Artist Michael Landy, who once destroyed all his possessions in an act of creative destruction, has transformed the South London Gallery into a giant dustbin for art. Describing the work, simply called Art Bin, as ‘about failure’, Landy is inviting members of the public to bring their own artistic failures along to the gallery from 29 January, where their worthlessness will be assessed. Damien Hirst, Gillian Wearing, Tracey Emin and Mark Titchner have already contributed, offering sculptures, paintings and prints
The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain playing Miss Dy-na-mi-tee.
Comma Productions presents a new comedy by Fred Sugarman-Warner. Rudolph thinks he’s an extrovert genius. Harry thinks he’s an introvert genius. Cynthia thinks Rudolph is
the greatest man to have ever lived. None of them are right. Cynical, embittered, and impotent, this wickedly funny play proves the old rule: aphorisms speak louder than words.
Harry - Matthew Monaghan
Rudolph - Felix Legge
Cynthia - Agnes Meath Baker
Tuesday-Saturday of 5th Week (16-20 Feb)
21.30 - 22.30
Price £5/4
Advance tickets
http://www.oxfordplayhouse.com/btsstudent/
Admittedly a full century ago, but these pictures give a fantastic impression of a metropolis submerged. The flood happened during the building of various Metro lines - water sluiced into the tunnels and surfaced in areas quite distant from the Seine. At L’Opera, deep sink hole opened up in front of the Opera house - Paris seemed to be collapsing from under its citizens’ feet…
The five films that are The Cremaster Cycle are absolutely incredible. Saying that, I haven’t actually seen any of them, they’re not shown that frequently. They are extremely rich and complex, and really take a lot of understanding.
The Magic Toyshop, The Oxford Playhouse, Wednesday 27th Jan - Sunday 31st, Buy Tickets £9 www.oxfordplayhouse.com
It’s been hard to escape Angela Carter lately. Following on from ‘The Bloody Chamber’ and ‘Nights at the Circus’ last term, ‘The Magic Toyshop’ sees the old girl unearthed for a third Oxford student-production this year. And why, indeed, not? Vampires, incest, masochist clowns; this reads for compelling theatrical stuff, and in Flipping the Bird’s latest production all the necessary Carter criteria has been dutifully fulfilled.
‘The Magic Toyshop’ tells the tale of newly orphaned Melanie (Bella Hammad) as she wrangles with adolescence, her conflicting sexual feelings for the unhygienic Finn (Ollo Clark) and the perverse Uncle Phillip (Will Spray), her puppet-obsessed guardian. Thus the stage is set (and a sumptuously designed set it is too) for a series of increasingly ambitious set pieces; commencing with Melanie’s dress being torn apart by an invisible tree and culminating in a brilliantly realised staging of the Leda and the Swan myth. It is in these moments of imaginative production that the show really hits its stride. This, coupled with a generally strong performance from the lead and excellent support from Will Spray as the sadistic (though markedly camp) toymaker as well as Matt Gavan and Phoebe Eclaire-Power as Melanie’s bereft siblings, makes ‘The Magic Toyshop’ a competently executed and often innovative vehicle. Tribute too must be awarded to Laurence Osborn. Having already stolen the show in ‘Nights at the Circus’, his musical direction is here, once again exemplary; the understated string quartet oscillating between melody and dissonance more coherently, perhaps, than the play itself.
There is much to praise here. When the direction flourishes this is a production that feels confident in its bold visualisation of the novel- the magical realism particularly well transferred through use of anthropomorphic puppets. Yet such instances of visual and musical delight cannot, however, account for the overall impression left by this play. The final set piece descends into woeful dialogue and over-wrought production; the Paradise Lost allusion feels contrived, falling horribly flat and the subplot concerning Irish incest unshocking and pointless. Perhaps these accusations might better be levelled at Angela Carter; as it is that opportunity has passed us by, and this production is left answerable to the clear deficiencies of ‘The Magic Toyshop’. The wealth of potential here is overwhelming – and thus the failure of the final result all the more disappointing.
Joseph Charlton
Kseniya Simonova is a Ukrainian artist who just won Ukraine’s version of “America’s Got Talent.” She uses a giant light box, dramatic music, imagination and “sand painting” skills to interpret Germany’s invasion and occupation of Ukraine during WWII.
NY+Santiago de Chile+Organic Techno= Nicolas Jaar, The Must Hear Dance Sensation of 2010
Comma Club presents a rare chance to experience Ghanaian Drumming, an incredible art. Entrance is free, and it is in The Red Room, New College. Don’t miss out.
Do you worry your feet are too visible? How about these stealth-bomber style mirrored heels designed by Andreia Chaves?
“The Knife, in collaboration with Mt. Sims and Planningtorock, are to release the studio version of the opera ‘Tomorrow, In A Year’, on the 1st March 2010.
Commissioned by Danish performance group Hotel Pro Forma to write the music for their opera based on Charles Darwin and his book ‘On the Origin of the Species’, The Knife decided to make this a collaborative process, working with artists Mt. Sims and Planningtorock for the first time, to capture the huge width of the Darwin and evolution theme.”
Some of Fiona Banner’s work centres around pornography, notably, in part of her 2002 Turner Prize installation, Arsewoman in Wonderland. Above is a more recent piece - Striptease (2009). It is a storyboard for a pornographic film, yet the images are clearly absent and the text is somewhat richer than expected:
“Hamstrings stretched taught behind blue vein pulsing, paper-thin eye lashes. Wet eyes.”
This is the world’s first commercially available typewriter - known as the Hansen writing ball. It looks bizarre.
T-shirts can be really cool.
Can you design a really cool T-shirt?
COMMA CLUB is running a competition to find out what amazing T-shirt designs your creative glands can squeeze out. Once we have all the entries we will: pick the top 5, get one of each of the top 5 t-shirts printed, do a fashion shoot of the top 5, pick a winner, and then print and sell a limited run of the winning t-shirt!
There’ll obviously be mega brilliant prizes for the winner and runner-ups, not to mention having their t-shirts splurged over our website: commaclub.co.uk There are some rules: 1. The t-shirts will be white. 2. The design cannot extend down the sleeves or onto the back of the t-shirt - it’s too expensive to get t-shirts like that printed. 3. The designs need to have similar dimensions to A4. i.e. no long thin designs or really wide ones. Obviously the designs don’t have to be rectangular though. 4. Entries should be as images of the design. They don’t need to be mock-ups of the t-shirt.
SO: Get thinking. Get drawing. Send entries to oxfordcommaclub@gmail.com
Deadline for entries is Wednesday of 5th Week (17th Febuary)
