The featured German collection, having been amassed by Karin and Gerhard Dammann, does have strong work of arts to show to its credit. Exceptional pieces illustrated in the book include a 19th century bed frame showing hand-carved faces exuding pure nightmarish horrors; some heraldry dating from the 18th century done with expert knowledge of the craft and paranoid fantasy; and several madonna (as in church service, no as in pop singer) statues showing a creepiness that is capable of reducing children to tears according to Karin Dammann.

Leaving the picture part of the catalogue leaves you wondering what induces people to collect art like this. It is therefore logical that this theme should be taken up in the essays section of the catalogue, but it doesn’t answer this question directly, but rather generally for any kind of collector.

Some of the essays nicely turn the tables on the usual art story line with collectors rather than artists being treated to psychoanalytic treatment. One explaines that the extreme of collector is a Narcissus  who descends from fleeing personal relationships into accumulation, addiction and finally total isolation. But milder instances of the habit find a voice as well. One conclusion offered is that collecting helps the collector enhance/define/construct his identity in progressive order. At the same time, the author makes a case for those collectors willing to incorporate outsider work into their identities as setting a positive example. The inclusion of outsider art values art and artists that have been characterized by a long history of rejection and devaluation.

One essay explores the early part of that history reaching back to what is known of the early 1800s, while also documenting the history on art-related activities of the time before the Prinzhorn collection was started. The Prinzhorn collection (which signs as publisher for the catalogue) was accumulated at the Heidelberg Clinic by Dr. Prinzhorn as its Principal. She makes a clear case that the relation between psychiatric and aesthetic appreciation of work by asylum dwellers was fraught with tension from the beginning.

Further essays deal with collecting art out of psychiatric institutions for the sake of their aesthetic values. The label of ‘art brut’ was created to de-demonize the pedigree of art being valued on its own terms rather than in its connotation to psychiatric treatment. The label became a weapon in the war over the reorganisation of psychiatric treatment to modern standards. The negative aspect of this ‘war’ is also shown referring to conflicts over terminology that hampered the development of art brut being accepted as art at all.

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By: mzacha

I don’t know about you, but for me most museum doors open some sort of portal into a parallel reality where time slows to a snail’s pace, and the air and light wash over my brain like some sort of fuzzy, dull hangover. From inside looking out I see the world whizzing by, like the last scene of every Benny Hill Show when Benny was chasing (and then being chased by) a gaggle of scantily clad blond nurses through the park of some London suburb. Good times, good times.

You see, just thinking about it sets me to daydreaming. Back inside, all the other patrons seem to just float there before the artwork, completely motionless or drifting ever so slowly from room to room, turning to view each piece like the hot dogs on those rolling cookers at the 7-Eleven. To them, I must be Benny Hill, quick-stepping through the museum in a jerky blur (only without all the hot chicks in close pursuit.

None of this is ever a problem when I’m alone (although I can’t remember the last time I went to a museum solo), but when I’m with my wife or other serious museum goers, I find it’s virtually impossible to slow myself down enough to stay with them. I don’t want to be rude, but if we don’t pick up the pace a bit my head is going to explode, and that wouldn’t be something that the perfect-husband would do, correct? So I’ve come up with some advice to help us take our time and enjoy the museum.

By: MacTabbie

First off, the main obstacle to your appreciation of art is probably just ignorance. Imagine if you knew nothing about the nuance and lore of baseball. It would probably be a pretty boring game to watch. But once you know all the background, it becomes an intriguing drama. Go to the museum’s website and read about the exhibits they currently have on display. Learning about the art and the artists will make your visit much more interesting. Just as knowing Pedro Martinez’s lifetime stats can make an otherwise mundane game interesting, knowing a bit about Velazquez and his times will suddenly bring an otherwise nondescript royal portrait to life.

Next, realize that despite the Benny Hill hallucinations, time is moving at the same pace inside the museum as it is outside. Rather than letting time run away from you, try to gather it up and appreciate it while you’re there. Use some of the relaxation techniques discussed earlier to focus less on the passage of time and to cultivate an inner calmness .

