From my kitchen window

Hidden sexuality

"Duchamp, Man Ray, Picabia" at Tate Modern I found profoundly depressing. Surprisingly so - the first two of the featured artists have long been among my heroes. But to be confronted by work which held such an important place in my intellectual development, but which I haven't looked at recently, was perhaps always likely to be a shock. While it was fascinating to see how the three artists responded to each other, the juxtaposition didn't, for me, do the pieces any favours. I felt as if the world, and I, have moved on. Tomorrow I may feel differently.

Nice though to read in a caption that "Man Ray made a series if photographs of mathematical objects, used as teaching tools. He used dramatic lighting to enhance the hidden sexuality of these seemingly abstract sculptural forms."


But, contrarywise, after leaving that show I was uplifted by the retrospective of Juan Munoz. I felt at home here.

More far-away blossom

(Thanks, hl)

In time of bougainvillea and jacarandas

(who know
the goal of living is to grow)

in time of daffodils .... here

"I raise my cup and ask
The branches, heavy with flowers,
To drink with me."

(Su Tung P'o 1037-1101)

An ancient musician

This 2,200-year-old figure of a musician, 112 cm tall, was for me one of the highlights of the British Museum's "Terracotta Warriors" exhibition. These beautiful figures, with only fragments of their lost colours, are so evocative, yet they are the relics of a regime built on ruthlessness and slavery.