Sunday 27th July 2025
Blog Page 887

American art at the cutting edge of the 21st century

Altair Brandon-Salmon
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American art at the cutting edge of the 21st century

Two shows. One, the most high profile exhibition of contemporary American art. The other, a Visual Arts MFA degree show—not contemporary art, but one example perhaps of the future of art in the US. The former is, of course, the Whitney Biennial, on until the 11th June at the Whitney Museum of American Art, in its new, very precociously-designed home in New York City’s Meatpacking district. Renzo Piano (architect of the Centre Georges Pompidou and the Shard) has created a glossy, metal and glass, angular frame to the museum, right at the end of the High Line. In a sense, it is Piano’s work who introduces the Biennial, the first installation in the exhibition. The Columbia first-year MFA exhibition, which was on from 24th March–8th April, is less glamorously located on the eighth floor of Schermerhorn Hall, a nineteenth-century Beaux-Arts, red brick building at the heart of the Ivy League-university’s campus in Morningside Heights, on the Upper West Side. Yet once inside the gallery space, the comforting familiarity of blank white walls returns and we are no longer so far away from the Whitney after all.

The Whitney Biennial is intended as a sampling of contemporary American art: it makes no claim to comprehensiveness, nor it is as prescient as it seems. Critics like The New Yorker‘s Peter Schjeldahl have taken great pleasure in pointing out that the curators—Christopher Y. Lew and Mia Locks—made their selection of works before last November’s presidential election. Indeed, the last Biennial had one hundred and three different artists represented, while here we are down to a more digestible sixty-three. On the other hand, Columbia’s MFA twenty-five strong cohort, are very conscious of the spectre of the 45th President of the United States. Meg Turner’s striking black and white, upside down American flag, entitled ‘It’s already happening/it has always been happening here’ breathes in the air of political anger and protest.

Which is not to say the Biennial shirks current concerns—its most controversial work, Dana Schultz’s impressive, almost abstract painting ‘Open Casket’ has drawn ire from activists for a white woman portraying the mutilated body of Emmett Till. References, implicit or otherwise, to Black Lives Matter abound. One of the pieces operates more as polemic than art, Frances Stark’s ‘Censorship Now!!’ excerpting from Ian F. Svenonius’ book, which argues freedom of expression is a ploy of capitalist oppression—ironic for a work exhibited within a corporately-sponsored museum which claims to celebrate artists’ expression.

One of the most striking elements of both shows however, is the return to canvas. Of course, painting has never really gone away and the periodic cry from critics of either the death or revitalisation of painting occur with predictable cyclicality. What marks the works at the Whitney and in Columbia though, is their determined representational qualities, shirking abstraction. Aliza Nisenbaum’s ‘Latin Runners Club’ at the Biennial, a large-scale portrait of a cast of diverse runners recalls public murals, while Samantha Nye’s ‘Entertainment For Men (Bard And I As Triplets)’ from the MFA exhibition, shows three nude, blonde middle-aged women entwined by phone cords on a deep, flattening red background. Indeed, even in the galleries in Chelsea, works on walls dominate: certainly they are far more saleable than more avant-garde art forms.

Yet what I think is the crux of the comparison between the Whitney Biennial and the Columbia MFA show is that question of quality. The best work at the Biennial—such as Samara Golden’s genuinely awe-inspiring installation ‘The Meat Grinder’s Iron Clothes’, or the stained glass of Raúl De Nieves—is profoundly beautiful, moving, and thought-provoking all at once. Yet the worst (and make no mistake, the curators’ tastes are not infallible: you will find plenty to dislike), like the infographic that is the collective Occupy Museum’s contribution to the show, is not very much better in terms of craftsmanship, polish, and confidence than the work at Columbia. This is all the more surprising when you recall it is a first year MFA show. Certainly, the powerful ‘Revenge/Regret’ series of encrusted paintings, cleverly utilising a corner of the gallery space to surround the viewer in images hovering between representation and abstraction, could see Tanya Merrill one day gracing the hallowed space of the Whitney or the Met Breuer.

The gap is not so great, the difference in quality from the chosen representatives of contemporary art in America today not as large as you might expect. Perhaps that is because the future of American art, as exemplified by this grouping of MFA students, is so enamoured with the present art of America, their subjects and styles and forms merging together into a thick, rich morass. We shouldn’t read this as a condemnation of the Whitney Biennial: on the contrary, it is a testament to the talent that has yet to break through that it is already operating on such a high level.

