Author: Lydia Firth

By Lydia Firth

The Turner Prize is considered the most prestigious art award in Britain. In 2023, the winner was Jesse Darling, with an exhibition involving a series of erratically distorted modern objects including crowd control barriers and barbed wire. The apocalyptic scene is both disturbing and humorous; it’s almost unclear whether the humour lies in the cartoonish contortions of the objects which make them look strangely animated, or in the simplistic, haphazard, (dare I say shoddy) nature of the art – which was awarded the biggest honour in the British art world. The Turner Prize is notoriously divisive, with traditionalists scorning entries like Darling’s, reflecting on what they perceive to be the decline of art, disdaining the fact that Romantic painter JMW Turner’s name is associated with contemporary ‘nonsense’.

For many, this exhibition would prompt the reductive phrase uttered in many a modern art gallery, “I could do that”. There are several responses to this: the camp that would reply, “yeah but you didn’t” (and then slightly risk validating any art or any artist by default), and the camp that would claim “you just don’t get it”. Perhaps the latter is the case for the uninformed viewer of Darling’s work, as by reading more about his winning exhibition, I began to appreciate it a bit more. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it required much skill to assemble tattered bunting and old office files, but reading about Darling’s intentions and beliefs helped to somewhat enlighten his detritus. The arranged objects evoke themes of nationality, identity, austerity and immigration. On further examination, the objects are manipulated precisely and cleverly: the barriers are drunkenly tilted, union jack flags sag mournfully, crutches lean against the wall on standby. The Guardian’s Adrian Searle deemed it ‘a theatre of last things’. I think Darling somewhat captures the zeitgeist, which I suppose is easy, and worrying, when it can be represented by a series of broken things.

For me, it’s a fine line between defending this type of art from those who would immediately dismiss Darling’s work as clumsy and deny any validity to its political and social sentiment, but also having the integrity to question whether it is good. Of course, whether art is good or not is mainly down to the viewer, or in the Turner Prize’s case, a jury who commended Darling’s evocation of “a familiar yet delirious world invoking societal breakdown”. Conceptualising ‘good’ art raises the point that our definition of what art should do, or be, has shifted: we can surely assume the impressionists would look upon this room of fragmented debris and be utterly repulsed. Our conception of what can be defined as art has widened – now, art does not exist solely as an object of absolute aesthetic beauty, but it can also be inherently unaesthetic, political commentary, akin to Darling’s. Through championing the latter, we must not let the former slip away, or be dismissed for frivolity. What is visual art if not somewhat superficial?

Where I find most difficulty with Darling’s exhibition, and then with much of conceptual art, is that it fails to stand alone without any supplementary literature. I fear this has become a chronic issue in contemporary art. The point of visual art is that it is visual; we shouldn’t need to read to understand what the artist is trying to do, because then it is only excelling with the help of literature. It’s an all-too-familiar feeling for me, walking into an exhibition open-minded and yet still desperately looking for something to read that will enlighten the artwork. Art should stand alone without a literary crutch, and it should provoke the viewer (whether emotionally, intellectually, viscerally), not just mystify them. 

I am undecided on Darling’s landscape of broken and discarded things. I would defend it from reactionary traditionalists, highlighting the warped barriers that allude to painfully current themes such as the right to protest and political boundaries. I would also refrain from calling it excellent art. Whether this speaks to its failure, or perhaps its success, I’ll leave up to you.

Image credit: The Art Newspaper

By Lydia Firth

Having recently moved to Sussex, I was excited by the prospect of rolling hills, proximity to London, and new cultural hotspots. Charleston House quickly made my list of places to visit. Charleston was the home and studio of the painters Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, and it became a meeting point for the Bloomsbury Set: a group of artists, intellectuals, writers, and philosophers in early 20th century England. Frequent visitors to the house included Virginia Woolf and her husband Leonard, alongside the great E.M. Forster. The house itself is positioned among a truly novelistic English garden full of dahlias and drooping trees in the orbit of a pond laden with lily pads. Perhaps it was just the haziness of the hot September day on which I visited, but it felt quite genuinely magical.

For magpie-minded individuals like me, the house is an absolute treasure trove of stunning interiors and objects. Each room is so delightfully curated and reflects the Bloomsbury group’s originality and collaboration. No surface is left untouched, and each object is handcrafted. The side of the bath is adorned with a painting of a reclining nude; fired in the house’s own kiln, the kitchen sink tiles are painted with pink silky fish; a lampshade made from a painted colander pleasantly throws out gentle stripes of light; rugs lay supine and hand-tied in a myriad of colours. A bust of Virginia Woolf casually placed in a bedroom window reminds me of the time she spent here. 

Above and below the window of Bell’s old bedroom, Grant elegantly depicted both a cockerel and the family’s lurcher to wake her in the morning and guard her by night. This epitomises the consideration put into the design of their home – it exists as a little in-joke between the couple, as well as being ornamental.