By: kconnors

If you can get yourself in the proper state of mind, you may find that you are suddenly more open to appreciating the art itself. And that doesn’t necessarily mean liking it. Rather than reading every description of every piece and forcing yourself to find out what you think the art is supposed to be about, just clear your mind and look at it. Try to feel how the art affects you. Does it remind you of anything, or make you feel a certain way? Is it just a pretty picture? The point is, it really doesn’t matter how art affects you, or if it doesn’t affect you at all. Your opinion and interpretation is really the only one that matters. With this in mind, you may find yourself taking more time before each picture, just enjoying the view.

By: pedrojperez

If all else fails, heed that old George Carlin saying that the best laughter is the forbidden kind, that repressed half-laugh that forces its way out at the most inappropriate moments. Museums contain limitless comic possibilities, both from the artwork and the other patrons. I remember when I was once at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York with my Uncle Bud and Aunt Eileen. We were standing in front of a very dark and dramatic painting of a martyred, naked woman. “What a shame,” Bud said very seriously under his breath. “What?” I whispered, assuming he’d share the story of the subject’s tragic demise or the artist’s miserable life. Without turning away from the painting or changing the tone of his voice, he said: “Those were some great breasts.” A blaring, resonant snort escaped my nasal cavity, echoed all the way over to the Islamic Art gallery, and sent a huge flock of pigeons careering past the hot dog vendors on Fifth Avenue. Now that’s what I call art appreciation.

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How is a country to remember those of which it disposed so cruelly?  That might possibly prove a stumbling block.  A small, brilliant idea back in the nineties has led to an art movement which is still thriving and gaining ground to this day.  Under your feet throughout Europe you will find stumbling blocks to aid your remembrance of those long gone, taken with malice before their time.  The above remembers Ida Arensberg, deported from Bonn in 1942 at the age of seventy two and murdered the same year.

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Gunter Demnig, a performance artist from Cologne, first thought of the idea of a literal stumbling block in 1993.  History all too often reduces its victims to numbers, with so many million killed here and so many million reduced to ashes there.  What he wanted to do was to create something that would enable ordinary Germans to remember ordinary Germans – something far more personal and immediate than a number, a name.  So was born a project in which those long since disappeared and dead were to be remembered, literally under the feet of the general public. Above, an entire family from Lübeck is commemorated.  Below, the artist Demnig prepares to lay two new stumbling blocks in Bad Kissingen, June 2009.

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Neighbors the Meyers and the Löbensteins may have lived next to each other for years.  The Meyers were murdered in Auschwitz, the fate of the Löbensteins remains unclear.  Of course, some memories are painful and we may not wish to stumble on them under our feet as it can lead to some discomfort.  Although the immediate reaction is down to the individual, there has been some opposition to the stumbling blocks or stolpersteine as they are know in German.  That is the literal translation and, put more loosely it means an obstacle or something in the way. 

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The Prenskis were probably just a normal family.  They must have been pleased to have made it through the depression but Martin and Margot only just made it in to their teens before they were murdered.  As a reminder of those who were deported and killed by the Nazis in the concentration and extermination camps, the fact that they are so subtly placed may produce as much food for thought as more traditional, larger memorials.  The Jewish people of Europe were the primary victims and targets of the Nazi regime but Demnig’s stumbling blocks also remember the smaller minorities whose lives were cut short by the misplaced politics of the time. 

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The human foot next to the block that remember Dr Ernst Jacobson who perhaps entered the medical profession to help people, shows us the size of the stolpersteine, small, discreet but so very poignant.  The Romani, the Sinti, the fighters of the small German resistance movement, disabled people, gays and Jehovah’s Witnesses – all targeted by the Nazis in their pursuit of the eugenic Aryan ideals and the hand-in-hand denial of the right to exist of those who by their very being were diametrically in opposition to those ideals – are all remembered in his work.

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What started as a relatively small project has grown organically but insistently since the first small exhibition in 1994.  The incumbent priest of the Antoniter church in Cologne was one of the first to encourage the project and Demnig began to place the stumbling blocks – such as the ones above – around the city, with a further set in Berlin – all without permission.  By 1996 he was able to set out fifty five in the German capital with the permission of the authorities within the scope of a project known as ‘artists investigate after Auschwitz’.  The following year he placed the first two in memory of the Jehovah’s Witnesses who were persecuted in Salzburg, Austria.  The project had, as it were, grown feet.

