FEATURE: Dennis Sever's House

Published: LONDON CONFIDENTIAL, 2nd November 2011

"The Haunted: Dennis Severs' House. Thalia Allington-Wood discovers a gem in east London."

Standing in dark, shadowed, shuttered room of the seventeenth century, my companion and I are awe struck. We have been whirled into another time and my Converse trainers feel glaringly out of place.

The air is thick with the smell of tobacco and the burning of tallow candles. Two dead pheasants hang against a dark paneled wall and the embers of a fire glow orange in an iron hearth. The room we are in is in disarray. A chair is upturned, a glass of pungent port spilt, seeping a dark bloodstain on a white tablecloth covered in crumbs.

We are in Dennis Severs' House, nestled down a narrow street in East London. Painstakingly recreated to its original state and resurrected for the public every Sunday afternoon and Monday evening. Food of the period is cooked and left steaming, footsteps patter from hidden speakers, clay pipes are lit and left to issue smoke as you wander across 100 years in eerie silence.

The people who keep Dennis Severs' House running don’t wish it to be called a museum. None of the dry explanatory notices or neutralizing effects of modern exhibition displays are found here. This is a place where, rather, the past comes alive to startling and evocative effect.

A ticket (which must be booked in advance) will let you slip from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century, between domestic privilege on the main floors and poverty in the attic.

Wandering the house on a blustery grey Monday evening, one can’t help but feel like an intruder. Wooden floorboards creak as you peer among belongings; bottles of liqueur line a table; wax sealed letters rest on a mantel piece. Alarmingly, we find the symbol of the Freemasons scratched frantically into a wall (Sherlock Holmes would have been proud).

Upstairs, we enter a ladies bedroom, where the scent of oranges stuffed with cloves and coffee that sits slowly bubbling below a candle on a small wooden table fills our nostrils. On the bed, the indent of last night’s slumber remains on the pillow, the covers are thrown back. A black cat eyes us suspiciously, flicking its tail.

Continuing our adventure, we push back laundry that hangs to dry in the rafters, reaching the top of the house. Cobwebs hang thick on a threadbare poster bed, a pan of fresh piss at its foot. An ink-splattered desk sits in the corner: old volumes teeter upon it in a pile.

Many museums could learn a thing or two from what this magical place is doing. Entering this house is like stepping through Alice’s looking glass into another world, or driving head first into the pages of Charles Dickens. These rooms belong to the London of Little Dorrit, Bleak House and Oliver Twist: melancholy streets, dingy and grime filled, as Church bells chime ominously. This, surely, is how to capture the imagination of school children (and adults) to the wonder history has to offer: to make the past tangible and real.

It is incredible. I could spend hours and hours here.

Unfortunately, however, our time is up. The front door swings wide and we are thrust back into modern London. A black cab rolls past, as our ears retune to the grumble of traffic and the jaunt of Brick lane.

Yet, walking along the cobbles of Folgate Street, the clatter of horse hooves and the rattle of iron wheels from Dickensian history continue to echo in my ears. Dennis Sever’s House is a place you will find hard to forget.

LINK:  http://www.londonconfidential.co.uk/Arts-and-Entertainment/The-Haunted-Dennis-Severs-House

REVIEW: Phyllida Barlow

Published: LONDON FESTIVAL FRINGE, 20th October 2011

Phyllida Barlow’s exhibition at Houser and Wirth in Piccadilly closes this Saturday. So make haste – flag that cab or top up that oyster card – it’s blooming brilliant.

Huge, striking sculptures fill the gallery’s many spaces, demanding interaction and attention.

In the main room, an abstract sculptural forest reaches up into the ceiling. Large blocks with the appearance of concrete stand upon thin poles: craning your neck at these vertiginous objects feels intimidating and precarious.

Yet these seemingly heavy, dangerous blocks are in fact polystyrene. Like tricks in a joke shop: rubber plastic piles of vomit bought to horrify flat mates, Barlow’s work plays and deceives.

Materials are rough and ready. Smeared paint and slapped on concrete proliferate in the work on show. You can feel the process of making ooze from each artwork.

Many of the pieces feel as if landed from outer space.

