BBC - Gomp/arts

Goodbye Gomp/arts

2011-05-12T11:31:50Z

Gomp/arts is on the move. As from today my blog is setting up home with a fresh format, and a new moniker: from now on its title will simply be my name. I am told that the technology on the new site is better, it corrals all my BBC work into one place - so it's easier to find (or avoid).

Art world missing Ai Weiwei

2011-05-11T12:18:10Z

Something registered in the head of the tall Chinaman with a wispy beard and inscrutable stare when I introduced myself. It was impossible to tell what exactly, but I don't think it was positive.

Maybe it was my informal greeting, which consisted of a couple of friendly pats on his generous stomach followed up with "So, where's the Harley, big boy?" Or perhaps he was disappointed I hadn't joined him for breakfast. Of course, I might have been being overly sensitive. Whatever, suffice it to say that Ai Weiwei was not effusive when we first met last autumn.

Things got better after that awkward start. He likes Marcel Duchamp and so do I. That was enough. We spent a day together filming a piece for Newsnight, during which time we talked about everything from marriage to moguls. I was looking forward to seeing him again today at the opening of his exhibition of zodiac heads at Somerset House. But of course I won't, because he has vanished, having been detained at Beijing airport by the Chinese authorities thirty-eight days ago. There has been no word from him since.

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And for a man who likes to tweet, blog and take photographs pretty much constantly, that is a bad sign. It makes his show at the Lisson Gallery in London all the more poignant. His brightly coloured vases look like eager children waiting for their dad to come home. The empty chairs and marble CCTV camera on the other side of the gallery suggest they could be in for a long wait. The empty coffin is chilling.

Nobody knows what he has done wrong beyond what the Chinese have called "economic crimes". Nobody knows where he is and when he might be released. Friends, supporters and fellow artists are becoming increasingly worried. All this at a time when many of the world's leading museums and galleries are strengthening their ties with the Chinese authorities; arranging exhibitions, sharing expertise. Will they now cut those ties, or at least loosen them?

Ai Weiwei is a significant man. He demands respect through the force of his personality and intellect. Like many powerful people he talks very quietly. Why should he speak up? If you want to hear him then lean forward and listen. He makes few concessions.

His entourage (not a big one, but an entourage all the same) tends to encircle him, partly to protect, partly to be close. But when he is being interviewed they melt away into the background. Except for a young American documentary filmmaker who has been Ai Weiwei's constant companion for many months, recording his life in minute detail. She is always nearby, even when he is being interviewed, there she is, three feet away documenting everything that is said.

Which in Ai Weiwei's case is often direct and honest. He told me that the famous series of photographs he took of himself dropping an ancient Chinese vase was intended as a joke, not an artwork. And the only reason they came to be considered a work of art was out of necessity. He desperately needed to find some work for a solo exhibition and he didn't have very much knocking about at the time. So, he fished out the photographs and offered them as something of a filler. Today the photographs are one of his most celebrated creations.

He told the story with a broad smile, which is not a face he pulls that often. It wasn't a smug or cynical smile, but one of faint bemusement: the smile of a creator who accepts that others are sometimes better at judging an artist's work. Very Duchampian.

His manner changes when he talks about China and politics. He gathers himself physically, his eyes narrow, his stare becomes more intense. He speaks even more quietly. And he refers to himself in the third person, suggesting his approach to political change is replicable - perhaps even a manifesto. He told me that one Ai Weiwei can't change things but if there were 100, maybe 1000s, then the government would have to listen.

Well, today there is no Ai Weiwei, he has disappeared - all is eerily quiet.

Have you heard Hugh?

2011-05-09T08:30:25Z

Hugh Laurie's been getting a lot of attention. He's turned from a man with a limp who can put on a decent American accent, to a man with a guitar who can put on a decent American accent. The difference is that Hugh Laurie is pretending to be a doctor in House, whereas on his album Let Them Talk he is playing himself.

Are his efforts worthy of the wall-to-wall press coverage he has enjoyed? It has been extensive. Spread before him have been the country's most popular radio and TV shows on which to plug his product, plus articles galore and some nice gigs. This is the sort of promotional tour normally reserved for established acts with a batch of platinum-selling albums on their CV. So how come Hugh got so lucky? I mean nice chap and all that; but isn't he just another middle-aged bloke with a musical hobby?

Let's face it, the world has probably not woken up to find a new musical genius in its midst. He is good, but there are better. Some, like him, are new acts, but they will receive one percent of the media coverage afforded to the ex-Cambridge Footlight. But then Hugh is in Susan Boyle territory.

That is someone who can sing, but whose back story is even better. Susan Boyle's is well known. She was cast as the odd-ball spinster who could hold a note but was trapped within her circumstances. But then a handsome Prince with a t-shirt and high-waisted trousers came along and kissed poor Susan and turned her into a pot of gold.

If anything Hugh Laurie's story is even better. He morphed from that comic buffoon Bertie Wooster on ITV, into one of the most highly regarded (and paid) straight actors in America. A Brit who's shown the friend we most want to impress that we can mix it with in their league. What's more he's cracked America by pretending to be American (just like Dominic West, another old-Etonian actor, did in The Wire). Nice one Hugh, we never doubted you.

And just to prove it we will give you as much media coverage as you like for your side projects.

