The Engine

Do you not hear this horrible scream all around you that people usually call silence? - George Buchner

CANALETTO AND HIS RIVALS AT THE NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON Sponsored by Credit Suisse  Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal 1697-1768) was an Italian Rococo era painter whose views of Venice have come down to us as the epitome of view painting (vedute). They seem mathematically precise as to be miraculous, seeming to be the highest point of development of this technically exact genre. Was Canaletto really just a hack, churning out genre pieces for aristocratic clients in foreign countries (the artist was especially popular among English milordi)? Or is his work really an exploration of Venice, a city of poverty, squalor, disease, and his, Canaletto's, own place in society and all the social relations implied by his art?  Canaletto began his career like his rival and slightly younger contemporary Michele Marieschi (1710-1743) as a theatrical scene painter. This explains his willingness to tweak perspective, alter viewpoints or move buildings. He was given instruction in sc...

PAUL GAUGIN: MAKER OF MYTH: AT THE TATE MODERN  This exhibition offers us delights about the life and times of Paul Gaugin (1848-1903). These are structured thematically but not necessarily temporally: self-portraits, still lives, Breton landscapes, reclining nudes in Tahiti. Gaugin was a man essentially alone, undergoing a journey from conventionality to outrageous infamy, the pain of total isolation and death. Gaugin’s paintings exhibit pastel tones of indigo, vermilion, magenta. Relaxed, cheerful, invigorating, joyful. The paintings are about openness to experience: suffering, rejection, the misunderstanding of an ignorant, uncaring world. Gaugin persistently refers to himself as a suffering Christ in his paintings, as in his 1889 painting Christ in the Garden of Olives ; alone, rejected by everyone. Christian themes absorbed him and he seemed to need a moral arbiter of his own actions.  The influence of Christianity and conventional morality was one he sought ...

TRIUMPH AND TRAGEDY: DIAGHILEV AND THE BALLET RUSSE AT THE VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM Diaghilev's creation of the Ballet Russe, an amalgamation of talents from diverse backgrounds, was a response to the drying up of creative opportunities in Russia in the aftermath of the Russo-Japanese War (1905) and the subsequent revolution of that year. Diaghilev began to move westward in order to exploit those opportunites to be found in Paris and other Western European capitals. The Ballet Russe was eventually to tour Western Europe and North America, but seems to have been especially popular in countries like Spain (where the show visited every large city) that lagged behind the rest of Western Europe and North America economically, but not artistically. Likewise the composer Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) also moved to Paris, where he came under the influence and the spell of the music of Claude Debussy (1862-1918). Stravinsky synthesised the music of his mentor, Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1...

October Tue 5, Wed 6, Fri 8 - Sun 10 at 8pm coproduction: Berlin International Opera & Theater Thikwa The Medium & A Hand of Bridge Two American Chamber Operas A bright flippant bridge game suddenly turns into a dark seance, but in the end, they all play at cards again. An ingenious conflation of Samuel Barber's society satire "A Hand of Bridge" and his friend's Gian-Carlo Menotti's esoteric thriller "The Medium". "a musical and theatrical bull’s-eye" (Orpheus-Magazin) produced by Berlin International Opera & Theater Thikwa Venue: Theater Thikwa, Fidicinstraße 40, 10965 Berlin Kreuzberg TICKETS: 16 / 10 read more http://www.kulturkurier.de/veranstaltung_208339.htm

EADWEARD MUYBRIDGE AT THE TATE BRITAIN, PIMLICO, LONDON, SEPTEMBER 2010  This is a major retrospective of the Anglo-American photographic artist Eadweard Muybridge. Muybridge was born Edward Muggeridge in Kingston on Thames in 1830, departing for the US in 1852. His changes of name possibly chart an attempt to distance himself from supposed, yet to us unknown, painful events of his past, or to chart a new artistic beginning. Muybridge was one of the first pioneers of photography, very quickly realising that the new art form belonged not only to a new century, but also to a new continent. In France the Impressionists had adapted photography into their work, realising that so-called photographic realism was a separable aesthetic that needed to be integrated into their practice. For Muybridge photography meant commerce and the place for his commercial activities was America, more specifically the west, with its great unexplored vistas, rising cities, railroads, Indians, settlers...

Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow (Artificial Eye, 2010, director – Sophie Fiennes)  I braved the rain tonight and went to the screening of Over your Cities Grass will Grow by director Sophie Fiennes which turned out to be a documentary and bio-pic of the artist, Anselm Kiefer (1945 - ).  In 1993 Kiefer left his home in Buchen, Germany for La Ribaute, a derelict silk factory near Barjac in France, which happens to be near Montelimar, Avignon and Nimes, the region also known as Provence. Director Sophie Fiennes has clearly enjoyed the films of Stanley Kubrick and employs the music of Gyorgi Ligeti featured in Kubrick's film, 2001; A Space Odyssey . She obviously wishes us to understand that Kiefer's artworks are as monumental as the visionary themes of Kubrick's films.  Kiefer is busily transforming the derelict site of La Ribaute into a theme park or installation, using bull dozers, drilling machines of all kinds, cement mixers and just all kinds of mechanica...

