The fact is I had never heard of Ariana Granda …..till now that is…… or her fans, the targets of a terrorist, just for being girls dressed up to go out singing and dancing to music they loved. The sudden heatwave was a good excuse to sit & ponder and read the Guardian from cover to cover. Last Thursday there was an article by Lucy Easthope, a senior lecturer specialising in disaster response (the speeches people make). Well I didn’t like the ‘disaster response’ message of every politician and public figure in Manchester on Tuesday morning. It was too early to spout the ‘we are strong, we will survive’ message. We were not strong that morning and a pause to be angry and shocked would have been better. Lucy Easthope has the grace to admit publicly that her message of 11 years is wrong.
Judy Chicago has found a ‘hole’ in Liverpool, a derelict drain silo on the Stanley Dock. I always smile when I remember our introduction to her art in the Ben Uri gallery on one of our London trips. It’s a fabulous name Judy Chicago, but her art was not to everyone’s taste, many fled at the first sight, some paused before fleeing and just a few stayed to try and absorb her raw stark angry messages.
Jeremy Deller makes me smile even more. I remember our first encounter with this slight young figure who took to the stage for a Tuesday Talk in the old lecture theatre. His first words “I’m not really an artist, I can’t paint or make things”. But he was already a Turner Prize winner by then and he just talked about how creating events were his way of expressing himself. His pavilion at the Venice Biennale was extraordinary and most recently the WW1 memorial of all the soldiers killed in the Battle of the Somme. Like all fans everywhere when I met him again at a small event in Miss Selfridge’s I asked him for his autograph.
Judy Chicago & Jeremy Deller will be helping Liverpool to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Sgt Pepper till 16th June
“we’re here because we’re here” Battle of the Somme commemoration.
joanatfow 