Kafka On The Shore

Alyssa by David Knight

I went to check out this year’s Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize at the National Portrait Gallery (the one in London, that is). The first prize went to the swimmer, but, personally, I only had eyes for David Knight’s Alyssa. Must be the freckles.

I open wide my eyes but see no scenery. I fix my gaze upon my heart by Takashi Murakami.

I went to see Pop Life, an exhibit currently showing at the Tate Modern, and the last room was entirely dedicated to Japanese artist Takashi Murakami, otherwise known as the Warhol of Japan.

As far as I was concerned, Murakami’s room was the most interesting and the highlight of the exhibition. The cherry on the cake was a really cool music video by Murakami shot with the collaboration of McG and starring Kirsten Dunst as “Akihabara Majokko Princess”, a blue-haired manga-like cutie dancing and singing a cover of the Vapors’ “Turning Japanese” on the streets of Akihabara (Tokyo manga central). The video is full of cuteness, weirdness and real sleazy undertones. Not available online yet but worth checking out when/if it is.

Murakami’s both an artist and an entrepreneur (=> an artrepeneur?), having built a commercial empire through his company Kaikai Kiki LLC. I’m not quite sure I understand what his “Superflat” movement is really about, but I do like how he’s all over the poku (pop+otaku) culture and how well he distorts the cute in the anime and manga imagery to highlight the scary and the deviant.

Loney, Dear @ Union Chapel, London, 10 Sep 09

When I come out of a live gig, my first thought is pretty much to compare the live renditions with the recordings. Grizzly Bear, for instance, sound as sleek, multi-layered and sophisticated on stage as they do on their albums, Deerhunter, well, not so much…Loney, Dear? So so, so much better. Simply put, there is not one song from his live set that didn’t sound ten times as good as their studio versions (big credit to his accompanying band, particularly his back-up singer and his drummer). So much so, that it’s now rather frustrating going back to the Dear John album and not being able to feel it the same way I did two nights ago.

Two highlights of the show: “Under A Silent Sea“ for its rich instrumentation and electro effects, and “The Meter Marks OK” for the goosebump inducing audience participation (there were some seriously good singers among us…I, for one, was wise enough to keep my mouth shut).

Wildbirds & Peacedrums @ Union Chapel, London, 10 Sep 09

I like Loney, Dear (his second album even more than his first) but what drove me to go see him live was that he was getting support from fellow Swedes, Wildbirds & Peacedrums. I anticipated great things from their live performance and couldn’t wait to witness their mad drumming and haunting vocals combo on stage. I wasn’t disappointed one bit. The venue being a church, the acoustic was perfect for this sort of percussion-heavy act and Mariam Wallentin’s voice carried beautifully well across the room. It got very close to a religious experience — not so much the meditating sort but more of the epileptic trance kind. 

Health @ Koko, London, 24 Aug 09

Violently Happy?…Experiencing Health live is just like experiencing Thai food in Thailand: painful and delicious at the same time.

Deerhunter @ Koko, London 24 August 09

Well, I wasn’t particularly blown away by Deerhunter live, nor was I particularly disappointed. They mostly performed songs from Microcastle, which I’m not complaining about since it’s got plenty of great tracks and I’m not familiar with the rest of their discography anyway. Thing is, they hadn’t really reworked any of their songs for the stage, some of them sounding like pale copies of their studio versions. One thing I really found annoying was how Bradford Cox’s vocals were completely drowned out by the chords and drums, except for “Microcastle”, which for that precise reason was the highlight of the evening for me.

Sidenote: Deerhunter brought along two Californian bands for support. I found Crystal Antlers rather cool the first couple of songs but then I swiftly moved on and proceeded to go to my happy place and watch a movie there. It was however impossible to mentally block out Health, but I’m not sure if it’s because I found them impressive or if it’s simply due to the fact that their noise rock was so loud that it caused internal bleeding.

Grizzly Bear @ Koko, London, 18 Aug 09

And me who thought that Grizzly Bear would be the typical band that struggles to sound as good on stage as they do in the recording studio. I couldn’t have been more wrong: last night’s gig was perfect in all respects. The overall production was absolutely flawless with lots of instrumental layers produced with a really crisp sound, impeccable vocals, and beautiful lighting.  Me happy.

