Sometimes I wonder if I am a serious
artist or even a serious person.
On Saturday I went to
see the Munch
exhibition at Tate Modern and I was
thinking about it as I walked back to
London Bridge underground station along the embankment.
It was another of these cloudy windy any-minute-it-will-rain
days but quite mild and my raincoat was too much.
I had spent a long time in the exhibition and even longer
in the bookshop and now I was tired and wanted to
get home.
I entered Borough
Market,
that enticing assemblage of sights, smells and sounds,
and slowly made my way around crowded stalls offering
an infinite variety of cheeses, wines, spices, pastries,
pies, cakes, pasta, roasted meats, exotic cooked
dishes from around the world - I wanted to taste and
buy all of them but couldn't choose so I followed
the sound of music coming from the central piazza.
Bingo!
All tiredness, ruminations on art, Munch and
all the rest of them evaporated as
I surrendered mind, body and soul to the rhythm of J'Attendrai played
in the style of the Hot
Club de France by a
great band celebrating Le
Quatorze Juillet. Leaning against
a conveniently parked car, I let my feet pound the beat
while I switched my camera to movie mode and pointed
it. Gradually a few people moved into the centre and
started to dance and I kept filming but didn't notice
that my battery had run out so this movie
fragment is the only bit that was recorded: two guys
too drunk on love and booze to be graceful but certainly
having a ball.
Later a young
man dressed as a French waiter pulled me onto the
floor and I danced my socks off. The crowd applauded
- no doubt because an Oldie dancing like that is an oddity.
Several mobile phones were filming the incident -
I hope none of them were bloggers. But a Japanese tourist
asked me if I was a professional dancer so I was flattered
and considered joining the band to sing my Piaf
numbers. Fortunately the band took a break at that moment
and I decided it was time to go.
Back home in high spirits, whatever
serious thoughts I may have had earlier about tragic,
talented, tortured Munch were gone with the wind
and I'm not in the mood to try and recapture them. If
you can't see the exhibition itself, get hold of this
terrific film by Peter Watkins, a docudrama in which
much of the narration is from Munch's own diaries. I
bought the DVD in the Tate Modern bookshop.
No comments:
Post a Comment