Abstraktion, Repraesentation, og Collage:Three Generations of Danish Artists.

Danish art? I can't say it's something I've devoted a lot of my life to thinking about. Or something I could proclaim either a great interest, or great knowledge in. But, earlier this year, I found myself at the Mayfair branch of the Victoria Miro gallery looking at some of it. I uploaded the photos with the intention of writing some kind of brief, fairly flippant, blog and then, well, I never got round to it.

But today I decided to return to my draft and have a crack at stringing a few words together. It's as much an exercise in memory recall as it is in art criticism or writing. So, there's a new challenge. I'm fifty-one. Remembering things isn't as easy as it used to be. Or at least it shouldn't be. I bought crumpets instead of a loaf of bread in the Co-Op this morning for example. But slights, rejections, and other instances of life going wrong? Oh, I remember them alright. Too bloody well.

Tal R - House red (2018)

The basic premise of the show was that the three contributing artist represent three different generations. There's Asger Jorn (1914-1973), Per Kirkeby (1938-2018), and Tal R who was born in 1978 and is the only one of the three who is still alive. They're almost all said to be both "non-conformist" and "polymaths" but I think that's something for the viewer, rather than the gallery curators, to decide. None of it's that out there. Some of it's a bit crap, actually. A lot of it.

I've put Tal R's House red at the top of the review because I think it's probably the best thing in the show. The expressive background reminds me of Van Gogh and, even more so, Tal R's fellow Scandinavian Edvard Munch although you could, if you squint, view it as a Danish riff on the work of Edward Hopper. 

Asger Jorn - Untitled (1943)

Tal R - Caravan (1998)

Elsewhere Tal R opts for pilfering from far more outsider and naive styles. If you were looking to find a sweet spot between Rose Wylie and the abstract expressionism of Willem de Kooning you could do worse than start with Caravan and Rosa road, painted twenty years apart but both employing broad strokes to give the impression of being painted with no formal training.

Asger Jorn and Per Kirkeby's works hew closer to this faux-idiot-savant style than they do to House red. Abstracted waterfalls, patchworks, blurry faces, and what's essentially scribbles and smudges smeared over the canvas aren't particularly unpleasant to look at, they don't offend, but they bring nothing new to the conversation. It's all been done before. Often a lot better.

Tal R - Rosa road (2018)

Per Kirkeby - Untitled (2004)

Per Kirkeby - Tre maend soger ruiner (1975-1977)

Tal R - punta de chroores (2006)

Tal R's decision to puncture his canvas with pins, Lucio Fontana's reminder board, at least gives the viewer something a touch more unusual to ponder and Per Kirkeby's fence was surprisingly delightful. The clearly defined blue works a treat against the vague wash of colours that make up the background.

Elsewhere though, it's pretty slim pickings. Nobody was making a claim that this was some kind of blockbuster show, and it was free to enter, but I have to call it as I see it and this was something of a dud. Perhaps that's why I took so long to getting round to writing about it.

Per Kirkeby - Stakit/Fence (1965-1966)

Asger Jorn - Black Iac Blues (1960)

Per Kirkeby - Untitled (1970)

Asger Jorn - Aurorapide (1967-1968)

Most of the works on show barely warrant a second glance. Their creators become irrelevant when we care so little about the work. Yeah, there's some nice colour in Jorn's Aurorapide and Kirkeby's 1970 untitled piece looks kind of pretty but these splashes of colour, these cut and pastes, these mocked up tribal faces, and these riffs on far far greater artists all get to look very samey, very tired, and very disappointing quite rapidly.

Tal R - Mayor (2001)

Per Kirkeby - Untitled (1963)

Tal R - Viva Ultra (2000)

Asger Jorn - Overlords and Underlings (1951)

Tal R - Fog over Malia bay (2012)

Tal R - Polish africa (1995-1998)

Asger Jorn - Le grande GR-solitaire (1964)

Per Kirkeby - Untitled (1963)

Asger Jorn - Midsummer Day Dream (1970)

I've not said a whole lot about the art or the artists because, quite frankly, it just wasn't good enough. There are really genuinely talented artists out there struggling, suffering even. To waste gallery space on crap like this is both bewildering and a little depressing. Must try harder.