The art of the red carpet

2011-05-06T08:54:56Z

Ron Galella stood out like a tree at the North Pole. The legendary photographer was standing at the bottom of the steep steps leading up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; his silver hair luminescent against the blood red carpet that the grand old lady of Upper Eastside had running up to her entrance like a tidal bore.

There he waited; the octogenarian snapper; poised to capture his prey: celebrities. The carpet was there, he was there, I was there, three hundred-odd other media were there, to welcome the best A-Listers Anna Wintour's monumental black book could muster for the Met's annual fundraising gala (of which she is Co-Chair) and the opening of its Alexander McQueen exhibition.

It is not surprising that the man Newsweek once dubbed the "paparazzo extraordinaire" is still in the game at eighty: he doesn't give up easy. In the 1970s Jackie Kennedy-Onassis had to resort to the courts for a restraining order against him. Marlon Brando didn't. He treated Ron differently. Brando took things into his own hands when he saw the photographer taking his picture without asking first. The actor rolled one of his hands into a ball to see what would happen when he thrust it into Galella's face. The answer was one bruised knuckle for the Brando (plus a fine) and five less teeth for the paparazzi.

But on Monday evening Galella was playing by the rules. Everybody was playing by the rules. The Met's media team had told the snappers that they had the area around the bottom set of steps as their domain. Halfway up was for the film crews and then in the rarefied air of the top third came the writers. The pattern was mirrored on both sides of the carpet.

At 18:15 the first guest arrived. It was a lady in her late forties who looked like she was in her early thirties. I didn't know her. But the Fox News reporter next to me did. That's why I know the guest on the carpet was older than she appeared. Apparently Fox News lady and red carpet lady had worked together twenty years ago as regular reporters. But the woman from Fox News didn't get the same breaks. She looked a little older too.

Soon after that, Anna Wintour turned up. She's a big deal for the snappers. You could hear it. Suddenly they were all yelling at her to turn this way and that. Their flash bulbs were popping and they were making a lot of noise. And Anna Wintour turned this way and that in a nice frock that looked as though it could double up as a dressing gown from a splendid hotel on the Cote d'Azur. She chose to by-pass the TV crews, which was a shame. We all wanted to know what she thought of the Duchess of Cambridge's wedding dress that Sarah Burton, the current creative director of the label, designed. I think she knew that was what we wanted and that's why she didn't stop by.

But Colin Firth did. And Naomi Campbell and lots of other people. The most frequent question asked by all of us in the media was: "who is that getting out of the limo?" Not everybody was famous, but they all looked famous, which made life difficult. The woman from Fox News had a policy. If she didn't know who someone was - even if it transpired that they were a bona-fide celebrity - then they weren't going to make it into her piece. She was very straightforward like that.

She was funny too. Our side of the steps wasn't doing as well as the other side, where the crew from the big network show Entertainment Tonight was set up. All the biggest stars headed to them. But we were holding our own on the BBC pitch; we were doing okay. But our new friend from Fox News was having less luck. So she stopped shouting "Fox News" whenever a celebrity came within earshot and started shouting "BBC" instead. That was bad, but it did give twice the vocal power, so it wasn't all bad.

And then came Sarah Burton. We really wanted to talk to her. But she didn't really want to talk to us. She knew we were going to ask about the dress she had made for the Duchess of Cambridge and she didn't want to talk about it. Lots of other people were happy to and they were enthusiastic, but its designer stayed schtum.

I think it was because she wanted all the media attention to be on the Alexander McQueen exhibition; a posthumous retrospective of the work of Lee Alexander McQueen, the label's founder, who took his own life early last year. She probably owed it to the Alexander McQueen label who are the exhibition's main sponsor (a conflict of interest?), and would personally not have wanted to divert the limelight away from Lee McQueen; her friend and mentor. So instead she gave us a heartfelt, beaming smile. It was a nice smile: a bashful smile. The sort of embarrassed smile a mother gives when her child has just won all the prizes at sports day without really trying.
Each famous celebrity seemed to have their own style on the red carpet. The singer Janelle Monae took a boomerang approach. When she first arrived and came up the carpet, she generously gave each section of the media what they wanted. With that done she went into the Met. Five minutes later she reappeared and did it all over again, except nobody wanted to talk to her anymore because things had moved on, but she stood about for a bit anyway. She did this a few times.

I think Renée Zellweger must have been watching the royal wedding (23 million people in the USA did). She must have been. Her red carpet style was so similar to Kate's open-top carriage technique. Whenever William saluted on their way to Buckingham Palace after the service, Kate would bow her head. Renée Zellweger did the same. She would throw a hellava pose for the photographers and they would all cheer with delight. And then she would bow her head in an extreme way and bolt up a few stairs before launching into another pose. She did this up all three flights. I suspect it was so that no photos would be useable where she had not consciously posed. It made for an odd ascent.