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Gertrud and Helmut Marchand were here, once upon a nightmare, in Berlin.  The stolpersteine usually record the victims near their place of abode and typically start with the words “Hier wohnte” which means in English – here lived.  This is a little reminiscent of the blue plaque projects in the United Kingdom but those commemorate the rich and famous whose individual fates were as myriad as the stars.  Not so these people – they generally shared the same fate, murder, albeit in places around the continent.  Each stumbling block records the year of birth and that of the deportation and death of the individual it commemorates.  It is placed at an even flush with the pavement in front of their last known residence.  Although tiny, many feel the urge to leave something to show that they have remembered and that people like Else Liebermann von Wahlendorf will not be forgotten.

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Many of the people commemorated met their fate between four ruthlessly hard and thick concrete walls.  It is without irony that each stumbling block is made of a concrete and each slab has a surface area of sixteen square inches on each of its six sides.  A brass sheet covers the top with the inscriptions.  Each stolpersteine cost around a hundred Euros so the itinerant artist relies on donations by people.  They come mostly from individual citizens but whole classes of schoolchildren and communities have also raised money so they can help with the project.

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The artist, Gunter Demnig, can be seen here preparing a Berlin sidewalk for a new stumbling block – it will eventually serve as a memorial for Dr. Robert Remak.  It took the dawn of a new century for the project to take off fully and in the early years of the first decade of this century many cities joined in the act of remembrance and commemoration.  Apolda, Bad Kissingen, Bonn, Duren, Frankfurt – the list of towns and cities grows each year.  In Berlin alone there are more than a thousand stolpersteine,  Hamburg has outdone them all with a total of eighteen hundred stumbling blocks – which may seem a lot but out of the Jewish population alone, the victims of Hamburg numbered over ten thousand.

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Solms Heymann (1858-1944) and Adele Heymann (1866-1943) – their names were forgotten.  Now, where they once lived in Bad Kissingen, they will always be together, as it is hoped, they were in life.  Demnig has put immense amounts of time and work in to this project.

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This particular Lazarus may never wake from his sleep.  However, his life and times will be remembered by those who come across the small cube embedded in to the sidewalk.

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The idea has spread.  Braunau am Inn, the place where Adolf Hitler was brought in to this world, has placed eleven stolpersteine around the residences of those whose fates were bound up with this birth.  Moedling, near Vienna, placed it own blocks down in 2006, swiftly followed by Salzburg.  Vienna is taking the idea even further with a path of commemoration planned over its second district.  Hungary (where six hundred thousand Jews were deported and murdered) had its first blocks in 2007 – mostly around the center of Budapest (see first picture above).  Makó (second picture) has also followed.  The Dutch city of Borne laid its first Struikelstenen in May 2009 (see below).  The artist, in his seemingly trademark denim shirt and hat, could be mistaken for being something of a European ubiquity.

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24 July 2009 marked the placement of the 20,000th stumbling block, which was unveiled in the German city of Hamburg.  Present were Demnig, the originator of the project as well as representatives of the Jewish community, local government and descendents of some of the victims.  All in all, almost three hundred European cities now have stolpersteine – a permanent underfoot reminder of those who could have made Europe – and the world – a more enlightened place but who were never given the chance.

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Image by The Library of Congress via Flickr

At age eighteen the Smith’s daughter Eliza was married. It was a good excuse for the mistress of the plantation to be rid of Ellen. She gave eleven year old Ellen to Eliza for a wedding present. Life was easier for Ellen. She worked as Eliza’s maid and her duties were sewing, and attending Eliza. She was such a good maid that she was eventually given a cabin at the back of the plantation house.

At age twenty she met William Craft who was also a slave. William’s owner rented him out to a carpenter and from the small amount of his wages his owner let William keep, he could save some money. Ellen loved William but she didn’t want to get married and bring children into the world as slaves. They considered escaping but how could they? There were no underground railroad stops here and it was a long dangerous journey to the north.

In 1846 they did decide to get married but they choose not to have children. They continued to search for ways out and Ellen remembered a story she had heard as a child about a mulatto cousin named Frank, who could pass for white that escaped to the north. Ellen could pass for white so they considered Ellen posing as a white lady traveling with her slave, but the thought came that it was not possible. No white lady would travel with a male slave unless he was old and infirm which William certainly was not. He was a strong robust young man. But, would it be possible for Ellen to travel as a man? They were determined to try.

