WALKING (NOT EXACTLY) WITH MICHAEL AND JOHN

 

I first came across the work of Michael Landy while walking along Oxford Street 

sometime in 2001.  There, in a vacated C&A shop, Landry was having all his 

worldly goods, including a car, destroyed and put in bin sacks. The work was 

titled Break Down.

 

It was a wonderful and extraordinary idea.  As John Lennon didn’t quite say, it’s not all that hard to imagine having no possessions, but it’s very hard indeed to imagine destroying the ones you’ve got. And even if some of us have thought about doing it, it takes a very brave man to actually do it.

 

Right now if you find yourself walking into the Firstsite Gallery in Colchester you’ll see a giant piece of wall art (it’s not exactly a mural) by Landy, that was part of an exhibition titled ‘Michael Landy’s Welcome to Essex.’

        

The piece, essentially a map collage, was apparently inspired by Essex walks that Landy did with people such as Gillian Darley, Elsa James and Pam Cox, who are respectively a writer, an artist and a sociologist. 

 

It was the map of course that drew me in, but I keep thinking about that part that says ‘Welcome to England’s Most Misunderstood County’ – (also available as a postcard).  I’d have thought that was Norfolk (as in ‘normal for Norfolk’).  But then again as a Yorkshireman I’d say very few people ‘get’ Yorkshire. Or maybe that’s the nature of the beast – wherever you’re from, you think people don’t understand you.

 

One person who apparently does get Essex, is John Cooper Clark, who in my ignorance I always assumed still lived in Manchester.  But it’s there in my copy of the free magazine Colchester and Manningtree Life, that he lives in, or close to, Colchester and is a great booster for the place. He says, ‘That’s the great thing about Colchester really.  If you walk in any direction for twenty minutes, you’re actually in the countryside. Plus it’s not too far from Clacton, Walton and Winton on Sea, splendid staycation sites there.  Almost within walking distance.’  

 

Of course ‘almost within walking distance’ usually means notwithin walking distance.  But it depends on who’s doing the walking.

 

JCC’s third album (on clear vinyl!) was titled Walking Back to Happiness.  

 

WALKING WITH WEIWEI

Ai Weiwei depicted in a mural in the L.A. Art District:

I've tried and failed to find who the artist is.  I guess that's how it is with street art.  

Somebody might tell me.

The Sunday Times just had an extract from Ai Weiwei’s memoir 1000 Years of Joys and 

Sorrows, about his 81-day incarceration in Beijing in 2011, having been deemed a ‘national 

security risk.’

 

It’s grim and disturbing stuff, and of course he was treated appallingly by the Chinese authorities, and yet I wonder why they didn’t treat him worse. They could certainly have given him a life sentence, for instance. The only obvious reason I can think of for this comparative leniency is international opinion and fear that they might turn him into a martyr.  Today he seems to be allowed to travel anywhere in the world.

 

Weiwei’s work S.A.C.R.E.D. features dioramas depicting his incarceration including this one:

 

The memoir describes what he calls a room rather than a cell, ' some 280 square feet and the floor was laid with brown ceramic tiles, each 2 ft by 2ft, six tiles across and 12 tiles down.  I could exercise only on the six square in the middle of the room: after walking seven steps I had to turn around and go back in the other direction.'

    Then later: ‘From 6.50 to 7.40 am was reserved for exercise, which consisted of walking back and forth on the six permitted tiles.  The guards accompanied me on either side, walking and turning just as I did, maintaining their position and adjusting their distance as necessary, to make sure I didn’t suffer some mishap – however unlikely that might be.  Together we made up the world’s smallest drill team, but in time we reached a high level of wordless co-ordination, sensitive to the slightest changes in rhythm.’

 

         I was left wondering whether it was always the same two guards. Presumably not.  Even in China prison guards must get a day off.  So were some guards better than others at walking with him? I don’t know.

 

Now Weiwei’s free to walk more or less where he likes, such as below, where he’s seen with Anish Kapoor, walking from the Royal Academy to Stratford. The blanket shows solidarity with refugees.  (photo by Mat Smith)  

QUEENLY WALKING

 Want to see the queen with a walking stick, photographed last week?

Want to see the queen with a walking stick 17 years ago after she had a knee operation?

WALKING WITH FELINES

 I was walking in the neighborhood and came across a man taking his cat for a walk.  

The man is named Steve.  The cat is named Boris the Bold.  I’d have thought that most cats would resist violently being put on a lead, but Steve explained, ‘He’s never known anything different.’

 

I was of course reminded of this picture of Cary Grant and his cat, or at least somebody’s cat, walking in L.A..

 

And of course there are these familiar leashed black cats, also in Los Angeles, attending an open casting call.

 

A little digging around also revealed this photo of Dr Ava Cadell, the founder of Loveology University.  Before she was a doctor she was an actress starring in such movies as Lunch Box, and Not of This Earth.  And yes, she is a genuine cat lover.

 

And finally there's this faked picture (not faked by me) of Barry Obama.  I think it’s supposed to make him look weak, like somebody who can be pulled around by felines, but in fact I think it makes him look very human, and also as though he's enjoying himself.

 

WALKING STILL

It's true that I've not been spending a lot of time worrying about this woman I saw walking in the street in Colchester a couple of years back.  She is after all just a bronze statue, an artwork by Sean Henry, and able to take care of herself.

And yet looking at her yesterday, she was surrounding by a sea of road works, or perhaps earthworks, and that did seem somehow troubling:

But maybe I was being oversensitive.  I mean, she was still upright, and still walking, though admittedly still not getting anywhere