In an upstairs room ominous and large painted plywood objects clutter the space, toppling and tumbling across the floor. In the attic, giant “pompoms”, as Barlow calls them, populate: bursts of garish multicolor in an otherwise shadowed hollow. Playful yet some how poignant. There is a sense of loss and neglect in their random placement.

Without subject or narrative, Barlow’s sculptures are visceral entities to experience of your own accord. What ever that accord may be, the art in this exhibition cannot help but arrest.

Highly recommended.

Until 22 October 2011, Hauser & Wirth London, Piccadilly

Link: http://londonfestivalfringe.com/general/post/?p=13097

TRAVEL: Scandinavian Islands

Published: PLANET CONFIDENTIAL, 4th August 2011

"Aland is tranquility defined: Thalia Allington-Wood gets giddy over swimming with salmon"

In 1854, Robert Edgar Hughes, English eccentric and man of the cloth, decided on a holiday to Aland, the main island of the archipelago between Sweden and Finland, and the central destination of my trip.

It was an odd choice. In choosing Aland in the year of 1854, Hughes had chosen the scene of a war. For in 1854, the Battle of Bomarsund, part of the action in the far-off Crimean War, shook the woods of this small outcrop of land.

Standing with the red Notvik tower and its remaining canons to my left, where shells were fired and rifles shot between the French, British and Russian, it is difficult to imagine the smoke and shouts, the billowing fire and the ‘hurly burly of shells passing’, which Hughes’ diaries describe.

Instead, the sky is clear and quiet the sun shines brightly, flowers are in bloom, a cool breeze blows from the sea, its water glistening and calm.

Hughes would have been disappointed. I, however, am in raptures. Aland is beautiful. Breathtaking even.

Despite his barmy pastime of packing a knapsack ‘freighted with wine, biscuits and condiments’ and heading in search a ‘splendid scene of havoc’, Hughes got one thing right at least. Aland, lush and wild, is the perfect location for a break filled with picnics.

I’m going to confess straight away: I fell in love with the place.

From Stockholm we took the over-night ferry: a giant boat that consumed 30 tons of fuel on an average journey and was capable of 32,000 horse power, yet was controlled by the smallest joy stick known to man. While a pleasant mode of travel, with sunset views over the archipelago, for those of you who would rather avoid an evening of mirror ball bedazzled dancing to cruise ship crooners, the two-hour ferry is a good alternative.

Stepping from the deck on to Aland soil is like shedding weights off your shoulders. Think of all you associate with the word metropolis: traffic, crowds, concrete, rush hour. Aland and the surrounding islands are the antithesis of all these.

Rush hour here consists of seeing another car on the road. In Mariehamn, Aland’s only town, and home to 11,000 of the total 28,000 inhabitants who live across all the islands, rush hour maybe consists of ten fellow road users. Local buses and ferries from island to island are frequent and free. Time passes at what ever pace you wish. Stress is a concept one can’t imagine existing.

While Mariehamn is quaint, with a museum and art gallery to keep one entertained, the real joy of being here is the outdoors: be it on land or water.

As such, for the first two nights, we staying in a small cottage set into a wood of evergreens. The setup was functional and nothing luxurious. But waking up, wooden rafters above your head, to a stroll through the trees, pines crunching beneath your toes as the high morning sun casts long shadows, down to a deserted cove for a swim, just you and the salmon, is an altogether different kind of luxury and one my city worn self soaked up like ambrosia.

The real way to explore land has to be by bicycle, easily rentable for around 10 Euros a day. This is place perfect for leisurely peddling. Winding paths, with only minor hills to climb, take you past forests, meadows filled with long grass, red wooden windmills, and glistening waters frequented by swans. Elk and deer roam. Each day we saw proud antlers raise their heads from the fields and bound through the grass. Poets beware. You will find it difficult not become instantly whimsical after a few hours exploring.

For water expeditions, my favorite boat trip had to be out to Kobba Klintar, a pilot station for guiding in coming boats through the rock filled water, now out of use. It is accessible either by private boat taxi for about 20 Euros return or on a kayak excursion. From the red rocks of this jut of land, covered in yellow and blue lichen, boats enter the horizon. First merely a hazy spot before their masts loom into view and protrude against the blue skyline. There is a museum, a small café, and the water is clear, practically saltless, and wonderful for a swim.

