Savage Messiah: Ken Russell > Savage Messiah: Ken Russell
Ken in The Times 2009
Iain Fisher:
Ken in The Times today 16 Jun 2009
Ken on Andy Warhol and a new Andy Warhol: Treasures, by Matt Wrbican and Geralyn Huxley. “A beautiful, golden-painted, padded hardback as comfy to the touch as a pillow, with Warhol’s iconic portrait of Marilyn Monroe on the cover, this book is a steal at £30. You can feel his ghost hovering over this successful enterprise. “
Ken says “…The unique selling point of this clever book is the 21 carefully reproduced knick-knacks and mementoes that are secreted throughout in pockets and envelopes, like a handcrafted treasure map of teasingly significant and mundane clues to his almost-too-fascinating life. The receipt for the last cab ride he took to the hospital. His childhood report card on which the teacher ticks him into the “pleasant” category but stops short of calling him “appealing”. His stencils for the Campbell’s soup logo, his hand-painted paper doll outfits. An early fan postcard to Truman Capote. A get-well card from Edie Sedgwick, sent from the mental institution, to his hospital bed after he was shot by Valerie Solanas. The first interview of the transvestite star Candy Darling . . . and more.
With all the removable bits and pieces spread around my chair, I’m happily in Andyland.”
Ken talks of his meeting with Warhol “…Summoned to his studio, the Factory, to be interviewed for an article that he planned to write, I became one of his thousands of filmed and videotaped experiments in black and white. Warhol had his right-hand man, Paul Morrissey, do the filming of me. I was invited to prattle on about anything that came to mind: I chose my days in the Merchant Navy to extemporise about. Morrissey had an “aha!” moment: “Yes! We’ll call this ‘Ken Russell steams into NYC’.”
Ken finshes “He was a much better artist than he gave himself credit for, and that’s what this fun book with its even-handed, unsensationalised text illustrates.”
Iain Fisher:
Ken in The Times 2 Jun 2009
Ken writes about a photography exhibition in London. It is the first European show by the Colombian photography collective Click por los barrios (“Click for the neighbourhoods”).
Ken says “I haven’t been this excited by a group of photographs since my own fledgeling professional output in the 1950s of photographic social essays of Portobello street scenes and Teddy girls.”
The exhibition, called A Trace of My Existence is at Chats Palace Arts Centre, Hackney, London E9 (chatspalace.com). There are 16 black-and-white photographs by children aged 5 to 26 from Colombia, all of whom have been trained and sponsored by Click por los barrios."
Ken says “With the help of the show’s curator, Peter Young, of the Chats Palace photography department, the London photographer Zoë Petersen spent two years making it possible for the exhibit to come here. I asked her about the children of Medellín whom she observed when visiting the Colombian photo classes. “One little boy who used to busk on buses on a Saturday swapped his work day to Sunday so he could take part in the Saturday workshops with Click,” she says.”
Ken continues “The photographs in the exhibit show unexpected facility. Fresh eyes look at moments of confidence, abandon, clarity and playfulness. The subjects are full of charm, humour, pathos and a kind of triumphant dignity. Free of dogma or clichés, the pictures express the simplicity of childhood, the delights of friendship, the mysteries of environment, the possibilities for normal exuberance in a culture of displacement. One little girl tips upside-down in a handstand. A boy’s sober face confronts us like a luminous panther in a jungle of ferns. A sturdy young fellow poses with a shovel. A child sprawls on the ground beneath a clothesline of just-washed trousers. The angles, the light, are happy accidents or well chosen.”
Iain Fisher:
Nothing by Ken today.
Iain Fisher:
Nothing by Ken this week.
Iain Fisher:
Ken in The Times, 5 May 2009
Ken is a judge of the Alternative Miss World 2009 at The Roundhouse in London. The theme, ideal for Ken, is “the elements” — earth, air, fire, water and the void.
Ken says “There is something incredibly sane about walking up Hampstead Hill in a long black ceremonial robe with gold glitter in broad daylight. A smattering of spontaneous applause erupts from casual sidewalk café-dwellers; a girl stops her car mid-traffic to get out and embrace me and my wife Elise (in fire-engine red silk dragon-fabric) for our sartorial overkill.”
“…Modelled on the Crufts dog show, it judges the contestants on poise, personality and originality.. the contest has achieved legendary status and full-to-bursting attendance as a celebration of art, fashion, music and performance… One year a man wore another man as a hat.”
Fellow judges include the sculptor Bruce Lacey (subject of Ken’s 1962 TV film Preservation Man) and one of the hosts is Ruby Wax.
“Contestants have names such as Miss Flotsam, Miss I Killed the Mary Celeste, Miss No Signs of Any Civilisation Whatsoever, Miss Dementia Praecox and Will Be Miss(ed) . . .”
“…Miss Hokusai enters as a patient on an operating table — very T. S. Eliot. I’m beginning to feel anesthetised myself. When does more become too much? After four hours, the bouncing yarn dreadlocks and spectacular bobbing pseudopods begin to blur. I’m already leaning visibly in the direction of the gyrating Miss Sahara and her Amazonian curves — until she gives mock-birth on stage to the dark continent.”
“...But just when you think you’ll overdose on one more silver robot, the moment for which we dared not hope erupts: an also-ran emerges and blows away the competition in a surprise tour de force. Petite Miss Fancy Chance, a 4ft10in young Korean lady, is propelled on to the stage at the apex of a 20ft dress whose skirts are as delicate, round and magnificent as a planet. The layers of her petticoats fall away to reveal a cage in which a cyclist pumps away at clockwork gears. A wire descends to lift Miss Chance by her braid alone to the vaulted ceiling, where she performs graceful arabesques in mid-air. Ahhhh. We’re in love. “
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version