Per Kirkeby - Untitled (1963)

(One Step) Beyond The (End Of The) Road.

"THERE WILL BE NO MIRACLES HERE"

We can't say we weren't warned (although if that sign had been on the way in instead of the way out it might have been more helpful). There certainly weren't any miracles at the Saatchi Gallery's immersive Beyond the Road exhibition. But that's okay. There's no such thing as a miracle. Not a literal one anyway. What there was was lots of interesting and fun art as well as some, much less than promised, immersive experiences.

But at £20* a pop it was far too expensive for what it was and both me and my art companion for the afternoon, Valia, left feeling just a little but underwhelmed. It was a lovely afternoon but I must admit the majority of the enjoyment came from having a long overdue catch up with a valued friend and a coffee afterwards. Which was not really how it was supposed to pan out.

Channel 4 News's Jon Snow is on record as saying "this is no ordinary show" and the NME (that still exists?) claim "a feast for all of the senses". While neither is untrue both would lead you to expect something much more, well, mindblowing. The reality of the experience was that we were taken down a back alley (no sniggering), past a load of rubbish lobbed on the floor, up some stairs, and led into a series of mostly quite dark rooms where we were presented with various paintings, sculptures, and films and given a chance to lie down and listen to some music.

All very pleasant but with Punchdrunk and James Lavelle from UNKLE behind it, and for a score, I was expecting something I'd come out raving about. Instead it was, in some places, kind of about raving. The sort of thing that appeals to ravers who've hung up their Vicks Vaporubs and glowsticks. As so much is these days. Ageing ravers seem to have colonised folk music, coffee shops, and the Internet, as much as they have art galleries.

There's nothing wrong with that. We all get older (the alternative is far worse) and while we all get into different things we do tend to bring a bit of our past with us. A friend of mine who was a goth now tends to wear Fred Perrys - but he wears black Fred Perrys!

He'd have probably enjoyed some of the works on show at the Saatchi. The skull and crossbones below, perhaps. I'd love to be able to tell you who the individual pieces are by but as none of the works are labelled I've had to abandon my usual protocol on that front. There's an information board as you exit that informs you that you've just seen works by Nathan Coley, Lucas Price, and even Danny Boyle and heard music by Keaton Henson, Michael Kiwanuka, and ESKA but it's not remotely easy to work out who was responsible for what.

So, instead, you've just got photos of the art, the films, and some of the architectural whimsies they're contained in - as well as a couple of Valia and myself interacting with said things. You're told not to touch things when you enter but we picked up a phone or two and they had music playing down them so it's to be assumed phone receiver handling is deemed acceptable.

I get a bit bored of seeing slogans written in neon lights, started to feel it was done to death years ago but its popularity seems to be showing no sign of abating, but I did like the room you could go in, kneel on a cushion as if in prayer (the room was vaguely chapel shaped) and watch a light show while listening to what once would have been described as "ambient house" or "chill out" music.

Other rooms were full of slightly more pumping 'choons'. At one point I wished I'd taken a pill so I could get on one but I guess there was a danger I might have freaked out and, anyway, those days are long behind me.

So instead I admired the artistry behind the painting of the sleepy cowled guard who seemed to have wandered out of the Spanish baroque paintings of Zurbaran and straight down the King's Road into the gallery. The next room was even better, one of the highlights of the show, featuring, as it did, a long waxy table festooned with candles and the residual imprints of cutlery. There was a piano in the corner that would occasionally play itself and you'd half expect Fang the Butler to walk in and deliver a lugubrious "we've been expecting you".

The artwork our dinner table seating faced us towards looked worthy of Dorothea Tanning or Remedio Varo and I was genuinely won over by it, despite the fact that it is obviously in hock to earlier, more innovative, artists.

It was the closest any of the rooms came to being overwhelming so it was quite convenient that the next room provided us with a chance to have a lie down. Not something I usually pass up on. There's something about having a lie down in the middle of the day whilst also, nominally, doing something (be it art, yoga, or whatever) that makes you feel less guilty about it.

Although when I first got in the room I thought the people lying down were plants, stooges, or actors. Not just ordinary punters like us. When I finally got a bed I wasn't sure what to do so I closed my eyes and waved my right arm around a bit. Like a goth at a Love and Rockets gig in 1987. Or a twat. You decide.

