In Defence Of Diary Writing

Messrs. Stevenson and Wobble back in the day

 

 

I recently came across a book review by Jah Wobble which opens with the former PiL bass player expressing his suspicion of - and, indeed, his very evident scorn for - people who keep diaries: 

 

"If one is truly involved in events as they unfold, is there the time or inclination to take notes?" [1]

 

Wobble answers his own question by suggesting that diary keeping is the kind of anal activity that only those who seek to influence the future interpretation of events (often magnifying their own role in said events) engage in.   

 

There may, of course, be an element of truth in this. 

 

But it's not the whole story and as someone who kept a diary throughout the 1980s, I rather resent Wobble's sneering tone and his privileging of lived experience over the recording and retrospective analysis of events. 

 

For some of us - perhaps of a rather more philosophical predisposition than Mr Wobble - there is no distinction between writing and life. 

 

Journal keeping - or, indeed, blogging - is for us a vital form of scripting the self [2] and I prefer those like Nils Stevenson who creatively construct disparate truths about actual events, rather than those who, like Wobble, simply boast they were truly involved, but far too caught up in the excitement of the moment to reflect upon their own experience [3].  

 

Notes

 

[1] Review by Jah Wobble of Vacant: A Diary of the Punk Years 1976-79 by Nils Stevenson, with photos by Ray Stevenson (Thames and Hudson, 1999), in the Independent on Sunday (11th April, 1999). The review is archived on the PiL fansite Fodderstompf: click here.

 

[2] By this term I refer to a reflective and voluntary practice via which individuals are not only able to gain a degree of ethical self-understanding, but also to "change themselves in their singular being, and to make their life into an oeuvre that carries certain aesthetic values and meets certain stylistic criteria". 

      See Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality 2: The Use of Pleasure, trans. Robert Hurley (Penguin, 1992), pp. 10-11.

 

[3] It might be noted that Wobble did, in fact, publish his memoirs in 2009. A new and  expanded edition of this critically acclaimed work was published under the title Dark Luminosity: Memoirs of a Geezer by Faber & Faber in 2024. So maybe he was taking notes all along ...  

Shadows Are the Means by Which Bodies Display Their Form

Malcolm McLaren, photographed by Bob Gruen in NYC, 

jumping in front of a Richard Hambleton Shadowman,  

whilst an amused Andrea Linz looks on (1983) [1]

 

 

I. 

 

I have to admit, for a long time I was one of those people who (mistakenly) believed that the human death shadows left behind at Hiroshima were due to the vaporisation of bodies after the Americans detonated an atomic bomb over the city on 6 August, 1945, killing tens of thousands of people (mostly civilians). 

 

I now know, however, that the shadows are not the vaporised remains of the dead, but were caused, rather, by the flash bleaching of the surrounding area behind the bodies located directly in the path of the blast and that, as a matter of fact, it would take a huge amount of energy to instantly vaporise a living body (far more energy even than released by Little Boy) [2].

Nevertheless, this doesn't rob them of their macabre interest and poignancy. 

 

 

II.

 

I don't know if the Canadian artist Richard Hambleton was thinking of the above when he came up with his idea of the Shadowman, but when I look at his work I'm certainly reminded of what happened in Japan (just as when viewing the Human Shadow Etched in Stone exhibition at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, I can't help thinking of Hambleton's work).

 

Along with Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, Hambling emerged out of the vibrant NYC art scene in the 1980s, although he considered himself a conceptual artist rather than merely a street artist, even if he often graffitied his images on to the walls of public buildings.

 

Early work includes his notorious series of Mass Murder images (1976-78), in which he painted what appeared to be a chalk outline around bodies of volunteers pretending to be homicide victims and then splashed some red paint around to complete the bloody crime scene. These scenes were reproduced on the streets of numerous cities across the US and Canada and would often startle passersby.  

 

But it's the mysterious (somewhat scary) Shadowman paintings for which he is now best remembered [3]; each one a life-sized figure splashed with black paint on hundreds of buildings and other structures across New York City (and, later, other cities, including London, Paris, Berlin, and Rome). 