Exploring Hull and its high water

Julian Wood
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Exploring Hull and its high water

Sitting down with a friend for the morning pre-lecture coffee, I decided that I could no longer put off broaching the subject: “If I were to say ‘Hull. Discuss’, what would your response be?” Even accommodating the strange spontaneity of my question, the look with which I was met—as if he had decided to consume his morning fix in granular form only—said it all. “Umm…City of Culture”, came the bemused response, “industry, I suppose, maybe football”.

The mention of Hull, or Kingston-Upon-Hull to give its seldom-used full name, is sadly the common precursor to such reactions. The furrowed brow; the kind of strained face one would give to somebody quoting the Trainspotting script in a nursery. They are the familiar response to the mention of a town that has become an almost unspeakable byword for all that is bleak, Northern, post-industrial misery. Forever fixed near the top of the ‘worst places to live’ list in the national consciousness, the title ‘City of Culture’ seems to be the one positive thing anyone is willing to say about the East Riding of Yorkshire’s largest settlement. It is the one potentially positive, stereotype-avoiding thing people can come up with, and when pressed further many struggle to elaborate on anything distinctly recognisable about the city.

What actually is cultural about Hull after all? Edinburgh has Sir Walter Scott, Liverpool the Beatles, London the West End, to name but one for each. What, if anything, has this Land-That-Time-Forgot ever given to the UK that would ever constitute ‘cultural’?

And this pervasive attitude is a devastating shame. Hull, the winner of the ‘UK City of Culture 2017’ competition, is—as its City Council’s website accurately describes—a “great Northern city with a rich heritage and vibrant cultural offerings”. But it has yet to show its true colours to the country in this regard. It is true that Hull is playing host to many cultural celebrations over the course of the year hosting, for example, three concerts of the BBC Proms performance of Handel’s ‘Water Music’, at the Stage@Dock on 22 July.

Such activities are excellent opportunities for the city, and I thoroughly encourage and welcome them, but they still do not properly constitute the showing off of Hull’s own culture. They almost suggest that Hull’s 2017 status is a form of slap-on label. It is cultural because a distant committee has decreed as such, and in order to celebrate this, they will ‘put culture over here today’, dropping it, like a patronising UNICEF, into an otherwise barren wasteland that could not possibly come up with any of its own. Maybe some stereotypes simply die hard in people’s minds, but certainly this city’s real character, even with its new title, remains unknown to most.

Now, I must confess to committing the cardinal sin of essay-writing: searching for ‘culture’ in the Oxford English Dictionary. My guaranteed afterlife in the eternal fires of Academic Hell aside, the definitions with which I was presented seem to fit perfectly with Hull, despite its unfortunate national image. “Distinctive ideas, customs, social behaviour, products, or way of life”? Absolutely. “Artistic and intellectual development”? Definitely. Hull is unfairly preceded by a reputation as a forlorn, flavourless backwater—it is a place as distinct as they come, with its own unique character and richly varied contributions to the world of human achievement. It is simply a matter of being willing to look for them, and, in the absence of being able to truly appreciate these things from a distance, I did.

Paragon Interchange, the grand, column-lined Victorian train station on Hull’s bustling Ferensway. In the shadow of the huge board celebrating the city’s 2017 status, there is already evidence of Hull’s justification in receiving the accolade. Amidst the crowd on the packed concourse stands a seven foot bronze statue of former Poet Laureate Philip Larkin, frozen mid-motion, manuscripts in hand, rushing towards the platform.

Predictable jokes about the virtues of fleeing Hull aside, the station itself was celebrated in the opening line of Larkin’s 1964 poem ‘The Whitsun Weddings’, and Hull served him faithfully as a city-sized muse from his appointment as its University’s Librarian in 1955. Larkin’s own succinct reflection on the city: “I never thought about Hull until I was there”, is sadly all too accurate—it can be difficult to remember somewhere so ‘over there’, surrounded on all three sides by sprawling farmland, let alone its significant contributions to the world of literature. Yet significant they were, for Larkin was not alone. Leaving Paragon and heading West, to Bishop Alcock Road, one comes face to face the marble statue of the 17th century metaphysical poet Andrew Marvell, who grew up in the city and later served as its MP.

Evidently, despite being the home of one of the most distinctive accents in Northern England—with vowels so flattened that even a simple can of ‘kerka kerla’ appears an alien concept—the city has inspired some of the finest lyricism in the English language.