Image by quinn.anya via Flickr

William went about collecting the items they would need. A black cloak, a gentleman’s suit, an ascot, a beaver top hat. Ellen put these away in a small chest her husband had made. They would wait for Christmas when slaves were allowed more freedom and could visit family and friends at other plantations. Sure enough, William and Ellen were given passes to be away for a few days.Ellen couldn’t read or write so they put her arm in a sling so she wouldn’t be expected to do any writing. A bandage around her face would discourage any conversation. They bought glasses with green glass to conceal the fear and panic in her eyes. William cut her hair, and behold, before him stood the young gentleman, William Johnson. This frail, sickly looking young man was traveling with his trusty man servant to seek medical attention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

They planed a pig trail route because they knew their owners would be after them. They had many scary moments on their journey. It seemed they would be caught at any time. At one time a neighbor of Ellen’s owner was seated near them on a train and tried to engage Ellen in conversation. She kept her head turned away and pretended she was deaf. In Charleston”Mr. Johnson” was asked to sign a register and seeing Ellen’s arm in the sling a gentleman signed it for her. He registered “Mr. Johnson and slave.” Each time they got on a train, after seating Ellen, William headed for the “colored” car. Ellen was under the greatest strain, calling up everything in memory of the ways of the white upper class and praying she wouldn’t give herself away.

Image via Wikipedia

Ellen and William arrived in Philadelphia on Christmas day in 1848. They had many successes and tribulations in their life time. They lived for a time in England and Liberia. They eventually bought a 1,800 acre plantation in Ways, Station, in their home state of Georgia where they grew rice and cotton. The Crafts also started a school, the Woodville Co-Operative Farm School. Ellen daughter, Ellen Craft Crum was one of the founders and first vice presidents of the National Federation of Afro-American Women, formed in 1895. The exact date of Ellens death is not know but was in the 1890’s and William died a few years later.

http://socyberty.com/history/slaves-at-marthas-vineyard/

http://quazen.com/biography/the-rebellion-of-nat-turner/

http://quazen.com/biography/paul-jennings-white-house-slave/

When I was a young child I did childish things, amongst which was the pleasure of filling my little bucket with sand and upturning it onto the beach and planting a lollipop stick in the top of it and calling it a sandcastle.

When I was a young man I still did childish things, amongst which was the pleasure of filling my children’s little bucket with sand, several times, scooping up sand in between them to form walls, and planting a lollipop stick in the top of it and calling it a sandcastle.

I am now at the age when I expect, I may, in the future, once again take on the mantle of a child and do the same again with my grandchildren……

…..that is so long as a Michelangelo, Rodin or Henry Moore isn’t at the side of me with his grandkids to show me up!

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Looking on the internet, at sites around the world, there seems to be so much more that can be done in the sand rather than just a simple sandcastle or scribing your name on the beach to watch it be washed out by the tide.

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There are some very skilled people who have chosen to use sand as a medium to show their creative talents.

It seems to be a strange medium to choose because everything that is done revolves around time. It takes time to create the piece. It is time that will take the piece away. Therefore why choose a medium that will not last?

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Certainly it is an easier medium than carving stone or making castings, and whether it is in two or three dimensions it does seem to allow creativity to come to the fore: the same as any other medium.

Some are magnificently sculptural taking on the appearances of the ancient civilisations of Europe: of Rome or Greece,  still available to see in the piazzas today.

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Others are distinctly exotic and are clearly travellers from “the Orient.”

Others have a social and political comment.

This one of Barak Obama is called “Expectations” and is from 2008, pre-election, and is talking of the hopes of the forthcoming election and its global impact.

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Unlike the works on the beach, this one created by Jorges Rodrigues Gerada in Barcelona, covers 1 hectare (2.5 acres) and used 650 tons of sand.

This handy example, below, is self explanatory. It is an obvious piece of humour based on what would normally be a socio-political statement.

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Others were created in the mind of the artist and it is in the eye and mind of the viewer to find the meaning behind them.

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Again one ponders, why these artists would chose this medium that will not withstand time?