GRACE KELLY, STYLE ICON at the VICTORIA and ALBERT MUSEUM, SOUTH KENSINGTON, LONDON, AUGUST 2010 This exhibition is a retrospective view of the style icon of the 1950s, Grace Kelly (1929 - 1982), tracing her personal evolution from New England Irish Catholic girl in white gloves to make believe princess of the silver screen to her marriage to Prince Rainier of Monaco. Kelly thus lived out Hollywood's typical self-fulfilling prediction, that it can make fantasy become reality for a very few. Kelly’s career began in modelling. She was able to transpose some of the skills of dress, make up, hairstyle and care to the silver screen and beyond. The exhibition traces Kelly's do it yourself approach and improvisational elan through her career as an actress with directors such as Alfred Hitchcock. If anything it’s the conventional person she was that shines through the glitz that seems to have summed up her later career. The early costumes enable her to appear both as a voluptu...

EXPOSED: VOYEURISM, SURVEILLANCE AND THE CAMERA: THE TATE MODERN,August 2010  Exposed is a contrasting mess of disparate effects combined with some coherent strands, a formula the Tate Modern seems to be now quite adept at. The exhibition wants to ask the central question: is intrusion inherent to camera technology? It does this with reference to examples from both private and public life. Voyeurism is examined as a celebration of prying, then as a kind of dirty yet enjoyable perversion, then as something lurid leading to its eventual criminalisation (2003 in the UK).  The exhibition examines celebrities and celebrity culture. The exhibition makes us ponder over the celebrities contradictory need for the oxygen of publicity versus the needs of a private life with reference to images of Taylor and Burton enjoying some intimate, yet public moments; Kim Novak sitting down in a train's diner compartment, all the men's eyes suddenly turn to the right; Jack Nicholson in an i...

The Sacrifice (1986, dir Andrei Tarkovsky, starring Erland Josephson, Susan Fleetwood) I went to the Arsenal in Potsdamer Platz on Monday 12th of July to see the former Soviet director Andrei Tarkovsky´s last film ´The Sacrifice´. It was unbelievably hot in Berlin, but cool enough in the cinema (which obviously must have been air conditioned). The programme began with a charming Tarkovsky short from his earlier period working in the Soviet Union, The Waltz and the Violin. The film demonstrates Tarkovsky´s story-telling capabilities and ability to depict character in a shorthand of disparate images. The film is not typical Soviet propaganda nonsense, but a sensitive depiction of childhood. The main feature, Tarkovsky´s final film ´The Sacrifice´, dating from 1986, therefore wedged in between the final years of the Cold War and the beginning of the era we live in. ´The Sacrifice´ is a concoction of constricted art house pretentiousness and visionary epiphanies that aim to revea...

PRESS RELEASE VENICE: CANALETTO AND HIS RIVALS 13 October – 16 January 2011 Sainsbury Wing Admission charge Sponsored by Credit Suisse ‘Antonio Canale…astounds everyone in this city who sees his work, which is like that of Carlevarijs, but you can see the sun shining in it.’ (Alessandro Marchesini, painter and adviser to collectors, July 1725) This landmark exhibition presents the finest assembly of Venetian views by Canaletto and his 18th-century rivals to be seen in a generation. Bringing together around 50 major loans from the public and private collections of the UK, Europe and North America, Venice: Canaletto and His Rivals highlights the extraordinary variety of Venetian view painting, juxtaposing masterpieces by Canaletto with key works by artists including Luca Carlevarijs, Michele Marieschi, Bernardo Bellotto and Francesco Guardi. Featured works span the 18th-century, from one of the first accurately datable Venetian views by L...

FREDERICK CAYLEY ROBINSON: ACTS OF MERCY 14 July – 17 October 2010 Sunley Room Admission free Supported by the Wellcome Trust Frederick Cayley Robinson (1862–1927) is one of the most distinctive yet elusive British painters of the early 20th century. This will be the first exhibition of his work to be shown in the United Kingdom for over 30 years. The four central paintings on display are the summation of Cayley Robinson’s artistic ambition. Executed between 1916 and 1920, his masterpiece, Acts of Mercy, comprises four large-scale allegorical works commissioned to adorn the new Middlesex Hospital, rebuilt between 1928 and 1935. Combining modernity with tradition to remarkable effect, the artist emulates the spiritual integrity and methods of the Old Masters he encountered in the National Gallery. Alongside Cayley Robinson’s modern works, National Gallery paintings by Piero della Francesca (The Baptism of Christ, 1450s), Sandro Botticelli (Four Scenes from the Early Life of Saint Zen...