There is much more I could wax lyrical about: Kastelholm Castle, the beautiful saffron infused Aland pancakes to be eaten at Pettas bakery, saunas and ice cold sea dips before delicious dinners at Havsvidden (the place to stay if you’re looking for top end, jaw dropping accommodation), and, of course, I can’t forget to mention the beer. Stallhagen, Aland’s very own, with 13 different products ranging from Hunungsol, a delicious honey beer to Dunkles, a drink that gives Guinness a run for its money. The brewery offers tours and tastings in, again, beautiful surroundings.

My last morning came round all too quickly, spent at the wonderful Hotel Nestor (highly recommended) on the island of Korppoo. I dragged out my final morning swim for as long as I possibly could, the water gleaming, a white rowing boat gently rocking from the small wooden jetty, the birds singing…

People here look ten years younger than they are for a reason. These Scandinavian islands are food for the soul and I, for one, advise any to put them on their summer menu.

LINK: http://www.manchesterconfidential.co.uk/Travel/Aland-is-tranquility-defined

REVIEW: Takashi Murakami at Gagosian Gallery

Published: LONDON CONFIDENTIAL, 2nd August 2011

 "Takashi Murakami Review: Thalia Allington-Wood visits the Gagosian Gallery… it speaks for itself"

STANDING in the anesthetically pristine space of Gagosian’s Britannia Street gallery, two achingly large breasts bulge and loom above my head.

Nipples covered in smooth white material, both fleshy sandbags strapped together with a garishly purple belt. So voluminous are they, the lithe body supporting them threatens to topple dangerously under their weight.

At five foot ten, I have to admit, looking at such objects from below is a novel experience. Rarely do I feel dwarfed by a pair of female mammary glands. I certainly have never felt Lilliputian by a pair resembling computer animation come to life. Large enough they could flatten me into a pancake.

But this is the artwork of Takashi Murakami, popular Japanese artist extraordinaire. Whose smiling flowers adorn limited edition handbags; who covered a condom packet in precious stones in collaboration with Pharrell Williams in 2009; who placed an anime style sculpture of a squat naked king in the coronation room at Versailles. An act that, of course, met with French public outcry, but was somewhat genius in my opinion. A larger culture clash would be difficult to find.

I don’t know why I expected anything less.

‘3m Girl’ (2011), made from fiberglass reinforced plastic and steel, is the artwork in question. A towering, hideous display of cartoon fetishism: red high heels, stockings, tightened straps, dog collar, pointed gem riddled nails. All are present; as large spangled eyes and a miniature nose bend down to greet you.

No one has ever accused Murakami of being subtle. This is a work, like all the others in the room, which shouts its subject matter loud and clear.

Sex and fantasy anyone?  We’ve got it in spades.

In the past I’ve always found Murakami’s work incredibly entertaining. He has a sense of humour, without doubt. Anyone who titles a seriously polished and incredibly large sculpture of a gold penis, ‘Mr. Big Mushroom’, and a matching gargantuan silver vagina, ‘Mrs. Clam’ (both 2011). Each of their fronts are adorned with smiling faces resembling Pac-Man, which are guaranteed to bring on a smile.

But beyond this light entertainment, (the laughs are often easy ones), his work seems somewhat hollow. It’s the same feeling with the work of artist Jeff Koons, to which Murakami is constantly compared. Reproducing everyday objects on a grand scale or many times over is all very well. My magpie instinct can happily find enjoyment in Koon’s giant metallic balloons for a time. But then what? Usually one walks away profoundly unaffected.

Takashi Murakami’s work at the Gagosian show failed to alter my opinion. As spectator I felt respect, occasional delight, but also dissatisfaction.

Respect because with Murakami’s work comes technical brilliance. Standing in front of ‘Nurse Ko2’ (2011), a life-size three-dimensional sculpture of a scantily clad nurse, cross-shaped, blood-filled syringe in hand, is to experience the uncanny valley in reverse. So much like a computer animation does she appear, your eyes can trick you into momentarily believing that she is in fact two-dimensional: a visual slippage both unnerving and impressive.

Delight in ridiculous moments: staring up a giant matron’s frilly skirt, her knickers wedged between two stupidly spherical buttocks, for example, while in the serious environment of a contemporary gallery. Murakami’s work is a colourful, fiberglass assault on the eyes: garish, playful, frequently bordering on ludicrous.

