Recently, I was watching Exodus, a BBC documentary about the migrant crisis. It followed a story of various people trying to flee to Europe as they escaped war, poverty and oppression. Many of these people were Syrian refugees, but there were also people from Afghanistan and Ghana. The tales they told were, of course, heart-breaking and no one was attempting to make it to Britain simply to claim benefits and have their way with our women.
There was one guy from Syria – an English teacher I think – who after much suffering and persistence finally arrived in Britain. The film-makers had done a great job of showing the real people behind the depressingly familiar headlines, but I wasn’t sure about the angle from which they had chosen to tell this guy’s story. They were showing him in the northern town in which the authorities had housed him and the clear undertone from the commentary was ‘he’s had to go through so much grief to get to Britain and look at the dump that he’s ended up in – deprived, bleak and with little going for it’.
After
a few seconds of watching him stroll about the town’s centre, I thought ‘hang
on, I recognise this place, that’s Wakefield!’. There were
shots of shops with ‘Closing Down Sale’ signs in the window and footage of the
Emos who hang around outside the cathedral, as if this was proof that Wakefield
is indeed a dump and he’d have been better off staying in Syria, even if
there was a war on. Thanks to the Internet, shops are shutting down across the
country and the Emos never seem to be causing any problems when I see them.
The programme still seemed to be intimating the same thing even when the Syrian guy was standing on Chantry Bridge, staring across to the Hepworth Gallery. I felt like shouting at the TV, ‘Don’t you realise that’s the second biggest modern art gallery in Britain, after the Tate Modern? Wakefield must have something going for it if it can attract something like that.’ If I’d known at the time, I could also have said, ‘It cost £35 million to build and recently won the UK’s biggest museum prize, the 2017 Art Fund Museum of the Year. No, I don’t understand why an art gallery can be voted best museum either, but it’s a very big prize.’
The programme still seemed to be intimating the same thing even when the Syrian guy was standing on Chantry Bridge, staring across to the Hepworth Gallery. I felt like shouting at the TV, ‘Don’t you realise that’s the second biggest modern art gallery in Britain, after the Tate Modern? Wakefield must have something going for it if it can attract something like that.’ If I’d known at the time, I could also have said, ‘It cost £35 million to build and recently won the UK’s biggest museum prize, the 2017 Art Fund Museum of the Year. No, I don’t understand why an art gallery can be voted best museum either, but it’s a very big prize.’
Anyway,
that’s where I’m standing now, looking across the River Calder at the striking
modern building that is the Hepworth Gallery. Designed by David Chipperfield,
it’s what you might call modern brutalist, if you knew very little about
architecture like me. The look of the building has divided opinion, but there’s
little doubt that having the gallery has helped Wakefield’s national profile.
It’s had hundreds of thousands of visitors since it opened in 2011, so that’s a
lot of people visiting Wakefield who might not have done otherwise.
I have visited the gallery once before with the family, but decided to take another look for HIPS. It’s at an end of town that is pretty much a non-car parking zone. There’s one small car park right across from it and I reluctantly entered it as one, I can’t walk far (still waiting/hoping my blue badge application is successful at this point) and two, I suspected that even though it was a Sunday, it still wouldn’t be free. I mean why would it be; it was rammed and I had to slide into a space about 3 inches wider than my car.
After exiting through the sunroof and looking enviously at the two wide disabled spaces, one of which was empty, I ambled over to the machine to find out how much they were ripping me off for on the Sabbath. A full five pounds. I parted with the cash and headed for the gallery, a bad mood descending.
I
tried to take comfort in the thought that the actual gallery was free, but as
this car park is about your only choice, the gallery isn’t really free for most
people. It costs £5. But for argument’s sake, let’s say it is free. Many, if
not most are, aren’t they? Why is that? I can’t help thinking that it’s partly
because they think there will be very few visitors if it cost, say, £13. I
don’t really get art. I’m kind of glad that it exists – I’m not that anti-art –
but compared to some other art forms, I think it’s a poor relation. Any
picture, or piece, is just there. It
might get you to think, or look at something in a slightly different way, but
how long can one artwork occupy your mind? Once you’ve pondered an artwork for
30 seconds, it’s forgotten and you’ve moved onto the next one or something else
entirely. Or is that just me?
