I went to Margate this morning, to see both the new Turner Contemporary Art Gallery and to look at the first art exhibition there.
I arrived before the gallery opened and wandered around a bit first, a few parts of the landscaping outside of the gallery are obviously not finished yet, including what appears to be the largest concrete flowerpot I have ever noticed.
Most of what is there inside and outside the gallery should be pretty obvious from the pictures, however one thing you can't explain is the smoothness of the concrete surfaces that feel like polished stone.
I walked around the gallery and the town a bit, trying to find a notepad and a pen and have to thank the lady in Remembrance Angel who gave me both.
There was a very loud alarm going off on an empty building opposite the gallery, fortunately this stopped after a while.
Eventually I came at the gallery from what must have been the tradesman’s entrance or something so I arrived before it opened, on the inside of the barriers that were there to control any crowds, that could have turned up.
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Eventually I gravitated to the kitchen, in order to check that what was going on there would be ok when the gallery opened, fortunately people are usually kind to me in kitchens.
I have sampled the wares there and you can be assured that it is a good place to eat.
The staff are charming too as you can see from the pictures. I then went into the gift and bookshop, the gallery opened about this time.
I think this should take you up to the end of this page of pictures
Next I had an inconvenient moment probably due to the way I gravitate towards kitchens, and obviously a chat with the chap cleaning the loo, he says that it is hard work to keep clean, but he thinks that it’s a fantastic building.
Then to James Webb’s marvellous picture of Margate, and on to some good and bad stairs, to view Etagram, this was the only work in this room, either intentionally or they intend to hang some more pictures, not sure really.
On to the Russell Crotty exhibits, I contemplated being employed to turn the pages of the very large books and wondered what happened to the gallery attendant who tore a page.
And then to the shed within the shed, Arcadia, this contains Ellen Harvey’s illuminated Plexiglas etchings of Margate, my favourite part of the exhibition and by far the most difficult to photograph, sorry about the results.
That takes you to the end of this page of pictures
I wasn’t that keen on the Turner, this isn’t one of my favourite pictures of his, I played about with the camera at this point tying to get Turner like effects, this sort of affected behaviour is I know rather embarrassing, so please accept my apologies. Especially to Conrad Shawcross whose exhibits I used as a background for this tomfoolery in the next gallery.
You may also note that the Turner gallery has a very big lift, most galleries do, but not always available for the public to use, it had the inevitable attendant as I expect it was expensive.
At this point I did what most Englishmen do when confronted potentially embarrassing situations and went in search of a pot of tea, served in a civilised fashion.
This takes you up to the end of this page of pictures.
http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/Turner/id4.htm
http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/Turner/id5.htm
I took a few more pictures but was flagging a bit by then see http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/Turner/id7.htm so I went back to Ramsgate.
Next tea in Puffins Café, very civilised, pot of the with proper china for £1.20, something I considered to be excellent value.
Then into Artists Open Studios on the harbour arm, some good quality work here as you can see from the pictures of the pictures, I hope.
That should take you to the end of this page.
Past the shell ladies and on to the Imperial Art Gallery and a few pictures of the people on the beach and into the old town. I was surprised to find the Community pharmacy Gallery closed. Punch and Judy were amusing the children, well I suppose you can see from the pictures. Into Outside the Square Gallery where they told me that I couldn’t take any pictures, this threw me a bit,
That takes you to the end of this page http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/Turner/id6.htm
I will ramble on and add more pictures as the mood takes me.
THE TURNER OPENING.
ReplyDeleteMargate looked good today. Lots of people out enjoying themselves. The town was alive. Much as I remember it from my childhood. The organisers have worked hard and kept their faith often against stiff opposition. It's still early days but so far, so good. I wish it well.
Michael, nice to see you’ve kept to you usual practice of circumventing normal public routes and access ways or was the pedestrian barrier there as an artistic statement, maybe you should alter the emergency services ahead of your expected ventures beyond barriers, fences and gates… risk x probability could mean one day finding yourself in a very deep hole!
ReplyDeleteMichael, nice to see you’ve kept to you usual practice of circumventing normal public routes and access ways or was the pedestrian barrier there as an artistic statement, maybe you should alert the emergency services ahead of your expected ventures beyond barriers, fences and gates… risk x probability could mean one day finding yourself in a very deep hole!
ReplyDeleteMichael, I have just read anonymous's (who he.ed.) admonishment concerning your wanderings. Really, how very dare you be such and individualist, rules are there to be obeyed, we all exist to serve the bureaucracy and so on.
ReplyDeleteJohn it was certainly good so the place humming again, I am a bit of a slow thinker so haven’t really got as far as expressing how I feel about it and how successful it will be.
ReplyDelete18.29 sorry was there a typo in your comment? Oh I see you don’t want me to alter the emergency services before I arrive, I had better answer your amended comment.
18.30 this is a difficult one, as a prominent local blogger I fall into a sort of gap between the conventional media and an ordinary member of the public, there is a sense I which I represent the thousands of people who read this blog.
Yesterdays post was a bit of a milestone here, as the main part of it is a letter from two senior council officers that they asked me to publish on this blog, it’s a situation that is a bit difficult all round, I suppose there was a similar situation when newspapers first started and journalism hadn’t been regulated.