Full flickr set here

British Museum’s exhibit “Garden and Cosmos: The Royal Paintings of Jodhpur”

56 paintings spanning the 17th to the 19th centuries in India. The paintings were commissioned by the maharajas of Marwar-Jodhpur, a kingdom in Northwest India (Jodhpur is the capital), and come from the Mehrangarh Fort Museum, headed by the current Maharaja Gaj Singh II of Jodhpur.

Captions:
1. Chakras of the Subtle Body (detail), folio 2 from the Nath Charit. Attributed to Bulaki, 1823 
2. Jallandharnath and the Princess Padmini fly over King Padam’s palace (detail), folio 19 from the Suraj Prakash, Amardas Bhatti, 1830 / Complete picture here
3. Cosmic Oceans (detail), one of seven folios from the Nath Charit. Attributed to Bulaki, 1823
4. Cosmic Oceans (detail), one of seven folios from the Nath Charit. Attributed to Bulaki, 1823
5. Death of Vali; Rama and Lakshmana wait out of the monsoon (detail). Illustration from the Ramcharitmanas of Tulsidas (1532–1623) Jodhpur, c. 1775 / See complete picture here
6. Maharaja Bakhat Singh and Zenana women savour the moonlight evening (detail). Attributed here to ‘Artist 3’, Nagaur, c. 1748–50 / Complete picture here
7. The Emergence of Spirit and Matter (detail), folio 2 from the Shiva Purana. Attributed to Shivdas, c. 1828

I’m with the baby on this one. I hate marmite.

First Aid Kit @ The Lexington, London, 28 July 2009

Man, do I love this town. How many times did I get the chance to go see a band live within days of discovering their music! Countless times, that’s how many. I came across the Söderberg sisters singing in their local woods only last week, and I liked them so much that I scored their debut album that same day and bought a ticket to a London show scheduled for the following week. Bam Bam Bam. God, I love it when things come to me that quickly and easily.

They sounded as good on The Lexington stage as they do in their Swedish forest. With their crispy clear vocals, perfectly in-tune singing and simple beautiful melodies, you’re bound to get consistantly great performances from those two. Klara (the brunette) is the bubbly one (dare I say “the rambling one”?…well, let’s just say she talks a lot), Johanna (the blonde) is the coy one (she likes to pull the angel face in a perpetual state of grace). They’re so in tune with each other it’s incredible to see: their voices are totally in sync , they would even rehydrate with the occasional sip of water at the exact same time (spooky), and it’s the same adorable smile that illuminates both their faces. It’s interesting to see siblings share a stage; they know how to bring out that mixture of intimacy, complicity and harmony that strikes me as special. I noticed it with the Stones too and I wonder how much of that I’d find at a Tegan&Sara gig (in between the bickering, that is).

First Aid Kit crammed lots of goodness in their short 45-minute set: a handful of great songs from their LP, a couple I never heard before (including a new one that Klara wrote after being inspired by Into The Wild), their Fleet Foxes cover of course (with their now ritual intro line: “this is for you FF; it’s a little gift from us”) and their beautiful cover of “Universal Soldier”.

BP Portrait Award 2009 at the National Portrait Gallery, London

Some of the painted portraits shortlisted this year are spookily realistic and could easily be mistaken for photographs.

Works by: Michael Gaskell, Ian Cumberland, Sue Rubira, Stephen Earl Rogers, Edward Sutcliffe, José Luis Corella, Hynek Martinec

Here are some of my favourite portraits from the current Elizabeth Peyton exhibit at the Whitechapel Gallery, a shortened version of last year’s Elizabeth Peyton retrospective at the New Museum.
Peyton’s famous for her intimate and tightly-cropped portraits of Rock stars, friends, and family in domestic settings (lots of them reading or reflecting). Her drawings on display didn’t really grab me and I find that her persistence to effeminate most of her male portraits a tad annoying but there are some portraits that I find mesmerizing and she definitely knows how to use colour.

As it usually goes with paintings, you really need to get up close and personal to fully appreciate the work. Take John Lydon’s portrait called “Dallas, TX”, for example; the texture  and colour details of the orange wall are completely lost on the screen capture…Bah! whatever.