Fishstock, Brixham 2011 and Devon Open Studios

August has been a bit busy: A holiday in sunny Portugal and a number of gallery visits, combined with other time-consuming stuff, hasn't left much opportunity for blogging.

Art in Portugal

So no chance to write about Alex Katz at Tate St Ives, Peter Blake and Pop Music at the Pallant Gallery, or Raw Materials at Bristol Museum & Art Gallery (Jenny Holzer, Ed Ruscha, Bruce Nauman and Laurence Weiner). In a nutshell, these were all good - although, for me, the Raw Materials exhibition was not quite as good as the line-up might suggest.

Raw Materials: Laurence Weiner

Fishstock Festival

But this post is really to alert you to the latest annual Fishstock Festival taking place at Brixham tomorrow 8 September (and to Devon Open Studios that also starts 8 September).

Fishstock 2011

The day-long Fishstock festival is held at the Fish Market in aid of the Fishermen's Mission - a charity supporting fisherman and their families. It is a slightly odd but enjoyable mixture of music, food, crafts, boats - and lots of fish. This year there are a dozen acts appearing on the main stage and a further eleven on the acoustic one. In addition there are over twenty outside stalls and over fifty inside ones showing local businesses, crafts and lots of food. There are also maritime displays and cookery demonstrations. Full details here (music) and here (stalls).

Phillip Henry & Hannah Martin

Last year the weather was pretty good and everyone had a great time. Highlights for me included Phillip Henry & Hannah Martin (appearing again this year) and the Roobs (favourites with the locals) who did a funky and well-selected set of tunes including Teenage Dirtbag, Need You Tonight, Poker Face and Where Is the Love?  

The Roobs

The Fisherman's Friends were the 'stars' of the show. I didn't know much about them previously but they were both funny and entertaining.  The weather looks good again this year, so hopefully it will be terrific day. Here are some more photos from 2011:

Fisherman's Friends

The inside stalls

Paddy's Whiskers

 

Fish

Folk dancers

Maggie Duffy & Mike Weed

  

And, of course, some Tahitian stuff

Devon Open Studios

Devon Open Studios runs from September 8 to 23. It is an opportunity to meet artists in their studios and, if you wish, to buy art direct from the creator. Some artists may demonstrate, give talks or give you a chance to have a go. The event guide is available here or you can pick up a copy at Devon and Somerset libraries, tourist information centres, major art venues, etc.

 

Catching Up: Pipilotti Rist, Frank Stella, Postmodernism, Gerhard Richter and more ...

Life has been busy recently and I've been to more exhibitions/gigs than usual - so I'm afraid that the blog has got a little behind.  This is the first step in clearing the backlog and bringing the blog up to date.

Frank Stella - from Connections at Haunch & Venison

Sadly, several of the exhibitions I've seen are now finished, including: the excellent Frank Stella - Connections at the Haunch & Venison; the British Art Show 7 - In the Days of the Comet at Plymouth; the Fishstock festival at Brixham; and Steeleye Span - the Now We Are Six tour at Babbacombe. I'll post a few photos & stuff from these soon, but the real point of this post is to recommend some stuff that you can still get out to see over the next few weeks before they finish - stuff which, IMHO, should not be missed.

Postmodern Grace Jones

At the V&A there is Postmodernism: Style and Subversion (to 15 January) - an exhibition which shows the impact of postmodernism on popular culture as well as on architecture and design; at the Hayward, Pipilotti Rist has put together a great quirky and psychedelic show Eyeball Massage (to 8 January); at Somerset House, Twenty Years of Dazed and Confused (to 29 January - free) picks over some highlights from the magazine's history; and at Tate Modern, Gerhard Richter - Panorama  (to 8 January) shows why this artist is so impressive. These are all well worth going to see.  

See my updated posts: 10 Reasons to love Pipilotti Rist at the Hayward and 5 Reasons to catch 'Postmodernism' at the V&A.

 
Others which are still running include the Power of Making at the V&A (to 2 January) - this is free and can be fitted in alongside a visit to the Postmodernism show; John Martin - Apocalypse, at Tate Great Britain (to 15 January) - this one is interesting but I wouldn't say overly compelling; and the Indiscipline of Painting - international abstraction from the 1960s to now, at Tate St Ives, which I found a bit disappointing, but nevertheless worth a look at just six quid ...