Certainly, nobody would deny that this was a significant ‘cultural’ contribution, and indeed the arts are a greatly under-appreciated aspect of Hull’s creative output. Still in the west of the city, in the leafy suburb of Newland, I am greeted by the residents’ own self-assertion of this: the plastering of a large poster onto the side of a generator. The picture: the cover of the first album by Hull band The Housemartins, aptly named—in typically city-proud fashion—London 0, Hull 4. Initially based here at a humble terrace in nearby Grafton Street, this jangly guitar group–best known for their 1986 Number 1 acapella cover of Isley-Jasper Isley’s ‘Caravan of Love’—was the training ground for two of modern music’s giants. Paul Heaton, subsequent co-founder of The Beautiful South, served as frontman, singer, and lyricist. Behind him, the unassuming Norman Cook, now perhaps better recognised by his stage moniker of Fatboy Slim, plucked at the bass. Backtracking south towards the city centre, at 38 Beverley Road, lies the former premises of Turners Furniture Shop. It was here in 1982, after taking their name from the shop’s tagline, that Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt founded Everything But the Girl, best remembered for their 1994 Number One single ‘Missing’.

Of course, there’s visual art itself, perhaps especially surprising given the needless reputation of the place. Certainly, one would not expect Stig of the Dump to paint something Rembrandt-esque, yet once again the city’s unjustified caricature precedes it. Until recently, when it was moved to the Humber Street Gallery for preservation, one of the locals’ most prized visual expressions of the ‘Hull spirit’ adorned a corrugated iron jetty at East Hull’s Alexandra Dock. I refer to ‘Dead Bod’, a human sized painting of an upturned, stylised dead bird, with the words that gave the image its name scrawled beneath. ‘Bod’ being a local slang term for bird, the piece was allegedly the post-pub effort of Captain Len ‘Pongo’ Rood and Chief Engineer Gordon Mason in the 1960s. It became a symbol of the city’s rich maritime heritage, the bold outline being one of the most prominent features to guide the once vast fishing fleets on the River Humber back to their docks.

Associated British Ports painstakingly took the effort to transfer the image in March 2015 after a significant campaign was mounted to save it in the face of demolition. This included the creation of a special ‘Save Dead Bod’ blonde ale by Humber Street’s Yorkshire Brewing Company, a typically Hull-esque gesture that highlights the importance of the down-to-earth, ‘good chat, good drink’ mentality that gives the community its cohesive power for such actions . These efforts by the locals are as good an indication as any of their devotion to this aspect of their own heritage-based identity, and of their immense pride in championing it.

Strolling through the empty murmur of East Hull’s waterside, the city’s fishing fleets are long gone. The damage to their industry was irreversible after the so-called ‘Cod Wars’, a series of Iceland-UK confrontations from 1952 to 1976 over fishing rights, ending with the loss of Hull’s prime catching grounds. Yet, despite being estuarial, and no longer a fishing capital, the people of Hull are fanatically proud of their maritime connections.

In July 2016, 3,200 residents gathered, naked, and painted four shades of maritime blue, from 5am in the city centre to take part in New York photographer Spencer Tunick’s ‘Sea of Hull’ installation. The photographs, recently opened for exhibition at Hull’s Ferens Gallery on 21 April 2017, depict the volunteers as a blurred collective mass, arranged as flowing waves through the streets of the Victorian city centre, and in the Queen’s Gardens in concentric rings as a huge human ship wheel. The sheer number of volunteers, and their willingness to totally expose themselves to the freezing morning winds for multiple hours—a task requiring multiple truckloads of Northern mental grit—shows the importance the people of Hull attach to their own unique take on ‘culture’.

Everyone was socially levelled by the process, an egalitarian gesture where background and class were discarded in favour of collective celebration. Even the great rivalry within the city itself: between the two sides of the River Hull that runs down its centre—seen most passionately manifested at the Rugby League games between west-supported Hull F.C. and east-supported Hull Kingston Rovers—was put aside for a common gesture of appreciation. A city that inspires such devotion from its residents, especially in the pursuit of artistic creation, cannot constitute the swamp of protozoan lowlife many are too willing to brand it. Hull needs anything but the truck-based import of culture—it already lives powerfully, in its own distinct form, within every resident and every paving slab.

It is a place that inspires devotion: the people of Hull—or ‘Hullensians’—are proud of their city, and are unwilling to succumb to external pressure in demonising it. The only city in the UK to have non-red telephone boxes—opting for cream instead when it escaped British Telecom’s monopoly—is a place that is quietly confident in its own unique identity. Indeed, it is this sense of self-reflection that is perhaps among the most admirable traits of the city as a collective entity, and lies at the heart of what constitutes arguably the most overlooked, yet culturally significant, building in the city.