Perhaps the answer is written in sand……

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Read more on Amazing Art by C. Jordan
The Amazing Epic 3D Street Art of Edgar Mueller  
The Amazing Hand Art of Guido Daniele
Amazing Art: The Dynamic Driftwood Horse Sculptures of Heather Jansch

Amazing Sand Art: Run The Beasties are Coming!

 After a hugely successful exhibition in the Bristol Museum, which had up to 4,000 people a day queuing to view it, and is estimated to have pulled £10 million into the city (Banksy at The Bristol Museum: This is a Queuing Opportunity), one would think that he may have taken time out and rested on his laurels for a while.

Not Banksy.

Straight back onto the streets again to anonymously leave his mark, or more aptly perhaps, his social remarks.

The picture above recently (September 09) appeared on a wall in Croyden, Surrey.

Anyone who has bought a self assembly kit will know the frustration felt by the “punk”, trying to assemble his “Large Graffiti Slogan” kit. As one commentator said, these instructions were designed to “make grown men cry”.

Why IEAK? It is my thought, that by reordering the letters into IEAK, the IKEA people are not getting any usable free advertising.

On its own it stands as a great piece of work, but what takes it from amusing to “LMAO”, is the story behind it.

Some bright spark at IKEA (Canada) came up with the idea that they could get some free advertising by commissioning a company to spray chalk paint, graffiti style, onto the walls of the buildings of local businesses.

“The stencil had a website address in it that directed the viewer to a website promoting discount mega super furniture chain Ikea. The stencil itself, however, had no Ikea logo, and no corporate identifiers other than it was sprayed in Ikea yellow.”

( The Vancouver Sun: Ikea graffiti aims to sink small businesses — and that sucks)

Although they later apologized to one complainant, they forgot the little known fact that even Banksy doesn’t put up graffiti on somebody’s wall without getting permission first. That’s the difference between graffiti art and vandalism. (Although I don’t know who gave him permission to “do” the Dividing Wall between Palestine and Israel!)

The picture is obviously a Banksy with his recognizable style and traits, as well as the obvious humour. The punk is very reminiscent of the one recently seen in the Bristol Museum Exhibition.

Or his earlier work of Lenin, with the same 6 spikes of hair.

The other workto appear this month, appeared on the corner of Tottenham Green Road and Philip Lane, London N15

It is a new variation of a previous studio work “No ball games” which first appeared in his “Barely Legal” exhibition in Los Angeles and again was on display in the Bristol Exhibition

I may be corrected, but I am unaware of this particular view of the boy before.

The girl appears to be, certainly if not a reverse stencil of the original, then possibly a reverse, recut from the original stencils.

The style of the ghost-like images can be seen in other of his street work such as the girl with the balloon.

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After such a successful Summer show and with even his signed prints fetching thousands of pounds, why does he continue to go out onto the streets and risk losing his anonimity?

As I quoted him in a previous article:

“You could stick all my shit in Tate Modern and have an opening with Tony Blair and Kate Moss on Rollerblades handing out vol-au-vents, and it wouldn’t be as exciting as when you go out and you paint something big where you shouldn’t do.”

For more articles about Banksy by C. Jordan

http://thebanksyblog.blogspot.com/

or on Amazing Art by C. Jordan
The Amazing Epic 3D Street Art of Edgar Mueller  
The Amazing Hand Art of Guido Daniele
Amazing Art: The Dynamic Driftwood Horse Sculptures of Heather Jansch

By toning the canvas with color you can set the mood for the finished painting. Select a color that sets the tone for your lighting conditions and apply a thin wash with a paper towel or a rag dipped in turpentine and paint. You can add a grid to your sketch and your canvas if you like. If your scene is complicated it will be easier to use a grid. Four equal parts will usually work unless you are using a large canvas. If you use a 4 part grid you will have a cross line in the middle and can be careful to avoid the bull’s eye. Don’t place anything of importance at that intersection. You can use a small brush to draw your scene on the canvas.