      

Again, Hambleton often selected locations calculated to have maximum impact on those who encountered a Shadowman - frightening some and delighting the imagination of others; including Malcolm McLaren, who persuaded the artist to license a design for his and Vivienne Westwood's final collaboration together: Witches [4].

 

It was during this duck rocking period that I first met McLaren and I vaguely remember him telling me that 'shadows are the means by which bodies display their form' (though I've since discovered that he was, in fact, quoting Leonardo da Vinci).

 

 

Notes 

 

[1] The photo of Mclaren, his talented muse Andrea Linz, and Hambleton's Shadowman was taken by the American photographer Bob Gruen on Bethune Street, in the West Village, in April 1983. This and many other photos of Malcolm can be found (and purchased) on Gruen's website: click here.

 

[2] On the morning of August 6, 1945, the Little Boy atomic bomb was detonated at an altitude of 1,800 feet over the city of Hiroshima, exploding with an energy of approximately 15 kilotons of TNT.

      Among its other effects, it subjected the ground area to an extremely high radiant temperature for several seconds; high enough to set clothing alight and cause extensive damage to human flesh, but not high enough to vaporise a body so that no physical traces (such as carbonised tissue and bones) would remain. Nevertheless, the belief has persisted that the shadows are the traces (or even the souls) of people killed, quite literally, in a flash.  

 

[3] I say remembered for rather than known for as Hambleton died on 29 October 2017, aged 65.

 

[4] A Shadowman design was used on a roll top jersey skirt that formed part of the McLaren-Westwood Witches collection (A/W 1983): click here to view on Etsy. 

 

 

This post is for Andrea.

 

Reflections on the Art of Ruby Neri (With an Additional Note on Mark Rothko)

Ruby Neri: The Wheel of Life (2024)

Soft pastel on paper (182 x 131.5 cm)

massimodecarlo.com

 

 

I. 

 

Last month, a series of wildfires affecting the LA metropolitan area and San Diego County, killed 29 people, forced 200,000 to evacuate, and destroyed more than 18,000 homes and other structures in an area over 57,000 acres in size.

 

Most of  the damage was caused by the two largest fires: the Eaton Fire in Altadena, and the Palisades Fire in Pacific Palisades; the second and third-most destructive fires in California's history, respectively.

 

Now, whilst I didn't revel in seeing the homes of the rich and famous go up in flames, nor gloat at their suffering, I have to confess I experienced - like many other people - a certain feeling of schadenfreude, because - like many other people - I really do not care for (or about) Hollywood celebrities. 

 

I don't want them to be burnt alive; but neither do I feel much sympathy for those who were able to escape the fires by flying on a private jet to one of their other multi-million dollar homes, pay for a high-end rental property, or check into a suite at the nearest luxury hotel, whilst many other people in far less fortunate circumstances literally found themselves with nowhere to go and desperately seeking temporary accommodation.

 

Obviously, even the super-rich can experience loss and trauma, but they can afford well-paid therapists to help them cope, and so, again, it's hard to feel too sorry for those who, like the actor James Woods, went on TV to bemoan the fact that 'one day you're swimming in the pool and the next day it's all gone'. 

 

Having said that, I was sorry to hear that the LA-based visual artist Ruby Neri, known for her work as a sculptor and painter, was one of those affected by the Southern California wildfires and was thus unable to attend the opening of her first solo exhibition here in London ...

 

 

II. 

 

Ms. Neri uses a wide array of materials to create figurative works that draw inspiration from many different sources, including German Expressionism, street art, and forms of popular culture such as comic books and cartoons [1]. 

 

Whilst a student in the eary-mid 1990s at the San Francisco Art Institute, she and her friends became associated with the so-called 'Mission School' [2]; an art movement that enabled highly-educated, middle-class young people to graffiti the city in the belief that they were sticking it to the Man.    

  

In 1994, Neri moved from the Bay Area to Los Angeles, and would obtain her Master's of Fine Art from UCLA in 1998. Whilst there, she gradually transitioned away from painting to sculpture, claiming she found the history of the former oppressive.

 

To me that's regrettable, because, from what I've seen of her work, I much prefer her pictures to her 3-dimensional figures made from clay and ceramic. 