At the corner of West Hull’s Beverley Road, number 144 on the corner with Fountain Road, I pass what appears to be yet another one of the boarded-up, crumbling remnants of Victorian Northern England. Another example of the grim-covered, expired grandeur that characterises the common mental picture of Hull. But this dereliction is, unlike most, deliberate.

The wreck’s original incarnation, the National Picture Theatre, was, on the night of 17-18 March 1941, filled with 150 patrons for a screening as the Second World War distantly raged. The film: ironically, Charlie Chaplain’s The Great Dictator. At 10pm, an airborne mine from a German aircraft fell through the ceiling and exploded, devastating the building and smashing the very glass that still remains, in small fragments, in the corners of the skeletal window frames. Miraculously, an air raid warning prompted prior preparation, and all 150 moviegoers emerged unharmed from the incident. Hull, as an industrial centre and key port, was the most bombed city outside London: 1,200 were killed, and over 153,000 made homeless by the Hull Blitz, as more than 95 per cent of the city’s housing was damaged.

In an act nothing short of outrageous, the September 2015 BBC documentary Blitz Cities did not cover Hull, prompting bitter indignation from the city that serves as home to one of the very last non-ecclesiastical bomb-damaged sites in the UK. Indeed, while seemingly overlooked, the building—save ageing almost unchanged since impact—seems to form a fitting reminder of the ground-level, local, and irreplaceable damage of war. It is a shattered mausoleum to thousands of voices silenced by conflict—those often too readily forgotten in the grand narratives that relate them. Hull is anything but the remorseless, bleak frontier zone it is all too often characterised as. It is a place of tender sentimentality and respectful appreciation, a place whose rugged industrial past does not rob it of a heart. This is the Hull many are unable or unwilling to see: a place of distinct identity, bold creative expression, and passionate and powerful feeling. It is a city of culture not just for 2017, but for all years. ‘Hull. Discuss.’ can have no brief response, and certainly anything but a silent one. People can laugh at the prospect as much as they like, but to paraphrase what Larkin said: ‘You’ll never think about Hull until you’re there’, and it’s well worth it.

“There is a God”: A view from the Oxfordshire count

Iris Kaye-Smith
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“There is a God”: A view from the Oxfordshire count

“There is a God,” declares one Oxford Labour councillor after the announcement of Witney South and Central, in a stuffily crowded sports hall in Abingdon. “We threw everything we could at that one.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the prevailing atmosphere among Labour party candidates and activists at the Oxfordshire County Council vote count isn’t one of optimism: Witney South is one of the biggest success of the day, with Labour’s Laura Price increasing her majority from a slim ten votes in 2013 to over a hundred. With losses in Banbury and gains in the city of Oxford, the Labour group has suffered a net loss of only one of the fifteen seats they won in the last election.

The Liberal Democrats, increasing their overall share of the vote, have made important gains in Abingdon, where Layla Moran hopes to unseat Nicola Blackwood in the general election in June. The ruling Conservatives undoubtedly hoped to gain at least the one extra seat they needed for a working majority—their palpable frustration at the prospect of another four years of a hung council, coupled with the loss of deputy group leader Rodney Rose (Charlbury and Wychwood), and council cabinet member for transport David Nimmo Smith (Henley), as well as their failure to take Abingdon East from the Lib Dems, has made it a disappointing day for what is still by far the biggest party in Oxfordshire.

None of the Oxford undergraduates standing in this election have become county councillors, though the Lib Dems’ Lucinda Chamberlain (University Parks) and Labour’s Lucas Bertholdi-Saad (Wolvercote & Summertown) have both increased their parties’ share of the vote in their respective divisions. Labour party candidate (and Jesus College history tutor) Emma Turnbull has won an impressive victory in the University Parks division, which includes most of the central Oxford colleges. With Brasenose student Lucinda Chamberlain in second place, fighting a campaign focused in the university community clearly pays off in the biggest student division in the county, unseating the incumbent Greens and winning Labour a 300-vote majority.

If there’s any cross-party mood in this hall, it’s the urgency with which these results are regarded by candidates and activists who, mid-campaign, found themselves fighting a very different kind of election.