Now block in the value pattern. If your light-dark pattern is not right nothing will save the painting. Begin by working in your darkest value and working toward the light. Leave your paint thin to allow the tone to show through. To go lighter use the tip of a rag to wipe away the toning color. If you want lighter still, dip the corner of a rag in turpentine and wipe down to the canvas. You can use a rag with a swirling motion to block in grass and foliage, or you can use tissue, large brush, or cheesecloth. When you have all the values painted in, turn your painting upside down, on it’s side, and study the painting in a mirror to be sure the composition values are consistent. If there is a problem you will see it immediately. Now let it dry completely and you will have a nice surface on which to work.

For most landscapes it’s the sky that sets the mood. The sky controls the degree of light, warmth,and color intensity. For this reason begin with the sky, placing the warm colors first and moving on to cool. If you come up with a muddy color on your canvas, don’t try to fix it. Scrape it off and start over. Don’t develop the lower edge of the sky and don’t leave a hard edge where the sky meets landscape. Lightly drag a little of the sky down into the landscape. It’s a subtle way to begin working sky colors into the landscape. You can play the lightest light against the darkest darks, put warm colors beside cools, or bright colors against dull ones. Control the contrasts so nothing interferes with the vocal point.

Keep the light source in mind and establish light and dark, indicate any trunks and branches that were lost in painting in the color harmony, then move on to smaller limbs. Suggest a few saplings in the foreground. Guide the visitor along to the vocal point. Try to think in numbers of three, five, seven, nine, eleven. Vary the number of openings in a building. Consider your negative space. Vary spaces between objects. Clearly define a few details in selected areas. Above all have fun painting, be open to new ideas, and get out there and paint.

On the 12th of June I wrote an article about Banksy’s up and coming exhibition Graffiti Artist Banksy’s Summer Show 2009: Banksy vs. Bristol Museum which was published on the opening day of the exhibition. Bristol is an area of the country we have never been to and before the exhibition closed we booked a couple of nights at a hotel in Bristol to go and see the exhibition and take a look at Banksy’s purported home city.

We had read that the exhibition was drawing a lot of visitors and on checking in to the hotel we were told that we may have to queue for up to three hours.

That evening we walked into the city centre which was about ten minutes away, had a quick look around and found somewhere to eat and also the location of the Museum for the next morning.

The Queuing Opportunity

The following morning after an early rise and breakfast in the hotel we walked the mile or so to Bristol Museum. While I took a couple of photos of the posters in front of the museum, my wife said she would go and join the end of the queue.

As I went back to join her I thought that we were early enough, at 8:15 a.m. for the ten o’clock opening time: there were only about forty people waiting in front of the museum – but my wife was not at the back of the queue. I looked further along the street and realised that a gap in the line had been created so as not to block an adjacent café. There at the corner of the street was an attendant in her high-viz jacket with people next to her queuing around the corner of the street. Undaunted but disappointed at the queue being longer than I thought I went around the corner to be met by the following sight

Somebody had spray painted a stencil underneath the street sign: “This is not a queing opportunity” a play on words of an earlier Banksy that appeared on a bridge in London with a view of the Houses of Parliament that read “This is not a viewing opportunity”. (However the lack of attention to detail in the spelling of “queing” showed it to be a fake.)

I walked past the throng of people that snaked backwards and forwards up and down the street to find my way to the back. To my dismay across the street from the “end” of the queue there was another attendant in high-viz jacket with crowds of people behind him disappearing out of sight around a bend in the road in the distance. This had to be the end of the queue? No. At the bend, it carried on to the end of the road. As I reached the end of the road I already knew what to expect: the lines of people carried on around the corner into the next street, where I passed another few hundred people before finally finding my wife at the back of the queue.

Talking to the people around us, we estimated that there were in the region of 2,000 people in the queue ahead of us.

The museum must have opened earlier than planned and we started to move, around about 9:00 a.m.

Our wonderful British weather didn’t let us down as we waited, giving us sunny breaks and torrential downpours. This was too good an opportunity for the street vendors of Bristol to miss, coming around at regular intervals offering bin-liner like waterproof capes and umbrellas for sale.

For hours people were still walking past us to join the now invisible back of the queue, leading my wife to comment that it reminded her of the lyrics from “War of the Worlds”:  “…And still they come.”

Eventually our wait was over and around five hours, from first arriving, we finally got into the exhibition

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The Viewing Opportunity

The exhibition was a mixture of old and new. The centre of the main hall had the receptionist in a burnt out ice-cream van, complete with melted ice-cream, accompanied by one of Banksy’s favourite topics – a riot policeman, animated on a child’s coin operated horse ride. (Note the “Caution: Beware of Children” sign on the back of the van – armed with bottle and knife.)