 

Certainly when I went yesterday to Neri's new exhibition at the Massimo De Carlo gallery in Mayfair [3], the paintings made a far more favourable impression upon me than the sculptures; particularly the large pastel on paper image entitled 'The Circle of Life', reproduced above, which has the most amazing depth of colour and radiates the sheer joy of movement [4]. 

 

According to the gallery's press release, the exhibition is intended to suggest a surreal garden scene invested with funky feminine vitality and a Shakespearean sensibility. 

 

I can't say I quite picked up on the latter, but I'm happy to acknowledge the former, even if, after a while, it all becomes a bit too much and one rather longs to contemplate the non-funky serenity of a late Rothko - more muted and composed, certainly, but no less vital and, arguably, far more intense [5].       

 

 

Notes

 

[1] It might also be pointed out that, as the daughter of a famous sculptor (Manuel Neri) and a graphic designer (Susan Neri), Ruby Neri was exposed to art and encouraged to be creative from a very young age. The influence of both parents can be seen in her work and it doubtless helped having the family background she did when it came to building her own career as an artist (though one hesitates to use the resentful term nepo baby as it clearly originates in envy). 

 

[2] The Mission School is an art movement of the 1990s and 2000s that emerged in the Mission District of San Francisco, associated with a core group of artists who attended (or hung around with those who attended) the San Franciso Art Institute (where Neri's father taught). 

      It is closely aligned with the lowbrow art movement which takes its inspiration from urban culture and likes to use non-traditional art materials, such as house paint, spray paint, correction fluid, ballpoint pens, and various found objects. Perhaps not surprisingly, therefore, the Mission School artists cultivated a neo-hippie anti-establishment, anti-consumerist perspective on the world.

 

[3] Neri's exhibition, entitled, Chorus, runs until 22 Feb 2025 (having opened on 9 January) at Massimo De Carlo, 16 Clifford Street, Mayfair, London, W1. For full details and to view all the works on display, go to the gallery website: click here.

 

[4] Despite having both feet on the ground, the central blonde figure in a blue dress carrying a white flower reminds me of the young woman skipping along Piccadilly about whom I published a post earlier in the week: click here.  

[5] Rothko was always adamant that his paintings were not as calm and peaceful as observers often thought: 'I would like to say to those who think of my pictures as serene [...] that I have imprisoned the most utter violence in every inch of their surface.' 

 

 

White Sky, White Earth: On the Dangers of Solar Radiation Management and Geoengineering

Photo by Angela Boehm from the Minus 30 series [1]

I. 

 

According to Rupert Birkin, there are two contrasting forms of abstraction via which human beings might annihilate themselves and, ultimately, destroy the entire world: those who belong to the global south find their fatal fulfilment in the "putresecent mystery of sun-rays"; whereas those who have the arctic north behind them "fulfil a mystery of ice-destructive knowledge" [2].

 

His friend Gerald, for example, was one of those wilful, white-skinned, blue-eyed demons from the north destined to find death by perfect cold and plunge the earth into the universal dissolution of snow and ice.   

 

Now, I understand that quite a few readers will probably be asking themselves: So what? What has Lawrence's thinking on this question of abstraction tied to his racialised metaphysics got to do with us?

Well, the answer my friend is blowing in the wind from a northerly direction - and that answer is geoengineering ...

 

 

II.

 

Geoengineering is the intentional large-scale alteration of the planetary environment that scientists have proposed as a method to counteract anthropogenic climate change. Some wish to capture carbon; others wish to deflect sunlight in order to keep the earth cool, either by brightening the clouds, the use of giant space mirrors, or stratospheric aerosol injection.

 

It's solar radiation management that most interests and, to some degree, concerns me, as well as others like me who, having read their Lawrence, fear a new ice age or global whiteout in which nothing casts a shadow, the horizon disappears, and even dark objects are barely visible beneath a permanently white sky.

 

For whilst ingenious technological solutions to the problem of global warming may appear attractive, such large scale interventions also run a greater risk of causing unintended disruptions to natural systems. In other words, we might just fuck things up even more than simply allowing the temperature to rise a couple of degrees over the next century. 

And who wants to live on a white earth beneath a white sky? There may be a tragic irony in the fact that our fear of global warming results in such a scenario, but, no one will be laughing when vast ice sheets cover the surface of the earth and, push comes to shove, I'd rather sweat than shiver.

