Nazi Literature in the Americas. Readers confronted by the cover of Bolaño’s recently translated book might already find something incongruous between the title and the author. Those not new to his life story may wonder why he would commit himself to documenting the lives of fascist writers. After all, this is the man who was once a confirmed Trotskyite. This is the man who spied for the resistance against Pinochet. This is the man who was detained in Chile for suspected terrorism.

But isn’t this surprise and disorientation what Bolaño hoped for? He always enjoyed being different. Revolution flowed in his blood, not only in terms of politics, but in literature too. Born into a culture with a celebrated literary tradition, he was not content merely to seek to emulate other eminent South American authors like Isabel Allende and Gabriel García Márquez. Indeed, he actively tried to distinguish himself from them, dismissing the latter as a ‘man terribly pleased to have hobnobbed with so many Presidents and Archbishops’ and claiming that magic realism in general ‘stinks’. Predictably, he made enemies, but his innovation also led to him being heralded as the saviour of Latin American literature.

For much of his life he lived in decadence; it was only when he was diagnosed with liver cancer, just over ten years before his death in 2003, that he was at last able to focus his talent, publishing in quick succession acclaimed works such as The Savage Detectives and By Night in Chile. Nazi Literature in the Americas was published in Spanish in 1996, but has only recently been able to reach, shock and entertain a global public.

So what is Bolaño playing at in Nazi Literature in the Americas? The first words we encounter claim that ‘the rich seam of Nazi literature has, until now, been sadly under-explored.’ When initially asked by friends which book I was reviewing, I mumbled the title, rather embarrassed and worried that it might be thought that I suddenly had turned to reading right-wing propaganda. But if we dare to look inside, we instantly realise that Bolaño has not suddenly decided to praise fascist literature. Instead, he has dedicated himself to creating one of the most novel, scary and scathing pieces of satire of recent time. He writes an encyclopaedia of the extreme right-wing artists of both Americas. They are vibrant characters. They are prolific writers. They are politically active. And they are completely fictional. Into a real historical landscape – he mentions Hitler, Franco and Perón – and against a literary backdrop which includes references to Ibsen, Dr Johnson and Césaire, amongst others, we see writers who existed in no world other than the fertile environment of Bolaño’s mind.

In a style of writing which shifts between the discourses of literary criticism, political propaganda, thrillers and gossip magazines, Bolaño forms genre difficult to place, to describe, or even fully to understand. The writers are mocked, from their ridiculous names – Edelmira Thompson de Mendiluce, for example – to their laughable legacies. The biting humour used to refer to poems like I was happy with Hitler – apparently ‘misunderstood’ by everyone – is equalled by the caustic dismissal of the writers’ characters; one of the supposedly great authors is summarised and dismissed as ‘a soccer player and a Futurist’.

Yet the book isn’t just a case of one laugh after another. Bolaño raises deeper political and philosophical questions. Indeed, the most formidable aspect of the book is perhaps the abyss between the words on the page, written by Bolaño – the enthusiastic, ignorant, and racist biographer who fails to see the inconsistencies in his own praise – and the words the true Bolaño intends us to read behind the text. This gap succeeds in condemning both these imaginary authors and those foolish enough to appreciate them and their views. Finally, a lingering concern is implicit in the text: literature is written and remembered by the victors. If fascism had triumphed, would this be the intellectual world which we admire and from which we are supposed to learn? Not a thought to be taken lightly.

This book, then, is a form of literary prank. But like the best of jokes, there is a seriousness behind it which stays with us perhaps even longer than the punch-line.

Walking into the starkly lit first room of Chris Ofili’s retrospective at the Tate is overwhelming to say the least. Huge paintings propped up against the otherwise blank walls clamoured for my attention: knowing where to start was the immediate challenge.

Even when I’d decided on an individual painting, it was difficult to decide where to focus. The sheer content of the paintings is astounding: layer upon layer, media upon media, the clippings, paint, glitter, and, of course, elephant dung. This is what Ofili has come to be known for, and it’s hard to miss. It protrudes from the Holy Virgin Mary, a portrait where a lump of dung forms one of the woman’s nipples. It makes up the entirety of the sculpture Shithead, a lump of dung smiling crookedly with human milk teeth. Immediately revolting, one can’t help but be amused.

