barkingstars

Exhibitions

Sienna 1300-1350, National Gallery

This is an exhibition covering five painters from the Sienna region of Italy, from 1300 to 1350. Now, honestly, I am not much into religious art as a rule. I find most of it mannered and repetitive. I guess those church sponsors were pretty conservative and knew what they wanted. This exhibition is mostly religious icons and sculptures. Not really my thing, but for those who love this stuff then this is a rare opportunity to see the best work of its kind, some of which hasn’t been presented together for centuries.

Grayson Perry: Delusions of Grandeur, Wallace Collection

Perry has created a large range of new artworks inspired by the Wallace Collection. Clearly he has some ambivalence about the Collection which he occasionally expresses in the work. To create a path through this work he appears to have created a character who has a history within the building. Why do I say ‘appears’?

Now, I do not like audio tours. I see people walking around with them, oblivious to all around them, in a trance. All the time you can hear psspsspsspsspss emanating from their heads like someone summoning a cat. Yes, I know they are useful for many people, and essential for some with disabilities. I’m not calling for a ban, I just don’t like them. However in this exhibition I assume that understanding Perry’s central conceits would have been far easier if I had accepted one of the free audio guides. So if my understanding of the central conceits of this exhibition seem a bit woolly, this is why. Anyway, where was I?

Perry has created a fictional artist who is also a cross dresser and he has presented art that is purported to be theirs. As you’d expect, there is a mix of media including plates, pots, tapestries, fabrics, dresses, wallpaper, paintings and prints.

Perry is playful and he has a lot of fun with this collection. I particularly enjoyed the dress made from Perry’s specially designed fabrics. Highly recommended!

Rampant consumerism

I bought a Rubick’s cube (or rather, a cheap but rather nice knock-off). Like every Gen Xer I had a Rubik’s cube as a kid. I didn’t have the patience for it and could only solve a couple of sides. Very frustrating. I thought it would be fun to get one now and learn how to solve it. There are algorithms you can learn that can consistently get you to the solution.

I’ve been watching this video a lot, but for the final stage where you reorient the corners on the yellow side I needed to use this page.

I see why I struggled as a kid. There’s no way I would have worked this out on my own!

Anyway, I’ve been making good progress and have been able to solve the cube a few times. You might think that having the solution right in front of you means it is very easy. I can tell you that following these solutions is often a bit of a mind melter. It’s more like learning to play an instrument than solve a puzzle. I spent a lot of time trying to work out how to replay the moves in the right order and trying to get my reluctant hands to do the right thing. And of course if you get the moves wrong you mess up the whole cube and have to start all over again. Despite that I am really enjoying the challenge and it’s forcing my brain to do things it’s not really used to.

Books

I finished The Kremlin Letter by Noel Bohr. My review is here.

I was also inspired by recent interest to read Cubed: The Puzzle of Us All by Erno Rubrik, the inventor of the Rubik’s Cube. My review is here

I enjoyed this quote, where Rubik explains his feelings the first time he mixed up the cube shortly after building it:

And so it was with that first scrambled Cube: I found myself in a totally unfamiliar landscape. I had to solve all the problems that would never have existed if I hadn’t created the Cube. Or created the possibility for them to demonstrate themselves. The colors were now so confused that whatever thrill of accomplishment I may have had in assembling it in the first place became utter discouragement. It was as if I were staring blankly at a secret code, which I myself had created but could not penetrate.

Films

I finally saw Kneecap, the supposed true story of Belfast’s finest hip-hop act. My review is here.

TV

Poker Face continues to be a lot of fun, this time with Giancarlo Esposito running a funeral home.

The third episode of this season of Taskmaster was very funny but I won’t spoil it. This group of contestants are proving to be very chaotic which is a joy to watch.