Atomic Bohm

Earlier today, I managed to swing by Manchester Art Gallery for a wander around their latest exhibition, A World Observed 1940-2010: Photographs by Dorothy Bohm.

Admittedly, it took me a while to get down there. This, in fact, was my third attempt. I went to the preview last week, but I didn't get to pre-view a lot due to the distraction of free Peroni and some rather in-depth discussions about the architectural practicalities of the glass structure linking the old art gallery building to its modern sister. (I noticed some shattered high-up panes today, actually.) Next, I promised to go on the show's first day open to the public, then found myself sidetracked by a nice new pair of pumps.

Anyway, better late than never, I say, and I'm actually glad I went under my own steam. Less crowds harping on about depth of field (I imagine), plus it's big. HUGE! There's so much to see, it's almost overwhelming. I'm so pleased it's running until 30 August as it gives me plenty of time to revisit and perhaps concentrate on the bits I liked best, namely the street photography Bohm took up in the late 1950s, firstly on black and white film and later using Kodak colour. While I agree with Bohm's own assertion that she prefers B&W because of "the abstraction of tones", her early Kodak prints prove that saturated colour holds its own subtleties.


Various themes run through the show (curated, incidentally, by Dorothy's daughter, Monica Bohm-Duchen), with definite categorisation: from the lovely "human interest" shots (mostly unposed, in direct contrast to Bohm's original portraiture business on Market Street; more about that on the Dorothy Bohm in Manchester blog) to the rather less intriguing still lives and snaps of billboard models. The final section is a study of modern-day Manchester, but I think it might well be the collection of reflections, shadow play and trompe l'oeil murals that I give more attention to on my next visit.

Image: St-Jean-de-Luz, France, by Dorothy Bohm © Dorothy Bohm Archive

Waltzing Tilda

Last week, I went to the flicks to see Italian offering I Am Love, starring Tilda Swinton. I noticed in the bookshop while I was waiting for the screening to start that she was gracing the front of various May magazines, including two separate (and very disparate) covers for Dazed & Confused. And I can't recommend the film highly enough, with its glamorous Milan setting, 1950s/60s-style panning shots, and obsessive almost to the point of hilarious sexual focus on food and nature. It did, however, have a fine ability to make me sob uncontrollably while trying to cycle home, and, despite the low probability of being spotted in a state of disarray (it was fairly early on a Sunday), I was unfortunate enough to find myself bumbling past a colleague and then bumping into a friend. Oh well.


I like Tilda Swinton; she seems to pick some great movies to be in. The last thing I saw was Jim Jarmusch's weird but wonderful The Limits Of Control, and she's great in The Beach (on telly this week, I believe), Thumbsucker and as the ice queen White Witch in The Chronicles Of Narnia. I'm a wee bit behind and have only just got Burn After Reading on DVD, so don't go spoiling it for me now.


Tilda also has to be commended for her brilliant schemes at bringing first-class film to rural remote Scotland, where she lives. In 2008, she collaborated with director Mark Cousins on The Ballerina Ballroom Cinema Of Dreams, a cheap-seats cinema brought back to life for a couple of weeks. In 2009, the pair hauled a mobile movie house, the Screen Machine, around the Highlands for A Pilgrimage film festival. Gives "road movie" a new slant, eh?

"It [is] a genuine experiment," said Swinton, in The Guardian. "I thought – you know what, we don't know what we're doing. We mightn't be able to move this an inch, and when we did, I couldn't be more amazed. What's it going to be next year? Airborne or in freefall?"

Cannae wait!

Neuromantic gesture

Last night I popped along to the monthly Sci-fi Book Club at Manchester's Madlab. Under the microscope was William Gibson's first novel, Neuromancer, heralded as being the most famous early "cyperpunk" works. Everyone had been really excited about reading this one, but I have to admit that it eventually mainly left me cold, with too many significant moments that were tricky to follow, didn't tie up properly or were plain discarded almost as soon as they had been typed. Some became clearer after returning to sections and going through them again and others made a bit more sense after reading round the subject (which I did once I'd finished the book, so as not to spoil the fun); it could be that it was the language that I found confusing rather than the concepts.