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Angela Boehm is a Canadian photographer who grew up in rural Saskatchewan, so knows all about long hard winters. In 2021, she began photographing the conditions when the temperature fell to -30c or below in order to convey something of the silence, stillness, and unearthly beauty of a world that has been whitened almost to the point of invisibility. 

      See her book Minus 30 (Hartmann Projects, 2024) or visit her website to view more images from the book: click here.

 

[2] D. H. Lawrence, Women in Love, ed. David Farmer, Lindeth Vasey and John Worthen, (Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 254. 

      I published a post on this topic of fatal abstraction back in August 2020: click here. See also the related post entitled 'Psychrophilia: On Love (and Death) in a Cold Climate (27 Feb 2019): click here. 

 

 

With thanks to Síomón Solomon for suggesting this post.    

 

 

In Praise of Skipping

Vivienne Westood photographed by Michael Roberts 

for Vogue (August 1987) [1]

 

 

The other day, walking in a westerly direction along Piccadilly, accompanied by one of the country's leading figures in the field of developmental genetics, an attractive and stylish young woman with blonde hair suddenly came skipping past, to the amusement (and bemusement) of onlookers.

 

And when I say skipped, I mean skipped; she wasn't jogging or power walking past us, but literally skipping, like a child, with joy, in a bilateral manner (i.e., with an alternating lead foot). 

 

It's a vision that powerfully affected me - much as Zarathustra was once seduced by the sight of young girls dancing in the woods by moonlight [2]. 

 

My heart stood still with delight to see someone exorcising the spirit of gravity on the streets of London as Big Ben struck noon; someone who instinctively understood the importance of movement and the crucial role that the body plays in what D. H. Lawrence terms the sane revolution:

 

If you make a revolution, make it for fun, 

don't make it in ghastly seriousness, 

don't do it in deadly earnest, 

do it for fun. [3]

 

I may have certain issues with Vivienne Westwood, but I think she would - in her more lighthearted moments at least, when not banging on about climate change or human rights - share this sentiment and actively encourage those wearing her clothes to hop, skip, and jump their way into the future (as she seems to be doing in the above photo by Michael Roberts).  

 

Notes

 

[1] This charming photo of Westwood by Michael Roberts, along with 54 others, can be found in the Vivienne Westwood Style File on the British Vogue website: click here.

 

[2] See Nietzsche, 'The Dance Song', in Thus Spoke Zarathustra.  

 

[3] D. H. Lawrence, 'A Sane Revolution', Pansies (Martin Secker, 1929), p. 108. 

 

 

This post is in memory of my mother, who enjoyed nothing more than skipping along the seafront at Whitley Bay as a child in the 1930s.

 

On Blue Velvet Beetles

Blue Velvet Beetle Poster (SA / 2025)

 

Lynchian (adj.); artworks made in the style of David Lynch; i.e., artworks characterised 

by the juxtaposition of surreal and often sinister visual elements with everyday events 

and environments in order to create a dreamlike quality of mystery or menace.

 

 

As I'm sure most readers will be aware, the American filmmaker David Lynch died last month. 

 

Whilst I'm happy to acknowledge his visionary genius as an artist, I can't say I'm a fan of his work - and particularly loathe The Elephant Man (1980), which has to be one of the most overrated movies of all time [1].

 

Still, when BBC Four decided to show Blue Velvet (1986) earlier this week in memory of Lynch, I simply had to watch it once more - and make the Little Greek do so, even if surreal psychosexual postmodern noir isn't really her cup of tea. 

For one thing, I wanted to see if this exploration into the dark and violent underworld of suburban America was as as disturbing as I originally found it (it was); and, for another thing, I wanted reassurance that Isabella Rossellini, as lounge singer Dorothy Vallens, was as beautiful as I remember her (she was).   

 

Strangely, however, I think for me now the most disturbing part of the entire movie happens in the opening couple of minutes; i.e., before Jeffrey (played by Kyle MacLachlan) finds the severed ear [2] and before he finds himself mixed up with Frank Booth, a perverse and sadistic gangster - who really doesn't like to be looked at - played by Dennis Hopper. 

