The Wilson twins captivate the eye and the intellect

Dundee, soon to host a new outpost of the V&A on the waterfront, is going to be a fantastic city in a few years time – but currently the area still comprises vacant lots and building sites with a grimy backdrop of fine but under-loved Georgian and Victorian architecture.

A hint of the good things to come can be glimpsed at Dundee Contemporary Arts, a fine complex of printmaking studios, research facilities, cinemas and galleries, with a tradition of hosting the kind of art that rarely makes it beyond the big cities.

The latest show at DCA is by the sister duo Jane and Louise Wilson. Hailing originally from Newcastle, they studied at Newcastle Polytechnic (Jane), Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee (Louise) and Goldsmiths (both), where they officially began working together in 1989.

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My Warsaw weekend

Warsaw begs to be visited in the summer, with its parks in bloom and Chopin concertos by the lake, but the choice to visit in mid-February was not mine. I was the guest of The Theatr Komedie, which is presenting my play, Nobody’s Perfect, a rom-com written ten years ago.

I have seen it translated in cities all over Europe: it’s always familiar and yet at the same time incomprehensible, like life in fact. I have learnt not to mind the local ‘improvements’ and focus on the royalties.
 
There are 23 privately owned theatres in the city and imported boulevard comedies are popular fare, everything from Stoppard to Cooney; it’s good to know the double entendre is alive and well in Eastern Europe. It was snowing when I arrived and the monochrome of the city was only broken by the yellow and

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A cavalcade of clichés

In America, after the Oscars have ended, many of the A-listers in the audience at the Kodak Theater move on to one of the famous after-parties, hosted by the likes of Elton John and Vanity Fair. Meanwhile, many of the millions in the audience at home move on to the official post-Oscars talk show, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel.

The highlight this year was the world premiere of ‘the biggest, most star-studded film in the history of American cinema’, Movie: The Movie. Seldom have so many of the most mock-able aspects of major Hollywood films been so lovingly lampooned – and never have so many major Hollywood film stars teamed up to lampoon them. That said, the skit still contains fewer clichés than Pearl Harbor.

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Ways of reading

Last week’s Archive on 4 on Radio 4 was a retrospective of the BBC2 series Ways of Seeing, presented by John Berger, which was first broadcast 40 years ago. I remember reading the book when I was at university, and listening to the programme now I was reminded of one of the most radical assertions Berger made: that the use of new technology had provoked a fundamental shift in our ‘way of seeing’ a work of art.

Thanks to high-quality printed reproductions, artefacts that had once been unique and expensive objects, accessible only in one place and to a tiny number of spectators, suddenly became available to anyone who could afford the price of a postcard.

We’re currently in the midst of a parallel revolution. Once again, new technology has precipitated a paradigm shift / quantum leap /game-changer

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David Shrigley’s active brain

British artist David Shrigley is perhaps best known for his funny but macabre drawings – such as Lost (1996), a paper note depicting a lost pigeon suck to a tree, and Leisure Centre (1992), a small namesake picket-sign posted in front of an abandoned factory space – and for being featured The Guardian on a weekly basis between 2005 and 2009.

His latest exhibition spans the upper galleries of the Hayward Gallery, collating works from the last 20 years of his career. I was wary of it. His jokiness always makes me ask ‘is this art?’ and I thought his one-trick-ponies might be problematic when grouped together. I was, however, surprised by the sophisticated sentiments of his amateurish work.

Indeed, it is the simplicity of Shrigley’s stick-men animations and Fimo characters that capture the great questions on the futility of life –

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Brain-dead in Bedfordshire

You have to feel for the public relations team at Luton Council. Not only do they have the thankless task of promoting a town whose Wikipedia page’s main boast is an awful non-league football team, but also they must have been watching through their fingers as shamelessly inflammatory Channel 4 documentary Proud and Prejudiced aired on Monday night.

Luton now has an even more dubious claim to fame – as the home of a simmering racial war between a moronic group of extremist Muslims and a bunch of equally brain-dead far-right goons.

The programme showed the factions to be two sides of the same depressingly bigoted coin, fighting over their right to exist in the rundown Bedfordshire town like two bald men arguing over a toothless old comb.

On the one side was the English Defence League,

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So, you’ve won an Oscar…

Winning an Oscar is the apex of adulation in the world of film; it brings more money, more fame and more opportunity – doesn’t it?

One might think so but one might be wrong. This year The Artist won for Best Film. Are silent movies making a comeback? No. The film is admirable, and wonderfully made, but it’s a one-off novelty for film buffs.

Imagine you’re an Oscar-winner. You’ve been nominated, won, made the speech, attended the parties and woken up the next morning to … what?  The little golden statue is yours but what has changed?  

Sometimes a lot, sometimes very little. And, whether you’re an actor, director, producer, writer or makeup artist, it may take a while before you notice the difference

What happens depends on who you are and what you want.

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