You don't argue...

In spiritual vein, 3 posts for the price of one today. And as you'd not expect from this site there are to be no 'best of 2009' lists, wish lists, twhat lists or even decoupage of our previous Brit decade. The BBC has done that sociologically and depressingly well in The Story of the Noughties. Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe Review 2009 (BBC4 or read his column for The Guardian) is your man for the rap sheet on telly.

Let's try to forget the fact that Britain practically grinds to a halt everytime it snows (the town of Benson hit minus 17 degrees Celcius) and try to accentuate positive Brit. Gritting salt has run out for many a road. Look what happened to the Venetian Empire. A new book David Boyd Haycock's A Crisis Of Brilliance: Five Young British Artists and the Great War (i.e. WWI - Dora Carrington, Mark Gertler, Paul Nash, Christopher Nevinson and Stanley Spencer) does, however, beg the question of whether Britain after the 00ties possesses artistic brilliance or indeed any crisis to speak of. Popping over to Paris on the Eurostar for savoir-faire won't quite feel the same for many after being trapped in a tunnel for 15 hours. And let's face it many - even those in certain artistic realms - didn't know 15 years ago that the Festival d'Automne existed. And still don't. I imagine the riposte to that is 'we don't no French fry fest/ we got chavucatiiiooonn! Even the achievements of Brit Dept of Environment policy advisor and Norfolk lass Chrissie Wellington went relatively unheralded as for the third time in succession she became the Ironman Triathlon World Champion-9 hours of swimming, cycling, marathon. Adrenaline's nothing without the PR love.
Prince Harry may not have found love sleeping rough on the streets of London but he did manage to highlight homelessness at Christmas as we learnt that 1 in 5 schooleavers will be unemployed. Meanwhile BBC Radio 4's Saturday Review enlighteningly mused, "when will we see the Citizen Kane of new technology".

The curious and perhaps ironic thing about the past New Labour decade is that their American go-getting (or is that me-getting) economic push can cite in its defense many past Brit success or near success stories. They just happen to be mostly Americans. But recent men who've been lured to sort out various messes for the masses (you know who you are) just gave up in despair but most certainly not in penury and not without leaving a clean copy book. Britain was famous for its boffins - the most high profile, of course, being Sir Alan Sugar (he of the Amstrad computer) fronting TV entrepreneur reality show The Apprentice. And as BBC2' series The Noughties confirmed, Britain's last decade led the world in entertainment export (the format show). Oh, and football. While culture...well: in 3 episodes that word was never allowed out on its own unless in the company of the word celebrity.

Brit screenwriter Stuart Hazeldine has an otherworldly quality though choosing to work in the more commercial realm - rewrites for Knowing and The Day The Earth Stood Still- and with co-writer Simon Garrity Exam is his directorial debut (seen at Raindance and the Edinburgh Fest). A steely invigilator (Colin Salmon) locks eight candidates into a high-tech bunker with blank sheets of paper and an armed security guard. We watch their predicament in real-time. But what is the question let alone the answer? This could be David Lynch meets David Mamet shags David Fincher but isn't. Lynch is needed at the beginning to quell the wry smiles of 'it's The Apprentice slasher movie'. Fincher's needed in the middle where the mind games sag slightly and Mamet would come in handy at the end to give wry sociological depth. Apart from that it's not a bad debut - no damp praise intended. Seems all very London 2010 to me.

On the other side of the coin or is it the other face of the dollar (adds new meaning to blue 'collar' worker) Brit pioneers most often succeed by being outside prevailing common views - a subject worthy of a book rather than a blog. Classical composers spring to mind. William Walton decamped to sunnier climbs while colleagues battled on. Atheist but spiritual pacifist Vaughan-Williams stayed as did Sir Michael Tippet and Benjamin Britten. Even the populist and financially generous (from his film scores) Malcolm Arnold was left to rot and be swindled in a boarding house. But we always loved you is the salient cry. Nedup. Nedup. Something clearly that was never the case. In recent years filmmaker Peter Greenaway fled to Amsterdam, theatre director Peter Brook to Paris.
Composer George Benjamin interviewed on BBC Radio 3's Music Matters

In Episode 2 of BBC2's The Noughties: "Celebrity culture promised that wealth and success could be gained by merit whether that meant talent or just public appeal." Journalist Toby Young hit the nail on the designer handbag: "Because the celebrity class occurs in such a prominent position at the pinnacle of our society that fools ordinary people into thinking that British society in general is much more meritocratic than it is and that secures their consent to the vast inequality." In a sense and in essence not much in that regard has changed during the last decade though superficially class structure seems more to have broken down with 'ordinary' folk becoming celebrities. Celebrity culture has increased the urge to spend aided by New Labour's encouragement of riches and allowed more to afford the nightclubs frequented by celebrities, while of course, still maintaining a red rope and carpet between the haves and the have nots. But as legal immigrants continue pouring into Britain another worthwhile film release last November from Cinefile
Welcome
sensitively dramatised the plight of some whose only impossible hope is to swim the English Channel.
Container at the Young Vic