There is precision in the artistic curation from room to room: the colour palette melds the house together in one harmonious aesthetic, punctuated by the consistent display of Bell and Grant’s paintings throughout. As well as seeming calculated, the design retains its spontaneity in both the freehand murals which cover doors, chairs, bedheads, and the thin washes of warm-toned paints which coat walls, brushstrokes peeking through. It could be described as ‘interior design nonchalance’: colours, shapes, and patterns obviously came very naturally to the residents. There is a surprising sense of the contemporary, and the textiles, colour palette and adorned furniture remind me of the likes of Oliver Bonas and Anthropologie. Writer and curator Charlier Porter points out the irony “that Charleston inspires stuff that gets mass-produced, because what the house asks you to do, always, is to think for yourself.” 

Whilst the house is preserved exactly as it was, the space remains dynamic. An unpainted pelmet may appear tomorrow with a little floral flourish, for example. The lack of stagnation speaks to their authenticity and reflects their ideology. Grant himself was originally drawn thereto because the agricultural work that the house implied his part in made him exempt from conscription from WWI – perhaps a literal lifeline for the conscientious objector. Furthermore, it meant that the visitors of Charleston’s unconventional and often intertwining romantic lives were able to play out in what was a counter-cultural refuge from London life. Dorothy Parker quipped that the Bloomsbury Group “lived in squares, painted in circles, and loved in triangles”. The house could almost be seen as one of the members of the group: it feels like both a companion and a living representation of their dislike for convention. Indeed, the level of detail employed on every surface and in every corner cements it as an externalisation of their ethos.

I urge you to visit and enjoy this submersion into 20^th century artistic living.

By Lydia Firth.

I grew up with my Dad being an ultimate hardcore Bob Dylan fan, to the extent that he claimed he no longer needed to listen to his music as he knew every song and every line (absurd behaviour). I dismissed Dylan’s music as a shambolic attack on the ears made for balding English teachers to harp on about. Cut to several years ago, my two elder brothers joined the Dylan fanbase and proceeded to have long conversations with him about his extensive back catalogue and to wash up after dinner to the dulcet tones of a man with a voice like a revving motorbike. They were completely captivated by him, and I simply did not get it. 

Around that time, I was beginning to find my way into the world of 60s and 70s music and I stumbled upon Joni Mitchell. I was immediately mesmerised by her and her music. I spent a year listening almost exclusively to Joni, immersing myself in her rich world. To my family’s delight, I no longer resisted the pull of folk music, but I gave in to its seduction. She became my Bob Dylan.

Joni’s equally colossal discography demonstrates her incredibly versatile talent, starting with her 1968 debut album ‘Song to a Seagull’ which reflects her wistful and elaborate storytelling abilities, contrasting with her later more mature and worldly jazz albums. In 1971, she released ‘Blue’ which has to be the ultimate no-skip album – every song is absolutely sublime. To no surprise, it is regarded by music critics as one of the greatest albums of all time. It is intensely personal (‘Little Green’ talks of Joni’s daughter, whom she gave up for adoption in 1965) and yet feels like both an ode to the female experience and a perfectly precise and tragic “break-up album”. The last track on the album, ‘The Last Time I Saw Richard’, opens with this verse:

‘The last time I saw Richard was Detroit in ’68

And he told me all romantics meet the same fate someday

Cynical and drunk and boring someone in some dark cafe

You laugh, he said you think you’re immune, go look at your eyes

They’re full of moon

You like roses and kisses and pretty men to tell you

All those pretty lies, pretty lies

When you gonna realize they’re only pretty lies

Only pretty lies, just pretty lies’.

This embodies her hopeful yet embittered personality that we can track throughout her music, a fusion of romanticism and pessimism that I both adore and identify with. In ‘Woman of Heart and Mind’ from the underrated 1972 album ‘For the Roses’, she untangles romance and disappointment:

‘Drive your bargains

Push your papers

Win your medals

Fuck your strangers

Don’t it leave you on the empty side’.

This cutting summary of her ex-lover’s downfalls feels particularly loaded when combined with an f-bomb and sung by a woman who also sings of eyes ‘full of moon’. She really is a woman who can do it all.

Not only does she sing of love and loss, but her lyrics are also steeped with political sentiment. The well-known ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ (1970), despite sounding upbeat, addresses worryingly current environmental concerns, and ‘Sex Kills’ (1994) talks of ‘little kids packin’ guns to school’. It is undeniable that Joni is politically and emotionally perceptive and perpetually current.

So, my Joni obsession began. I became far less resistant to the harmonica-infused tones of Bob Dylan and I was now able to join in with my family’s folk-based conversations and bond with my Dad, who was, and still is, impressed by the Google Home’s ability to play any song you ask for. 
Ironically, Joni absolutely detested any comparisons to Dylan, as she was often (sexistly) paralleled as the female equivalent to him. But, for me, she was that female equivalent. I was drawn in by her musical, emotional, and poetic brilliance. She stated ‘We are like night and day, [Dylan] and I… Bob is not authentic at all.’. Whether or not to agree with this contentious statement aside; they are night and day, with Mitchell providing a perfect, and equally strong, antidote to the domination of Dylan in both my household, and the music world.