Buried Child by Sam Shepard at the English Theatre, Luftbrücke Platz, Berlin, 1st May 2010 There´s a fundemental distinction in all art, poetry, film, theatre between showing and telling. Perhaps ´Buried Child´ crosses the line, becoming too didactic as any work made in a time of economic depression tends to (John Steinbeck´s ´The Grapes of Wrath´, echoing in itself ´The Battle Hymn of the Republic´ which more or less goes ´the Lord will smite those our enemies down with much wailing and gnashing of teeth...´. There´s a deal of wailing and gnashing of teeth in ´Buried Child´ though.) An aged patriarch, Dodge, decays on the sofa pickling himself with a conveniently hid bottle of whisky. His sons are: the imbecile Tilden who gathers vegetables from the fields, Bailey who has been left crippled in an agricultural incident. So there´s paralysis, emasculation and a buried child. I mean why would anyone bury a child? Children are born in order to be loved by their parents. The clue to...

ENGLISH THEATRE BERLIN formerly known as Friends of Italian Opera www.etberlin.de Pressematerial zum Download: www.berlin-buehnen.de/-/presse/47.598 F40, Fidicinstr. 40, 10965 Berlin-Kreuzberg, Reservierung: 030/691 12 11 tickets@etberlin.de TICKETS: 18,- / erm. 10,- / 3-Euro-Ticket / Gruppenrabatt Do 15. (Premiere) bis So 18. April um 20 Uhr Di 20.- Sa 24. und Di 27. April bis So 2. Mai um 20 Uhr Koproduktion: English Theatre Berlin & 7 Stages/Atlanta/USA Buried Child Pulitzerpreis 1979: Sam Shephards bissiges Familiendrama. mit / cast Dodge - Del Hamilton Halie - Faye Allen Tilden Jeffrey Mittleman Bradley - Harvey Friedman Vince - Tomas S. Spencer Shelly - April Small Father Dewis - Errol T. Harewood Autor / written by Sam Shephard, rights with kind permission by S. Fischer Verlag Regie / directed by Veronika Nowag-Jones Bühne und Kostüme / set and costumes by Tomas Fitzpatrick Musikalische Leitung / musical direction by Errol T. Harewood Licht / lights by Katri Kuusim...

Peer Gynt at the Maxim Gorki Theater, Unter den Linden, Berlin, April 25th, 2010 Last night the performance of Henrik Ibsens play "PEER GYNT" at the Maxim Gork Theater, captivated the sold out audience. It was a well chosen location for the play as the classical style of the the decor and ambience of the theatre, juxtaposed with the modern techiniques such as incorperating video projection onto the set, mirrowed the theme of the play nicely. It was a dynamic performance about the struggle of one man´s conciousness and how to find your true self amidst the turmoil of todays expectations of how to achieve happiness, health and wealth. The demons and the angels of the mind were well performed by the supporting actors, with an extraordinary performance by Jens Harzenas the main actor, and his mother Karin Neuhausen. The theatre had a wonderful ambience of comfort and a friendly staff. I found it to be a unique experience located in one of Berlins finest cultural arenas....

Bordellballade (is a coproduction: Commissioned by "Kurt Weill Fest Dessau" and produced at Theater Koblenz), Operneukölln, Neukölln, Berlin, April   Another fantastic production from Operneukölln, but with some predictable elements (the makers of this really need to check out David Lynch´s ´Lost Highway´, ´Inland Empire´ or ´Mulholland Drive´). The scenario is a dinner table, lots of low sex talk, bawdy ballads such as ´do you like animals´(wank into a rollmop, shag on top of an elephant dropping, such was the gist of the lyric...). Initially the work seemed a bit of a mess, but like a Jackson Pollock painting, began to make sense eventually and even became highly enjoyable. However, the makers will have to watch cliches such as the gun produced and fired at the end, the starlet strangled with the plastic bag etc But if you want to see some high octane theatre - musical happenings, then Neköllner Oper is the place to be in Berlin. (by the way my date, a girl from Halle ...

Hi, if you do feel you want to submit something to The Engine don't forget to include an SAE otherwise there'll be no return. Also include 5 or 6 poems, not just one or two, since only a small batch like this gives an editor any kind of overview or choice. best wishes, Paul

THEO VAN DOESBURG AT THE TATE MODERN, LONDON, MARCH 2010 One question this exhibition begs is: who is this exhibition really about? Not just Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) but the works of the Bauhaus, Moholy-Nagy, the Surrealists intrude upon van Doesburg's work. Perhaps van Doesburg might modestly be described as a cypher meaning an entire outlook on life, an avante garde moment beyond which is an entire sunrise replete with sea monsters. This is a retrospective of the Dutch de Stijl art group best known for the works of abstract artist Piet Mondrian, van Doesburg's older mentor. Theo van Doesburg (1883-1931) was an artist entrepreneur, today practically forgotten. Every art movement is summarised by it's leading artist, but de Stijl possibly more than others. Van Doesburg's own art is often painfully derivative of Mondrian's but his range of influences, activities is vastly more eclectic. Theo van Doesburg comes over as an eccentric figure, inventing pseudon...