I recognise that for most art you need a massive amount of talent to be able to produce it and stand out from the crowd, but although it makes our environment a little nicer, does it really have the same cultural impact on us that, for example, a great film or album does? There are films and albums that have affected me very deeply for 30 years, not 30 seconds. With art, you might enjoy the visual and cerebral spectacle, but a great film or album can make you feel the full spectrum of emotions and make you want to come back to them time and time again. I’m not sure art has that affect, though it’s seen as highbrow so a lot of people pretend that it does.
In this country, I think art can be summarised for the majority of the population by a survey that was done a few years ago. The nation’s favourite artist? Rolf Harris. Whatever happened to him? I believe he may have been stripped of his title now, in the same way that Jimmy Saville is no longer the nation’s favourite marathon runner.
I’m
going to offer up a new candidate: the artist character from the Fast Show. He’s given me so many happy
moments and I still quote him regularly. Do you remember him? He’d be painting
a lovely landscape with his wife when the sky he was trying to capture would
strike him as being very grey, very heavy and grey… almost black.
At this point, his wife would be trying to calm him down and steer him back to happy thoughts, but once Johnnie had uttered the word ‘black’, the whole world was black and full of torment and dread. I could go on You Tube now and look up some of his catchphrases, but I’ll leave you to do that. I just remember him squealing ‘BLACK, BLACK’ in a child’s voice, destroying his easel and saying things like, ‘What’s for tea, Mother? Shadows and lies on toast?’ Another favourite was, ‘You lock me in the cellar and feed me pins’. Just inspired and so evocative of what most of us think of when we think of artists and their stereotypically troubled minds.
Inside the Hepworth, I climb the stairs to the first floor where the art is. The first piece I pass is an ugly looking rug on the wall. You can buy it apparently. Only £3500. Jesus. I just don’t understand that kind of thing. How much money would you need before that seemed like a good purchase? It’s of no use and once you got it home, what would you do with it? Hang it on your wall and look at it for a bit. You might look at it every day with pride if you really loved it, for a week or two, but surely you would then tire of it a little.
As the gallery is named after Barbara Hepworth, Wakefield’s most famous artist and sculptor, there is of course a significant amount of her art there. To my very much non-expert eyes, she seems to share the same artistic space as Henry Moore, certainly where her sculpture is concerned. Some of it was mildly diverting, but several things were conjoining to put me in as black a mood as my artist hero, Johnnie:
I recognise that for most art you need a massive amount of talent to be able to produce it and stand out from the crowd, but although it makes our environment a little nicer, does it really have the same cultural impact on us that, for example, a great film or album does? There are films and albums that have affected me very deeply for 30 years, not 30 seconds. With art, you might enjoy the visual and cerebral spectacle, but a great film or album can make you feel the full spectrum of emotions and make you want to come back to them time and time again. I’m not sure art has that affect, though it’s seen as highbrow so a lot of people pretend that it does.
In this country, I think art can be summarised for the majority of the population by a survey that was done a few years ago. The nation’s favourite artist? Rolf Harris. Whatever happened to him? I believe he may have been stripped of his title now, in the same way that Jimmy Saville is no longer the nation’s favourite marathon runner.
At this point, his wife would be trying to calm him down and steer him back to happy thoughts, but once Johnnie had uttered the word ‘black’, the whole world was black and full of torment and dread. I could go on You Tube now and look up some of his catchphrases, but I’ll leave you to do that. I just remember him squealing ‘BLACK, BLACK’ in a child’s voice, destroying his easel and saying things like, ‘What’s for tea, Mother? Shadows and lies on toast?’ Another favourite was, ‘You lock me in the cellar and feed me pins’. Just inspired and so evocative of what most of us think of when we think of artists and their stereotypically troubled minds.
Inside the Hepworth, I climb the stairs to the first floor where the art is. The first piece I pass is an ugly looking rug on the wall. You can buy it apparently. Only £3500. Jesus. I just don’t understand that kind of thing. How much money would you need before that seemed like a good purchase? It’s of no use and once you got it home, what would you do with it? Hang it on your wall and look at it for a bit. You might look at it every day with pride if you really loved it, for a week or two, but surely you would then tire of it a little.
I
always think that about houses or hotel rooms that have a lovely view. You pay
twice as much to have that sea view or whatever, but the view never changes.
How long till you’re bored with it? I stayed in an apartment with a lovely view
over Lake Como on one family holiday, but after two days, I wasn’t fussed for
it. So even if I loved that rug that I’d bought on Friday, I don’t think I’d
look at it again by Monday.
