The Word of Ward

“When a man is tired of London he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.” So said Samuel Johnson. He wrote the dictionary so he should be correct.

I love living in London. Sure it’s cold and grey and wet and full of nutters and has a flimsy transport system but there’s so much going on. I sometimes envy tourists as they see a lot more events than those of us who actually live here. January is a quiet time in the freelance TV business, which is worrying for my bank account but good for seeing things. It seems to go in phases – for a few months I will see loads of bands, then stand up comedy, then theatre, then random events like book readings or comic book signings. All of these happen every single night in a quantity and quality that is unrivaled anywhere in the world except perhaps New York. My main frustrations when I lived in Hong Kong or Bangkok or Sydney, was that while these things are happening in these places they are quite rare. Or quite local. Miss them and you’re fucked.

In the last week I went to two art exhibitions. The first was Damien Hirst’s No Love Lost at the Wallace Collection. It was ok. See my review here. The second was Pop Life at Tate Modern. Which was actually pretty damn cool. The review is here. Before the end of the month, I will also be seeing an exhibition at the Royal Academy which I will also review. Every time I go and see art I always decide that I should do this sort of thing more often. I feel more cultured and usually enjoy myself. As a new added bonus I can review it in my brand new exciting Art tab.  It also reminds me why I live in London and that I am not yet tired of life.

The main problem I have, and I’m not alone in this, is that doing lots of things costs money. So I have to work. Then I miss things because of work and end up just going to the local pub. Which has Guinness and pies, so it’s not all bad but it sucks if someone I admire is doing a book reading/signing and I am on shift. Sure they will do it again but it feels a bit frustrating when I know there is an exciting city out there and I’m in a darkened room watching High School Musical 3 for the 10th time. I don’t really have much of a point to make, just that London is best enjoyed when you are rich and don’t have a job. Which means that not many people enjoy it as much as they should. Which is a shame.

So two things are happening. One is that I will be adding a donations button at the top in the off chance that a billionaire might visit the site and decide to give me a few hundred grand. So that I can enjoy London. (Lots of small donations would be fine too.) The other is that I have started an Art tab. Which you already know.

So feel free to donate! The more I get the more I can do and review. This saves you time when you are deciding on something to do or see in the capital and discover that I’ve already reviewed it and can help with your decision. This means that you can go out and do more, miss all the crap stuff and be less bored of life. Thereby maximising your ‘non-work’ time. In conclusion then: support thewordofward and your very life will be better.

Pop Life at Tate Modern

This was a great exhibition. It is essentially about artists who mixed fame and the desire for fame and money with their art. These artists sought out as much publicity as they could and said ‘Balls! I love publicity and money’ to all the purists and critics who claimed they were selling out.

Jeff Koons and his rabbit sculpture.

The first room is like a tester or a sample. It contains Jeff Koons’ sculpture of an inflatable rabbit alongside video footage of an actual colossal balloon that he put in the Macy’s thanksgiving parade in New York. There is a video showing an Andy Warhol advert for TDK tapes and there is a human sized sculpture by Takashi Murakami of a manga chick with huge norks spraying out milk.

This is all just for starters.

The next room was dark with some florescent gem paintings by Warhol. This was followed by a room full of Warhol’s celebrity portraits which he did purely for the fame, kudos, and money. He even offered discounts if the celeb in question bought two. There is a bit of multimedia action after this as we are informed that Warhol linked the whole fame and art thing, and that all the Pop Artists that followed were going along with this idea. There more ads and movies and a scene from The Love Boat where the Cunninghams from Happy Days meet Andy Warhol on the Love boat. I kid you not. Talk about fucking surreal. I came away from these rooms with an increased appreciation for what Warhol was trying to achieve. Both as a publicity seeking artist and with ‘the Factory’ where he encouraged struggling New York artists to create work under his guidance. The Warhol rooms show just how influential he really was and the rest of the exhibition reflects this.

