Humour on another planet
Mar. 1st, 2008 10:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
major_clangerYesterday featured an Afternoon of Culture, the plan being to meet up with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tamaranth at the Hayward Gallery to look at its two current exhbitions: Laughing in a Foreign Language and Alexander Rodchenko: Revolution in Photography.
Without necessarily preempting a longer review later, a quick summary is that the first was a crashing disappointment that was mostly made up for by the second. For me, a themed art exhibition only works if you could go around it without being told what the theme was and still correctly work it out. If I'd not known that the theme of LIAFL was meant to be 'differing cultural takes on humour' then I'd never have guessed; at best, I might have wondered if the exhibits were vaguely linked by abstract cultural comment on cultural confusion. I usually work on the principle that onloy about 10% of randomly selected modern art does anything for me (but when it does, I really like it), but here the hit rate was virtually zero.
Fortunately, the afternoon was somewhat salvaged by the Rodchenko exhibition. Rodchenko worked in the early days of Soviet Russia and developed an enormously influential style that has informed photojournalism for decades. Indeed, some of his work now comes across at first as cliched, but only because one is so used to seeing endless imitations and homages. Sadly, his active career lasted little more than a decade before the growing strictures of Stalinism squeezed him out of favour - the final straw was apparently a portrait of a Young Pioneer that showed him looking upward, rather than forward as a New Soviet Man should. Fortunately, this wasn't quite enough of an abberation to get him shot, and post-Stalin his reputation greatly recovered. As a photographer myself, I am very impressed by Rodchenko's continued demonstration in many images that there's no such thing as a location devoid of photographic opportunity, if only you're imaginative enough.
tamaranth at the Hayward Gallery to look at its two current exhbitions: Laughing in a Foreign Language and Alexander Rodchenko: Revolution in Photography.Without necessarily preempting a longer review later, a quick summary is that the first was a crashing disappointment that was mostly made up for by the second. For me, a themed art exhibition only works if you could go around it without being told what the theme was and still correctly work it out. If I'd not known that the theme of LIAFL was meant to be 'differing cultural takes on humour' then I'd never have guessed; at best, I might have wondered if the exhibits were vaguely linked by abstract cultural comment on cultural confusion. I usually work on the principle that onloy about 10% of randomly selected modern art does anything for me (but when it does, I really like it), but here the hit rate was virtually zero.
Fortunately, the afternoon was somewhat salvaged by the Rodchenko exhibition. Rodchenko worked in the early days of Soviet Russia and developed an enormously influential style that has informed photojournalism for decades. Indeed, some of his work now comes across at first as cliched, but only because one is so used to seeing endless imitations and homages. Sadly, his active career lasted little more than a decade before the growing strictures of Stalinism squeezed him out of favour - the final straw was apparently a portrait of a Young Pioneer that showed him looking upward, rather than forward as a New Soviet Man should. Fortunately, this wasn't quite enough of an abberation to get him shot, and post-Stalin his reputation greatly recovered. As a photographer myself, I am very impressed by Rodchenko's continued demonstration in many images that there's no such thing as a location devoid of photographic opportunity, if only you're imaginative enough.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-03-01 12:45 pm (UTC)After that, the 150 words of Japanese video was ok, and, er, nothing else was amusing or revealing of other cultures through their humour.
But the photo exhibit was excellent, sadly my friend and I were "exhibited out" by the time we hit it, so just 20mins for a quick look around. I may go back for a longer look one lunchtime as I work walking distance away and have an annual membership (free admission!)