The next room appeared to star some kind of dead bird skewered on a spike which I hope wasn't real. It also had a telephone playing music - though not great music - and at a fairly unpleasant level too. Then there were some rather dull screens of trees and camper vans on big screens, a film of a woman covered in gunk which looked like a rejected Bjork video idea, a mocked up vandalised phone box, and some chairs where you could stare at fairly uninteresting art, mildly more interesting videos, or, best of all, other people entering the gallery who, we guessed, would assume us to be part of the show.

Hey, you have to make your own fun sometimes. The Damien Hirst style mocked up triangular pharmaceutical dispensary certainly had something of the ritualistic, even masonic, about it but we had more fun taking photos of the back of each other heads! I quite liked the changing light colours in the room. It was hardly an experience "beyond" but it was a pleasant one all the same.

There was one last surprise in the form of an animatronic, life sized, and actually quite lifelike human head that moved around curiously, mining the very depths of the uncanny valley. I joked that it was probably actually a real person painted in garish colours and we tried to work out (and failed) if the head was responding to our presence and actions. Again, it was amusing and it was a diversion which, often, is enough but not when you have to give over a picture of the Queen and Adam Smith to get it. The art was good rather than great but the company was what made the afternoon a winning one. Thanks to Valia for providing that as well as suggesting this exhibition and even treating me to a visit.*

From Fingermouse to The Wicker Man:Examining the Archives at the BFI.

Throbbing Gristle, Threads, Fingerbobs (but not Fingermouse), Give my Regards to Broad Street, Norman Wisdom, the progressive rock band Quintessence, Oz magazine, Highgate Cemetery, Gus Honeybun, Andy Milligan, the Grindhouse scene, witchcraft in the Notting Hill area, Anthony Newley, Operation Yewtree, the TV show Music Box, the busking days of a pre-Hawkwind Dave Brock, and the former Play School presenter Toni Arthur's spell as a gothic folk singer.

These were just a few of the subjects that were covered during the Q&A alone at last night's London Fortean Society talk, The Bodies Beneath:The Flipside of British Film & Television, at the Conway Hall. An event that, as I left the estimable building, I nearly walked straight into the esteemed metaphysical philosopher, and author of The God Argument, A. C. Grayling on the way out. He's a bit of a slouch when it comes to doors, it turns out.

Grayling had been speaking at an event about the compatibility (or not) of various Abrahamic faiths in the main room while I'd been squirreled away in a side room beset by technical difficulties (that continued into the talk) for an hour and a half that was enjoyable enough but, sadly, lacked any real narrative structure. It felt less like a curated evening than three blokes chatting as if they were in a pub - except without any booze.

Which was probably for the best. I've drunk enough recently. So with a bottle of water and a packet of Polos I waited as three bearded men took to a table and sat behind some laptops. I'd have not been too surprised if they'd kicked off by playing a few tracks by Orbital or the Psychick Warriors ov Gaia, such was the set up's accidental debt to the techno scene.

These men weren't musicians though, but archivists. Of sorts. They were William Fowler and Vic Pratt (described, worryingly - they looked youthful to me, as 'veteran' film curators) and interviewee Mark Pilkington and they were with us to talk about (and hopefully sell a few copies of) their book, which carries the same title as the talk.

It's a book that aims to look behind what the urban intelligentsia, the arbiters of taste, have decreed is worth restoring or enjoying another run in arthouse cinemas. Stuff like The Red Shoes or The Third Man. It's a book that looks, even, to go beyond canonically approved cult favourites like The Wicker Man, El Topo, Eraserhead, and Psychomania.

Pratt and Fowler were very keen to make it clear they had nothing against The Third Man or Eraserhead or, indeed, any of these films. It was more that their interest was digging a bit deeper in the crates, getting down into the dusty corners of the archives, and discovering what they termed "the films of the damned". The work that has, for some reason or another, been excluded from the canon.

They both work at the BFI so they're in a pretty good place to locate these 'curate's egg's'. They were also keen attendees of the Scala cinema's cult film nights in the eighties and raved about Nigel Wingrove and Marc Morris's Art of the Nasty, a book that reproduced the sleeves of some of the eighties most notorious, and most obscure, video nasties.