Neuromancer isn't all bad, and has more than a few nods to Philip K Dick, who I like. Here are some: 1). The controlling AI Wintermute takes its name from Dick's novel VALIS. 2). The opening sequences in the future noir underworld of Chiba City, Japan, have resonance with Deckard's dystopian dirty downtown LA in Bladerunner, which we all know is adapted from Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? 3). The Panther Moderns' hi-tech camouflage suits are similar to the scramble suit in Dick's A Scanner Darkly, as is the paranoia, and the drug addiction, plus...

Next up for the reading group is Ursula K Le Guin's The Left Hand Of Darkness , apparently one of the first works of feminist science fiction. (The next meeting is on Tuesday 18 May at 7pm.)

We've also decided on the second batch of books for the reading list; Term 2, if you like. There will be more about this in my upcoming guest blog spot on The Manchester Lit List, which I'll crack on with now if you'll just give me half a chance.

ADDENDUM 28/04/10: I'm busily squirrelling away at the aforementioned Lit List piece and have been having a shufty round t'internet, where I found fellow Madlabber Dave Hartley's new post on the last meet.

War and pieces

I swung by the private view of the new Contemporary Art Iraq exhibition on Thursday evening not really knowing what to expect. Sometimes I like to do that: bob along to see something I know nothing about in advance, just so I don't have any preconceptions. The last thing I expected was to be met by the smell of incense as I climbed the steep Cornerhouse stairs; the next last thing I expected was that the Iraqi government would start following me on Twitter after I mentioned the preview in passing. (They've since stopped following me, for which I'm quite relieved.)

The blurb informs me that this is "the first comprehensive UK exhibition of new and recent contemporary art from Iraq since the first Gulf War" and features 19 Iraq-based artists. The galleries are categorised into "Of Time And Tradition", "The Changing City" and "Protest", and the works range from soundscape and video through scuplture and installation to painting and photography.


It was the photographic work that struck me the most. In Gallery 1, Bhrhm Taib H Ameen's highly saturated but almost soft focus full-length portraits of the same man adopting various positions while wearing different ethnic dress highlight the various cultures attempting to live side by side in the fragmented country.

In Gallery 2, I very much enjoyed Qalat by Bitwen Ali Hamad, which documents a man as he traverses a town with a leaking bucket, watched with curiosity by children, soldiers and other people just wandering down the street behind him. It reminded me of the Rosemarie Castoro work at the Whitworth's Subversive Spaces show last year and the first frame is really powerful, overexposed and distorting in the heat and bright light so the man with the bucket is like an alien silhouette.

On the top floor, in Gallery 3, Jamal Penjweny has captured people of all ages and backgrounds mid-jump, in a series called Iraq Is Flying (pictured). Everyone looks happy and carefree, perhaps not jumping for joy, but at least rising above the difficulties of life in modern-day Iraq.

20th-century pin-up stars

Last night was jampacked with exhibition previews and launch parties, but one not mentioned by our eye on the art scene Creative Tourist was the Polish Film Poster show, part of this year's Kinofilm. The festival of short European films has been on hiatus for a couple of years, but it's back and officially launches next week, so more on the movie side of things here then.

Kinofilm 11 teams up with Polska! Year for a special focus on new Polish cinema, which is where this poster art exhibition comes in. Running from today until 16 May (Wed-Sat 11am-6pm, Sun 11am-5pm) in Manchester's favourite underachiever The Triangle, the free show gives a rare insight into the unique characteristics of Polish poster art in the second half of the 20th century.


Featuring films by directors as diverse as Jim Jarmusch, Roman Polanski, Alfred Hitchcock and Martin Scorsese, the works vary immensely, but common themes are that they are all highly stylised and hand drawn rather than photographic or computerised, and each is very much of its time. The collection, largely owned by Kinofilm director John Wojowski, spans five decades from the 50s, and is an informative introduction to the Cold War era Polish Poster School.