Not as odd as Beyoncé's. She was booed for her not stopping to pose. But really she ought to have been cheered. Stopping was not an option. Her dress had wrapped itself round her ankles tighter than a Jonny Wilkinson rugby tackle. If she had stopped it would have been immediately followed by a fall, taking her back to the bottom of the stairs where she would have been reacquainted with her pride and triggered a million flashbulbs to ignite.
And all the while, leading the slick choreography of releasing celebrities one-by-one onto the red carpet, was a genial, bear-like man about sixty years old. His title was something along the lines of Head of Carpet, which he was, both metaphorically and literally. Idiosyncratically dressed in a snappy jacket and white polo shirt with a black-tie printed onto the collar, the Head of Carpet would greet the celebrities from their limos. As they prepared their walk of fame he would whisper into their ears, pointing out where the main players in the press pack were situated. Once briefed, he would release his guest into the arms of a waiting PR, who would marshal the climb. If a celebrity wished to avoid all contact with the press, another PR would arrive - somewhat plumper than the rest - and envelop the camera-shy star in her welcoming bosom and smuggle their preciousness into the exhibition.

The whole episode took three hours. Some of the older cameramen were looking beaten. In a cruel twist of technology, it was the older guys (they were all men as far as I could see) who had to hump huge and heavy cameras over the rails and towards the interviewee. The youngsters had light pieces of plastic which seemed to do the job just as well, with a lot less strain to back and brain. But the old timers would probably have spent $40,000 on their camera and the thought of throwing it away to be replaced by a £5,000 is too much to concede.

There are few concessions on the red carpet.

The art of a successful marriage

2011-04-15T10:09:00Z

I understand William and Kate - aka Catherine - are getting married. Why? I mean why is such a beautiful girl marrying a balding bloke with a plummy accent and a dodgy educational record. To be honest - and I don't want to be disrespectful - I suspect it's for the money.

Photo by Mario Testino, one of the official portraits for the engagement of Prince William and Miss Catherine Middleton

That's an example of the sort of speculation and tittle-tattle I had to put up with from observers when I got married nearly 18 years ago to Kate (Catherine) Anderson. Well, I lost the money but not the missus, so her motives must have lain elsewhere, although, to be frank, I too have never been able to fathom what they were.

But it's worked out (I'm away a lot); we have an understanding: I choose the music in the car; she chooses the destination. I say the house looks a bit tired; she redecorates it. She has style; I don't. There are a billion similar marriages (aren't there?).

Just imagine though, if you were called William and Kate, and were marrying at the end of this month in front of billions of people. And that every single comment, choice, idiosyncrasy and opinion you proffered was publicly scrutinised. It would be a strain, wouldn't it? But what might make the pressure almost unbearable for Prince William and Catherine Middleton, his bride-to-be, is the knowledge that many of those choices and opinions have global ramifications.

Kate's wedding dress will make its designer's career, regardless of what he/she conjures up. Even a take on Gaga's meat dress would work (caveat: key elements would have to be organic to placate Charles). Already Kate is proving to be just as potent a clotheshorse as Michelle Obama - whose sartorial selections have provided a big boast for her chosen brands.

The Issa dress Kate wore for her engagement announcement sold out, as did Primark's cheaper version. The white Reiss dress she wore for the Mario Testino's official engagement photograph was, for a while, selling at one-per-minute. Commentators say that she has yet to find her fashion mojo, but once she moves from off-the-peg (she'll have to apparently) to bespoke, her true colours will be revealed.

And the British fashion industry - currently worth nearly £21bn according to the British Fashion Council (BFC) - will be keeping an eye on her choices. According to Harold Tillman, Chair of the BFC, her commercial impact on the sector will be huge - as long as she buys British...

She will set trends, the royals always have. Was it irony or ignorance that led to Malcolm McLaren dressing the Sex Pistols up in tartan, a fabric made famous by the Royal Family? Even Prince Charles's dogged commitment to double-breasted suits appears to be catching on, a bit.

But the influence of the newly-weds will go beyond fashion. Their voices and choices across the arts will be heard and felt. Kate for example is keen on photography. What I wonder would she have made of this week's shortlist for the BP Portrait Award? Perhaps she'll commission the £25K prize-winner to produce the first portrait of the happy couple?

I'm fairly certain the creators of the TV film William and Kate: The Movie; won't win the contract to make their wedding video. The film depicts their St Andrews dating days, and has been described as "the naffest royal film ever made". Channel 5 will be screening it in the run-up to the wedding.

And what would their view be on the new David Chipperfield-designed Turner Contemporary in Margate: a modern masterpiece or colossal carbuncle? We know where his dad stood on modern architecture, but what about William?

Actually, what about William? If you look at his list of interests on the Prince of Wales's official website you'll discover he only has one: sport. Isn't that a bit narrow for a future King and current President of Bafta?

But right now, their thoughts will be turning to their honeymoon and what to read on holiday. Perhaps they can take their pick from the shortlists of two literary prizes announced this week. Maybe Kate could sample the Orange Prize's shortlist and William could go for the one provided by the Wodehouse Prize.

I'm off on holiday, and by the time I return William and Kate will be married. Their life will be exciting, weird, frustrating and challenging, as I hope, will their impact on the arts. Bonne chance.

Celebrating John Cage

2011-04-12T07:54:27Z

Have you noticed how everybody wants to be different but nobody wants be odd? Call a friend unique and they'll like you all the more, tell them that they're odd and you'll be deleted from their life. The truth is most people don't want to be different - they want to be the same, but better.

I like odd people. Quirky types, eccentrics, twitching academics, people who are not in sync with the rest of the world but not against it either, people who are just doing their thing. People like the late musician John Cage (1912-1992).