This central exhibit was flanked by Banksy’s take on classical style sculptures, including “Angel of the North”, “Shopping” and “Homeless”

What amused me was the way he had made use of existing pieces and added to them, such as the lion that appears to have eaten the lion tamer. Or in “Escape from Guantanamo”, where the figure in internee overalls has been placed in an existing exhibit of a box-winged aircraft.

The last time we saw a Guantanamo detainee was when Banksy sneaked him into the enclosure at “The Big Thunder Mountain Railroad Ride” at Disneyland in California. (Banksy Punked Paris Hilton: Cunning Stunts).

Off the central exhibition other rooms housed some of his studio works that we are perhaps more familiar with as well as pieces that appear to be new – even Michael Jackson made an appearance!

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One room had been set aside to display the animatronics exhibits that first appeared in New York in the “Pet shop and Charcoal Grill” exhibition (Urban Graffiti Artist Banksy Opens a Pet Shop)

Having previously only seen the monkey artist, the rabbit preening herself, Tweety, the fish sticks swimming in a fish bowl and the rest of the pieces on video, it was great to see them close up and to be able to move around them and view  these mobile pieces from all angles.

For me, I have to take my hat off to Banksy and the museum staff for the clever way the exhibition was arranged.

To see all of his pieces you had to view the whole of the museum and galleries. As well as the main exhibition area, his work had been placed amongst other exhibits in the building and so trying to find them all became a game of “hunt the Banksy”

The canvases were fairly easy to spot as they were on view alongside other more formal works in the galleries.

(Venus undergoing cosmetic surgery)

(The Flight into Egypt)

(The figure in the last picture above is very reminiscent of a graffiti piece that was spotted in Birmingham Alabama around the time that Banksy “did” New Orleans (Banksy Storms New Orleans: Banksy Vs. the Grey Ghost))

Others that took a little more finding where such pieces as the “caveman” piece tucked away in a glass cabinet, along with the usual Museum exhibits. (This actually belongs to the British Museum since Banksy sneaked it into one of their displays in a previous stunt)

Worth the Queue

Had the exhibition been worth the queuing? Most certainly. To be able to view his work full size rather than on a computer screen or in a book or magazine was well worth it.

And what of the museum and Bristol?

A few days after the exhibition closed thisisbristol.co.uk reported:

“The exhibition, which attracted 4,000 people a day, pumped an estimated £10 million into the city.

Acting head of Bristol museum service Paul Barnett says although staff are exhausted, the exhibition has given the museum a fresh injection of life. He said:

“We would love to retain the buzz of the last three months – I am not sure ‘normal’ will ever be the same here again. It has given us all a renewed imagination about how to fill the spaces he has left. The team has done a brilliant job over the past few days. There have been 100 crates coming in and they are each for an individual piece and have to be checked for damage and packaged very carefully – they are very valuable. Everybody is exhausted and it will take us a few days to get it out of the system. A lot of people are having a break because they have worked non-stop for 12 weeks. Banksy is a one-off but the public have showed how much they love the reinterpretation of this building by a contemporary artist and we can’t ignore that.”

PS

The cream on the cake.

Although the batteries on the camera had long since given up the ghost in the exhibition, as we walked back to the hotel that evening we came across an older well known original piece of Banksy Graffiti on a wall that I managed to capture on the camera on my phone.

For more articles about Banksy by C. Jordan

http://thebanksyblog.blogspot.com/

or on Amazing Art by C. Jordan
The Amazing Epic 3D Street Art of Edgar Mueller  
The Amazing Hand Art of Guido Daniele
Amazing Art: The Dynamic Driftwood Horse Sculptures of Heather Jansch

The Romanesque façade of the Church at La Gripperie Saint-Symphorien. 