Disappointment due to lack of profundity: these renditions of cartoon sexual fantasies, with tiny, slender proportions and large, violet-coloured, doe eyes, titillate, but to little effect and say little in return. If the show makes any comment at all, it is on societies long held desire for unrealistic, pornographic imagery.

By adopting, in two paintings entitled ‘Shunga: Gibbons’ and ‘Shunga: Bow Wow’ (both 2010), the erupting, vein bursting, members found in Shunga, a style of Japanese erotic art that reached its peak of popularity in the Edo period (commonly dated between 1603 and 1868), Murakami reminds that sexual art of the past has flung the stone as far from reality as the similarly phantasmal and illusory images of the contemporary Japanese graphics his work most frequently employs.

But this is hardly a groundbreaking exposition on sexual desires or the sex industry.

In moments of cynicism, especially remembering that Gagosian is a power force of a commercial gallery, this show can seem to merely audaciously play into the hands of Murakami’s large army of collectors. Murakami’s work sells extremely well; his supposedly erotic work, even better. ‘My Lonesome Cowboy’, for example, sold at auction in 2008 for a whopping fifteen million.

Works that prompt deep contemplation you will not find at Gagosian; a laugh you may. If Murakami wishes to provoke, he fails to do so. The pornographic nature of the work is never shocking. His work is art of ambivalence.

Takashi Murakami
June 27th – August 5th, 2011

Gagosian Gallery
6 – 24 Britannia Street
 WC1X 9JD
 02078419960
 Tues – Sat: 10am – 6pm

Link: http://www.londonconfidential.co.uk/Arts-and-Entertainment/Art/Takashi-Murakami-Review

TRAVEL: Egypt's Red Sea Coast

Published: PLANET CONFIDENTIAL,  22nd May 2011

"Red Sea R&R: Thalia Allington-Wood swims, relaxes, drinks, relaxes...er...relaxes then relaxes"

Say the words Egypt and holiday in the same sentence and you’re likely to be met with a raised eyebrow. Yet the placards and rallying cries that surge Cairo’s streets and our news pages are a far cry from Egypt’s Red Sea coast.

So much so, in fact, the reporter in me was a little disappointed: bar a few stickers exclaiming ‘We Love Egypt: 25th January’ on local taxis, signs of revolution were non-existent. I did, once, get to pass a military post: a military post, that is, where soldiers and locals were enjoying a good game of cards and a smoke.

I had no choice it seemed, when touching down in Sharm El Sheikh, but to put on a sunhat, slap on the sun cream and truly have a holiday.

“Weather as you would expect, clear skies with a ground temperature of 35 degrees”.

This isn’t very unsual. It has rained once for the past two years in Sinai, meaning tooth, named for the fang like shape of this Egyptian peninsular. Prior to that, our guide informed, the soil last quenched its thirst in 1999: welcome, dear readers, to a land of eternal summer.

This continual scorching is reflected geographically: harsh, arid, and, of course, red, earth stretches as far as the eye can see. As the girl to my right exclaimed, leaning her heavily perfumed self over my lap to look through the window: “It’s like landing on Mars”.

Yet it is not just for the florid, rusty landscape that I quote my fellow passenger. For the resorts of Sharm El Sheik and Hurghada, (my second destination), are slightly like being on another planet, a very new planet. Thirty years ago nothing was here. These hotels have practically been airlifted in, if not from outer space, then certainly a planet of luxury holiday production lines.

This is not a criticism. If you’re looking for Egyptian culture, then the Red Sea is not the place for you. That the resort’s corner shop has an Aldi sign hanging above its door says it all. Yet culture is not the aim of being here. What is, as I quickly learnt, is relaxation, with a large and capital R: to wash away worries in crystal waters and bake away cares.

Off growling roads, lined with pyramid casinos and the obligatory Starbucks and MacDonald’s, both Ghazala Garden Hotel in Sharm el Sheikh and the five-star Makadi Palace in Hurghada, certainly know how to help you succeed in this task.

Porters swoop, doors are opened, the next glass brought before you’re half way through your first. A companion once found himself with three gin and tonics, so fast did the waiters preempt his beverage desires.