Cage was a Category A odd-ball. When everybody turned left, his instinct was to veer right, not for effect or attention or to elevate himself, just because turning right would have felt like the thing to do. He was a great and influential musician who made music from life, not to accompany it. He was the man behind 4'33'' - a timeframe in which to listen, a piece of infinitely varying incidental music that the anit-X Factorers tried to manipulate to number one spot in the UK charts last Christmas under the banner of Cage Against the Machine.

I don't think John Cage would have approved. The implicit point being made by the Cowell-knocking PR campaign was anything is better than a Simon Cowell promoted number one: even silence. But 4'33'' is not a piece of post-modernist irony, it is not about silence, it's about the music of real life. Cage once said that, "the sound experience I prefer to all others is the experience of silence". It is only when all is quiet that your aural senses can at last have a bit of "me time".

When Cage was taken away with that exhilarating feeling of freedom we all get on high days and holidays, when the iPod gets cranked up a notch or two, and a favourite piece of music transports us to somewhere sublime, he would not bother with manufactured music, but simply turn up his ears and listen harder to the noises around him.

He was less interested in formal music, which he likened to talking, "I don't need sound to talk to me", but liked the "activity of sound". Sound that doesn't mean anything other than it is proof of a life-force. So, someone dropping a pan, or a busy motorway or a random act of noisemaking by a horse bolting though a city was music to Cage's ears.

On Saturday a new exhibition opens at the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex, called, John Cage: Every Day is a Good Day. It will be the first of many such exhibitions over the next 12 months, marking the centenary of the modernist master's birth. The show will include a reprisal of his whimsical 1948 piece, Suite for Toy Piano by Margaret Leng Tan who you can see on YouTube playing Eleanor Rigby on the instrument. She knew Cage and worked with him before he died. Her point - and his point - is that the toy piano has the potential to be a real instrument, that anything has the potential to be musical, especially silence.

John Cage was odd. Fabulously so.

Tasting notes

2011-04-11T11:10:53Z

Last week the shoe designer Christian Louboutin filed a lawsuit against Yves Saint Laurent for putting red soles on its shoes. He claims that to do so infringes his copyright. As you might know, Louboutin's shoes have noticeably red soles.

Such style nuances are a designer's holy grail. A subtle bit of branding that lets those in the know, know, and leaves those who don't know none-the-wiser and satisfyingly excluded. It is about visual language. It is about style and wealth. It is about tribe and commerce. But above all it's about taste: the ugly side of aesthetics.

All of which has been on my mind since Friday when I filed a short round-up of the week's arts news for BBC2's Review Show. I had themed the piece around the idea of taste. I know that's a bit lame as taste is a default theme in the arts, but I excused myself on the grounds that a week in which Mohamed Al Fayed placed his statue of Michael Jackson at Fulham Football Club and Frankie Boyle got a slap on the wrist for his "joke" about Katie Price and her disabled son, was as good a time as any to peg a piece against the subject.

And since then it's been on my mind like an annoying tune, insomuch as I would rather have been thinking about lots of other things but kept finding myself relating every thought to matters of taste. And that's the problem with taste; it's as pervasive and determined as a Russian vine (yes, and with the scars to prove it).

Is Gavin Turk's idea of sticking a giant rusty nail into a spot of land by St Paul's Cathedral in good or bad taste? And did the man and his accomplices who stole the £1.2 million Stradivarius (and £62k bow) from a musician having lunch in a sandwich shop demonstrate some sort of atavistic good taste gene, or were they just ignorant chancers?

And who decides what is good taste and what is bad? Is it the opinion of several million people, or that of people with several million? And at which point does something become good taste in-perpetuity (Georgian architecture) or become supposedly gauche without warning (Ugg boots)?

When is taste allowed to be fickle and when must it be faithful? And while everybody is allowed to have their own taste, they're not really are they?

Take beards for example. Ten years ago if you had a beard your chances of working in the "creative industries" as a rookie were close to zero; today the reverse is probably true. Now, beards haven't changed or young men's ability to grow them, but taste has. So now there are a lot more twenty-somethings with beards than there were a decade or two ago, most of whom would like, or have, a job in the creative industries or be associated with those that do.

Association is a major factor in defining what is and what is not good taste. If we associate a style/brand with a certain way of life to which we aspire, we are likely to consider it good taste. And if that style/brand has a visual shorthand like a recognisable logo; then they are in good shape. But if the associations become negative, that brand is no longer good shape, it is in bad shape.

Which all goes to show the power of design and the associations we prescribe to individual objects and phrases in order to arrive at a point of view we call: "taste".

Bob Dylan and Ai Weiwei

2011-04-08T11:42:58Z

Awkward. That's how I imagine Bob Dylan is feeling. His jaunt to China raised the odd eyebrow when it was first made public. Now, with the arrest of Ai Weiwei, those eyebrows have been lowered into scowls and quizzical looks.

"What's the world's most famous protest singer going to do about Ai's detention?" people are asking. "Will he quit the tour? Or at least say something? Surely he will say something? I'm sure he'll say something." And so on.

I'm thinking he'd probably never heard of Ai Weiwei before going to China. Well, he has now. And after a modicum of research he will have found out that the conceptual artist has - as he himself did in the 60s and 70s - made politics a central component of his artistic output.