Video nasties! Almost sounds quaint now. They were fascinating at the time. Hard to get hold off and yet having quite a kudos in the playground. In reality they were often, but not always, poorly produced, badly acted, and had lame special effects and woeful plots. But Pratt and Fowler aren't in the business of looking for films that are good from start to finish. They're more interested in films that may only contain a few minutes of genius, for curios, or for the completely out there.

So following an opening montage (sadly the only film of the night) that featured clips of Dr Who, creepy crawlies, and lots of topless women we were soon into a wild, somewhat random, journey that took in electronic music playing while chickens were being slaughtered for sale at a supermarket (a thing called Paranoid London), a key party in 1965's Wife Swappers, the soft porn of Stanley Long, navy documentaries, the origins of the mondo genre, and the various scandals that have afflicted Sooty over the years.

There was an uproar when Sooty first got a girlfriend but it was as nothing compared to a film in which he runs a chemist shop selling intoxicating pharmaceuticals. Most of which are guzzled up by Sweep. This comes from a very rich, and very British, seam of film making. That of the company training film. Or the educational film.

One, so far mostly unheralded, female director who worked in this field was Mary Field (Field's field). 1932's The Mystery of Marriage sought to educate school children about sex and was shown in schools that decade. Because they obviously couldn't show actual humans copulating or even getting it on in milder ways they got round that by using locusts and praying mantises.

Hereford Pedigree Cattle was an even tougher sell as it was designed to teach children how to sex livestock and why Rough Sea at Dover featured a cricket match on a listing ship is anyone's guess but it certainly sounds odd and helped, in America mainly, to cement the UK's reputation as a place where the very mundane could exist right next to the completely bonkers!

Where The War Game nuclear war drama/documentary can sit next to Charlie Drake, where Nigel Kneale (Quatermass) can make a sitcom (Kinvig) in the eighties about a scantily clad alien who visits an electric repair shop in a small British town, and where the idea of the gifted outsider (think John Pertwee's Dr Who or Patrick McGoohan) taking on the grey society men is not just accepted but positively relished.

There was a lot of talk of films and television programmes that I'd never heard of (which was kind of the point I suppose) and a lot of it went over my head (most things do) but I did get the feeling that the talk was of more value to the initiated. One for the purists, perhaps, although I was particularly interested when ideas of an alternative version of the cliched image of the swinging sixties in London was broached and I would have loved for the speakers to delve further into their theories on what these films say about London, what they say about Britain, and what they might even say about us.

For the most part, however, enthusiasm bested narrative or hypothesis and though it was interesting to hear about 1975's Seven Green Bottles (in which Danny John-Jules starred, as Frog, along with seven other unknown kids in a parable about crime that was so effective that all the kids bar Danny later ended up doing time), to reassess Colin Baker's stint as Dr Who via 1986's Trial of the Timelord, and even to have a debate about the waxing and waning popularities of mummies, zombies, werewolves, and vampires these occasionally proved dead ends in which the talk employed a hyperspace button to escape and reappeared elsewhere chatting about something almost completely unrelated.

Which was fun. But frustrating. It was illuminating to hear about Mary Whitehouse and the Festival of Light's attempt to shut down anything that was too sexy, too shocking, or too much fun or to learn of the 1971 'campaign' documentary The Savage Voyage. A film about 'the hells of depression' that was virtually a horror and features scenes of extreme vivisection certainly sounds like something I never need to see. But, ultimately, I'd need to be smoking some of Sooty's gear for all of this to cohere in my head.

That, ultimately, probably doesn't matter. The evening's aim was to be fun (which it mostly was), to sell a few books (which they did), and, perhaps, more than anything, point people towards some hitherto unregarded pieces of auteurship and in that it succeeded. It was ramshackle, threadbare even in places, and beset by tech gremlins but it was charming and had moments of absolute hilarity. In that it was much like the aforesaid curate's eggs that Vic Pratt and William Fowler were promoting.

Now, if you'll pardon me I've got to go. I've got a yellow puppet bear with a wand coming round for a re-up and I want to get to him before Sweep snaffles the entire stash. Izzy, whizzy, let's get bizzy!