“The election became entangled with the general election,” said former Green councillor David Williams, accounting for his defeat by Labour’s Helen Evans in Iffley Fields. For local party campaigners, these elections were a trial run, a warm-up. The results augur well for Anneliese Dodds’ chances of holding Oxford East for Labour in June, and perhaps for the Lib Dems’ campaign in Oxford West & Abingdon. Attitudes towards the election are shown here in microcosm: the Tories comfortably sure of winning, the Lib Dems’ expecting a revival with a campaign centred around Brexit. UKIP are, with only double-digit results in some divisions, out of action almost completely.

Labour’s strategy is one of defence. There may be little optimism, but there’s even fewer signs of resignation and defeatism. Despite these unexpectedly good results in target seats, few campaigners in the local party or university Labour club will take much time to celebrate. “Labour are the best party to represent young people. What we’ve done in Oxford, to ensure almost all students now have Labour councillors, we now need to do across the country in the next five weeks,” says OULC co-chair Tom Zagoria. “On Monday we’ll be back on the doorstep.”

“Fun, thoroughly amusing and worth watching”

Freya Thorpe
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“Fun, thoroughly amusing and worth watching”

Ambriel Productions provided an evening of vibrant amusement in its performance of the well-known, but nonetheless greatly enjoyable, Little Shop of Horrors.

The production was a triumph as an ensemble, and some of the best moments of the show were the scenes in which the majority of the cast were onstage: the larger group songs that open and close the play particularly stood out.

The majority of its musical numbers were accompanied by simple but effective choreography. When performed by the main cast members, these dances became absurd and humorous, while the three ‘street urchins’ making up the chorus showed some inconsistency in the energy they presented (though this may perhaps be attributed to its being the dress rehearsal).

Such fluctuation in dynamism could also be seen across other characters, with the entrances of Orin Scrivello, D.D.S (played by Laurence Belcher) bringing more life and humour to the stage.

It was, in fact, the villains of this play who claimed the standout performances—Scrivello for his almost pantomime level of caricature (which transferred strongly into the other roles Belcher took on later in the play) and Audrey II with her fantastic sassiness.

Jess Bollands, the brilliantly powerful voice of this devious plant, seemed to take over the stage as her leafy character took over Mushnik’s shop. Although there were occasional discrepancies between Audrey II’s lines and the movement of the speaking plant, it was overall well designed and operated, especially for an amateur production.

While there are entire websites dedicated to spreading the amusement provided by various low budget, rather odd Audrey IIs (lowbudgetaudrey2.tumblr.com can supply hours of entertainment), Ambriel Productions’ version avoided this category and instead delivered a degree of vibrant eccentricity that was disappointingly lacking in the costumes of other characters.

The original Audrey (played by Amelia Gabriel) in particular seemed slightly more toned down than I’d expected, though her role was still highly amusing. She delivered some of the play’s most entertaining lines, and her accent was at times excellent.

While the costumes (and perhaps the eccentricities) of various characters were relatively restrained, the set counteracted this with its striking billboard and use of coloured lights, and frequently enhanced the lurid, fantastically odd atmosphere that I most enjoyed about this play.

Overall, while the theme of domestic violence created more uncomfortable humour than perhaps it would have in the original staging, Ambriel Productions’ play was fun, thoroughly amusing, and definitely worth watching.

SnapShot: Boat Race afterparty

Matthew Roller
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SnapShot: Boat Race afterparty

After choosing to watch my beloved Arsenal slip to another disappointing home result instead of watching the Boat Race with my friends, I arrived late to pre-drinks with only a tepid Emirates lager (a steal at £4.60 for a Carlsberg) in my system. As Pimms-fuelled shouts of ‘dodger’ were hurled at me—deeply unjustified considering my exemplary Cellar attendance in Hilary—I realised I was in for a long night.

Sober, exhausted, and disgusted at myself for having paid £15 (plus booking fee) for a ticket, I hoped that it was only the egregiously long queue that had caused Embargo República to be sold to me by my London friends as ‘The Bridge of the King’s Road’. These hopes were soon to be shattered. Indeed, after my fears that literally everyone from my boarding school years would be present were confirmed, I realised that my points of refuge were limited.

The bar—with its £10 drink offers—was unappealing. Ten minutes’ worth of secondhand Marlboro Gold smoke later, it hit me that my solitary remaining option was the one I feared most: the dancefloor.

Catching the eye of Encore Events’ Ollie East, armed with his beloved ‘Throwback Hits’ Spotify playlist, I soon recognised the familiar cocktail of acute social embarrassment and mild self-loathing take over, trying as I did to look like I was enjoying The Killers’ ‘Mr Brightside’ for the 14th time that term.