Humour pervades Ofili’s early works. Giant portraits such as Pimpin’ Ain’t Easy collage the faces of black icons, stuck on bare female legs, scuttling in and around the picture with that universal ‘celebrity’ grin that is so numbingly familiar. Race, perhaps the only constant throughout the exhibition, is not above parody: the famous black faces are not all good role models: Tiger Woods grins up from the bottom corner, appropriately balanced on a woman’s thighs.

His subject matter is also profoundly serious. No Woman No Cry, which won Ofili the Turner Prize in 1998, is a portrait of a woman crying tears of collaged pictures of Steven Lawrence, whose racially-motivated murder exposed the ‘institutional racism’ of the Metropolitan Police.

The climax of the show, however, comes in the next room. Led through a dark, wooden hallway, I found myself in The Upper Room, containing a series of twelve profile portraits of monkeys looking towards the central ‘mono oro’, in a reenactment of the Last Supper. The disciples are identified with the Hindu monkey god Hanuman, as the guiding pamphlet helpfully instructs, inviting multi-layered religious interpretations. Whatever these may be, this was a highly compelling climax. These fixed, menacing expressions of the monkeys’ provide intense focus. The glitter of Ofili’s early works is no longer brash and playful, it is alluring. The elephant dung becomes a frame, elevating each portrait.

Out of this vault, I was back in the light, back in an art gallery, and presented with Ofili’s drawings, my personal favourite episode within this varied retrospective. Lively, sexy, and funny, pencilled mini-Afro heads form lines to make bigger patterns – flowers in Afro Daze – or faces in the series Albinos and Bros with Fros. The pencil outlines of the whitened black faces are almost farcical: the black icon in its photo-negative. On the other side of the wall, the black and white outlines are replaced by the voluptuous untitled watercolour series. Crimson red lips and bright blue eyes seem to protrude from the beautiful shapes of the even, dark skin.

What Ofili loses in texture he replaces with colour in the following, final rooms, yet the mood becomes increasingly sober, even sombre. The vast, powerful canvasses look inwards rather than outwards. Faces are covered, avoiding rather than entreating the viewer. The neon colours are shocking and excluding: the clashing yellows, oranges and greens of Rising of Lazurus complicate and dualize the figures. Ofili’s move to Trindad signals a clear change in his painting. The environment envelopes the individual; expression is no longer centred on the person, but their place within a sensual, mysterious setting.

Ofili’s retrospective is energetic, lively, but deeply moody. Profound changes in his work are sensitively reflected by the gallery’s arrangement. Whilst the final figurative rooms are masterful, my fascination was rooted in the earlier parts: the portraits of black men and women, the alluring fierceness of the monkeys. It was this series that, for me, provided the exhibition’s climax. Although the final pictures did not provide a finishing flourish, I look forward to his next output. Who knows what direction it may take?

Chris Ofili is at Tate Britain until 16th May. Admission £10/8.50

Since meeting in Michaelmas 2008, the St. Catz duo Ro-to-the-Land and The Great Gartini – Roland Lasius and Tom Garton – have gone from strength to strength, rising to fame as the winners of RAG’s 2009 Oxford’s Got Talent competition. The boys unashamedly style themselves as an eclectic fusion of virile guitar riffs that will haunt you for nights, intricate, satirical rap lyricism, and falsetto warbling to put Justin Timberlake to shame. The impossibility of pigeonholing this messy double act into a fixed genre is part of the band’s offensive charm. The ladies love it. Darlings of the JCR/MCR open mic circuit, R2tL&TGr8G are not afraid to insult their audiences’ sensibilities with crass jingles, both glamorising and interrogating the exploits of middle class adventurers.

We interrupted Tom and Roland holed up in their writing zone: much of their dishevelled attire and “bohemian” décor struck us as shameless self-promotion. Regardless, a sincere degree of mystique and paradox shrouds the heart of their oeuvre. Building dreamy spires into the bitches and bling topos of late 90s hip-hop, their material blends two at first seemingly opposed social dimensions. Their lyrical world, peopled by third generation Brasenose Classicists who ‘don’t give a shit if their family’s all fascis’, is as much indebted to the epigrams of Oscar Wilde as to Eazy-E’s 1993 classic ‘Real Compton City G’s’. Pressed further, they baldly claim inspiration from Busta Rhymes, Al Green, and the grime scene – an interesting framework for songs about private healthcare, city jobs and incontinence. Their future plans include ‘more of the same really’ and a myspace page. Rumours of a debut album bubble throughout the Oxford music scene but remain, at present, unconfirmed.

