I, Daniel Blake won the Palme d'Or last weekend at the Cannes Film Festival. It will be distributed in the US by Sundance Selects.
Der Pflaumenbaum
Im Hofe steht ein Pflaumenbaum, Der ist so klein, man glaubt es kaum. Er hat ein Gitter drum, So tritt ihn keiner um. Der Kleine kann nicht größer wer'n, Ja - größer wer'n, das möcht' er gern! 's ist keine Red davon: Er hat zu wenig Sonn'. Dem Pflaumenbaum, man glaubt ihm kaum, Weil er nie eine Pflaume hat. Doch er ist ein Pflaumenbaum: Man kennt es an dem Blatt. The Plum Tree
A plum tree in the courtyard stands/so small no one believes it can. /There is a fence surrounds/so no one stomps it down. /The little tree can't grow /although it wants to so! /There is no talk thereon .../and much too little sun./No one believes in the tree/because no plums do they see./But it's a plum tree;/you can tell by its leaf.
Where? Where are the names of all those humans who throughout the centuries stoked the coal, baked the bread, ground the knives, delivered the babies, built the pyramids, the dams, the airliners. Spacecraft? Where? There but often unsung. Such an almost boringly obvious observation. Yet in a present world where everyone now seems to believe that being ‘it’ amounts to social media hits et al et al? Nothing against the revolutionary tools of social media but…
To my shame, I finally got to the new Whitney Museum. With that statement I am instantly branded ‘loser’ by some many. Couldn’t you have even ‘freeloaded’ the opening like everyone else? Well: yes I could have but other plans are often better other plans. No disrespect to the Whitney that it took me almost a year to get to them. But: like they need my help!
As a first meeting, I’d never been met with so many smiles and welcomes. Even the press conference for their new ‘8th Floor’ artists was a low-key ‘board room’ event without table and with its spectacular views across the Hudson. Needless to say the building is itself a bit of a wow! I happened upon loads of educational 7-12 year old groups that morning. Their boundless curiosity and enthusiasm was no less than that I remember from the National Gallery in London. What the later years are like here?…another story.
‘Wow’ is not the noun to describe ……..And yet THAT is not the point. The Whitney freely acknowledges the risk it takes in promoting any untrodden ground. Let’s face it: most American cultural institutions cover ‘arse’ to some extent by not ever really being that ground-breaking (apologies to those who don’t fit the bill I’ve singles out). Totally understandable though given that there is almost NO state funding in America (unlike their European counter-parts, who may with good cause grumble but are still so so lucky).
The ‘4th floor open plan’ Steve McQueen, the final artist, was be-little frightening. That enormous space with simply few central seating, screens either end projected with the U.S. government surveillance records of/on Paul Robeson. The one hand: it seemed such wasted ‘artistic’ space. And yet: the other, for anyone who had entered those colossal rooms particularly of post-WW2 East-Communist thought, it was somewhat a terrifying irony. Paul Robeson sought a freedom. The former were desperate for control. It did and still does beg a very serious question? Are we any safer or freer nowadays thanks to our minders?
As for Mirror Cells- the very new artists on 8th floor? I thought a lot. Perhaps an idea greater than the sum of its parts. Though one could umm…ahh, criticize, procrastinate. Is any of ‘that’ really/ever the point? The point was and is that the Whitney sought very un-sung emerging artists and the Whitney were brave enough to have the courage of their convictions. (OK- not avoiding the obvious: Liz Craft’s ‘spider-women’ were fun and temporaneously eerie. So too Will McCarthy’s almost anti-Joseph Cornell ‘f u’ ‘naïve’ assemblages of NY with ‘bits’ and snapshots.
It would be a refreshing change to the SVA student whose graduation presentation on Hudson Yards displayed all the ‘glories’ of CAD and the total lack of any ab-normal computer generated denizens: other than ie those without designer suits/summer wear/ Prada heels or flats or indeed any skin color other than blanche. Another student disappointed to the normal when he succumbed to a selfie- same day he delivered a fascinating presentation on photographing the demographics of Laundromats and dry-cleaners in upper Lennox Hill subway NY. I don’t think even any of the centuries great photographers have gone to THAT extent. Upshot: 1 Laundromat in posh-Upper East to ge-many dry-cleaners, ge-dozens in obverse in Mott Haven. Where?
Apropos all THAT: there was a rather rare screening of Straub/Huillet's Class Relations (MoMA)- a very accurate screen jousance of Kafka's Amerika- the author's incomplete first novel.
A mention of a gallery (great space) on the easy to get to East Broadway subway: Sargent’s Daughters. Inside Out, Home and Place is by 60s/70s (hello he still alive and werking) artist Anton van Dalen. Who knew white pigeons loved Mozart;) ! (I don’t think they even dare to shit let alone coo when Wolfgang is abound). Check it out! Great early drawings reminding one of Ionel Talpazan at the Outsider 2016 Art Fair……my video…..
Oscar Wilde: Nothing is so dangerous as being too modern. One is apt to grow old-fashioned quite suddenly.
David Hare's play The Judas Kiss continues at BAM until June 12 directed by Australian Neil Armfield. What Mr. Armfield doesn't know about actors and the theater is probably not that worth knowing;) He's been at it since the dawn of our time....
Louis Theroux - Drinking to Oblivion (BBC 2016)
