 2: Landscapes, Photographs by Wim Wenders
The great German director turned 70 in August. What better way to celebrate his birthday than by looking at some of the landscapes and images he has chosen to record with his analog camera?

The Memory of Time: Contemporary Photographs at the National Gallery of Art by Sarah Greenough
Photography’s relationship to time, memory and history investigated by contemporary photographers. The main attraction is Sally Mann, whose Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs is one of my reads of 2015.

Diversity in Disney Films: Critical Essays on Race, Ethnicity, Gender, Sexuality and Disability
This should be interesting: Disney films explored with perspectives from critical whiteness studies and masculinity studies as well as old style race and gender.

Read my previous posts about the comings and goings on my For Later shelf.

Happy birthday, Andy Warhol

In the future everybody will be world famous for 15 minutes.

The man who could see into the future of The X Factor, Real Housewives, Come Dine With Me (insert your best or worst Reality Show here) was born on the 6th of August 1928. Or was he? For years there was confusion about exactly where and when he was born. After all he once said “I’d prefer to remain a mystery, I never give my background and, anyway, I make it all up different every time I’m asked.”

It doesn’t really matter whether we have the right date, what matters is that we do celebrate
one of the most influential artists of the 20th century.

There’s lots of stuff to read about Warhol and his art, but for a real sense of the man you can’t go past A: A novel a book he ‘wrote’ himself. Actually it’s transcripts of taped conversations he had with one of the Factory Superstars. And it’s hilarious, although calling it a novel is probably a bit of a stretch. It has been called Warhol’s Ulysses; at least I did manage to finish it, something I have never achieved with James Joyce’s Ulysses.

Interest in Warhol doesn’t wane; the latest trend is to pair him with other artists who don’t seem to be a natural match but turn out to be once the clever curators explain it all. Love is Enough is a show that looked at the similarities between Warhol and William Morris  – repetition and celebrity apparently.

Next year there will be a big show at the NGV in Melbourne of Warhol and Ai Wei Wei. They share a liking for cats, but I’m sure there’s more to it than that.

Happy birthday, Emily Brontë

Oh Emily. Your creations and their goings-on out on that moor have captured the imaginations of millions of women everywhere. And more than a few men I guess, although I’ve never met one.

You only lived for thirty years but Cathy and Heathcliff (and Linton and Isabella and Edgar and Hareton and Nelly) are immortal.

Even your possessions still fascinate.

Here’s to you, and to Wuthering Heights, and thanks for one of my favourite books.