And yet somehow, when the lights came on some 80 minutes before the scheduled close, I found myself disappointed that the night was over. There was such an acceptance amongst those in ‘Bargs’ that their big Sunday night out would be tragic that somehow, it had become almost enjoyable.

Two night buses later, I lay on the spare mattress on the crippling uncomfortable floor of my college wife’s house, reflecting on the fact I had become the sort of person who likes the kind of night I had just attended. To paraphrase that old sage, Mark Corrigan: “A little bit of me had died—but a lot of me didn’t give a shit.”

St. Hugh’s condemns attack on European university

Henry Straughan
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St. Hugh’s condemns attack on European university

St. Hugh’s JCR voted unanimously to express “solidarity” with students and faculty members of the Central European University (CEU) as a government act threatens to force the institution to close.

Under the legislation, CEU employees will require work permits, limiting the University’s ability to recruit staff.

The government has also demanded that the CEU opens a campus in America and no longer teaches US-accredited courses.

The JCR voted to “condemn the actions taken against the Central European University by the Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orbán and his government”. It condemned the legislation as “an attack on the values of academic freedom, democracy, and open society”.

Radim Lacina, who proposed the motion, welcomed the passing of the motion as an affirmation of the “basic values of academic freedom and democracy”.

He added: “As an isolated act, the proclamation of the JCR has little impact. However, were this issue to gain traction and were it brought to the attention of OUSU and the University, then actions with considerable consequences might take place”.

Elise Page, who seconded the motion, argued: “We shouldn’t underestimate our power as a group of students, not just as St Hugh’s JCR but as OUSU, and as the NUS.

“We care passionately about the freedom of education, and we won’t be silent. With our continued pressure and vocality, the CEU will hopefully be able to continue to educate without hindrance”.

The CEU was founded in 1991 by financier and philanthropist George Soros, with whom Prime Minister Orbán has repeatedly disagreed.

The institution has become one of Europe’s most prestigious universities for social sciences and humanities with the attack on the institution seen as part of Prime Minister Orbán’s self-professed aim to establish an “illiberal” democracy.

Since the electoral triumph of Orbán’s Fidesz party in 2010, the government has also attacked independent media organizations and NGOs.

In Hungary, the legislation threatening the CEU has been met with an eruption of protest, with a series of large demonstrations in Budapest since its passing in the Nation Assembly.

The issue has also become the subject of a European Commission investigation as a potential breach of EU law.

St. Hugh’s JCR maintained that this attack on academic freedoms proved “to be a danger to Hungarian democracy” and affirmed their support for the survival of values such as “free academic endeavour, of free exchange of ideas, and of a democratic and open society”.

Hungary is the 21st largest economy in the European Union which it joined in 2004.

It is located around 1,167 miles from St Hugh’s JCR.

This is bad for Labour, but the results ought not to be overemphasised

Alex Yeandle
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This is bad for Labour, but the results ought not to be overemphasised

There is no sugarcoating the fact that the local election results have been bad for Labour. The Conservatives, the party of government for the past seven years, have made hundreds of gains while the opposition has lost out. While it is true that this is a complete aberration from what we would normally expect, I believe it is wrong to extrapolate too much about the upcoming general election. Doom spelling predictions for Labour cannot be deduced from these election results alone; we need to calm down and consider the strong factors at play.

Firstly, voter turnout and demographics. In a general election turnout is usually north of sixty percent, in local elections it is commonly less than half this. People vote based on the perceived significance of the election and the inconvenience the physical process of voting causes them. These elections, while an important chance to express our democratic will, are clearly in a different ballpark to their Westminster counterparts. From this we can consider the demographics of the small proportion of local election voters— people who are incredibly politically engaged or people with a lot of free time. Most of the population is not like this, and it is most of the population who will vote in a general election. In other words, in trying to deduce general election trends from local election results, we are overly augmenting the votes of specific demographics who will less proportionately sway the outcome in June.

Secondly, the issues. When voting locally people do not think about the government all that much in comparison to voting in a general election. Voting Labour locally carries with it no direct consequence of Jeremy Corbyn or Theresa May becoming Prime Minister. The ‘national interest’ is of significantly less importance, meaning that people could plausibly, and often do, vote for different candidates locally compared to nationally. We have already established that of the low fraction of the public that voted yesterday, they are disproportionately more likely to be politically engaged. This often means engaged at a local level, as well as a national one. As people have told me when out campaigning in my home town of Colchester, so long as the potholes get fixed the colour of your rosette is irrelevant. We cannot assume that people voting Conservative now will do so on June 8th—the same goes for all parties.

