Art & Music - David Bowie Is - Paris exhibition

"Ultra violence in Liberty fabrics" - David Bowie (on his costume for his performance of Starman on Top of the Pops.

I cannot tell you how excited I was to see a poster for the "David Bowie Is" exhibition I when arrived at the Gare du Nord in Paris the other day. When the exhibition premiered in London in 2013 it was essentially impossible to obtain a ticket in advance. Hence the delight in logging onto the Paris Philharmonie website to find that tickets were not only available but in abundance!

The Paris Philharmie

David Bowie Is - is a retrospective spanning the length of Bowie's career (in both music and film) and which started in his birthplace in Brixton, south London.  I loved the super-techy audio guides because the music and commentary automatically switches when one moves to a different part of the exhibition space.  The audio guides helps to put us younger Bowie fans into the sounds of the 1960s, setting the scene for Bowie's musical influences as he grew up.  The visual feast continued as we move into the 1980s, with throw-back TV performances of Bowie on 'Top of the Pops'. True Bowie fans spent hours poring over Bowie's handwritten lyrics and sketches.

David Bowie costumes

I'm coming to the Bowie party late - when I grew up, my first encounter with Bowie was his performance of the Goblin King in Labryinth. I was a rather sensitive child and the film scared the bejeezus out of me and he's been largely banished from my memory since.  However seeing the collection of Bowie's work in one place has ignited an interest in his genius; it brings home how brilliant, elegant, chameleonic he was and still is.

David Bowie Is exhibition

David Bowie costume design

If you didn't manage to catch the exhibition in London....Go! Go! Go! The Paris Philharmonie is immediately in front of the Porte Pantin metro station, and as it is only a few stops away from the Eurostar station so you'll be there quicker than you can say Ziggy Stardust.

David Bowie Is, Paris Philharmonie - exhibition in Paris until May 31 2015. The exhibition then tours to Melbourne, Australia from 16 July 2015.

The Lost Lectures, Lost on Trial at Hornsey Town Hall

There's an L at the top of that. 

The lovely folks at Lost Lectures (fronted by a bubbly chap called Julian) host themed lectures around London (and NYC, and Berlin!) at secret locations. Tonight we hiked out to Hornsey Town Hall in North London to see:

• Elizabeth Pisani - a woman who was an expert on Indonesia but spoke about corruption(ish). 
• David Allen Green - a lawyer who spoke about law and magic
• Killing Kittens - the founder of a sex party business who talked about herself
• Andy Zaltzman - satirist for hire 
• Andrew Logan - the founder of Alternative Miss World who introduced us, by slideshow, of all the Alternative Miss World winners from the 70s to 2014
• Rafe Ofer from Sofar Sounds - introducing a concept of bringing music, gigs and music lovers together

The concept of the Lost Lectures is certainly appealing and clever, if one is up for a night of unexpected twists and turns, with interesting and engaging speakers. Sadly, this evening's speakers ranged from being amazing, funny and inspiring (Andy Zaltzman and Rafe Ofer) to endearing (Andrew Logan) to.....the lady from Killing Kittens. She runs a sex party business that is supposed to engender women to embrace their sexuality. That started off being really promising but then descended into toe curling disaster once she went on some convoluted tangent on feminism. I worry that she might be sad that I didn't enjoy her talk, but then again, she did quote Coco Chanel, "I don't care what you think about me. I don't think about you at all." Fair enough, so I don't suppose she would be concerned that my friend described her as "amateur TED Talks".

The star of the show was definitely Hornsey Town Hall which is now being used as an art space. It's a beautiful example of modernist architecture. The building was closed down in the 80s and despite the art centre having a short term lease, the long term future of the Town Hall is still undecided. Hopefully it won't be turned into luxury flats, as on our visit this evening, when the building was rammed full of happy and excited people, bringing to life the faded grandeur of the Town Hall.

The Lost Lectures

Details: Tonight's Lost Lectures was £45 per person. Drinks and food available. See their website for forthcoming events. www.thelostlectures.com

Bermondsey Street - wanderings

Oh what a luxury! Afternoon off work, nothing accomplished aside from meandering down the lengthy of Bermondsey Street. 

We began with lunch at Casse-Croûte, a relatively recent addition to the restaurant scene.  It is unashamedly, a faithful reenactment of classic French bistro. Clearly this is something that Londoners don't seem to tire of, as the small dining area was buzzing by 1pm and we were pleased to see our reservation hastily scrawled in market on the paper tablecloth. The menu changes daily and is duly posted on Casse Croute's Twitter account so whilst counting down the hours this morning I had already settled on trying their pigs trotter starter - wrapped in tight rolls of deep-fried filo pastry, served with a tartare sauce to cut through the richness of the porky-gelatinous meat contained inside. It was an extremely well-constructed dish although strangely reminiscent of a Chinese spring roll.

For mains we had a shoulder of lamb served classically with vegetables and red win jus, served with a dish of creamy polenta (and by creamy I mean the seriously heart attack inducing type), as well as a fillet of sole, simply served served with a fresh tomato and herb sauce on rice. Meal for two including wine, £60.

Whilst the tarte citron at Casse Croute looked delicious, on my way to the venue I had come across Watch House Coffee at the southern end of Bermondsey Street. The former derelict watch house that stood in the corner of the cemetery has been transformed into a stylish coffee house. I noticed some beautiful details - the black and copper colour watchtower window which represents the brand's motif is incorporated in the interiors, such as the delicate copper vases, bowls and coffee sleeves.  High ceilings expose original brickwork and wooden beams. Most importantly, it also served a pretty decent coffee and a sticky, chewy, salted-caramel brownie.  We chatted to the barista, a chirpy, whistling young man who also introduced us to some cool new music from London artist, Shakka.

Lunch, coffee and cake done, we dragged our feet back towards the White Cube gallery. Who knew galleries could be so much fun in London when they're near empty on a Tuesday afternoon? Christian Marclay's exhibition is a study in sound and other than describing what I saw perhaps those preferring a more detailed dissertation of his work can redirect themselves to an article in the London Review of Books (here). 

Marclay explores the subject of sound in a range of media including pop-art paintings/prints, sound and video installations and performance.  On our visit we watched woman stood in the middle of the performance space, measuredly pouring water into various wine bottles, the sounds of which were being live recorded by sound engineers onto vinyl. Marclay has installed a vinyl record press and a screen printing machine and these are put in full use on weekends where guest musicians led by the London Sinfonietta are invited to perform and record works that are then immediately pressed, printed and sold in the gallery shop.