ARTS & CULTURE
Originally published on Monday, 01 February 2010
The Culturist - February
February: the month of fluttering Cherubim, post tax-return overdraft-celebrations, new seasons in all our favourite shops, and a scant 28 days (27 and counting) to get through till March. Of course we’ll touch on the great V-Day later in the week – but in the meantime, for those with more cultural inklings, here’s a wee rundown of what’s tempting our tastebuds this month...
TALK: Art Investment in the new Economic Climate
Feb 2, 6:45pm, £75 (incl. drinks reception)
London Business School, Park Rd, NW1 4SA
We all ooh-ed and ah-ed those many months ago when Lord Damien of the Hirst escaped by the skin of his proverbials with one of the last art auctions not to go t*ts-up. So whilst it might seem a touch serious, this seminar from Art Insight is just the thing if you’re contemplating a dabble in the almost-ripe art market. Despite calling on some of the industry’s leading investment and analytic figureheads, at £75 it’s certainly no cinema ticket. But factor in that you’re unlikely to make several thousand percent profit off that Avatar IMAX seat and it’s starting to seem like a pretty smart investment…
FILM:JOHNNY DEPP SEASON
Throughout Feb£9
BFI Southbank, Belvedere Rd, SE1 8XT
Love him or loathe him (who are we kidding?) the inimitable Johnny Depp is a cinematic force to be reckoned with – which must be why the BFI are dedicating an entire month to the man. (Sure there are certain individuals who would dedicate their entire lives to him, but still it’s a start…)From Edward Scissorhands to The Corpse Bride, Gilbert Grape to Donnie Brasco, Blow to The Ninth Gate, there’s certainly something for everyone in the career of dear Depp. Indeed there was even that last Pirates of the Carribean for those with absolutely no taste. Though thankfully that seems to be one of the few missing from this retrospective.
TALK: Future Human: Advertising at the Frontiers of Consciousness
Feb 10, 7:30pm, £8
The Book Club, 100 Leonard St, EC2A 4RH
www.futurehuman.co.uk
If you’ve ever made it down to one of the School of Life sermons, then you know that just because an event is classed as a talk (or worse yet, a seminar or lecture) doesn’t mean you need to get the noose ready. Pushing the point even further, this new season of audience-involving, fun, lively debates has the potential to be The Next Big Thing on the ‘intellectually stimulating, generally tipsy, always insightful’ circuit in London. Set up by the Bad Idea chaps, this first night discusses how advertising and marketing taps into your subconscious. And the margaritas are pretty tasty too.
THEATRE: Jerusalem
Until Apr 24
Apollo Theatre, Shaftesbury Ave, W1D 7EZ
After a massive sell-out stay at the Royal Court, the ever-delightful Mackenzie Cook and much lauded Mark Rylance are now setting up home at the Apollo for a scant 12-week run of Jerusalem. If you missed it first time around, here’s your chance to catch Jez Butterworth’s electric, eccentric, satirical take on our fair and verdant land. Previews began at the end of January, and from the press night on Feb 10th onwards it looks set to be another hot ticket in town until closing on April 24th – so make sure to book now!
SHOP: Harvey Nichols 4th Floor
4th Floor, 109 - 125 Knightsbridge, SW1X 7RJ
www.harveynichols.com
Dedicated to an ever-changing, sharper-than-sharp cutting-edge selection of products from leading contemporary designers like Richard Nicoll and Opening Ceremony, the new section of everyone’s favourite Harvey Nics looks set to be so hot that we're even toying with moving in permanently… The launch party (or “homewarming” as we like to call it) is tonight (Tues Feb 2), after which it’s open season on your wallets.
FILM: Solaris
Feb 16
Workingmen's Club, 44-46 Pollard Row, E2 6NB
£5
Close-Up, Brick Lane’s fabulous independent movie rental, archivist and all round filmic paradise are running an Andrei Tarkovsky season this month to whet your discerning cinephilic appetite. Including everything from Andrei Rublev to Stalker, our personal pick of the crop is the director’s 1972 Solaris. Whilst the original version might not star George Clooney (you can’t have everything), Tarkovsky nevertheless breaks a lot of ground with this psychologically and morally investigative piece of sci-fi genius. It’s also a fantastic film. Which helps.
