Rowley Gallery Blog
This is a trailer for my favourite film of 2013, La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty), a kind of modern day equivalent to Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, full of gorgeous and spectacular images together with a sublime soundtrack featuring music by David Lang, Arvo Pärt, John Tavener and many more. Continue reading “The Great Beauty”
The Forty Part Motet is a sound installation by Janet Cardiff, a 40 track recording of Spem In Alium by Thomas Tallis presented at The Cloisters in Upper Manhattan by The Metropolitan Museum of Art. I heard about it from David Byrne:
In Cardiff’s piece, the singers—all 40 of them—are recorded, each on their own mic and track. In the installation, each individual voice is played back through their own speaker. The speakers are roughly arranged in a circle at head height. One assumes this is how they were positioned during the recording. The nature of the Tallis composition is that various groups of voices come and go, sing or remain silent for a bit: if you are standing by a speaker you might hear nothing for a while then suddenly a person’s voice booms out, with absolute clarity, as if they’re right next to you. So, depending on where you’re standing in the room, you hear a completely different balance of voices. Unless you’re in the center of the installation, you will hear some voices way louder than others.
There’s a moving review in the New York Times.
This recording was made at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco in 1971 by Paul Beaver & Bernie Krause with baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan. It was an exploration of the cathedral’s long reverb acoustics. Mulligan wanders through the space discovering constantly changing sound perspectives.
Bernie Krause is still recording but nowadays concentrating on capturing and archiving the sounds of the natural world and finding that wild sounds are increasingly silenced by the deafening noise of mankind.
My first full day in California was a little inclement, in fact it poured with rain morning to evening only allowing a little light relief to get this shot of the iconic bridge. However it’s hard to be despondent in one of the most beautiful and stunningly situated cities on Earth. The following day the sun came out and didn’t stop blazing down for the following three weeks, as further pictures will testify. Continue reading “California Dreaming”
David Hockney made these videos of four seasons in Woldgate Woods by driving slowly down the lane with nine cameras on the car roof. They are now on display in A Bigger Exhibition at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. Continue reading “Woldgate Woods”
Nine new arrivals at Advent, come to gather round the manger looking for a new byre. See more by Jelly Green at The Rowley Gallery.
These tiny cows are the missing link between Susie Freeman and Jelly Green. I can imagine them displayed in knitted pockets (Captive Friesians) or portrayed with bright and lively brushstrokes (Captivating Herd). I borrowed the photo from Eva the Weaver.
Susie Freeman brought us a few more pieces of work, just in time for Christmas. This one is already gift wrapped. Is the yellow ribbon significant? Is it part of the artwork? Not really. Susie opened the frame to swap its contents then couldn’t close it securely, so she tied it together. I like it. Maybe we should adopt this method of framing. Continue reading “Gift Wrapped”
This is another of Evelyn Hallewell‘s books. It’s a celebration of vernacular art, published in 1945. It was an attempt to rehabilitate a popular culture which was seen to be endangered by classical taste and mechanical reproduction. Continue reading “Popular English Art”
James Read brought five new paintings for display in the gallery, and then sent us a few words…
Blending In. The chameleon is presented larger than life and partially visible through layers of torn paper. Inspiration came from a bill posting site near my home in Oxford. Each new poster stands out for a day or two before blending rather beautifully into the soup of fragmented images. Continue reading “Blending In”