Since I have been having issues sleeping again (need to lay off the caffeine earlier), I have been reading a book on New Media Art here and there. I have also been making some concerted effort of going to exhibitions that may somehow be informative for what I have been doing in the studio and classrom.
Yesterday was an atypical day, as a lot of unplanned stuff happened. In many ways London has been quite an erotic city to me, meaning it has stimulated me in so many unexpected directions that it was quite fitting, or doomed to happen, that I got laid yesterday around noon. I happened to meet someone who lived a few blocks over and one thing did lead to another, even though it was sort of anonymous sex, not a first for me in this town anyway. I'd normally not write about stuff like this on the blogue (specially since I rarely get laid while I travel), but I imagine no one is reading it anyway, so why the hell not? Of course my encounter at the Gwen Morris House put me way off schedule (as I had to eat lunch and re-shower again), so by the time I left it was close to three o'clock.
I had plans on meeting my childhood friend Marcia, whom I had not seen in almost 30 years, in Wimbledon, at 6:30 pm, for dinner, so I decided to go to a central location in London and see some of the usual suspects. After some trial and error with the tube (the northern line splits in a weird way), I found my way out of Charing Cross at Trafalgar Square (a place where I had a pretty hot sexual encounter at 4 am back in 1998, coincidentally), and the place was packed. In addition to the phallic Nelson Column, there was a sculpture of a very large blue rooster to its northwest end, which I immediately photographed and thought of it as an allegorical self-portrait (Vagner as a blue cock).
I fought my way through the crowd (how impressive how many people are still touristing London in late November), and made my way to the National Portrait Gallery, as I wanted to see what they had in terms of self-portraiture (as I was thinking of my selfie article).
The whole place made me think that there are way too many portraits out there in the world and that we could all really stop making them from here on. But I did manage to find a self portrait, in fact it was the first sign I saw, the Van Dyck Self-Portrait, which was truly beautiful.
The entire institution made me think about why there is or where the shame in self-portraiture comes from. Is it something aligned with the rise of psychotherapy in the West, where narcissism has been pathologized, or is it even earlier, with the original/inspirational mythology? I did not find any answers there, as unfortunately there were no galleries dedicated to that (the closest was a room with artists depicting artists, where some selfies were included, along with random pieces everywhere). But I did think that there is a lot of vanity in straight forward portraiture, so why is that kind of vanity acceptable but the other not (If we think of the vernacular understanding of nascissism)? Below is a collection of self-portraits with some brief annotations.
Michael Dahl
"Self-portrait"
1691
Oil on canvas
- beautiful face and beautiful garments, why depict oneself otherwise?
Derek Boshier
"Imaginary Portraits"
1988
Ink on paper
- These are very intricate and funny, small in scale, where the artist depicts himself as a variety of others.
The first picture is a self-portrait, by Charles Haslewood Shannon, from 1897, oil on canvas, which is a companion piece to the picture below is Charles Ricketts, who was referred to as his partner, and I imagine they were romantically involved, but the labels on the walls were quite tempered, very British. Shannon had a tragic ending, and the thought of these two being separated by death and canvas made the pair (also displayed with a doorway in between), beautifully melancholic in my mind.
I actually ran into some royalty portraits that were stunning, like the reticular print of the Queen, a painting of Dame Judy Densch, and the two lovely heirs of the throne (Harry and William in uniform, quite lovely).
Celia Paul
"Self-portrait"
2002
Etching
Frank Auerbach
"Self-portrait"
1994-2001
Pencil and charcoal
Michael Landy
"Self-portrait"
2008
Pencil
Stephen Conroy
"Self-portrait"
2002
Etching
Marc Quinn
"Self"
2006
Blood (artist's own), liquid silicone, stainless steel, glass, perspex and refrigeration equipment.
- This piece was pretty impressive, it was a 3D rendition of the artist made with congealed blood, which he redoes every 5 years with new materials and likeness (the first one was done in 1991, all use eight pints of his own blood).
I ended up going to their cafe to see if I could get a second wind and get wifi.
This was one of the best lattes I have had in a while, and weirdly enough, one of the guys that worked there openly and heavily flirted with me, at one point getting himself a cup of coffee, walking by me, winking at me, and sitting nearby. I have no idea what he expected, that I'd rush to sit with him and make an indecent proposal (that is probably exactly what he was expecting), but I had plans already so I bid him adieu, broke his heart until the next tourist came through that he found hot, and found my way to a Starbucks (as they had no wifi, if they did maybe the night might have ended differently). I literally ran into a very handsome museum attendant on my way out of the cloak room (who also winked at me, what the hell?), and got in touch with Marcia to confirm the plans.
I managed to make my way by train to Wimbledon, arrived early and waited until Marcia arrived, which was late, but it was fine. I was extremely tired (standing and walking for hours is hard), but she immediately energized me. We ended up going to a pan-asian restaurant that was pretty good and talked for hours about the good ol' times. Unfortunately their lighting was not the most flattering
She actually brought along a friend called Marcelo, a very nice guy, whom she was obviously trying to hook me up with (I really need to read the horoscope to know that the hell happened yesterday, as I am sure today will be dry as hell). In a way this is so typically Brazilian, I was actually flattered (as I saw it her way of saying she accepts me and she wants me around her). I do this all the time as well, in fact I have to hold myself all the time from contacting stranger and match-making (sometimes BiMWM from Clawson seems to be the perfect fit for the lonely students in Macomb, separated by craigslists entries and categories, but maybe if I just intervened, they could find happiness). Marcelo lives by Vauxhall, so we took the train back together, made lose plans to maybe meet on saturday night (which I am not certain will happen), and I walked all the way to the Oval, and back to my "home". Rosana was there, so we talked about almost 1 in the morning and had an early start this morning. Today I have some interesting appointments, more professional in nature, but I hope to see some old friends as well.
- posted via iPad
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