 

It's the extreme close up shot of beetles ferociously struggling for survival in the soil beneath the perfect lawn that terrifies; not so much the sight of them - as an entomophile, I'm not squeamish about bugs and beetles or other creepy-crawlies - it's more the loud droning audio provided by the renowned sound designer Alan Splet that triggers my anxiety.   

As symbolism, the use of beetles to suggest the fact that death, decay, and corruption - i.e., evil - is ever-present beneath the surface of life - or that chaos reigns, as another great filmmaker once put it [3] - is not particularly innovative, but, nevertheless, it remains potent and evocative here. 

 

The insect motif is, as other commetators have pointed out, recurrent throughout Blue Velvet and it's not concidental that Jeffrey disguises himself as a bug controller in order to initially gain access to Dorothy's apartment and ultimately exterminates that human cockroach, Frank Booth, albeit with a bullet rather than pesticide.

 

Notes

 

[1] I know it was nominated for multiple Academy Awards, but I wouldn't even give it an iced bun. Essentially, I agree with Nadja Durbach's description of The Elephant Man as "much more mawkish and moralising than one would expect from the leading postmodern surrealist filmmaker". 

      See the chapter entitled "Monstrosity, Masculinity, and Medicine: Reexamining the Elephant Man" in The Spectacle of Deformity: Freak Shows and Modern British Culture, (University of California Press, 2009), p. 35. 

 

[2] Re the severed ear in Blue Velvet - which is found by Jeffrey crawling with back ants - see the post dated 1 Jan 2024: click 'ere. 

[3] 'Chaos reigns' is a famous line (spoken by a fox) in Lars von Trier's 2009 film Antichrist. I have written two posts on this theme; the first dated 14 Dec 2018 - click here - and the second dated 11 Oct 2024 - click here.  

 

 

Click here to watch the opening scene of Blue Velvet (dir. David Lynch, 1986), climaxing with what for me is the most disturbing shot of the entire movie; never mind the psychosexual shenanigans, it's the beetle mania that shocks.   

Some readers might also be interested in a post related to this one dated 28 Nov 2021, in which I discuss Isabella Rossellini's entomophilia and her attempt to create green porno: click here.

A Reflection on the Jean Cocteau Murals at the Church of Notre Dame de France

Jean Cocteau: detail from his Crucifxion scene mural
Notre Dame de France (London, 1960)

ndfchurch.org

 

I. 

 

I am not what you would call a Jean Cocteau specialist: I haven't read of any his poetry, fiction, or criticism; nor seen any of his works for stage and screen, with the exception of La Belle et la Bête (1946), which I watched as a child at school; nor am I familiar with his work as a visual artist, again with a single exception to this, namely, the murals he executed for the Church of Notre Dame de France ...

 

 

II. 

 

 

I'm not French, nor am I Catholic or a Christian of any description, but I do love to enter the church of Notre Dame de France, based in Soho, London - just off Leicester Square - which was consecrated in 1868 (although the original building prior to its redevelopment into a place of worship is somewhat older). 

 

Badly damaged by German bombs during the Blitz, the church had to have extensive structural repairs that were not completed until several years after the War ended.

 

The French Ambassador, Jean Chauval, promoted the idea of creating a sacred space with a uniquely French feel and so, during the 1950s, the French Cultural Attaché René Varin was tasked with commisioning eminent artists of the time to work on the decoration of the rebuilt church.

 

One of these artists was Jean Cocteau who, in November 1959 [1], completed three murals in the Lady Chapel depicting the Annunciation, Crucifixion, and Assumption ... 

 

 

III. 

 

In the first of these, located on the wall to the left of the altar, Cocteau shows the angel Gabriel appearing to the Virgin Mary to inform her that she is to conceive the Son of God - with or without her consent [2]. 

 

The second mural, depicting the Crucifixion of Christ beneath a black sun and adorning the central wall, is arguably the most powerful, even though only Jesus's lower legs and feet - complete with bloody puncture wounds - are visible. Mary is shown alongside, united in grief with two other female figures; Marys Magdalene and Clopas [3]. 

 

There is also another small group of figures, amidst which Cocteau has placed himself and he turns to gaze at the viewer with a look upon his face of an unbeliever who nevertheless possesses a spirit that is deeply religious in nature (see image above).