Soon after this is a small room where an artist called Richard Prince had a photo of a naked Brooke Shields at the age of ten. It was taken down day one as people complained that it wasn’t exactly art, more of a picture of a naked girl who later got famous. I think the complainers have a point. It was unnecessary. Even though he tried to justify it by giving it the pretentious title of ‘Spiritual America’ and presumably tried to make a point about child celebrity and exploitation (I couldn’t be bothered to read it), it was clearly a case of ‘Ooooh aren’t I shocking and controversial!’ I can’t be bothered with this sort of crap. In its place is a picture of an older Brooke Shields in a bikini. Which was nice but no more art than when I had a similar poster of a chick in a bikini draped across a Ferrari on my wall when I was 14. Perhaps I missed the irony.

Next up was a room where I really started to appreciate all the effort the curators had gone to with this exhibition. The entire room was dedicated to Keith Haring and his unique art. There was 80’s Hip Hop blaring, T’shirts and other merchandise, his art all over the wall, and a fully functioning shop with accompanying bored attendant. I wish I like his art more but the way the room was done really made me appreciate what ‘feeling’ it was that Haring was trying to achieve.

Keith Haring's "Pop till you drop at the Pop Shop"

After the 80s excitement of this room we were faced with a choice. Turn right down a corridor lined with 70s porn done by some chick that was apparently famous in the adult industry in the 70s and 80s. Or go through a huge door marked ‘Over 18s only. Extremely explicit imagery.’ Quite a quandary. After walking through the door we were indeed faced with an explicit image. Imagine a woman being fucked by guy with her on top and bent forward slightly. Now imagine her buttocks pulled apart and the guys legs spread and you looking the insertion with your head about a foot away. The result is that you are limited to seeing half a penis in a vagina and a woman’s arsehole. Take a photo and blow it up to a huge size. I’m no prude but a lady’s puckered rectum a foot across is not that attractive. This was the first picture in Jeff Koon’s Made in Heaven room. Apparently he started to take photo’s of an Italian porn star called Cicciolina (whom I sadly had heard of), then photos of him having it away with her. Eventually he married her. Isn’t that romantic? Anyway, the whole room is full of pictures of him cumming on her and her ramming didlos up her orifices. In the middle is a statue of him boning her. I found the whole thing a bit pathetic to be honest. It just seemed like an exhibitionist that has found a way to make tons of cash without labeling it porn. It is the talk of the town but is curiously missing from a lot of reviews. Here’s about the only tasteful picture I feel like including:

This is art not porn apparently. How controversial!

Then back out and down the 70s porn corridor, which by this point actually seemed fairly artistic. Even though it was mostly just pictures from Razzle.

Then you enter the realm of the Brit artists who follow the whole ‘I’m a celebrity artist ethos’. Obviously the prime contenders were Damien Hirst and Tracy Emin. I find Tracey Emin annoying and not in the way she is trying so hard to be. Hirst’s stuff was ok to quite cool. The ok stuff:

Look! Twins in front of dots! Genius!

The quite cool stuff:

Damien Hirst's False Idol

I know it’s a pickled calf with gold shoes but I actually quite liked it.

The next room was by Rob Pruitt and Jack Early. There are a load of really cool Blaxploitation posters featuring people like Martin Luther King and NWA and so on. All with Jackson 5 music playing.

After that there was yet another controversial piece of art as it showed a collection of pictures of Hollywood actors in roles where they played Nazis. There were a lot of people standing around saying things like “in which film was Clint Eastwood a Nazi?” (or Harrison Ford or Richard Buton or Tom Cruise or Ralph Fiennes, etc)  The controversy was pretty dumb in my opinion as none of the films were making the Nazis out to be good guys. Maybe I missed the point. As a collage though, I thought it was pretty impressive and mildly thought provoking.

Piotr Uklandski The Nazis 1998 Courtesy of AFPGetty images

The next couple of rooms were a bit unnecessary and shite in my opinion. One was a video of an artist called Andrea Fraser having really boring sex with an anonymous art collector on a video shot in a hotel room. The other was a stuffed horse with a sign that read INRI – apparently the sign that Pontius Pilate had hanging around his neck when he was killed. Which is just pretentious arty shit. One critic described this as ‘Flogging a dead horse’ which I found mildly amusing.

