Get the tube to Lambeth North and a quick walk round to the Imperial War Museum – a place that’s always struck me as a bit strange and not one I’ve ever felt very comfortable visiting. It’s not just that there always seems to be coachloads of school kids running about squeaking and shrieking in excitement, having a good time and getting under my feet. It’s more the contrast of all this youthful joie de vivre and exuberance with the deathly contents of the museum’s permanent collection – the tanks, fighter planes, missiles and other grim war machinery and then all the archive photos of soldiers taking cover in their trenches or marching off to uncertain destinies. It’s disconcerting to say the least and I can’t decide whether there’s too much blood, sweat and tears here or not enough.
Fortunately, today there doesn’t seem to be so many children around or maybe they’re all playing hide and in the main galleries. Either way, I’m here to visit the three temporary exhibitions on the third floor. First off is a video by Rosalind Nashashibi entitled Gaza. And, with a title like that, I can’t help thinking, as I enter the pitch black room and trip over the step leading to the bench, that this is going to be hard work to watch, and all seriously depressing. Twenty minutes later I exit the space and I’m merely perplexed. I watched the whole thing (so Nashashibi undoubtedly has a certain talent for retaining the interest of the audience) but I’m mightily confused as to the intention of the artist. I suppose part of me kept watching in expectation of some kind of explosion – that a missile would land or a tank fire, or there would be rockets shot off into the sky. But there was none of this and aside from a well-ordered demo, all we got was a sort of slow drive round the city. Sure, the place looked a bit run down and the streets a bit shabby, but on the whole it didn’t look too bad and the scenes by the sea looked really quite appealing.
I’m not sure what the point of all this was and if there was a political, or even artistic, message it was too subtle and simply passed me by. There is nothing equivocal about the Peter Kennard retrospective next door, at least when it comes to the photo work that made his name in the 1980s. At that time, if there was a leftwing cause that needed a poster or a Guardian editorial that needed an illustration, he was the go-to guy who could be relied upon to provide the iconic image. Whether it was supporting CND or bashing Mrs Thatcher and the whole capitalist conspiracy, Kennard would get out his scissors and gluepot and put together a simple but effective photomontage that would cheer up his supporters and make his enemies gnash their teeth, at least, that was the general idea. Anyone who lived through those turbulent times will now enjoy a warm nostalgic smile looking back at the skeleton with the Hiroshima head, the missiles being reformed into sheaves of corn and, most famously, the English countryside despoiled by a bunch of cruise missiles jammed onto Constable’s Haywain. Happy days.
Years ago I met Kennard at Brixton Art Gallery when we were showing some of his political posters that good old Red Ken Livingstone had commissioned for the GLC. He was very charming and very sincere and when I asked if he’s sign my little catalogue of the show he agonised for ages as to whether this would compromise his personal political integrity by suggesting he was a star and somehow more important than the cause…or somesuch casuistical concern. That he did end up signing it shows the measure of the man.
The final part of the exhibition moves away from the obvious political works to what might be called more artistic expressions and in particular an installation of photographic portraits individually displayed, each on their own lectern. It’s a haunting work perhaps made more so by the wall panel that suggests Kennard stopped producing his political montages, disillusioned with what he perceived as their lack of success in initiating changes in society.
It’s free to get to see both the Nashashibi and Kennard shows (and indeed the whole of the permanent collection) but for Lee Miller: A Woman’s War it costs £10 or £5 (if, like me, you’ve got one of those Art Fund cards) and I think, it’s probably worth that. Miller certainly led a very full life: model, muse and friend to some of the most famous modern artists, including Man Ray, Max Ernst and Picasso; then a photographer in her own right, initially shooting fashion spreads for Vogue before moving on to become their war correspondent. Post war she settled down to married life in the country with the British Surrealist painter and writer Roland Penrose although, tragically, instead of finding peace and security after such an adventurous early life it seems to have led to long periods of depression and alcoholism. The Picasso portrait that opens the exhibition shows her with a staged smile and the paint gathering into drips in the corners of her eyes and forming tears. Painted in 1937, it seems to be one of those curious, uncomfortable examples of an artist forseeing his sitter’s future rather than describing her present situation. There are a few other paintings included in the show (with a couple of typical duffers from Roland) and some short documentary films but for the most part it’s a fascinating selection of black and white photographs either taken by Miller or featuring her as a model.