But there is a difference. To paraphrase Marshall McLuhan - the great American post-war academic - Dylan's message was in the medium, whereas Ai Weiwei is the message. When I interviewed him for Newsnight last year, he said he most admired Marcel Duchamp, not for his art, but for his attitude to life.

And this is what he has attempted to emulate. His art is a secondary by-product of his view of the world and his place within it - his attitude to life is the real artwork. So for Ai Weiwei the installation at Tate Modern of his porcelain sunflower seeds is an example of one of his works of art, and his arrest and detention, another.

That is not to say he is pleased to be banged up, or that it is part of some grand artistic plan, but that the man, his politics and his art are one inseparable thing. Which I suspect means that if the roles were reversed, and Bob Dylan was under arrest in China, that Ai Weiwei would probably have had something to say by now.

Daniel Barenboim: Classical music for all

2011-04-07T11:41:30Z

Daniel Barenboim started our phone interview by taking the mickey. It was my accent that caught his ear; a tad plummy I suspect: "Hello my dear fellow" said the great maestro in response to my BBC welcome. Which was quickly followed by "I'm ready old fellow". Then something along the lines of "do ask a question, be a good chap".

I was relieved. I'm the youngest child of four, I can handle teasing, what I don't like are telephone interviews. Unaided by physical cues, they can go terribly wrong, extremely quickly. The last person I interviewed over the phone was Steve Martin and that went slightly worse than very badly.

Arts reporting is the decathlon of journalism; there is a lot of disciplines to cover and you're going to be weaker in some more than others: Daley Thompson wasn't strongest at the 1,500m; my 1,500m is cantatas and capriccios. So when the man thought by some to be the greatest pianist and conductor of his generation chooses to play the (interviewing) game in good humour, I'm delighted.

Admittedly he had something to plug - a one-off free concert on Friday night to launch three CDs - so it was in his interest to keep things friendly. But as it turned out, his warmth was genuine as was his evident frustration with classical music. Not the art form, but the narrowness of its fan-base.

He thinks classical music is intimidating, too aloof and disconnected from the masses; existing in not so splendid intellectual isolation enjoyed mainly by the aficionados who attend the world's great concert halls. "Music today has been put more and more into an ivory tower," he said. Those responsible for it had failed to keep up with technological developments - records, CDs, iTunes - which had "democratized" the western classics; while Schoenberg and Stravinsky became widely and cheaply available, "there was not the necessary accompanying actions taken in efforts of education for all these [new listeners]".

He says there should be a "radical change of the education system", so that "children don't just learn literature, biology, geography and history at school, but you also learn music". Because, he thinks, "through music you get over many obstacles you have in daily, normal daily life outside music".

And, he added, if people are to get something out of classical music they need to put something in:

"There's no point in telling people just go there it's so simple it will happen. That's also not true, it's not a good way. I think that people need to know that to get something out of classical music they have to really want to go there and open their ears. And really concentrate and listen and then they will really get a lot out of it."

But he's going to do his bit too: starting with the gig, in the cavernous Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, which will be filled with Chopin. Barenboim on piano and five other players. He says his doing it to:

"[F]ind a new public and wanted to find the people that are curious. The people that maybe feel they don't know enough about music and don't dare to come into contact with it. And maybe through this kind of actions they will. Maybe they will come. In the end curiosity is the most important because if you are curious you will acquire the knowledge that you might not have presently."

The choice of location is deliberate. Modern art was once unpopular, looked upon with suspicion by the general public. Now they come in their millions, with open, enquiring minds: just the sort of punters Barenboim is after. It's a tactic that might work. In fact if he looks to the rise in popularity of modern art as an exemplar, it might prove more effective than formal education.

The public's change in attitude to modern art (not all of course) has not come about because of education, but because of fashion: it became hip. A mixture of some charismatic artists (from Warhol to Hirst), beguiling new spaces (Pompidou Centre, Guggenheim Bilbao, Tate Modern) and media-savvy dealers (Larry Gagosian, Jeffrey Deitch, Jay Jopling) has led to modern art forcing its way into the public consciousness. And once there, the public decided they wanted to know more.

Which led to more people visiting galleries, which led to more media coverage, which led more new buildings, which led to more public interest and so on. The success of a gallery such as Nottingham Contemporary is remarkable; in their inaugural year of 2010, they welcomed hundreds of thousands of visitors to take a look at the most avant of the avant-garde.

Once at a gallery visitors can teach themselves (and in some cases their children). The knock-on effect has been more interest in all genres of art, from the Renaissance masters to the cave paintings of France. There's no reason why classical music shouldn't enjoy similar success. It's not as if there is a shortage of young talent with something interesting to say - the British composers Thomas Ades and Mark Anthony Turnage being just two examples of interesting and adventurous exponents of the art form.

Daniel Barenboim will not give up the fight on the education front, but I suspect he will have more success in achieving his aims of making his music more widely heard and understood by taking a more innovative approach. As he says:

"I'm sure that 100 years ago people who knew their Schoenberg knew their Kandinsky and the people who knew their Picasso knew their Stravinsky and that's not the case any more now. There are many people who are interested in painting who don't know and don't care anything about music and vice versa. And it's time really that we make that connection again."

I'll be there; listening and learning.