Maurizio Cattelan's Untitled dead horse with a stick in it

The final room was by Takashi Murakami and was brilliant. One wall was entirely dedicated to a colossal manga chick wandering down the technology and manga heaven of Tokyo’s Akihabara district. It was entitled: Giant Magical Princess! She’s Walking Down the Streets of Akihabara! (2009). In this room you learn all about how Murakami opened the Kaikai Kiki company where he effectively did a Japanese version of Warhol’s Factory. He churned out small manga toys which could be collected with gum in Japanese shops and did photography and videos of Japanese cosplay. Kaikai Kiki did something similar to Warhol in that it took in loads of aspiring artists and under Murakami’s supervision churned out art as business. There is even a music video featuring Kirsten Dunst as a hot manga vixen walking down the streets of Akihabara (like the mural) accompanied to a revamped version of The Vapours’ “Turning Japanese”. Loud and on a huge plasma tv. I loved this room. It was a great ‘cap’ to the earlier Warhol stuff and encapsulated what the whole exhibition was about.

This was a superb exhibition and I’m really glad I went. I came away with a greater admiration for Warhol and Murakami and a lot of the artists in between. Sure there were a lot of things I didn’t like or thought that the artists were just going for shock value, but as an exhibition charting ‘Pop Life’ and the mix of consumerism and money for art, it was fascinating. There was a lot more than I have mentioned but I though some of the highs and lows would suffice. A lot of thought had been put into this and overall the experience was a highly enjoyable one. Sadly it has finished now but if it goes on tour it is well worth checking out.

Next time I’ll try and review art before the exhibition shuts. Apologies.

I saw this the other day at the Wallace Collection. Which was a bit odd as I’m sure you’ll be aware if you have ever been to the Wallace Collection. The building is a couple of hundred years old and is full of old stuff. Old paintings, statues, suits of armor, antique guns and so on. Even the couches, fittings and banisters are ancient and frequently blocked off by red velvet rope. So it was a bit odd to turn a corner and leave a room filled with 17th Dutch masterpieces and see two long rooms filled with Hirst’s ‘Blue paintings’.

These paintings were done by Hirst himself! No assistants or anything. They are actual paintings too. I’ve never rated Damien Hirst much, so I thought I’d go and see what he’s like as a solitary painter.

To be honest, they were ok. That’s all. Sorry if you were expecting more depth but there you go. The blue skull at the top of this post was one of the better paintings. There were also three others that had a ghostly figure facing a kind of translucent blue forest that I particularly liked. The rest were just alright. There were strong hints of Francis Bacon but they were nowhere near his league.

These were my favourites.

So there you go. Fairly average would be my overall review. Some good bits but overall I left fairly underwhelmed. It was free and in a cool building I’d never visited before, so it was worth it.

This exhibition has finished now but the Wallace Collection is a brilliant place. I’d highly recommend it. There will be two big rooms with different stuff in it now as well.

Join my cult!

I feel like I may have sold out. To whom? I don’t know. Where? To twitter. Why? I thought if people followed me on twitter I might get more people looking at this site. What have I sold exactly? Not sure. My resistance to pointless fads would have been an initial answer except it has now been going for a few years and seems to keep growing. I can’t even claim that I have lost any credibility or individuality or any other “ity” as people I really like and respect number among some of the more famous twitterers. Plus I’m barely credible at the best of times.

Just thought I’d mention it. I’m seeing it as an experiment that will benefit other web writers. Millions may flock here and I can spend more time selling advertising space and reading and not work so bloody much. If it doesn’t make any difference I’ll stop.

The thing is, I don’t really know what to write on it. Here is my own domain – literally, in the respect that I bought the domain name. Here I can write what I damn well please and review things I think are good and rant about things that are bad. Do people do that on Twitter? I have no idea. This will be an ongoing experiment and I will keep you updated with the results. I don’t really know how anyone will even find me on the Twitter site but I already have a follower. I feel like a level 1 Messiah. I need more followers so I can level up to low-level deity.