In the murky corridors of St. Anne’s, an electronica revolution is brewing, PRDCTV (pronounced ‘Productive’ for the less vowel averse amongst you) is third year St. Anne’s psychologist Alex Lloyd.

Influenced by seminal 21st century electronic pioneers such as Four Tet and Bonobo, Alex began writing as PRDCTV in the summer of 2008. His tracks are painstakingly sampled and pieced together from bedroom recording sessions, emerging as fluid patchworks of exquisitely lush, organic folktronica. Branded the “Oxford Don” by XFM DJ and cult icon John Kennedy, Alex has been commissioned to do a number of remixes for artists such as Patrick Wolf and These New Puritans. Just before Christmas, PRDCTV signed to Ninja Tune, an independent label which is home to the likes of Bonobo, Mr. Scruff, Roots Manuva and The Cinematic Orchestra to name but a few.

We can look forward to PDRCTV’s first full length offering in early 2011, and, if his debut EP It’s Never Too Late To Have A Happy Childhood is anything to go by, we can expect glitchy samples strung together with verve and panache.
If a full time degree and time consuming solo work were not enough, Alex also runs the Oxford-based electronica label Geometric Records, home of Envelope and Jack Cleverly. 

In the claustrophobic black space, hemmed in on all sides by the audience, three apparently unrelated couples play out their own private battles; a husband and wife with AIDS fight over a single life-saving prescription, a mother and father’s relationship slowly deteriorates as they argue over their missing child-soldier son, and the eponymous Mary and her sister spit words at each other in the meeting room of a prison where Mary waits to be stoned to death for killing her parents’ murderer. By the end of the play, each of these apparently separate strands will have been brought together to show their ultimately tragic connection.

These are all stories that that will be familiar to the audience from newspaper articles about third-world countries. However, Debbie Tucker Green’s instructions concerning her characters are clear: all should be white, and the play should be set wherever it is performed, bringing this distant action straight into a familiar modern sphere.

The simple costumes set the characters immediately in our own space and time, so that they could have just walked in from the street. The script itself however, places the actors in an only half-recognised world.

Tucker Green’s script is highly demanding, elliptical and almost poetic, with lines repeated and spoken over each other, and nothing ever quite explained. The actors deal well with this, and bring to the often singular, obscure words a greater depth, and a fierce energy. The quick-fire dialogue is woven by a skilled ensemble group – each couple has a truly believable dynamic relationship. Whilst the choice of east-end accents lends the play a grittiness it needs, they are a predictable choice and sometimes slip. It might have been more interesting to see the same scenarios played out in clear cut Oxonian vowels.

The endless arguing and the elongated silences can feel a bit frustrating and drawn out at times, although, having said this, there are powerful moments that stand out suddenly from the rest. The Mother and Father scenes – Evie Jackson and Tim Kiely – are intensely performed and the closely interwoven lines bubble over each other with real emotion. The slowly burning dynamism of the couple backing away from a silent, machete-wielding child is another point where speech and action come together brilliantly. At other times, and despite the efforts of a skilled cast to create movement and action, the script overtakes them, and can feel like a performed poem.

All in all, the play is well performed and the tense acting and controlled setting combine to create a thought-provoking production.

3 stars

Stoning Mary is at St. John’s Auditorium, 5-6 March, 7.30pm

On the 22nd February, Cellar was the place to be if you wanted to check out some of the best student acts that Oxford has to offer. We sent some reviewers along to check them out:

Liam Howarth:

Concept: Man with beard plays guitar and sings

They say: ‘The best beard in Oxford?’

We say: Soulful tunes delivered with a subtle finesse. Electrifying blues sang in French and Björk covers bring joy to
the world.

Lydia Baylis

Concept: Man with guitar accompanies brilliant singer

They say: ‘Blissful Harmonies Guaranteed’

We say: No kidding. It is the plight of the early acoustic to have to fight the crowd, but after a quiet start, she pulled no punches. Heart-wrenchingly moving cover of Radiohead’s ‘Motion Picture Soundtrack’

Claudia Costa

Concept: Girl with guitar looks alot like Joan Baez and plays folk.