This is not the all-inclusive package nightmare of square pools and concrete high-rises. Rather, architecture displays Middle Eastern influence: wooden trellis, pointed arches and impressive domes.

In Ghazala Gardens no building is higher than tree level, small pools are interlinked, and winding paths lead to small accommodation blocks. Balconies are given seclusion by the reaching flowers of Bougainvillea and Jacaranda trees. Makadi Palace, though much bigger and fully booked when we stayed, miraculously manages somehow to create the same atmosphere of quiet and privacy.

The rooms are spacious and the beds capacious. I don’t think I’ve ever slept in one three pillows wide and then some. Décor is pleasingly neutral, with treats for nibbling on arrival and imaginative towel decoration: my favorite being a crocodile with TV remote in jaw.

Both have their own stretch of beach, where looking out over an aquamarine horizon, waiters bring ice cold drinks to your sun bed. Life is tough here when impersonating a vegetable.

To avoid becoming a complete baked potato, the Sinai desert is a short excursion and well worth it. Be it via hair raising Quad bike or stomach jostling Jeep Safari. Auburn and terracotta hews fill sandals and crunch beneath feet. Fiery monoliths tower out of the ground, with jagged tips meeting paint box blue. The Bedouin herd their camels across the sands. It is stark and beautiful.

Yet, the true highlight of coming here is, unsurprisingly, the water itself: the turquoise blue one never believes on postcards, warm and calm. The many shallow waters and coral reefs make the Red Sea a top diving destination and perfect place to come as a beginner.

We took a snorkeling trip (highly recommended). Jumping of the boat into the deep we saw a Broomtail wrasse, a multitude of Parrotfish and stingless jellyfish, an eerie boat wreck and thankfully no sharks, before heading off to ‘Paradise’ for lunch (no joke - it had a sign).

A bay on a most desert like desert island where we did some more of that prime occupation, relaxing, before cruising back as the sun descended: the Red Sea truly turning the color of Vermillion.

The resorts of Sharm El Sheik and Hurghada are void of anything that remotely resembles a museum, art gallery or authentic ancient market. But here is a destination where sunlight streams be it January, July or October, where that warm gust of air, hitting your cheek as you exist the plane, is a given. Where beaches are perfect for a wind down. Where a world of underwater delights waits to be explored.

And order seafood. Never have I attacked so many meaty prawns of shockingly large proportion. My mouth waters at the memory.

LINK: http://www.planetconfidential.co.uk/Abroad/Red-Sea-R-and-R

FEATURE / REVIEW: Spencer Tunik's Naked Pictures of Me

Published: MANCHESTER CONFIDENTIAL, 19th July 2010

"Tunick’s naked pictures of me: Thalia Allington-Wood goes to the Lowry to look at herself naked in the Spencer Tunick exhibition"

About two and a half months ago I volunteered for Spencer Tunick’s ‘Everyday People’ at the Lowry.

I queued, I shivered, and I bared all for the camera. It was a great experience. However, when I went to see the exhibition last weekend I came away feeling disappointed.

When Tunick began photographing nudes in public places, he and his models worked against authority; the volunteers risking arrest for their nakedness. These pictures in their very nature were audacious and opinionated. This is inevitably sterilised in his recent work, which is organised, authorised and heavily staged by a troupe of extra hands.

So if no longer making a statement of rebellion, Tunick's work needs to be visually arresting. Yet prints that are two small to create any impact and with dull colours line the Lowry’s walls. The underwhelming delivery seems at odds with the vast amounts of money spent on such a commission.

Though never a massive fan on Tunick’s work, (I took part out of curiosity rather than admiration), I do find some of his work striking, even moving.

His early photographs in Montreal 2001, for example, have a sense of immediacy. Bodies pile up along a street into the distance, the image is grainy; it feels as though the artist has stumbled across the bodies he photographs rather than orchestrating them.

Similarly, I like the images from his series in Dusseldorf 2006, where people pile beneath large oil paintings, their poses responding to the painted figures. They remind one of the background story of a painting, the life models, the studio of the artist.

However, the impact of these works, and others, can be easily lost in the vast sea of his back catalogue. Tunick’s work now has almost a commercial quality to it. Though I’m sure not intentional, their sensationalism, the type of coverage received by the press, means his work can feel like advertising for a location be it Sydney, Mexico or Manchester.

