Earlier this year I went to an exhibition followed by a discussion at The Towner Gallery in Eastbourne called Recording Britain . I witnessed some fascinating drawings and paintings from a variety of British artists. Most of the artwork in the collection is between 1939-1942. However, there are a few more recent drawings and photographs in the collection. I was particularly drawn to a drawing by Laura Oldfield Ford . It was an urban scene from a London suburb in which a menacing Brutalist high-rise occupies the backdrop. The drawings offered a distinctive punk visual aesthetic; I was instantly drawn to her work.
These stylish dystopian scenes made me think about the ‘derives’ (drifts) I have been on around the backstreets of inner-city Tokyo. A city no different than London being centres for free enterprise and modernity. Yet in Tokyo, particularly in the sprawling metropolis of Nakano-ku and Shinjuku-ku, old crumbling relics of the Showa Period are still in abundance yet inevitably and sadly their days are numbered. I also learned that Oldfield is a psychogeographer and ‘has organized drifts, flag burning ceremonies, mass activisms and other performance pieces in an unconventional extension of her practice’. (C.Lomax, July 2008).
To celebrate a few pieces of her work in a slide show, I’ve accompanied Mountain’s 1971 Nantucket Sleighride. An instrumental piece that later gained more acclaimed when used for the political/current affairs program Weekend World in the late 1970s.
There didn’t seem to be much in the form of entertainment on the EK312 from Dubai to Tokyo last Saturday. However, in the Arts and Music section, I came across an art documentary called Bunkers, Brutalism and Bloodymindedness. It was presented by writer, journalist, essayist and film-maker, Jonathan Meades. I remember watching a Jonathan Meades art documentary at university called Jerry Building, the subject matter focused on architecture of the Third Reich. It was my first exposure to Jonathan Meades; he’s someone you don’t forget easily; he’s very visual, witty, and articulates such colourful sounding phrases that I’m usually reaching for the dictionary just to comprehend his rhetoric. Incidentally, I still retain a 20-year-old doodle with a comment by Meades from the Jerry Building documentary! Unlike other art presenters such as Simon Schama and Andrew Graham-Dixon and no disrespect to them, he has a very theatrical, eccentric and comical way of presenting his programs. He might walk into shot from left to right and something unexpected might fall on him. Also, his dress sense is very individual for an art presenter (i.e. a black gangster suit and black shades). When discussing his documentaries with friends/ work colleagues, I often get mixed opinions about him as an art critic. I’ve found you either love him or hate him. In my opinion, he doesn’t try to stamp his point of view on you yet he makes you think deeply about the subject matter and possibly change your way of thinking.
In Bunkers, Brutalism and Bloodymindedness, Meades looks at how modern gothic architecture in Victorian times influenced the modernist buildings (brutalism) of the late 50s/early 60s; often looked at in derision or contempt and seen as concrete monstrosities. A phrase you will become accustomed to during the program. However, as Meades points out, ‘Why should buildings and landscapes look friendly?’ and goes on to say, ‘We don’t expect films or novels or paintings or sculptures to be pretty so why should we expect buildings to be pretty?’ He has a point there though the more important point he makes is that architects from the 1860s to the 1960s were not viewed as servile technicians or social workers but as a maker, an artist. They make something that didn’t before exist. The program brought back memories from my university days, notably when a group of us made a short documentary with the focus on architecture in the Bristol area. We chose a high rise in the Bedminster. Before shooting commenced, I recall researching the urban planner, Le Corbusier. The man whose dream was to build high-rise structures where people could live in harmony vertically. In countries such as Italy, France and Holland his utopia became a reality. However, in Britain, the high rises of the late 50s/early 60s became stigmatized and were often associated with social problems such as (in the program’s words) addiction, family break-downs, sexual violence, long-term unemployment, looting, diseases etc. Overall, it’s an insightful documentary that makes you draw your own conclusions on Brutalist Architecture.
A doodle from a university lecture when watching Jerry Building in 1994, I wrote, ‘The treehouse of the mad child that wanted to rule the world’ (J Meades 1994) . The treehouse being Berghof, Hitler’s private retreat in the Bavarian Alps.
jason murray MA 