They say: ‘Bruce Springsteen/Accordion/ Double Denim’

We say: Owes just as much to Regina Spektor or Baez as she does to the Boss. That’s no bad thing, mind. However, her early slot combined with her popularity meant people tended to talk through her set, or, more disruptively, shush people. Which was a big shame.

Sonny Liston

Concept: Nine-piece folk collective

They say: ‘Formerly Dear Landlord’

We say: Just as good as under the previously ‘John Wesley Harding’ inspired moniker. Beautiful and playful interplay between the (many) instruments, and they’ve written some real gems. 

The Oxford University Light Entertainment Society – I mean no disrespect – is undeniably nerdy. Beards abound, as do comedy German accents, onstage and off, and I’d be surprised if there was a single person in the room who wasn’t au fait with most of the Discworld oeuvre. That said, I am too, and if you know at heart you’re not too cool for Terry Pratchett then Villainy may well be worth a look.

The Society is a charitable organisation and often performs in local schools, and at times I wondered if the brand of humour in this script by Fabienne Styles might work better on a slightly younger, less jaded audience. Nonetheless, there were still a number of genuine laughs; one mad scientist bemoans the state of the graduate job market, claiming to have turned to the powers of evil after being rejected by Glaxo-Smith-Kline; and pose-pulling superhero Captain Protector (Martin Corcoran) describes himself as a ‘defender of the innocent – especially if they’re good-looking’. His assistant Mindy (Sasha McKenna) was quietly hilarious, acquiescing seemingly without objection to a surreal S&M relationship with a man whose previous sidekick asked uncomfortable questions such as ‘why do I have to use the whip?’

I’m told the production features ‘six and a half’ original songs, one of which is a winning adaptation of the traditional folk song ‘Spanish Ladies’ bewailing the loss of a broken death-ray. Chorus number ‘The Good Guys Always Win’ is perhaps best summarised as charmingly rickety, though in their defence many a rhyme between ‘Ivy’ and ‘blithely’ gets a star all by itself. Elsewhere Jonathan Sims as Satan demonstrates the full capacity of his sinister eyebrows, and opens the show with a sympathy-for-the-devil themed tango duet which looks set to be instantly engaging.

Sustaining interest is a possible issue – the jokes have an approximate hit-rate of 50%, and I’m not sure how long it will take for the zaniness to wear slightly thin, but for twenty minutes at least it was more endearing than annoying. A scene about politically correct anarchists (I think) fell quite heavily flat, a victim both of acute standing-in-a-line syndrome and a terrible acronym, but to their credit a later running joke about ‘W.A.N.K.E.R.S.’ succeeds against all the odds.

In preview the plot lacked coherence, but in a full production with scenes in order I imagine this problem will solve itself. The humour would benefit from being more deadpan, and physicality was frequently unfocused and static; but to take this production too seriously as drama would be to miss the point. It’s fun, it’s silly, it’s for charity, and if I was fifteen I’d probably have loved it. But for a post-Pratchett cynic, it still manages to be at least lightly entertaining.

3 stars

Villainy is at the Wadham Moser Theatre, 9th March- 11th, 7.30pm

The Duchess of Malfi is by no means an easy play to do well – its central character is the most complex of tragic heroines and its message open to much debate. I was thus interested to see what Jack Hackett and Tom Moyser would emphasise in their production. The answer? Very little. When I could hear the dialogue, which was rarely (the actors seemed entirely oblivious to the squeaking floorboards which drowned out much of the speech), it still felt more like a reading of the play than a performance. The actors were not for the most part untalented; they, and their performances, just seemed to lack direction.

Hannah Daly (as the title character) and Robert Williams (Ferdinand) put in the two best performances. Daly managed to endow the duchess with a (later tragic) dignity, even when ravenously devouring apricots in the late stages of pregnancy, and the clarity and passion of Williams’ words was a breath of fresh air for the audience. Though he should probably watch that his performance does not slip into melodrama in an attempt to counter the under-acting of some of those around him. Harriet Lebus’ death scene (as Julia) was also impressive – it was a pity that she had only a relatively minor part, since she could have greatly enhanced the production.