I try to act fairly and responsibly, when I can I try to take someone with me who isn’t likely to get into too much trouble, for instance when I trespassed by going up the tower of the synagogue in Ramsgate to take the photographs of the works of the clock for this blog, I took the local roman catholic priest with me.
I suppose had one of us had fallen off the ladder it could have been difficult, but one is a long time dead.
John, it’s a complex issue and some of the places, the roof void of the pavilion, building sites and so on are potentially dangerous, I certainly don’t want to cause trouble for the emergency services.
After loooking at your photographs, I think I`ll give the place a miss.
ReplyDeleteAnon 18.30.
ReplyDelete"Begging the question" Old chap.
A fellow wishes to determine if there is a risk present (say at Royal Sands). He "trespasses" but only to go where other authorized folk routinely go.
And your position is that the fellow should not trespass there because there is a risk.
What an intellectually impoverished chump you are sirrah.
Your photographs captured the essence of Margate. I particularly liked the photograph inside the Puffin cafe that looks over the harbour and inside the Turner Centre where the word 'arcade' is illuminated.
ReplyDeleteI like the way people were unaware of you snapping away. No posing, just a true account of the day. The Old Town looked charming bathed in sunshine.
Well done you! You captured history in the making.
All the best
Mojo
I hope
It was nice to finally meet you yesterday Michael.
ReplyDeleteWe are hoping that this is a new era in Margate and things will start to pick up.
Today, Monday 18th , arrived at the Turner to find it CLOSED. Many people were being turned away, with the lame appology that the exhibits were being < maintained >.Now surely its not beyond reason to expect this headline £17 million artifact to have been kept open every day for say the first two weeks, given the amount of interest it has generated! Going by the looks of the disappointed faces as the potential visitors were turned away, one wonders about the committment to regenerate the town with decisions like this.
ReplyDeleteGlad you liked the picts mojo, it’s a fairly large camera, so I think people would have been aware of it.
ReplyDeleteCBC, only time will tell, but it certainly seemed to be working yesterday.
17.17 I have just looked on their website, they are closed on Mondays except Bank Holidays, so they will be open all through Easter as next Monday is a Bank Holiday, I suppose with hind site I would have been best to remain open today.
My chats with the various people working there revealed that there have been quite a few mistakes, like fining people for parking where there were no, no parking signs, fining civic vehicles for parking on the harbour arm.
That said they do seem genuinely keen to learn from their mistakes and opening something on that scale is bound to have mistakes.
I certainly wasn’t aware they closed on Mondays, so there may be a problem with signage, it also takes a bit of finding on their website, but both of these things may be as much my fault as theirs.
Very annoying for the people who turned up though.
They also have a blog with no comments on it that I could find I left the following comment:
“Best wishes for today’s opening JWMT and welcome to the Thanet blogging community”.
Got this response:
Michael Child wrote: Best wishes for today’s opening JWMT and welcome to the Thanet blogging community
Your comment needs moderation. Posted on: April 16, 2011 at 8:16 am
It still hasn’t appeared, something that makes me wonder if there are other comments waiting in moderation. I hope no one famous has commented, do I mean that? I think so.
Not exactly rocket science to check out the opening hours before going, but really good opportunity for another whinge. Don't you just love that element in our society.
ReplyDeleteDifficult when contemporary art is concerned you may remember Equivalent VIII and the winging started by the Sunday Times that the Tate had dropped a brick, well 120 because of the number of factors involved.
ReplyDeleteRumour is that after Carl Andre had sold it to them, he had. What? Used them to build a wall, well in the circumstances probably a barbecue or barbeque in his garden, so he ordered another lot, and told the, brickworks, would it be? No come to think about it they had closed, so it must have been the builder’s merchants. To ship them to the Tate and bill him.
I was doing carcassing work for the V&A at the time, don’t ask, so I had an insiders ear, most whinged about art exhibit I can think of, was it worth £2297 however I suspect it was the whingeing that made it so famous, it probably brought more people to the Tate than any other item, you have to appreciate that now if it was sold it would probably raise much more than The Turner Contemporary cost to build. Why? Because of the content? Probably not? Maybe the whingers?
Tourism never sleeps. Regeneration requires a seven days a week committment. If your closed the money goes elsewhere and there are other places to go on the Kent coast. Margate has a fabulous opportunity with the Turner. Closing within a few days of opening, and sending droves of disgruntled visitors away seems irrational. If you read about the artistic life of Turner it involved total committment to the work-can we learn from that?
ReplyDeleteIf the Turner was open 24/7 somebody would whinge about the waste of power. Thanet is simply a no win situation as far as some of its residents are concerned.
ReplyDeleteThe home page of the web site flashes "16-25 april opening celebrations - admission free" at you. Does not say excludes the 18th! It may not be economic for the gallery to open 7 days a weeks but surely to gain the benifit from all that free publicity it should have opened on Monday.
ReplyDeleteIf this is the only show in Town maybe TDC can pay for the costs of opening on Mondays. They currently pay nothing towards the £2.2 millions running costs.
Thanks for so many many photo;s, as you offered I have indeed put some of them on my blog about the toilets.
ReplyDelete