As the gallery is named after Barbara Hepworth, Wakefield’s most famous artist and sculptor, there is of course a significant amount of her art there. To my very much non-expert eyes, she seems to share the same artistic space as Henry Moore, certainly where her sculpture is concerned. Some of it was mildly diverting, but several things were conjoining to put me in as black a mood as my artist hero, Johnnie:
1. There were a lot of what I would term ‘arty’
types wandering about with furrowed brows, ‘studying’ the art and trying
to look intelligent. I have no prejudice against people enjoying
themselves with whatever turns them on, so long as it’s not harming anyone
else, but I can’t help thinking that they’re pretending to like these things
because that’s what someone has told them they should be doing. Sorry,
that’s probably a really prejudicial attitude, but as soon as someone
starts turning their head slightly to look at a picture from a different
angle, my hackles rise.
2. I got told off by one of the gallery staff members for resting my pad on the plinth of one of the sculptures as I made a note (probably a note that said ‘3½ grand for a small rug? WTF’). The pen must have been a good four feet from the actual sculpture, but told off I got. I suppose you have to make allowances for the fact that the guides (is that what you call them?) must be bored out of their minds. I mean, it must be about the most tedious job in the world, sitting there all day with literally nothing to do other than hope that a middle-aged man will rest his pad on the plinth of a sculpture so he can be told off like a naughty schoolboy, but still, my mood was blackened further.
2. I got told off by one of the gallery staff members for resting my pad on the plinth of one of the sculptures as I made a note (probably a note that said ‘3½ grand for a small rug? WTF’). The pen must have been a good four feet from the actual sculpture, but told off I got. I suppose you have to make allowances for the fact that the guides (is that what you call them?) must be bored out of their minds. I mean, it must be about the most tedious job in the world, sitting there all day with literally nothing to do other than hope that a middle-aged man will rest his pad on the plinth of a sculpture so he can be told off like a naughty schoolboy, but still, my mood was blackened further.
3. Barbara Hepworth's picture, The Seed Project. Like I say, some of her works were mildly diverting, but this was the type of piece that gives ammunition to those that say all modern art is rubbish and that a five-year-old could do it (in my experience, modern art detractors always seem to set the age bar at five). It was just a load of black squiggles, like it was one of the autographs that Trump discarded before he went with his full psychopathic one. I just can't imagine how an artist gets up in a morning, thinks I've had an idea and I'm going to call it The Seed Project... now where's my pen? 'Right, what do you think of that? Good isn't it...' 'Erm... yes... lovely,' imaginary person replies.
4. There are one or two hot women here. One might think that seeing a beautiful young woman would be a good thing for a heterosexual man, but it's now always coupled with the realisation that I will never ever get with such a woman again. Those days are gone, long, long gone. BLACK! BLACK!
Weighed down with these negative thoughts, I sit on one of the benches. I actually do a double-take to check that the bench is not one of the artworks before parking my bum on it, which darkens my mood even more. It's just not a worry that I should have to have.
After
a short rest, however, I’m ready to tackle the rest of the gallery. It’s
undoubtedly a nice space, with high windows that provide marvellous views
across the Calder towards Chantry Chapel. Last time I was here, there was a picture
that Turner had done of the chapel on his first tour of Yorkshire in 1797. The
view from the gallery exactly mirrored the viewpoint from which Turner had
painted his watercolour. I was looking forward to seeing this again but,
disappointingly, it didn’t seem to be present anymore. I thought it would be a
permanent feature.
Looking forward to seeing a picture again is a curiously original feeling for me, yet the truth is, it was the historical angle that appealed. The thought of a famous artist standing more or less in the same spot as me, 220 years previously, and seeing the same thing is the type of notion that excites me (those young arty types I was on about don’t know what they’re missing). At such points, the history gene kicks in. It’s just what I’m into. For some people, it’s art. For me, one of my main interests is history and as far as historical buildings in Wakefield go, you can’t do much better than Chantry Chapel. Having more than had my fill of art, the chapel was where I was heading now.
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Looking forward to seeing a picture again is a curiously original feeling for me, yet the truth is, it was the historical angle that appealed. The thought of a famous artist standing more or less in the same spot as me, 220 years previously, and seeing the same thing is the type of notion that excites me (those young arty types I was on about don’t know what they’re missing). At such points, the history gene kicks in. It’s just what I’m into. For some people, it’s art. For me, one of my main interests is history and as far as historical buildings in Wakefield go, you can’t do much better than Chantry Chapel. Having more than had my fill of art, the chapel was where I was heading now.
IF YOU ENJOYED THIS ONE, TRY ONE OF THESE POSTS. SIMPLY CLICK ON THE NAME OF THE POST.
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