And finally, the utterly changed political landscape. UKIP have wilted, collapsed and died in these results. With Douglas Carswell now almost actively supporting the Conservatives, with Paul Nuttall not seeming to care about his party’s decimation and UKIP’s reason of existence essentially now part of the Conservative manifesto, the effective number of parties has lowered. What is more interesting is that most of the gain in the Tories’ vote share seems to have come from UKIP, not Labour. Seats where before Labour could sneak a win thanks a split right wing vote split between the Tories and UKIP, are now voting swinging decisively behind the Conservatives. Labour is not losing support, its problem is that UKIP is collapsing in on itself and being absorbed by Theresa May’s party. If this trend continues it will be an issue of vital importance for Labour in the General Election, but remember that UKIP is characterised by an anti-establishment, anti-Brussels and now anti-Islam populist approach. These issues are not confined to local wards and boundaries, they are national. I still hold that UKIP supporters are subject to the previous two factors: some of them will simply not have voted yesterday, some of them will vote for UKIP again when the election is perceived as nationally important.

John Curtice’s amalgamated prediction of the local election results in a combined national vote share puts Labour as losing just two per cent of the vote. The Conservatives are on 38 per cent, while the Lib Dems are on 18. These figures are clearly radically different to weighted, methodological and statistical opinion polling for the General Election. Yes, Labour didn’t do great this time around, but we need to be careful to not build mountains out of molehills. Local and General elections are different. We need to stop pretending they’re one and the same.

Acting out against commoditisation in art

Anoushka Kavanagh
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Acting out against commoditisation in art

The Western contemporary art world has become, at the highest level, a kind of celebrity entity – dominated by high price tags and fashionable, meaningless tat. Names like Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, and Maurizio Cattelan echo around auction houses in London and New York. Hirst’s glitzy diamond-encrusted skull, ‘For the Love of God’ (2007) sold for £50 million, whilst oversized squeaky balloon animals and headless ostriches inhabit the hallways of the world’s wealthiest somewhere. All seek to wow with their wacky works, but most seem merely to evoke a bemused, ‘what?’ This doesn’t appear to matter to buyers though – because work is no longer valued by originality of concept, but simply by the number of zeroes it fetches at auction. Collectors have become the new critics in a consumerist society, and any concept of appreciation or comprehension has been eradicated.

When art is something tangible, it is easy for consumers to control creative practices. However, the increasing popularity in the past two decades of performative practices – seen in galleries like Perfoma and Tate Modern’s Tanks—have made this more challenging. Daniel Baumann (Director of Kunsthalle Zurich, Switzerland) postulated only last year, that this recent return of performance art was “a reaction against an increasingly object-obsessed art market”. This form can be neither bought nor sold easily by private individuals, hence is a rejection of the authority of wealthy consumers who lack apprehension and signifies a shift back towards artists’ power in contemporary art.

This idea is nothing innovative. When performance emerged in the later 1960s, it did so in retaliation to the materialism of 1950s kitsch pop culture. Having roots in Dada even before that, the medium has always placed emphasis on the conceptual, rebuffing capitalism’s influence.

Speaking on the practice, Marina Abramovic explained that it was fundamental to the reassertion of ideas, as “collectors have to re-educate themselves, so that the idea [behind a piece] becomes as sought after as the physical object” – and artists engaging in the practice have demonstrated this importance of meaning to the movement by addressing political and social circumstances in their actions.

Yayoi Kusama scrubbed down a Soviet flag before the UN buildings when the USSR invaded Slovakia in 1968—because ‘the Soviet Union is dirty’, and staged licentious ‘love-ins’ outside of the New York Stock Exchange in protest, during the height of the Vietnam War, as “the money made with this stock is enabling the war to continue”. Caroline Schneemann asked men and women to strip to their underwear and roll around in raw meat and paint in ‘Meat Joy’ (1964), as a gruesome and sensual rejection of traditional ideas about female sexuality.

Contemporary performance art continues to occupy the realm of the conceptual, addressing cultural circumstances. Nate Hill’s ‘Punch Me Panda’ (2010) for example, tackled stress in contemporary society, as the artist donned a fluffy panda suit then roamed the streets of New York inviting frustrated workers to take a punch. Whilst Abramovic’s ‘The Artist is Present’ (2010) forced viewers to confront where the value of art lies as they sat in front of the artist in an empty room and simply stared into her eyes for three months. But performance is about more than emphasizing the significance of ideas though, as it signals a realignment of authority in the contemporary art world.