Hyena Stomp 1962 by Frank Stella
from the Indiscipline of Painting at Tate St Ives

Here are some more upcoming events and stuff that may interest you:

The Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery (RAAM) in Exeter finally reopened this month after a long closure for refurbishment. There are three exhibitions which can be seen in the new galleries: Early British Photographs from the Royal Collection; French and British paintings from Impressionism to the early 1920s; and The Road to Rome - Artists and Travellers on the Grand Tour. In addition RAMM has commissioned a piece called Ghostwriter from Blast Theory - an artist group using interactive media - which can be accessed and interacted with by visitors as they enter the museum. Blast Theory are also exhibiting more extensively at Exeter Spacex until 18 February.

The Museum of Everything is having a two week sale until the 22nd December. This includes The Catalogue of Everything from exhibition #1 for £10 - which is good value, compared with £180 for the Books of Everything covering exhibitions #1 to #4. For £10 you get 20 12"x17" pages with descriptions of, and colour illustrations by, many of the contributors to exhibition #1, including a large section on Henry Darger.

Henry Darger

Folk - Phillip Henry and Hannah Martin's full back catalogue is now available for downloading. This includes Phillip's first solo album, About Time (2005), Live at Bath University (2009), and The School of Trobar - Love Songs and Trance Hymns (2007). These cost £6 - £8 each. Hard copies of Singing the Bones and Live in the Living Room are also available.

Finally, Stargazy Pie - a festive group show by the New Street Artists co-operative - is on in the (smallish) third room at the New Street Gallery in Penzance until the 23rd December. Worth a look if you are in Penzance.

Marta Killey at TAAG, Teignmouth

I was lucky enough to catch the last day of Marta Killey's exhibition at TAAG on Sunday.

Appropriately, given Marta's South American roots, it was a bright and rather sticky day in Teignmouth, and there were lots of people in town enjoying the sun, the beach, and the carnival fair. Late in the day, things were fairly quiet in the TAAG gallery but this allowed me to chat a little with the artist about her work. The exhibition seemed to have three main styles/themes. There were some highly accessible townscapes in bright oranges, yellows and greens, created using pen and ink and watercolour (the image below does not really do justice to the colours).

 Another style/theme included some denser and generally larger mixed media representations of  trees, mystical objects, etc:

Marta's most recent works are explorations of Yarner Wood on the edge of Dartmoor. I must admit that, living in Devon, I get a bit tired of bleak pictures of the moor (not to mention seascapes), but Marta's images explore the ever-changing woodland environment with a real lightness of touch and sense of movement.

I was very tempted to buy something but, given limited resources and the number of unhung prints I already have, I showed restraint and purchased some postcards instead.

You can see more of Marta's work on her excellent website, which she and her husband have recently refreshed, and which gives a better insight into her painting than I can even begin to do here.

all pictures above © Marta Killey

Hopefully you will also be able to get along to see her work which will be exhibiting during the third annual Fishstock "Urban Festival of Seafood and Music" at Brixham on the 10th September.

The opening acoustic act, by the way, is Phillip Henry and Hannah Martin - so it should be well worth going along.

© Whitney-Anne Baker  http://whitneysweirdstuff.blogspot.com

See also Teignmouth Arts Action Group (TAAG).

Phillip Henry and Hannah Martin

Phillip Henry and Hannah Martin played the Exmouth Festival in Manor Gardens on Sunday afternoon. There was a big crowd - mainly families - in the gardens enjoying the good weather. The couple did a short set but, surprisingly, stuck mainly to slower material and did not make much concession to the audience which was busy chatting, eating, playing etc. As a result it was only towards the end of their set when they changed gear to more lively stuff that they really engaged the crowd - which was a pity.

They played again at the Grapevine later in the evening - where the audience should be more ready to listen to Henry's spiritually-based dobro and Martin's mournful ballads. Here is a taste of their more upbeat final number on Sunday afternoon.

And don't forget their excellent new album 'Singing the Bones'.

In contrast, Phillip and Hannah were followed by the Paul Strange Quartet - described accurately as a 'Hammond-led 60's groove band'. They delivered lively versions of well-selected material including the Boxtops' 'The Letter' and Steely Dan's 'Reeling in the Years'. The crowd loved it.