I was aware of this machine-like quality to his work when I signed up, but hoped for an image that made one stop and look at the body in a different manner. I wanted to watch skin stop being skin, in a shape not normally seen, in a setting and composition that was beautiful.

Sadly I did not find this at the Lowry.

I do not regret the nine hours I spent in the freezing cold, absolutely starkers. It was a lot of fun and I’m not a fan of our bodies being pent up, tantalised, and idolised. It was nice for flesh to be flesh and nothing else for a while. I really felt the ‘liberation’ so often voiced by participants.

Tunick does not convey this experience in his photos. Nor necessarily should he. Hunched, wind pinched naked bodies are unlikely to convey jubilance. However art should always say something. It need not be loud. It need not even be clever. But it need be something and something interesting. Looking at these images, even with the bias of seeing myself within them, ultimately I don’t think they have much to say at all.

Everyday People by Spencer Tunick is at The Lowry until the 26th September.

LINK: http://www.manchesterconfidential.co.uk/Culture/Arts/Tunicks-naked-pictures-of-me

FEATURE: The Experience of a Spencer Tunik

Published: MANCHESTER CONFIDENTIAL, 3rd May 2010

"Nude for art, the naked truth: the experience of being naked during Spencer Tunick’s art gatherings in city locations"

In the darkness of Sunday 2 May at 2.30 am, I find myself standing in a long line of strangers waiting to participate in Spencer Tunick’s ‘Everyday People’. Come 11.30 in the morning, nine hours of intermittent nakedness later, I walk home from Piccadilly feeling exhausted but elated.

Becoming naked in front of hundreds is not initially, to most, a desirable thing to do. Yet, and I’m reiterating many previous and fellow participants in Tunick’s installations here, it feels great.

Nakedness and bodies within our society are judged daily. Take everyone’s clothes away and it is remarkable how instantly the memory of social ideals and inhibitions disappear. Rather than make one feel more insecure of personally disliked body parts, seeing the difference in everyone’s bodies and realising that even though you are naked, no one is really looking or caring about your body’s appearance, results in indifference, confidence, even pride in oneself. Being naked in front of other people and other people’s nakedness very quickly becomes mundane, natural, and enjoyable.

So all the clichés of this experience are true (sorry Jonathan Schofield no holocaust references here I’m afraid - see the other Tunick article on the homepage for the reasons behind this comment). Our ice cold, goose pimpled, wind bitten buttocks were indeed ‘liberated’, so to speak, from the confinement of social decorum.

In a society obsessed with the projection and construction of identity, through clothing, jewellery, hairstyles or face book, influenced by the presentation of aesthetic ideals in the media, Tunick’s installations provide rejection of this. Being naked became an experience of anonymity and equality.

Jonathan is right in the comment after his article about viewing as an outsider the Tunick event. There he describes the experience as un-erotic. In society the body is rarely conceived separate to sex. Our bodies are inherently fetishised by their concealment and the titillation revealing clothes embody; nakedness is consigned to the bedroom. However, remove this and place bodies in a sterile, surreal situation and what you are left with is flesh that is utilitarian and banal through normalisation.

Tunick's work is subversive: these bodies are naked in urban environments where nudity is prohibited. This is where any feeling of liberation comes from as a participant.

But Tunick’s work is not about the experiences of his volunteers. Our emotions of freedom, or what have you, are merely a positive bi-product of the situation created in the making of his art. They should not define how his images are viewed.

Beauty, softness, or for that matter, loneliness and fragility is not to my mind the focus of these images. To understand these images in such a manner buys into our social obsession with the individual, the self and the body.

Tunick’s images are not about the individual or identity. Look at the images and you see a sea of nakedness in which each volunteer serves as a shape, creating patterns and formations in the space. In Tunick’s instillations, the human body is a texture, comparative to the concrete and brick of the surroundings.

Despite being whipped by freezing winds at 6am and suffering excessive sleep deprivation; all the participants I spoke too would once again wobble their flesh in fun defiance of social convention. I can't wait to see how the artworks turn out.

LINK: http://www.manchesterconfidential.co.uk/Culture/Arts/Nude-for-art-the-naked-truth

NB: Clio Euterpe is a pseudonyme used for this one article.