3D cinema

2011-04-05T07:48:24Z

3D is a naff cinematic gimmick right? The toy du jour for dollar-eyed film execs and publicity hungry arts companies: "the first ever 3D sculpture show" and so on. It's been used, abused and discredited, a flash-in-the-pan fad like Cuban heels: enough already.

Or, maybe, it's the most artistically important development in film since Technicolor? Could it be that 3D technology will be for filmmakers, what the discovery of perspective was for the great artists of the renaissance? That is, understanding that depth of depiction opens up new possibilities for depth of expression.

Two new films, by two great German auteurs show what can be achieved with this much-maligned technology. Werner Herzog's documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams, about the Chauvet cave paintings in the South of France and Wim Wenders's Pina, his tribute to the choreographer and dancer Pina Bausch, has changed the view of many 3D sceptics who can now see the point.

Arts Council cuts revealed

2011-03-30T11:41:05Z

Manchester International Festival is in. Derby Theatre is likely to be out. And the South London Gallery has got a pay rise, going from the £394,000 they current receive to nearly £850,000 by 2015 (having doubled it size and tripled its audience). It’s still only 8:30am but the calls have been coming in to me shortly after Arts Council England (ACE) have made their outgoing calls.

It didn’t need to be like this. Arts Council England could have chosen to apply a 15% cut across the board and thereby avoid the inevitable hullabaloo of those who have had all their funding taken away questioning the decision. But as Alan Davey has just said on the Today programme, he felt that was not the way to go and would lead to a less vibrant sector.

I suspect that will be the fate for just over 200 arts companies who previously had funding, with a hundred or so new contracts being awarded to organisations not previously in the fold (eg Manchester International Festival).

Many have still not have heard. The bosses of theatres, orchestras and dance companies are still waiting anxiously by their phones, like politicians on election night; they await their fate. Has their bid for financial support been successful? And if so, is it with a reduced margin?

There are five possible outcomes for arts companies that have applied to ACE for funding:

Total rejection – no money and not a member of the portfolio
They still receive ACE funding but it is greatly reduced – an implicit warning that they need to do better
Their funding is cut more moderately, within the 15% average set by the government – I think this will be the case with all the big national institutions ACE funds
They get MORE money – as is the case with South London Gallery
Or they receive regular funding for the first time and become part of ACE’s portfolio

I think "umbrella companies" - associations and advocacy groups that represent one group or art form but don’t directly produce content - will be particularly hard hit. And it seems likely that the visual arts will do well. We’ve already seen that with the South London Gallery, and you can add large increases to the Hepworth in Wakefield and Turner Contemporary in Margate into the mix, as they are opening for the first time this spring.

I don’t think the overall spending pattern across England will change much, but understand many of the agreements will be contingent upon local councils also stumping up. So where that leaves theatres and galleries in places like Somerset where all arts funding is being withdrawn remains to be seen.

I’ve heard from several sources that £10 million will be put towards a project to enable schools and arts companies to work together - this goes some way towards replacing the £50 million that went out of arts education when Creative Partnerships and Find Your Talent were axed last year.

Most will be three-year deals, but I think there will be some that are shorter - maybe two years - and some that are longer - possibly up to six years. All 840 organisations that are currently funded have a year to adjust to whatever funding decision they receive.

I think the theme ACE will be pushing is that they have supported adventurous programming. Risk-takers who have made it happen will be rewarded, while those they think are simply surviving will be the ones in the firing line.

A final point: Although these decisions have been made within the context of government cuts, there will be significantly more lottery money available than there was before, to enable ACE to cushion the blow for those organisations that find themselves out of favour and out of pocket.

Update 1241:

The upshot, after an hour’s worth of press conference, is that there are 695 arts companies who have a multi-year deal with Arts Council England.

Some, like the Hampstead Theatre, have a three-year deal and others such as Artangel have an agreement for six years.

As I expected, Derby Theatre’s funding has been axed as has that for the Northcott Theatre in Exeter, the Dartington Hall Trust in Devon and the Riverside Studios in London.

The shock of the day was the withdrawal of all funding from the innovative theatre company Shared Experience. I saw their production of Bronte at the weekend and it seemed to tick all the Arts Council boxes: it’s collaboration with another company, gives opportunity to emerging talent, is a company which is for once mot male-dominated, and has secured a residency at the Oxford Playhouse to make it more financially secure. In a bizarre twist, the Oxford Playhouse actually received an increase in its funding.

But of course when such a comprehensive overhaul takes place it is inevitable there will be anomalies and that decisions will be made that will prove to be contentious.

I spoke to the Arts Council specifically about the Shared Experience decision and they admitted that it was a tough call and there would be project funds available to help the company survive. I would not be surprised to see them back as a RFO (regularly funded organisation) in three years time.

It was the umbrella organisations that took the brunt of the pain, with groups such as Dance United (which just happens to be one of Prince William and Kate Middleton’s chosen charities on their wedding list) finding their funding withdrawn altogether.

Arts Council to deliver knockout punch

2011-03-28T10:27:48Z

It's a big week for Big Al. Arts Council England's (ACE) heavyweight boss spent Friday working out, getting ready to deliver knockout blow after knockout blow on Wednesday morning. His targets will be theatres, arts centres and assorted musical outfits from Cornwall to Carlisle. They will fight back.