I decided to learn from a twitter legend so I started following Stephen Fry. He is one of the top twitterers after all. It just felt a bit odd to type in someone’s name and click follow and then get updates as they drink tea and watch darts. Apparently Obama twitters although I suspect someone else writes it and you won’t get anything good like: “Met Gordon Brown again today. He’s a bit of a twat.” Or: “Found George W’s coke stash. Game on!”

It reminds me of when I joined facebook. It was great to get in touch but now I hardly ever look at it. Except that people keep sending me messages there as opposed to my gmail.

I did read that twitter has been hacked a few times. Once was by a group called the Iranian Cyber Army. Which sounds pretty ominous. Here was what the front page of the site looked like for a while.

Twitter hacked!

This seems pretty scary. If anyone hacked my site I’d be screwed.

On a side note, my hotmail has been hacked. I don’t know what to do about it. Except complain here. I hate hackers, they never do anything cool. If I ever meet a hacker that just trashes people’s sites, or a spammer I will punch them severely. Teach them some consequences. Real world action!

Or if they are bigger than me, maybe I’ll just say bad things about them on twitter.

Every review and pre-release bit of advertising for this film promised a spectacle. Avatar did not disappoint. Especially in 3d.

First, the story:

Jake Sully is a marine in a wheelchair. His brother is killed and Jake gets the chance to take his place in a program where his brain can control an avatar. The film begins with his arrival at the unbelievably lush green and generally wonderful-looking planet Pandora and he is shown how to control the avatar. He obviously enjoys being an avatar as he can run around and do athletic stuff. Eventually he infiltrates the local population who are called the Na’vi. They are tall, blue, hard to kill and strangely attractive.

As he bonds with the Na’vi in his avatar body, he is also learning about a plot by the evil humans when he wakes up to his human existence. The majority of the humans are evil scumbags – half are working for the greedy ‘Company’, who want to exploit all the natural resources, and the other half are violent gung-ho kill-em-all booyah marine types with sensible haircuts and mega-cool weapons.

How could he not like this lady?

Eventually Jake falls in love with Neytiri, a native lass.  Who can blame him? She stunning and limber and wears practically nothing. He also realises that all the humans – bar Sigourney  Weaver, a couple of scientists, and a feisty hot pilot (Michelle Rodriguez) – are so awful they are almost stereotypes. He sides with the Na’vi and there is a brilliant war.

I didn’t really need to tell you the plot as you can probably work out everything that is going to happen from the trailer.

Most critics have loved this film for its sheer spectacle and wow-factor. They are correct. They have also occasionally criticized it for having a weak plot. I think people are missing the point here. The film is amazing to look at, has no boring bits, and a story and characters that I liked enough for me not to feel it detracted from the film in any way. I found myself empathizing with the Na’vi and hating the humans. Especially at certain destructive parts. I got involved with the people and the story.

Evil warlike humans. With cool stuff.

I think critics and certain insecure cinema snobs should realise that people go to see certain films for different reasons. If you want to taut gripping plot that twists and turns – see a thriller. If you want heart-wrenching drama, watch a harrowing film about the holocaust or a chick-flick where someone dies really slowly for half of the movie. If you want shallow meaningless action with no story and crap characters – Michael Bay will sort you out. If you want action that is well directed, has good likeable characters, flawless sequences and moments that remind you why you like the cinema – then James Cameron is the man. (and Peter Jackson.)

The world of Pandora is staggeringly beautiful and believable. The 3d technology invented for this film really adds to that. The kit that the humans use is huge and impressive. The creatures that the Na’vi ride around on are similarly awe inspiring. The battles are incredible.

I like all sorts of films. Even romantic comedies. To put this film in a category is fairly easy. It is one of those films that made me happy to be in a cinema. You are drawn into a world and see a spectacle that you haven’t seen before. When the 3d kicks in and the film begins I felt like I had done on very few occasions – the original Star Wars (when I was about 6), Aliens, the Matrix, and Lord of the Rings are a few. Watch the trailer, see if you like it, and expect more of that.

In summary – I fucking loved it and haven’t seen anything like it in years. If you have any imagination or sense of wonder you will probably like it too. If not, stick to your soaps and celebrity mags.