PHOTOGRAPHY: Irving Penn Portraits
National Portrait Gallery
Feb 18-Jun 6
In this, ‘The Age of Digital’ – in which everyman and his dog (myself and Fido included) own a top notch SLR and regularly snap what we deign to call ‘photos’ – it’s sometimes all too easy to forget that there once existed those Photographers who pretty much shaped fashion and portrait photography as we now know it (and take for granted) with great vision and infallible technique. Nostalgia aside, do yourself a favour and grab a ticket for this NPG retrospective of Irving Penn’s portraiture . From Dior to Dietrich, Pacino to Picasso, he shot everyone who was anyone over an exceptional career that spanned seven incredible decades.
FASHION: London Fashion Week
Feb 19-24
www.londonfashionweek.co.uk
Whilst the dates are only provisional at the moment (because one never knows what fresh disaster might strike the fashion industry at any moment: ‘sorry I’m washing my hair that night,’ ‘Thursday is so the new Friday,’ etc.), love it or hate it it’s officially that time of year again. The clothes get delightfully ridiculous, the PR b*tches sharpen their claws, more skinny models than usual stalk the streets of Soho and South Ken, and we all get our relentless blagging hats on for the scrums that are the fashion parties.
MUSIC: Nils Petter Molvaer / Sing Sing Penelope
Feb 22, 7.30pm, £8.50-£20
Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Rd, SE1 8XX
There’s eclectic, there’s ecelectic, and then there’s Nils Petter Molvaer. The Norwegian composer, producer and musician overlaps more genres than most people can name, yet always manages to tie things up in a bundle of cool so it hurts. And while his live shows are a little Jean Michel Jarre (there’s a name you don’t hear much these days) in their use of visuals to enhance the intense soundscapes, unlike JMJ’s they, well, they work (no offence Jean). Tonight, Molvaer is joined by the Polish electro-acoustic avant-garde jazz group, Sing Sing Penelope. There are concerts you go to just to hang out, and then there are those you’ll talk about incessantly afterwards. This is the latter.
PHOTOGRAPHY: Gavin Bond: Music
Feb 23-Mar 21, Mon-Fri 10am-6pm & Fri-Sat 12-5pm
Idea Generation, 11 Chance St, E2 7JB
So you topped up on your photo-history with the legend that is Irving Penn at the NPG? Well, now it’s time to get a little more contemporary. Gavin Bond – originally trained over here in Blighty – has been based in New York earning an incredible name for himself within the world of music with his eye-catching blend of glossy studio portraits and informal on-the-road shots of the music business’s royalty and rogues alike. With incredible, vibrant shots of everyone from Johnny Borrell to Bono, Grace Jones to Steven Tyler, by the end of this, his first exhibition back home in ages, you’ll either want to be Gavin Bond or kill him out of envy.
MUSIC: Blues Kitchen Festival of Rhythm and Blues
Feb 22-28
The Blues Kitchen, 111-113 Camden High St, NW1 7JN
Free-£8 depending on the night
I always find it curiously reassuring when local bars or venues push themselves to create mini-festivals. Still less than a year old, The Blues Kitchen in Camden is hosting a week-long celebration of that most woman-pining, money-losing, throat-rattling musical form with guests including seminal ‘60s rhythm and blue outfit The Pretty Things, acclaimed guitarist Ian Siegal and the harmonica-touting Son of Dave. Then to wrap the whole shebang up, they’re even throwing a full-on Mardi Gras party there on the Saturday, and a hungover recovery jam (featuring a few familiar faces) on the Sunday.
ART: Billy Childish: Unknowable but Certain
Feb 17 – Apr 18
ICA, The Mall, SW1Y 5AH
Free
Poet, painter, musician, cult icon… Billy Childish is nothing if not prolific. One of those wonderful, inimitable artists who insist on taking their entire existence and output as one vast body of work, this huge retrospective at the ICA offers the all too rare opportunity to appreciate the breadth of his outpourings over the last three decades. From expressionistic self portraits to punk-influenced musical collaborations it’s hard to imagine anything he can’t do. And if you really get into his work, there’s even an ‘Evening of Poetry and Film with Billy Childish’ on the 25th (£5) with the man himself.
