An excursion

I went on an excursion today. A new art museum opened in November, Nottingham Contemporary, and its first exhibits are closing in a week or so. I’ve been meaning to go since it opened, and decided to take today to do so. It got me out of the house for a little while, and then I could be in town and hit the pound-or-less stores for Dr. Pepper and Pepsi, and go to Waterstone’s which is always a good time and relaxing for me (even though I have put a sort of moratorium on luxury spending which, until I get through all the books that I currently own, includes books. It does not, however, include a ticket to an author event from one of my favourite current writers. On Wednesday. For three pounds.)

Anyway. Nottingham Contemporary. It is, without a doubt, one of the ugliest designed buildings I’ve ever seen. For a long time, when I walked by it, I thought it was the scaffolding hiding the building, something that would come down to reveal the museum when it was done. It is growing on me a little bit, but it suffers in comparison to its neighbours – it’s right next to Pitcher and Piano, an excellent restaurant/cocktail bar in a converted church. It’s one of the most beautiful buildings in the area, and the art museum looks squat and ugly next to it. Close up, one can see the lace patterns on the outside of the museum, a nice nod to Nottingham’s history and the history of that particular neighborhood. However, you can’t see that unless you’re close up – even from across the street you can’t see the detail. And I haven’t even mentioned the Vegas strip/’50s diner style neon sign that points to the thing. It’s kind of unbelievable how badly this museum does not fit in with its surroundings.

But, anyway, I’ve wanted to go there since it opened, and today I took the opportunity. No point in just lying around the house all day, and then wishing I’d gone, right? Of course, I was not the only one who had that idea today. The place was much more crowded than I was expecting. Of course, it’s a rainy Saturday, so I don’t know why I was surprised, but it’s also Nottingham. I’ve never had a problem with crowds when I’ve gone to the museums here before. If anything, I’ve had a problem with undercrowding – when my sister and I went to the Galleries of Justice over Christmas, we were the only people there, and on a performance tour that gets interesting.

The exhibits themselves were pretty good, I thought. I’m not a huge fan of modern art, but this was a lot more representational than a lot of the stuff at, say, the Tate Modern. Two artists are featured currently: David Hockney, a name I’ve actually heard of, and Frances Stark, an American collage artist. Frances Stark’s work was in the first two galleries, one of her earlier work and one of more recent pieces, and David Hockney was in the other two galleries, which featured his work from 1960-1968 which covered his first trip to America.

Frances Stark’s first phase, if that’s the appropriate word to use, is collages made up primarily of words and pictures; the second phase used more images. I preferred the first gallery, quite a bit actually. The words, and the letters of the words, formed essential parts of the collages. Words were repeated almost ad infinitum to form the patterns in some of them, kind of like this:

t t t t t

h h h h h

e e e e e

My favourite of the ones in this gallery was one called “And also another one at the same time”, which used the words “And also another one at the same time, not” to form what looked like the trunks of trees, and then near the top the letters turn into birds. It’s kind of Escher-esque in the way that one thing turns into another – although it’s not quite so deliberate and subtle as Escher. The demarcation between the letters and the birds is quite clear, but there’s still that sense of motion, of transformation. And, as I said, from a distance at least, they look like trees.

The David Hockney galleries were much more crowded than the Frances Stark ones, both in terms of works of art and of people. There wasn’t as much room to move, because there was just so much more there, which meant that even if the number of people was the same, it seemed like more. I think, though, that there really were more people in the David Hockney rooms. I also realized my invisibility power, or whatever it is about me that says, “Please walk right in front of me and stop, especially if I’m trying to read the panels or look at the artwork in detail.” I managed to keep my frustration in check, though, and look at/read everything that I wanted to in the depth that I wanted to.

I have a few more favourites among the David Hockney works than among the Frances Stark works, even though overall I think I am more interested in Frances Stark’s style. Some of the ones I liked were “Great Pyramid at Giza with Broken Head from Thebes” (I want to go to Egypt. Also I have been listening to Doctor Who audio books that feature an Egyptian princess) and the ones that show him experimenting with water: Man Taking Shower in Beverly Hills, Peter Getting Out of Nick’s Pool (light reflecting in water as well as the glass of the sliding doors), and A Bigger Splash (so very active, for a static painting). The one with the coolest story, I thought, was “The First Marriage (A Marriage of Styles I)”: he was at a museum with a friend, and had fallen behind a bit. He saw the friend ahead of him, standing near a statue and looking in the same direction as the statue, and it seemed like the friend and the statue were looking at the same thing, as if they were together. So he painted the idea of it. I thought that one was cool.

The gift shop was a test of my willpower, just like Waterstone’s – there was the usual spread of art and cultural studies books (Derrida and the like), and a few shelves of Nottingham interest (i.e. Byron and Lawrence…they had a couple of Sillitoe books, but not Saturday Night and Sunday Morning which is the one I really want to read first), and quite a good selection of children’s books (Emily Gravett is everywhere around here, and they also had the true story of the Big Bad Wolf, which is hilarious). There was also the typical art museum jewelry and bags and things that look “artistic” – one set that was actually pretty cool was jewelry based around shadow puppets. Maybe at some point, when I have an income, I will splurge.

I am looking forward to seeing what else Nottingham Contemporary puts on. It probably won’t be a place I go all the time, but it will definitely be a place I go back to.