 

Finally, we see the Assumption of Mary - regarded by Cocteau as the most beautiful of all God's creatures - as she is taken up into heaven, accompanied by an angelic fanfare; something which, to my way of thinking - as a Lawrentian - is literally a fate worse than death [4]. 

 

IV. 

 

Having been restored in 2012, these lovely works can still be freely viewed in the church today (although now placed behind glass for security reasons) and I would encourage readers who may find themselves passing through central London with time on their hands to go and do so.  

For even if you don't much like Cocteau or care for his art - and even if you are a passionate anti-theist - Notre Dame de France is a genuine place of sanctuary from the noise, ugliness, and vulgarity of the world outside its walls.   

Jean Cocteau looking dapper as he sets to work at the 

church of Notre Dame de France (London, 1959)

Photo by Gary Heiss

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Although painted between November 3rd and 11th, Cocteau signs and dates the work 1960.

 

[2] Some readers may recall that I have discussed the Annunciation and spectral rape of Mary in a post published on Torpedo the Ark back in March 2014: click here. 

      I still find the story of how a 13-year-old girl was selected by God as a broodmare (and doubtless groomed by him and his angelic servants throughout her childhood) somewhat shocking.

 

[3] The presence of a group of female disciples at the Crucifixion is confirmed in all four Gospels of the New Testament. However, parallel accounts have led to uncertainty as to their number and identity. I'm following the Gospel of John and sticking with the idea that the Three Marys are the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene, and Mary of Clopas.

 

[4] Regardless of what I might think, the Assumption of Mary is one of the four Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church - albeit one that leaves open the question of whether Mary died first, or whether she was raised to eternal life without bodily death (theologians refer to a mortalistic versus an immortalistic interpretation). The Feast of the Assumption is held on 15 August, though it's not something that all Protestants choose to celebrate.  

Loving the Alien Venus: Reflections on the Work of Jean-Marie Appriou and the Strange Affects of Art

Photo by Maria Thanassa of Stephen Alexander 

and Jean-Marie Appriou's The Birth of Venus (2022)

 

 

If asked to name my favourite sculptor at the moment, it would have to be the French artist Jean-Marie Appriou [1], who uses all kinds of material - aluminium, bronze, glass, clay, wax, etc. - to create disturbingly strange figures who are sometimes human in appearance, sometimes animal-like, or sometimes vegetal in character, but who are always essentially alien, despite their seemingly terrestrial origin. 

 

Rather than alien, perhaps we might better describe their nature as divine. In other words, perhaps we should think of Appriou's figures as gods. At any rate, one of my favourite works of his is a Venus figure presently on display in London at the Alison Jacques gallery ... [2]

 

 

II. 

 

Composed of aluminium and hand blown glass and standing 136 cm in height - that's just under four-and-a-half foot to you and I - the silvery-bodied Venus with a sea-shell cocoon still attached to her back, wears a purple-coloured glass helmet, rather like a fishbowl, so she can breathe as she transitions from an aquatic world beneath the waves to one on dry land [3]. 

The work, as an object, has a sensual aspect, even though the figure is strangely sexless for a Venus. Without moving a muscle and by incorporating a wide-range of cultural references, it curdles the distinction between a whole series of oppositions; adult/child; male/female; human/nonhuman; mortal/divine; the mythological past/the sci-fi future

 

And, like the very best artworks, it not only makes one question notions of identity, it affects us and faciliates what Deleuze and Guattari would term "real and unheard of becomings" [4] involving the affirmation of difference and the opening of infinite possibilities.

 

Just standing in the presence of Appriou's Venus for a few minutes, exposes one to weird forces and flows or what occultists refer to as demonic reality - and that's something I didn't experience even when standing before Botticelli's masterpiece in the Uffizi Gallery. 

 

One leaves the exhibition space a different being to the one who entered (as the Little Greek's photo above illustrates).    

 

  

Notes

 

[1] Born in Brittany in 1986, Appriou presently lives and works in Paris. He is represented in London by the Massimo De Carlo Gallery. His page on the gallery's website can be accessed by clicking here.