It’s clear from the friends she kept that she had an affinity with the Surreal side of life and this comes across in the best of her work where relatively mundane scenes are refocused into theatrical absurdities: a nurse surrounded by a sea of hands is, in fact, sterilising surgical gloves and hanging them up to dry. And you’d think the two women sitting on a bench having a smoke had not a care in the world until you take a closer look at the background of collapsed buildings, rubble and total cataclysmic devastation. Most poignant and perhaps most Surreal of all, the final photo shows the fearless woman who posed for Picasso, walked through Dachau and famously had her photo taken in Hitler’s bath, standing to attention behind a kitchen bench deep in the Sussex countryside, ready to give a cookery lesson.
With this image lingering min my mind, I retrace my steps to Lambeth North and get the tube to Charing Cross and onto the National Gallery where I hand over my £8 (and if you don’t have an Art Fund card it’s a staggering £18) for Goya: The Portraits. Big mistake. I know I’m going to regret it and my sense of impending disappointment grows with each step I take down the Sainsbury Wing’s ridiculously grand sweep of stairs that funnel people into the tiny little subterranean rooms where they stage the temporary exhibitions. The themes of the shows they put on here are always so annoyingly tempting and the thought of seeing a large collection of Goya portraits together is irresistible. But resist I should, for whenever I get to see one of these blockbusters I always come away cursing my stupidity for having been tricked once again. The Times, Telegraph, Guardian, Evening Standard and Mail may all have given the show five glowing stars but what their critics saw is not the same as what the paying public gets to see. What we, the civilians, the paying public gets to see is far too many other members of the paying public all jammed together, buffeted about, scrambling around craning their necks desperate to get a glimpse of the paintings. There are just too many people crammed into an exhibition space that is just too bloody small. It’s simply impossible to see any of the works in comfort or to be able properly to concentrate on any of the art or contemplate what it’s trying to show, let alone trying to walk back and forth between paintings to compare content, styles and technique. The place is rammed full like some trendy nightclub, except the clientele are all oldies like me and the silent dance we are forced to perform consists of bumping into one another then pushing through and squeezing past in a slow motion gyrate from one picture to another. It’s the most unpleasant viewing experience in London and the National Gallery should be ashamed that it charges so much to treat its visitors so shabbily.
What are the paintings like? I couldn’t really say and if you’re really interested I suggest that you ignore the exhibition buy the catalogue instead. I’ve always thought Goya a very odd genius, a painter whose works vary enormously – occasionally very acute but just as often completely cack-handed. One of the reasons for going to a show like this is to have one’s prejudices confirmed or confounded and then maybe dig deeper and discover how they arose. But it’s just not possible here to see the paintings sufficiently well to form any kind of considered opinion although, as far as I could make out, in amongst the gems were some real stinkers where he lapses into crude caricature or messes up the anatomy completely. Frankly, it’s hard to believe all the works in the show were painted by the same hand.
Enough. The claustrophobia is ratcheting up my levels of irritation and grumpiness to danger levels and if one more little old lady steps in front of me and jabs her elbows into my paunch I‘m going to pick her up and drop kick her into Trafalgar Square. It’s time to give up and get some fresh air.
So, deep breaths on the short walk to the ICA (one of whose founders was Lee Miller’s husband Sir Roland Penrose, or Rissole and Rose Pen as we used to call him when I was a schoolboy). As usual it’s another demanding exhibition, this time a one-person show from Prem Sahib. Apparently he is an artist who, ‘explores themes relating to intimacy, sexuality, relationships, desire and community in relation to public and personal spaces’. For a show that’s all about relating I confess that I’m having a hard job relating to any of it: the neatly tiled archways; the puffa jackets compressed between sheets of glass; the polished bronze dolphin pushed into a pillow; the blank yellow canvas. I fear that it’s just all too profound for me although the Goya experience has put me in such a grumbling mood that I may well be doing it an justice.
Exasperated, I head for a drink at Waterstones Piccadilly but the cocktail lounge on fifth floor looks too sophisticated for an afternoon can of coke and the basement café selection of organic pear juice or apple and beetroot cordial looks just too twee for me. So, on to Pret and, in a spirit of adventure, I decide to try out the lemon cheesecake. It’s good but needs a bit more crushed biscuit to offset the fearsome piquancy of the lemon syrupy goo that shines forth as bright as Lee Miller’s locks in the Picasso’s portrait and is almost sharp enough to generate the tears as well.