Paul Weller, Katie Mitchell and Cy Twombly
This week Paul Weller performs live in the studio while Mark Kermode finds himself away from the familiar territory of film and music, talking about theatre and painting. What do you think of Mark's discussion with Andrew Graham-Dixon? Do you find Cy Twombly's work interesting? Is Katie Mitchell doing things that you go to see in the theatre (or will do when Waves goes on tour)? Let us know. You can enjoy some of my amateur photographs of Paul Weller's sound check on our Flickr group.
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I ended up shouting at the TV last night, which is rare. Not because of Mr. Kermode, I agreed with his views on Cy Twombly's 'work', but felt that Mark needs to be more convinced of his own views as he seemed to be unsure that he was correct in thinking the 'scribbles' to be a load of utter cobblers - which they clearly are.
I am a fan of the culture show, but I go a delicate shade of mental when I see complete balderdash paraded as 'art'. The ONLY thing which supports the idea that Cy Twombly's 'work' is 'art' is that he actually bothered to waste his time making it in the first place.
What a joke.
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Cy Twombly retrospective at the Tate item on this weeks programme:
To whom it concerns,
After viewing last night's Culture Show I was so disturbed by your piece on the Cy Twombly I re-viewed the piece on iPlayer in an attempt to understand what positive educational or even entertainment value such a treatment had hoped to achieve. In the end I could see no value or positive aims to your piece what so ever.
In fact the piece would have backed up the most ignorant and ill-informed views of contemporary art in general and of Cy Twombly’s works in particular. I would like to know, as a licence fee payer, what logic led the producers of this item to deem it a good idea to firstly; ask a very fine broadcaster and art critic Andrew Graham-Dixon (and one would have thought a trusted member of our presenting team) to spend his valuable time addressing the most mundane and ignorant views of contemporary art and of Twombly’s work when there were so many ideas and aspects of the exhibition that Graham-Dixon would have loved to communicate and I would have dearly loved to have seen. Secondly I would like to know why we had to hear these ignorant views expounded by one of your own presenters Mark Kermode in an act I can only describe as TV BSE, were your own programme contributors feed on the remains of other Culture Show contributors? Kermode’s contribution as the ‘everyman’ was ridiculous and leant no credibility to his own position as a cultural commentator and film critic. Graham-Dixon earning his crust pushed on but to know avail as Kermode could not really express a logically or reasonable opinion on why he hated or liked any particular work.
The pain of the Gallery tour was further compounded by the Culture Show’s ‘Top Gear’ style return to the studio format where Lauren Laverne turned to the audience like a primary school teacher to get a quick show of hands on “Who thinks Twombly is a genius” and who thinks he’s rubbish, well after the general sneering and poo-poo’ing by Mr Mark “I hate Jazz” Kermode it was no surprise to see the ‘Twombly is rubbish’ vote won out.
That the BBC seems to think that this is a valuable contribution to the public appreciation of visual art in the UK is beyond comprehension. That Britain and London in particular is perhaps the pre-eminent world city for contemporary visual art with world renowned institutions like Tate Modern doing brilliant work in hosting retrospectives by contemporary masters such as Cy Twombly seems to be a reality that the producers of this item feel free to ignore. How this reflects on your editorial judgements and understanding of the culture you profess in the title of your show to reflect is of incompetence and a belief that every viewer would join in the joke of the Graham-Dixon v’s Kermode face off.
If the piece was intended to reach the likes of DimensionRaider, those who like their art to resemble things, it failed on that score too.
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I think the guy above me has been on the flavoursome falling down juice; although he has a point about the scribble dude - that stuff is just silly. I had to turn off before Paul Weller finished murdering that Bob Dylan song. It was an act of barbarity.
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How very interesting that my idea of art is already pigeon holed by someone I've never met due to one paragraph.
"The likes of me", where I've clearly been set apart from Peanuts at some level because I have my own views on things, thinks Mark Kermode did a wonderful job at saying it how it is.
I agreed with his definition of what deserves respect, and have no time for this nonsense where total rubbish is heralded as genius and sold for absurd amounts of money. Honestly, the artists must be going to be giggling every night.