But it could be the making of Alan Davey, a quietly spoken aesthete trapped in the body of a nightclub bouncer. His tenure as the CEO of ACE has been steady if unspectacular, as this morning's report by the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee appeared to conclude. His announcement on Wednesday morning - outlining which arts organisations will receive funding from his quango and which will not - is his big moment.

As the select committee report says, it is "inevitable" that rejecting approximately half of the 1,350 arts organisations that have applied for funding will lead to widespread complaints. Alan Davey and his Chair, Liz Forgan, will come under intense scrutiny. The report's authors are concerned that ACE's process of whittling down has been too quick. Maybe it has.

But Davey, Forgan and the rest of the ACE board will weather the storm if they are able to demonstrate a rock-solid rationale for their decisions. No flim-flam, no management speak, no "it's not our fault", just a clear and coherent intellectual argument that makes their decisions understandable - if not palatable - for all concerned.

In doing so, they will have spelt out an arts funding strategy for England that has fairness, rigour and accountability at its heart - something that by their own admission has been missing.

It won't be easy. How, for instance, do they deal with that tricky issue of audience development? The select committee report says they shouldn't "relentlessly pursue people who are not interested in the arts". But if they don't, they will be criticised for being elitist and ignoring whole swathes of the population who contribute to their funds. Added to which, both Davey and Forgan have talked about the arts in evangelical terms; that a painting or a play or an opera can be redemptive and more broadly of the arts as a catalyst for regeneration. "Do gooding" is part of the council's DNA.

And what will they do about The Public in West Bromwich? The report criticised ACE for wasting money on the arts centre in the past, but does that mean they should not invest in it for the future? They'll probably get criticised either way. And that's just one of 1,350 decisions they have to make.

So, whether he likes it or not, Alan Davey is in for a fight. On Wednesday we will find out which companies he has picked on. Will it be just the little guys? Or does he fancy his chances against the big boys? Will the likes of the Royal Opera House and the Southbank Centre take a big hit?

The select committee and many others will be watching...

The week in the arts

2011-03-25T14:15:43Z

It was a week of two Dames. And Grayson Perry.

The stars came out and lit up the airwaves to pay tribute to Dame Elizabeth Taylor after she died on Wednesday.

Barbra Streisand said: "it's an end of an era. It wasn't just her beauty or stardom. It was her humanitarianism. She made life count". While Martin Landau who appeared with the "aubergine-eyed" actress in Cleopatra (just how big a gooseberry did he feel?) thought she was, "a unique talent and a singularly spectacular individual". Michael Caine simply said she was, "a great human being".

Of course there was plenty of talk about her penchant for men. She herself admitted that she tended to "sashay up to men, but walk up to women". And Debbie Reynolds - whose husband (Eddie Fisher) left her for Liz Taylor - observed that, "women liked her...men adored her". There was little mention of her friendship with Michael Jackson, which I thought said a lot about her. They were part of the same exclusive club, called Child Stars Who Were Even Better When They Grew Up And Then Became Legends In Their Own Lifetime. It is an unusual (and I imagine utterly weird) human experience that they shared; they understood each other, like nobody else could.

Another aspect of her life that went uncommented upon was just how many people she knew. I stopped counting on Thursday evening after the hundredth "the time I met Liz Taylor story" was recounted to me. Meeting Liz seems to be right up there with the first Pistols gig and Damien Hirst's Freeze exhibition, as an event an improbable amount of people appear to have experienced. Her lust for life and aptitude to "go large" given a choice was well documented. But it was her advocacy work to fight fear and prejudice about HIV/AIDS, to stand up and be counted when few others would and to use (and risk) her celebrity to do so, which showed that Michael Caine's assessment of her was spot on: Dame Elizabeth Taylor was one heck of a human being.

Dame Vivien Duffield is not unimpressive either. Her dad spent his life making money, she has spent hers giving it away. The £8.2 million pounds she donated this week adds to the £50 million-plus she has dished out since 2000. Arts and education tend to be her thing -particularly when they are combined. She's paid for education spaces to be created in theatres and museums across Britain and for their best staff to go on The Clore Leadership Programme. I don't know how good the actual training course is, but I do know that being selected to go on it is like putting afterburners on your career.

Grayson Perry who became a member of the Royal Academy this week

But her good deeds can't pay for everything. I was at a school in Jarrow, South Tyneside, yesterday. It is not a wealthy area of the country and the school has had its share of problems. But what I saw was exceptional. A publically funded programme called Find Your Talent had paid for the internationally renowned choreographer Wayne Macgregor's company to come to the school for a week or so and teach some of the pupils to dance. They loved it, were flattered by the attention and responded with enthusiasm and commitment. Their assessment of the experience was illuminating. They told me that not only had they learnt a lot, but it had changed their attitude to school in general and their school in particular. They said they were now proud to go to Jarrow School, when once they were not. And you could feel the positive vibe throughout the school. Macgregor had not only given the pupils confidence, but it had given the school confidence.

The Find Your Talent programme was a victim of the recent cuts, as was another major arts education scheme. The £50 million pounds that has been taken out of this grass-roots type of activity is bound to have a material effect. Next week Arts Council England announces its funding decisions; who's for the chop and who is not. I suspect that they will want to reverse some of their cuts to arts education. But will any new figure come remotely close to the £50 million that has been taken away. And will there be money put aside to cover the costs of artists such as Wayne Macgregor to work in schools, which according to some is a vital element of arts education. Or will it simply be money to employ people to 'build bridges.'