But in any performance of The Duchess of Malfi it is the presentation of the character of Bosola which is most important for the success of the production. Nik Higgins, however, was entirely inaudible for most of the preview, which verged on the comic when he was in conversation with actors who were in fact projecting. This was frustrating enough for someone who knew the plot – for an audience new to the play, being able to hear Bosola is key. Higgins’s quiet monotone was not the only annoying aspect of characterisation. The idea that Antonio (Jari Fawkes) and Delio (Lewis Godfrey) could only express their friendship through overly frequent ‘man hugs’ was slightly laughable. Many of the relationships lacked subtlety and so believability, making me painfully aware at all times that this was a student play.

Performing the play in the Old Dining Room at Teddy Hall also seemed to create problems. There had clearly been little thought as to how to make the setting work to the play’s advantage (as the team behind Samson Agonistes managed so well in Merton chapel last week). It felt as if the play was being put on in a less than ideal space. The centrality of the duchess’s chair, framed by the elaborate panelling, was probably the one good design decision, but much of the time, design and script did not work together. For instance, Ferdinand’s sinister entrance into his sister’s bedroom was weak and anticlimactic, as he had to walk in through the audience, rather than appearing behind her. While limitations on entrances and exits are understandable, Ferdinand’s entrance from behind seemed like a basic and achievable requirement here.

All in all, the directors’ efforts seem to have gone into the mechanical necessities of putting on a play rather than any artistic vision. Some of the actors can obviously act and act well at times, despite a lack of unity, but they are let down by a watery production and one that adds little to the history of Webster in performance.

two stars

The Duchess of Malfi is at Teddy Hall, Sunday 7th March – Wednesday 10th, 7.30pm

Those with their ear to the ground in Oxford will know that The Spring Offensive is one of the city’s most promising up and coming musical outfits. The band has been gigging prolifically in Oxford and London over the last few years, but is developing a following which extends far outside the two cities; the five-piece is getting regular radio airtime, they’ve been chosen to feature on a BBC tribute to Radiohead’s The Bends and in a recent review, BBC 6 Music stated that the outfit ‘restores your faith in the [indie] genre’: all in all, an impressive résumé.

The five-piece is a product of our city. They formed at an Oxfordshire school and two of its members (brothers Lucas and Theo Whitworth) currently study at Catz. However, when I spoke to Lucas, he wasn’t so keen on the ‘Oxford band’ label, acknowledging that ‘it’s shorthand for Radiohead copyists or Foals imitators’; he urges those who hold this view to explore our city’s music more, adding ‘they’d be pleasantly surprised’. The band’s lead singer does however recognise the bright side of Oxford’s musical life, stating that he’s ‘honoured to be active in a brilliantly varied and creative musical community – the level of talent here keeps you on your toes’.

Undoubtedly, The Spring Offensive’s music doesn’t sound like the cheap Radiohead cynics might have hoped for. Instead, interweaving guitar lines underpin Lucas’s anthemic vocals to create an undeniably distinctive sound world. On being asked about the acts that influenced this, Lucas tells me, ‘we listen to a lot of music’ (he strikes me as a man with a vast record collection) making it ‘hard to pinpoint any direct influences’. However, he does say that bands ‘that make better music than we could ever hope to, like Death Cab For Cutie’, have informed their sound.

The writing process is very much a group effort: ‘Matt and Theo (the guitarists) come up with ideas, Joe and Pelham (bass and drums) make it into a song and I flit around the two pairs making tea’. Lucas stresses the importance of lyric writing to the band, telling me that they spend ‘a disproportionate amount’ of their lives on these. The meaning behind the songs is clearly a big deal for him: ‘it simply has to have something to say. Otherwise you might as well hum a melody’.

This ethos is certainly manifested in the band’s new album, Pull Us Apart, which was officially launched with a gig at The Wheatsheaf last Saturday night. Upon listening, it’s evident that a lot of time is spent on every detail of the songs, which are all connected by the central theme of obsession. Lucas is quick to point out that while the subject permeates each track, the opus isn’t a concept album. ‘The tracks work on their own, though do sound much better in context.’ He recalls that ‘last year, being in a band almost consumed our lives entirely. The record’s about longing to escape when you can’t because you’re too invested’.

