26/10/2009 by bakary.

The recent Corot to Monet exhibition at the National Gallery wasn’t very exciting, sadly.

There was a bit about how the Barbizon school was responsible for moving art towards realism. Suddenly, painters were making nature the subject of their paintings.

Jean-Francois Millet extended the idea from landscape to figures. His paintings were reflecting real life: peasant figures and scenes of peasant life, for example.

The previous trend was for painters to incorporate a sense of poetry into their works. They used their imagination and memory to work on pieces, sketching outdoors and working on the paintings back in their studios. What we have as a result are poetic paintings with few realistic details.

‘Beauty in art is truth based on the impression we have received observing nature’ (Corot).

Boudin taught many Impressionists to paint outdoors and they famously took hold of the concept of painting in situ. ‘The Beach at Trouville‘ by Monet even has grains of sand and shells embedded in the paint surface.

And that’s about it. Many paintings and little substance. And a few paintings which failed to justify their presence in the exhibition. Still, it’s always nice to spend some time in an art gallery…

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25/10/2009 by bakary.

Elephants are everywhere…

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23/10/2009 by bakary.

Bassekou Kouyate is the Ngoni master. (It must be true… it’s written on Mr Kouyate’s outfit!). He’s also a fun and fantastic musician and so I couldn’t believe my luck when I found out the band was playing at the Jazz Cafe in Camden… and there were still a few tickets available!

A Ngoni looks like this:

It’s an ancient forgotten instrument which Bassekou Kouyate has made his own. Keeping elements of traditional Malian music and songs, Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni ba are giving the Ngoni a new lease of life, through an amp!

The band soon had us singing and dancing. They were quite chatty as well and even though a lot of the dialogue was in French, the audience responded. And it was all very good humoured… which is just as well because it could have ended up as a disaster.

Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni ba on stage, having fun and playing great music: fun.

Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni ba on stage, having fun and playing great music, with Damon Albarn joining in with a melodica: not fun. (For goodness’s sake Damon, what were you wearing? A red USA baseball cap… why? And shouldn’t you have in bed? You looked ready for it).

Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni ba on stage, having fun and playing great music, with some random guy from the audience with a woolly hat: not fun. (Guy with the woolly hat: did you think you’d turn up at a open mic event?).

Seriously… there were a couple of embarrassing moments. A few whispers around me. Yet, Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni ba kept the show going and if they were a little frustrated and impatient, they didn’t show it. I take my hat off to them! It was a superb show! 

And as the playlist was on stage when we got there… you can have a look at it now and play the tracks at home to recreate the evening… but be warned… you’ll have to provide your own people with hats…

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23/10/2009 by bakary.

This month has been crazy busy… so much so that our first anniversary has come and gone. Ooops.

A good sign? Er… no… we missed a party opportunity!

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21/10/2009 by bakary.

Elephants are everywhere…

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19/10/2009 by bakary.

Elephants are everywhere…

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16/10/2009 by bakary.

The One And Other art project on the Fourth Plinth, in Trafalgar Square, came to an end on Wednesday. It’s only been a couple of days but already Trafalgar Square hasn’t been the same.

One hundred days, with one performer an hour twenty four hours a day. I only managed to catch about five minutes most days on my way to work. And I always made sure to look at what was going on and who was doing what.

I was there for the last change over. Pink balloons giving way to red balloons.

And yesterday, they started to dismantle things.

Thank you Mr Gormley. It’s been fun.

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15/10/2009 by bakary.

I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to post about the Colour Chart exhibition!

This was my second visit to Tate Liverpool. It’s a nice space and they have some good exhibitions there but obviously, it’s a bit of a distance away so I rarely make it up there.

The Colour Chart: Reinventing Colour, 1950 to Today  exhibition, which ended a little while ago now, was all about taking “the commercial colour chart as its point of departure, addressing the impact of mass-produced colour on the art of the past sixty years” (Tate Liverpool). Put like that, it makes sense. Colour is everywhere. Look around you now, how much colour is there around you? Everyday, there is colour around us. Even on a grey day. Colour influences the choices we make and our mood, e.g. ‘hey, the sky is blue, let’s go for a walk’, how we select what to wear on certain day to reflect our mood or think how often we choose food according to its colour.

To say that I came out and started looking around me with a meaning may be taking things too far… but I’m certainly more aware of what’s around and how things look and how people want things to look. I also got a few creative ideas to keep me going over the next few months. All I need now is some time to work on those colour projects!

The exhibition however was a bit disjointed and I found it hard to see how one bit linked to another.

Oh… and the cafe next door is fantastic…

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14/10/2009 by bakary.

I went back to Canada House last night for the screening of Before Tomorrow.

I knew nothing about the film, apart from the small synopsis which sounded intriguing: “Before Tomorrow is the story of a woman who demonstrates that human dignity is at the core of life from beginning to end, as she faces with her grandson the ultimate challenge of survival”. (Source: http://www.beforetomorrow.ca/)

Adapted from the novel For morgendagen (by the Danish writer Jørn Riel), the story captures what happens when a secluded Inuit tribe comes into contact with Europeans, with catastrophic effects.

It certainly made me aware that we all have a responsibility when visiting other countries and coming into contact with people. Who we are and what we do affects other people and their way of life. And not always in a good way. It also powerfully makes you wonder what you would do when faced with the hardest decision you will have to make for yourself and the ones you love…

Such a sad story. So sad…

Before Tomorrow could almost give Breaking the Waves a run for its money as the saddest film I have ever seen.

The scenery however was astounding and you can tell that these people are proud of where they live and that they don’t take the beauty around them for granted. Yes, it’s stunning… but the conditions there are so harsh.

There’s one more screening at Canada House next week (contact Canada House to register for tickets):
Passage, 20 October 2009

North West Passage is on at the NMM until 3 January 2010.

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13/10/2009 by bakary.

“1884: Greenwich is voted the universal meridian of longitude by an international conference in Washington, US.” (Source: BBC website)

I love Greenwich… It’s one of my favourite places in London. It doesn’t feel like London. You can travel there by boat. The covered market is great fun. The park is a fabulous place to hang out in the summer… and not only is it a World Heritage site but the meridian definitely puts Greenwich on the map.

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