Baumann assumes that this return of performance’s popularity indicates a shift away from consumers towards ‘audience-driven’ art. However with regards to the contemporary, this is not necessarily true. The practice does not remove itself entirely from the art market – proven in the surfacing of questions on copyrights and re-enactments over the past decade. Institutions such as the Tate have attempted to purchase rights to works, establishing the ‘Collecting the Performative’ project for this purpose, whilst MoMA launched a similar enterprise in 2008 focusing on the preservation and ownership of performance pieces. Artists are rapidly buying into this too.

Tino Sehgal has begun to sell his works in the form of verbal transactions, under the watchful eye of a lawyer. The Tate bought ‘This is Propaganda’ (2002) in this format, with the staff being briefed orally on exactly how to re-enact the piece. Selling for between $85,000 and $145,000, this is a realistic and legitimate investment for a gallery where there is space to exhibit the work. But the format does not present itself readily for a private collection – there is little point acquiring instructions if you can only perform the work to yourself.

The resurfacing of performance art in the contemporary field does not wholly reject institutions then, nor the consumer. But with an increasing number of performance galleries emerging – like New York’s Performa – and evermore existing galleries pushing for higher representation of the practice – such as the Lisson and the Serpentine – it is certainly a move directed against the commoditization of art. Founded in 2004 by art historian and curator RoseLee Goldberg, “Performa” embodies what this shift is really about, increasing diversity and pushing for new direction in art-forms, reasserting the power of art-historical establishments, and dissipating the control of the uninformed consumer in contemporary art.

WATCH: Tim Farron confronted by angry Brexit voter in Oxford

Cherwell News Team
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WATCH: Tim Farron confronted by angry Brexit voter in Oxford

Tim Farron was given a humiliating dressing down by an Oxfordshire voter earlier this week.

Brexit supporter Malcolm Baker, 65, interrupted the Liberal Democrats leader’s campaigning in Kidlington, shouting: “Don’t tell people who voted Leave that they didn’t know what they were voting for”, and accusing Farron of perceiving all Leave voters as “racists”.

The dramatic moment was captured on camera, and was shared thousands of times across social media.

Farron later responded on Twitter…

And a calmer Baker spoke to Sky News later in the day…

Baker, who lives in Woodstock, told the Telegraph: “I sit in my front room watching politicians spouting off and sometimes I just want to kick the TV. Seeing that Farron was in my neighbourhood was just too good a chance to miss.

“I just felt I had to get what I think off my chest.”

He certainly managed that.

A day in the life of… a lighting director

Alex Jacobs
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A day in the life of… a lighting director

I came to Oxford with very little backstage experience. It’s really easy to get into the scene—TAFF (the University network of backstage crew) is always active and looking for people to help out.

Lighting in Oxford is very much a learn-on-the-job kind of affair, where energy and enthusiasm play a much bigger part than extensive experience and an intimate knowledge of all lighting technology.

Most of the time in Oxford, experience comes from helping out with shows. The majority of my experience came from shadowing various lighting designers, working on productions as varied as Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro and Tennessee Williams’ Suddenly Last Summer. It may seem somewhat counter-intuitive, but one of the most important things I’ve realised is that although lighting is crucial for a show, the best lighting often goes unnoticed.

Audiences and reviewers often only become aware of lighting when it’s uneven, or not showing the cast’s faces, and by that point it’s ruining the show.

Part of the stress of lighting for a live show is the panic when things can, and inevitably do, go wrong. There was a particularly memorable moment during the second night of the Macbeth production at St Hilda’s JDP theatre last term.

In the second half of the play, the strobe lighting came on due to a faulty plug socket, turning the eleventh Scottish battlefield into something resembling a bizarre, Celtic warrior-themed rave night at a local down town nightclub.

Our producer spent the second half of the play with most of the plug cord from the desk wrapped around him, jamming the broken plug into the wall. Thankfully the cast and crew are able to laugh about it now.

The most recent production I’ve been involved with is Blavatsky’s Tower at the Michael Pilch Theatre. This was the first time I was fully in charge of all lighting, a fairly daunting prospect.

It turned out to be an immensely satisfying creative project—I had total freedom to set up the lighting exactly as I pictured it, utilising the space we had. Although it takes a lot of effort, being part of a production is such a rewarding experience.

The amount of shows going on in Oxford means there’s so much choice for what to get involved with. So, forget prelims, punting and pubbing—anyone with any amount of experience can find something to throw themselves into.

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