Pull Us Apart was recorded over Christmas in what Lucas describes as a ‘ridiculously good couple of weeks’. The boys decamped to Courtyard Studios (where Radiohead’s Pablo Honey was recorded) and completely shut themselves off from the rest of the world ‘to focus entirely upon the record’. The band produced the work themselves (‘which is a lot less impressive than it sounds’) but had recording help from Ian Davenport (think Supergrass and Band of Skulls) who mainly did nuts and bolts work.

On being asked about the outcome of the album, Lucas tells me that, ‘Overall, we’re very proud of it, but it’s an artefact that relates to us last year, so now it’s up to other people, not us, to take things from it’. The band has evidently moved on already, focusing on a ‘quite different’ next record that will be out before Summer. Why the hurry to work again so soon? ‘The point is that you write a song that suits you perfectly at that time, but things change and it no longer matches you’.

I wondered about what the band hoped to achieve with its music, and Lucas states honestly that they want to ‘keep growing and growing and making better and better music’, but realises ‘it’s up to other people to take an interest and believe in what we’re doing’. If The Spring Offensive continue making music as good as they are now, they needn’t worry about people losing interest; they’re truly one of the most exciting musical outfits to emerge from Oxford in a long time, and as Lucas puts it simply, ‘Anything could happen’.  

In brief, this play comprises: a ploughman who has a somewhat intimate relationship with his horses; a silver tongued miller as adept with wordplay as he is flour grinding; and a nameless field woman caught in the middle, caught somewhere between wordless ignorance and an aching desire to name all of the wonders of the world. Unsurprisingly this makes for compelling viewing all the more so because each character is realised by strong, competent actors who maintain the intensity and intrigue that the play demands. 

As is always the case with previews I was only allowed a brief glimpse of things to come. However, what I saw was a surprisingly polished performance, given the cast have over a week left of rehearsals, and the beginning of a story that charts a young woman’s education as she opens her eyes to a world rife with expression and knowledge. 

Jennifer Hyde’s performance as the Young Woman was particularly skilled; her portrayal convincingly switched from thoughtful contemplator of nature and its beauties to naïve and crude sceptic of modernisation. Griffith Rees’s Miller is both devilishly intelligent and worryingly sinister. It is not surprising that the Young Woman is wary of this man who clicks his tongue and frequently bursts out into fits of manic laughter. Meanwhile, foil to the wit of the Miller and the blossoming intelligence of the Young Woman is William, the ploughman. Jeremy Jones’ brooding presence fits his role perfectly. He represents an almost elemental force, one which does not question the world around it and accepts its place with forceful determination. He often refers to his wife in the third person, implying a sense of ownership, coupled with his clear yet odd preference for the company of his mares over the company of his wife. He delights in the simple things like ploughing and sex, and is keen to rebuke his wife if she appears to be asking too many questions, questions which in themselves are perfectly innocent.

Angus Hodder (director) has very adeptly brought to life David Harrower’s intriguing script. The emphasis on wordplay and vocabulary is given due weight, and Hodder has ensured that a gently simmering environment soon gives way to one of bubbling menace. Even a bizarre and somewhat unsubtle dream sequence is rendered captivating as the Miller blows flour over the Young Woman’s body. This play will most definitely lend itself to the restricted size of the Burton Taylor, adding to the ominous sense of claustrophobia. This is the last BT play of the term and it most definitely deserves to be seen. It is thought provoking without being pretentious and at the entry price of £4 is clearly going to be worth it.

4 stars

Knives in Hens is at the BT Studio, Tuesday-Saturday of 8th Week, 7.30pm

The refrain ‘I don’t have time for museums’ is common amongst Oxford students, and certainly one I have used myself. The enormous number of things to do here tends to push museum visits pretty low down on the list, and anyway, it’s easy to forget about the cultural attractions of somewhere you live and experience daily. However, a new initiative spanning several of the museums here might be the right incentive to start exploring them.