And finally, congratulations to Grayson Perry RA - for becoming a member of the Royal Academy.

The arts on a budget

2011-03-24T12:57:18Z

Some advice: if you are not a morning person, if it takes you a while to get going, to collect your thoughts, to syncopate with the day, then do not arrange an 08:00 GMT interview with Dame Vivien Duffield. By this time the jewel-eyed philanthropist is as feisty as a terrier in a field of rabbits.

As I found out when we met today on the National Theatre's rooftop terrace. It was a chilly but beautiful morning. A Monet-like mist, lit by a rising spring sun, made for an evocative scene as boats glided calmly up and down the Thames going about their daily business. Not that we chatted about that. No, we got straight down to business.

"What do you think of the budget" she asked.

"Err...well...I was..." I began.

"A good start don't you think?"

"Hmm...perhaps...I thought...do you think they've got any coffee around here?"

"Jeremy's [Hunt, the Culture Secretary] done well to wrestle those concessions from the Treasury"

"You think so...?"

She does. She is delighted with the tax breaks announced yesterday by George Osborne in his Budget, which she calls "a step in the right direction". And has visibly warmed to the culture secretary. The last time we met she wasn't that pleased with him. He'd made a big play about writing to all the country's philanthropists, but Dame Vivien - one of the most generous - had not heard from him. Communications appear to have improved since.

And having spoken to other philanthropists and the recipients of their generosity in the arts, there is a general feeling that Jeremy Hunt's initiative to encourage more philanthropic giving is starting to pay dividends. His simple and ultra cost-effective idea of making philanthropists feel more appreciated is proving effective. But, as the culture minister made clear when launching his campaign last year, philanthropy is no substitute for government core funding. Nor for that matter, are one-off lottery grants.

Theatres, museums and orchestras say they need core funding on either a three, four or five year contact, to enable them to plan and run their businesses. Any additional money provided by philanthropic gifts or a one-off lottery grant is extremely helpful, but doesn't compare. It is the difference between an employee earning a wage and then receiving the occasional bonus, you can plan your life around one, but not the other.

So while arts leaders acknowledge the efforts the government has made to increase philanthropy and the positive changes they have made to the lottery, there is still a great deal of concern about the cut to their core subsidy which ranges from a minimum of 15%, up to nearly 30%. This, they say, is significant and will affect them materially. Their programmes will have to be reduced, with many citing their educational outreach work being particularly susceptible.

Already Creative Partnerships - the nationwide programme to connect schools with the arts - has had its funding withdrawn, all £40m of it. That is a huge sum to remove from children's arts education, an area many consider to be the most crucial role played by the arts in Britain. And because education is not seen as "front line", it remains very vulnerable to further cuts. If you look at most fundraising proposals prepared by arts institutions, you will see that they are for - or at least contain an element of - education and outreach.

By most measures the subsidised arts sector in Britain has been successful over the last decade. But the one area that almost all arts companies have struggled with is in diversifying their audiences; the vast majority of their customers are white, middle class and tertiary educated. They want to change this, to reflect and serve their communities better, and recognise that education is the way to do it. As does Dame Vivien, but she can't do it all on her own.

A nasty case of sequelitis

2011-03-23T09:00:19Z

Who'd a thought it; they've only gone and turned Chitty Chitty Bang Bang into a camper van.

What's more, Truly Scrumptious has had to take a back seat while the Tooting (geddit) family hit the road and surf the sky. It wasn't like that in my day.

But that was before sequelitis, a highly contagious condition that publishers, literary estates and movie moguls are particularly prone to. None more so than those responsible for Ian Fleming's estate, who have succumbed to repeated outbreaks, most notably around their James Bonds. Now it has spread to their Chitty Chitty Bang Bangs, hence the camper van.

I should explain. In November an all-new Chitty story will be published by Macmillan Children's Books, which carries on where Ian Fleming left off.

It has been written by Frank Cottrell Boyce - who, after scripting 24 Hour Party People, can do pretty much whatever he wants in my book - and has been given the disappointingly unadventurous title, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again (a post modern gag?).

Chitty joins a long list of literary "brands" to be given a facelift by someone other than their creator. Winnie-the-Pooh, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, and Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca have all been given the treatment.

Why? I suppose because the public like new stories that take well-liked characters on new adventures while creating a nostalgic link with times past. Literary estates like them because they are in effect brand extensions, a way of making their core asset sweat. And publishers like them because it reduces the inherent risk of fiction publishing.

Of course the movie business has been at it for years. There's an old story about a new owner of a Hollywood studio commissioning some very expensive research to find out which films were the most profitable. Many millions of dollars later they got their answer: sequels. Books are no different, there's a formula to these things. A star actor is an important ingredient for a film sequel; a star writer is generally required in the book world.

Personally, I can't help but feel a little squeamish about the whole thing. The characters that we have come to know and connect with are the product of an individual author's imagination. No other writer or computer programme can capture the magic, because in many cases it has bubbled up from an unconscious mind sitting in front of a blank page.

There is certain magic to creating memorable characters and stories, which most authors will attest to. Turning the process into a hand-me-down franchise seems to devalue what is a truly remarkable human faculty.