(Photo by the author – Copyright Francois Hagnere)

ROMANESQUE ART AND SYMBOLISM: THE CHURCH OF LA GRIPPERIE SAINT-SYMPHORIEN

 Driving through the marshes, we suddenly reached the skirt of a wood. Here in the meadow was erected a gem of the Romanesque Art in Saintonge. A miraculous fountain where pilgrims used to come on August, 22, gave the church of La Gripperie Saint-Symphorien its reputation. The XIIth century parts and décor really are noteworthy. The magnificent portal offers 3 arch-mouldings, finely carved with a strange series of telamones, three of them holding musical instruments, the Fairy Mélusine (symbolizing the telluric forces) and delicate phoenix and foliages. You will be amazed to discover such intact sculpture teeming with details. Above the portal is found a high and narrow window whose imposts extend on the sides with a cornice and modillions full of expression. A group of 2 statues is present on the left side of the window archivolt. The pleats and foldings of these 2 lively figures (The Visitation) truly are interesting and so representative of the period. The window arch-moulding is decorated with the figures of the Virtues and Vices.  Above the portal, at left, on a plain surface and at a certain height, a slightly bending small head welcomes  the visitor. This is “Jean du Cognot” (John on the corner), a typical fancy the Romanesque Era sculptors loved to add to their works and which can be observed in many Romanesque churches and cathedrals. At certains hours and dates, the light and shadow on this relief seem to represent  the Sphinx of Guizeh with his klaft.

 Two large buttresses were added to the façade in the XVth century. The cylindical steeple tower rests on a square basis, like a mandala whose meaning is the Earth in the center of the universe. It also belongs to the XVth century and is quite unusual. It is covered with grey slate. On the North side of the church, the head of an Indian with feathers and long ears, alone on the wall at 4 meters high, looks towards the miraculous fountain on the hilltop. Saint-Symphorien, the young martyr of Autun in Burgundy is everywhere associated to spring waters.  

 The inside of the church is Gothic . The transept offers an octogonal cupola supporting the steeple. The church was listed only in 1995.

The Portal with the telamones supporting the arch-moulding and symbolic sculptures. Photo by the author – Copyright: Francois Hagnere.  

The window above the portal with the lively group of the Visitation and finely carved figures of the arch-moulding. Photo by the author – Copyright Francois Hagnere.

The small head of “Jean du Cognot” welcoming the visitor. Photo by the author. Copyright: Francois Hagnere. 

The unusual steeple tower. Photo by the author – Copyright: Francois Hagnere.

The Indian head with feathers and long ears looking towards the miraculous fountain. Photo by the author – Copyright: Francois Hagnere.

It basically traces the history of South Tyneside over the last century and a half from the prosperous years of the Victorian Era, through the deterioration and demise of the traditional industries, such as shipbuilding, heavy engineering, coal mining and chemical production to the current major regeneration of the area.

The newest gallery tells the story of the local population at home, at work, at play both in times of war and in peacetime.

Visitors can find out what it was like to take part in the region’s most famous event, the Jarrow March of 1936.

They can also role play serving in the Merchant Navy and make decisions on which cargoes to carry and to which ports over which routes.

It is possible to discover about the lives of some of some of South Tyneside’s most famous residents, such as William Woodhalve, who developed the world’s first self righting lifeboat and John Simpson Kirkpatrick, a man honoured in Australia and New Zealand for his work in rescuing the wounded at Gallipoli with the aid of his donkey, Murphy as well as Our Kate.

Art Adventure is a art gallery which takes a fresh look at painting.  It features many of the museum’s paintings with exciting hands-on displays, which enable visitors to determine more about the artworks and the artists, including how they worked and the methods that they used in producing the picture.  The Interactive Garden also demonstrates the different material and techniques that the world’s greatest artists have used in producing their masterpieces.

The Tales of South Tyneside Gallery concentrates on the Life and times of Catherine Cookson.  She was born in Tyne Dock in 1906 and lived through most of the 20th Century.  Most of her books were set in the area and based on events that had occurred during her childhood and early years.  Many of her characters were built around people that she had known in the area.  The cobbled streets,  back areas and houses of these working class areas form the backdrop to her story in this gallery.

A major refurbishment of the museum has given it a larger exhibition area and a revamp4d activities room as well as many improved facilities including a lift.

South Shields Museum and Art Gallery, which has free admission is on Ocean Road in South Shields.  It can be contacted on 0191 456 7850 and has a website on

Opening times are 10:00 to 17:30 during the week and 13:00 to 17:00 on Sundays with the exception of Good Friday