In collaboration with museums across the county, BBC Oxford has created a list of ten objects which tell part of Oxfordshire’s history and suggest its relationship to the wider world. The objects are on display at the relevant museums, all of which are within walking or cycling distance except for the Oxfordshire Museum at Woodstock, which is a bus ride away. The objects form part of a wider project called ‘A History of the World in 100 Objects’ – a unique joint venture between the BBC, the British Museum and 350 museums and institutions across the UK, selecting objects of international provenance to create a multimedia impression of the development of global culture.

The strength of this initiative is that it appeals to an audience that otherwise might not visit museums much. The objects are all in permanent collections, rather than special exhibitions, so they’re not going to be whisked away any time soon, and visiting them is completely free.

Most of the objects aren’t the obvious treasures of their respective collections, so you’re likely to discover something you haven’t seen before, even if you are a frequent museum-goer. Millais’s 1851 painting The Return of the Dove to the Ark is one such example: it’s relatively unknown now, but it incorporates a stark tonal contrast, atypical in Pre-Raphaelite works, between the sombre background and the brilliant white drapery of one of the figures. It was also the first painting of this movement to be seen by William Morris, and seems to have profoundly influenced his later career in textile design and other decorative arts. If you walked into the Ashmolean’s nineteenth century rooms looking for a famous Millais painting, you would probably miss this one – yet on a closer look, it’s a beautifully simple composition rendered with immense technical skill, especially given the difficult textures included like straw, cloth and feathers.

Similarly hidden away in a basement room of the Museum of the History of Science on Broad Street is a model of the structure of penicillin. The leading contributor in the research of X-ray crystallography used to work out the structure was Oxford scientist Dorothy Hodgkin, awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1964. The model isn’t much to look at for the uninitiated, but it’s another reminder of the astounding achievements of centuries of Oxford academia. Also, it’s surrounded by an array of the Museum’s elegant, slightly-rusted oddities that make the room look like a Tim Burton science experiment.
Oxford in Ten Objects’s emphasis seems to be on the relevance of these objects to the modern day, which makes a change from the idea that visiting museums must be undertaken as a sort of cultural medicine. Dr John Hobart of Oxford University Museums described the project as ‘a fantastic opportunity for the museums and the people of Oxfordshire to focus on local objects and show how our county has contributed in many and diverse ways to the wider world’.

As such, the fact that the Pitt Rivers’s listed object is a tiny, unpainted, wooden ‘whit horn’, in a cabinet full of exotic painted flutes, needn’t seem a strange choice. Made in the 1890s, it was a musical instrument used to call Oxfordshire villagers to a hunt to kill a stag on Whit-Monday. Seamus Boyd, BBC Project Manager for the Nations and English Regions, said ‘some of [the objects] may have great monetary value, others little or none, but they’re priceless in how they bring to life moments in history.’

On the other hand, the validity of defining one object as ‘bringing to life a moment in history’ and discounting thousands of others is questionable. Why should one painting, sculpture, or antique plate be preserved and placed behind glass, and another left to moulder away? You could even argue that there is no longer a place for the institutional preservation of works of art, in a world where things such as giant comic strip paintings and a piles of dust can be valued at millions of pounds and put on display to the public. The French Dadaist Marcel Duchamp once said in an interview that he hadn’t been to the Louvre for over twenty years, ‘because I have these doubts about the value of the judgements which decided that these pictures should be presented to the Louvre, instead of others which weren’t even considered, and which might have been there’.

However, the crucial difference of this project compared to previous attempts to pinpoint specific cultural monuments in history (Kenneth Clark’s huge series Civilizations springs to mind) is its interaction with the museum-goers themselves. Anyone can suggest an object with local or global appeal to the ‘History of the World’ website, and the organizers hope that each BBC Local website will have a second list of the People’s 10 Objects by the end of February.

Some of the objects on the original list are hard to track down – I couldn’t find the ‘Domitianus Coin from the Chalgrove Hoard’, and nor could the Ashmolean staff – but this doesn’t really matter. If you’ve gone into a museum and search its display cases intrepidly, you’re bound to discover new things anyway. Dr Hobart agrees, saying the ten objects are ‘only a starting point for discussion’. Organizers seem more concerned in promoting Oxford’s museum collections generally than in enshrining the ten objects as cultural artefacts. Whether or not you use the list, published in full on the BBC’s website, Oxford in Ten Objects is a reminder of the wealth of history available to explore here, and is as good a reason as any to visit one of Oxford’s excellent museums.