If the modern art world wants to get more respect, we need more things along the lines of 'ecce homo', and far less in the way of rubbish proclaimed as genius. It may have fooled a few people, but ultimately 'the everyman' doesn't go in for pretentious nonsense, because he respects higher forms of art, like a well designed sports car, a well engineered gadget, a decent computer game, or quality music. They are all far better examples of 'modern art' - the only difference is that if you build a building, call it an 'art gallery' and then put stuff in it, some people seem to obsess only with the far less impressive examples of 'art' contained within from some kind of faux elitist perspective.
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I share DimensionRaider's annoyance at the way Mark Kermode was being made to feel ignorant for his opinions, which after all, are the views held by the majority towards this kind of 'art'. Peanuts' disparaging remark about 'those who like their art to resemble things' displays the typical condescending, elitist view that unfortunately still infests the art world after so long. The idea that representational painting is somehow redundant or irrelevant in the modern age is ridiculous and narrow-minded, particularly as abstraction has hardly been 'avant-garde' for the last half a century. I remember my own years at art college, my tutors disregarding my work because I was 'painting things that looked like things', i.e. making an effort to develop my skills and techniques to create the kind of representational paintings I like, rather than taking the easy route and dripping some paint down the canvas in no time and spending a lot more time concocting some supplementary explanation of its meaning. That's the problem I have with a lot of 'contempory' art; without prior investigation into its meaning, the work itself often leaves people cold. Painting should be a means of communication in itself, it shouldn't require some additional verbal or textual communication for the public to connect with it. Skillful abstract painters can achieve this as well as representational painters. When I see works by Pollock or Kandinsky, I see visual music, well considered compositions of colour, form and line that create an aesthetically pleasing whole. When I see Twombly's work, I do not see any such skill, but that's not out of ignorance, rather (like Kermode) out of personal taste. I hardly think Kermode's credibility as a cultural commentator or film critic is undermined by his disliking of Twombly's 'paintings'. Film is a medium (when used by real directors and not pretentious Turner Prize bothering wannabes) that requires effort, technical knowledge and consideration of many different factors, e.g. lighting, colour, composition, incidental details etc. (much like traditional representational painting). It's understandable that someone used to critiquing an artform that requires such skill and effort is suspicious of any work which one is told to appreciate although it is clearly devoid of any skill or effort.
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Skillisme:
I entirely agree with you that personal taste is a valid reason for disliking Twombly and your reasons and arguments for representational art and the traditional skills of fine art are well and good, I spent several years in art school struggling with the same noble tasks. My reference to people who prefer their art to look like things was meant as exactly that, people who can not see the value in non-representational or abstract art. But for many other people no matter on what level you appreciate a work of art, it's really important to give someone like Graham-Dixon ample time and space to explain why (as an expert) he feels this Twombly to be a great work, this Twombly to be poor. My gripe was that this time was squandered on some kind of attempt to convert Mr Kermode. I have no problem if Mark hates Cy Twombly, I just think a writer and critic of his note needs to explain why he hates a particular work. Also Twombly's work is wonderfully skilled, it is a precarious balancing act to make such large paintings as many are and with a seemingly simple array of marks establish such a range of codes, emotions and possible meanings, I could go on....
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I like Cy Twombly. Not exactly for his art as an aestheitcal piece of beauty but for this reason - debate. Modern art causes controversy and engages people to have a debate, to talk about what art is, what we think of as 'worthwhile', 'valuable' or even 'childish' as Andrew rightly pointed out.
We may not agree with the views represented but surely the very fact that they were expressed and here we are, expressing our views shows that they were engaging enough and stuck around our minds enough to provide the catalyst towards this online discussion. Surely we should salute that. The BBC may not be covering exactly what we wanted but surely that's what makes it so good. It, and its flagship show The Culture Show expose us to things we may have habitually avoided and forced us to see them through someone else's eyes and hear it expressed in a clear and engaging way.
In the end, to be intelligent, educated people we have to expose ourselves to the views of others, even if we do not agree with them, and I say thank-you to the BBC for bringing yet another intelligent debate into the living-rooms of countless people up and down the land of 'Is Cy Twombly great?'
Perhaps he is, perhaps he isn't, I like Andrew am undecided, some of his works I'd like to steal, others I'd like to burn. But all are relevant to the art world and commentary as it is today.
On a flippant note, does anyone know who sings the eponymous song about Cy himself? Thanks.
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