[2] The piece, entitled The Birth of Venus (2022), forms part of the Last Night I Dreamt of Manderley group exhibition, curated by Daniel Malarkey at Alison Jacques, which runs until the 8th of March. For full details of this exhibition click here. And for my thoughts on it, click here.  

[3] One imagines the helmet would be full of an oxygenated liquid, similar to that used by the aliens in the cult British TV series UFO (1970-71).

 

[4] See Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, trans. Brian Massumi (The Athlone Press, 1996), p. 244.

 

 

Last Night I Dreamt of Manderley ... Starring Sebastian Horsley as Maxim de Winter

Maggi Hambling: Sebastian Horsley XI (2021) 

Oil on canvas (125 x 95 cm)

 

"The road to Manderley lay ahead. There was no moon. The sky above our heads was inky black. 

But the sky on the horizon was not dark at all. It was shot with crimson, like a splash of blood. 

And the ashes blew towards us with the salt wind from the sea."

- Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca (1938)

 

 

I. 

 

I honestly can't remember what visions (if any) disturbed my sleep last night, but, earlier today, I went to an excellent group exhibition curated by Daniel Malarkey at the Alison Jacques gallery, whose title is a paraphrase (or perhaps misremembering) of the opening line to Daphne du Maurier's famous Gothic novel Rebecca (1938): 

 

Last Night I Dreamt of Manderley ... [1]  

 

 

II.

 

According to Malarkey, who spent over 18 months working to stage this show, it wasn't until he came to name it that he realised that he had subconsciously been curating an exhibition about the favourite novel of his adolescence [2]; a book that I came to know much later, but have also grown to love [3].

 

Malarkey's aim, according to the gallery's press release, is to "retell the story of Rebecca, taking the viewer on a path which explores notions of memory, darkness and transformation" [4], forming temporal connections and demonstrating the potential of narrative to facilitate all kinds of strange becomings. 

 

In order to accomplish this, Malarkey brings together the works of over 30 artists, some of whom - such as Leonora Carrington, Maeve Gilmore, and Torpedo the Ark favourite Aleksandra Waliszewska [5] - I am familiar with; whilst others - including Jean-Marie Appriou, Leonardo Devito, Graham Little - I am now grateful to have discovered. 

 

 

III. 

 

To be honest, as much as I love Rebecca - and as interested as I am in the folk and fairy tale tradition which more obviously inspires many of the works in this exhibition [6] - I felt compelled to attend the show more for the opportunity to see (in the decomposing flesh, as it were) one of Maggi Hambling's portraits of much-loved (and much-missed) Sebastian Horsley [7]: 

"Finally, the viewer is led downstairs through an arch into the 'Underworld', where Maggi Hambling's portrait of Sebastian Horsley presides over the space, introducing themes such as the conflict between morality and religion, resistance to authority, and a questioning of established traditions." [8]

 

Whether we are invited to imagine Horsley as the character of Maxim de Winter (crossed with Dorian Gray), I don't know - but it's a nice idea, I think, and not one that would displease Horsley who, like de Winter, was a passionate floraphile (although not, as far as I'm aware, a wife killer).

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Last Night I Dreamt of Manderley, curated  by Daniel Malarkey (24 Jan - 8 March 2025) at Alison Jacques, 22 Cork Street, London W1. For full details and to view all the artworks included in the show, click here.

 

[2] Like Alice Inggs, I'm tempted to question whether Malarkey's claim about Rebecca being a once favourite book that exerted a subconscious influence on his thinking when assembling this exhibition is "strictly true or a retroactive application to works very much open to allegory", but it doesn't really matter either way.

      And, as Inggs later concedes, you can certainly find more than a few "curious (and apparently incidental) parallels between passages from the book and the artworks [...] wherever you walk, there is Rebecca: the windows open to the sea, the white cats, the uncanny figures, the wrought-iron gates, the driftwood and rope, the rhododendrons, the antique wallpaper, the almost-silhouettes, the subtly erotic scenes, the sense of expectation …" 

      See her (cleverly titled) review, 'Psyche For Sore Eyes', in The World of Interiors (7 Feb 2025): click here. 

 

[3] For a two part post published in November 2024, in which I explore my own memories of Manderley,  please click here and/or here. 

      Interested readers can also find several other posts written on the work of Daphne du Maurier on Torpedo the Ark; simply go to labels and click on her name. Many of these posts are also reproduced on the official Daphne du Maurier website: click here.  

 

[4] This press release, written by Bella Kesoyan, can be found on the Alison Jacques website: click here.

 

[5] See the post entitled 'Why I Love Aleksandra Waliszewska' (13 Oct 2023): click here.

 

[6] To quote from the press release once more: 

      "All the works in the show challenge conventional notions of fairytales as children's stories and idealised narratives. While often adopting the visual language of magical landscapes, imaginary beings, and extraordinary human powers, the exhibition also explores darker and complex readings of this age-old genre." 

      That being so, one might have just as easily called this show Last Night I Dreamed of Angela Carter and one wonders how familiar Daniel Malarkey is with The Bloody Chamber (1979), her collection of ten short stories in which, to use Carter's own phrase, she extracts the latent content from traditional tales including 'Beauty and the Beast' and 'Little Red Riding Hood'.     

 

[7] As Emily Spicer notes: 

      "Hambling painted Horsley several times after his death, imagining, it would seem, his decomposing body, his likeness falling from his bones to reveal the white skull beneath. In all of these paintings he is disintegrating, melting or dissolving into oblivion. Hambling has said that Horsley’s life was an elaborate rehearsal for death and we feel her coming to terms with this, searching, unflinchingly, for an image that reconciles this tragic irony." 

      See her review of The Quick and the Dead exhibition at the Jerwood Gallery, Hastings (20 Oct 2018 - 6 Jan 2019) on the Studio International website: click here. This show included Sebastian Horsley VIII (2011). 

      See also the post on Torpedo the Ark entitled 'The Picture of Sebastian Horsley' (6 Sept 2019), in which I muse on Hambling's 2011 portrait of Horsley: click here. 

 

[8] Bella Kesoyan, press release for Last Night I Dreamt of Manderley, as linked to above in note 3.

 

 

This post is for Ann Willmore, who encouraged me to write it. 

 

 

A Philosophical Reflection on Getting Older

Portrait of the Artist as a 

Darkly Enlightened Philosopher

(SA 2025) [1]

 

"Darling, am I looking old? / Tell me dear I must be told ..." [2]

 

I. 

 

You know you're getting older not just when another birthday looms on the horizon - each candle on the cake essentially another nail in the coffin - but when, following the presentation of a short paper at Kant's Cave [3], a young woman approaches not to discreetly slip you her phone number or ask for your email address, but to inform you of the fact that you remind her of her father.

 

Still, as a friend said with a smile, at least she didn't say grandmother ... 

 

 

II.

 

Many people like to believe that there are advantages to growing older; that experience makes one a little wiser, for example. But this is bullshit: and even if it were true, who wants a smidgen more wisdom when you can't see, can't run, can't breathe, and your hair has fallen out?

 

The fact is, most great works of philosophy were produced by thinkers in their mid-to-late 30s - Heidegger, for example, was 37 when Sein und Zeit was published - and whilst there are of course exceptions - such as Kant and his three Critiques - we can confidently say that there are very few works of significance written by thinkers over the age of 55 [4].  

 

As I'll be 62 next week - the same age as Wittgenstein when he died - that means I'm now way over the philosophical hill ... Still, at least I'm not buried beneath it.  

 

 

Notes

 

[1] The photo was taken on February 3rd 2025 at Kant's Cave (see note 2 below). I'm not sure if I look darkly enlightened, as intended, or simply like an old punk; one person described me as resembling a flamboyant East End gangster - i.e., a Kray brother dressed by Vivienne Westwood. 

 

[2] Lyrics from the X-Ray Spex song 'Age': click here to listen to it on a Peel Session (recorded 6 Nov 1978 and broadcast on the 13th of that month). 

 

[3] Kant's Cave is a monthly meeting organised by Philosophy for All and held in a first floor function room at the the famous Two Chairmen pub, in Wesminster. The paper addressed the question: What is the Dark Enlightenment?

 

[4] See the post by Eric Schwitzgebel analysing the question of what the average age is when philosophers complete their most influential work: The Splintered Mind (12 May 2010): click here.