This year's Celebrity Big Brother (the last ever) has chosen hell, the devil and temptation as their theme. In Britain Christianity's never high on many an agenda and even the Archbishop of Canterbury is seen somewhat as a cool bloke in a cassock who preaches a lot of sense. So it must seem odd to many viewers having American film actor Stephen Baldwin preach his Christian beliefs on a TV reality show. Over the years the cynical Brit press have derided CBB inmates as washed up and in need of a make-over - all without whom, of course, their newspapers would probably have washed away. No-one in 'the house' is denying the fame or money but there's always more to it than that. Although taking a heavy fall during the recent recession, America remains a country of aspiration and optimism. Americans never really expect their 'celebrities' to be drinking at the same trough as themselves. Whereas in Britain, someone in 'the public eye' is damned if you do and damned if you don't mix with your admirers or past associates. Ivana Trump has just joined the 'house'. Let's hope she doesn't end up like Blanche DuBois. Though many would salivate at the thought. Whatever next.
We Live in Public showed that Big Brother had all been done before. Frighteningly so.
Barbara Kruger's work from the 90s showed at Sprüth Magers
Ever-Present Surveillance Rankles the British Public
Metropia (LFF) and 9 showed the future

Art critic Richard Cork has curated Wild Thing: Epstein, Gaudier-Brzeska, Gill at the Royal Academy (final weeks thru Jan 24)- the decade 1905-1915. Have we seen anything quite like Epstein's 1913 sculpture Rock Drill in recent years? One critic at the time called it "indescribably revolting". Oftentimes, artistic Britain does lead the world but that lead is so ahead and contrary to popular culture that nobody takes a blind bit of notice. Even when Roger Fry held his 1910 Manet and post-impressionists show at Grafton Galleries, Cézanne, Gauguin and Van Gogh public response was YUCK! Not all of Wild Thing measures up to the Epstein but all power to an institution like the Royal Academy for mounting a show that proves just what an uphill struggle it always is to tilt against the windmills of popular taste while knowing full well that your life depends on that palette.

Multi award-winner at the Césars (French BAFTAs) Martin Provost's film Séraphine was New York released back in June (Music Box Films) and in London start of December (Metrodome). Self-taught painter Séraphine de Senlis (gregarian and extraordinary Yolande Moreau) is housemaid by day and painter of colour bulging fruits and flowers illuminating the night. Wilhelm Uhde (Ulrich Tukur), a German collector and art critic, champions what he calls her "modern primitive" rather than “naïve” art - World War I interrupts, "I don't give a fig about war". Years later Uhde bumps into her art once again resulting in her upward mobility, fame and mental demise. Few films about artists have ever surpassed bio-pic curiosity: Maurice Pialat’s Van Gogh (1991), Victor Erice's The Quince Tree Sun (El sol de membrillo) (1992), Henri-Georges Clouzot's 1956 doco Le Mystere Picasso, John Maybury's Love is the Devil (Francis Bacon) and perhaps Jacques Rivette's 1991 La Belle Noiseuse - all notable exceptions. Does Séraphine join those ranks? Perhaps not quite, but the film does dig into the obsessiveness of art and creativity. And Yolande Moreau has you believe that she was born to embody Séraphine.

Apologies for not mentioning Timberlake Wertenbaker's The Line (closed Dec 12 Arcola Theatre). Mixed reports about the play but Suzanne Valadon was a fascinating gal and an untold story behind many French men.
Arcola Theatre launches new eco-theatre plans
John Logan's play Red about American painter Mark Rothko at the Donmar.
A handheld translation gadget could bring a whole new audience to the theatre
Worth checking out the plastic bag sculptures of Khalil Chishtee in The State of Things: Recent Art from Pakistan at Aicon Gallery.
Widely influential and relatively unsung German-born American artist Eva Hesse: Studiowork (1936 – 1970) at the Camden Arts Centre.
Rokeby Gallery's new basement space was worth checking out with Tom Bradley's show - intriguing impetus from a Liszt piano etude in 'orchestrating' projected quicktime movie downloads of 'found' clips. He cites French philosopher Lyotard but the work's impish immediacy is what grabs you.
Australian painter residing in London Martin Brown showed striking New Paintings at Fred (the gallery is considering a show for him at Basel Volta). Echoes of the Camden Town Group style etc - his figures almost fleetingly manifesting themselves in their urban environment before seeming to disappear back into he canvas. Reminds one of Arikha's still-life abstraction (championed by playwright Samuel Beckett).

Further down the East End road at the V&A's far flung annexe the Museum of Childhood was Wonderland - an exhibition of 80 wonderful works by East London Printmakers on fairy tales and myths. Wish I'd seen this gem of a show earlier to recommend. Beautiful building to visit anyway if you can brave the tube vagaries of the Central Line to Bethnal Green.
Stephen Rhodes'installation Reconstruction or Something at Vilma Gold (also showing in Saatchi Gallery current survey of new work from America) digitally tinkered rather cleverly with The Exorcist (1973) acompanied by irritatingly catchy musak.
Another bloke who turns film imagery on its head is downtown NYC darling Cory Archangel still showing at Lisson.
David Rickard's Test Flights explore gravity and the power of free fall in The Economist plaza. Very appropriate venue.

wearethepeoplemovie.com was syndicated free with The Guardian on Saturday 28th November: you can watch/download the trailer here
At the Susan Inglett Gallery in New York, The Bruce High Quality Foundation University (B.H.Q.F.U.) is an unaccredited, free collaborative school founded by the eponymous artist collective and presented by Creative Time, where “students are teachers are administrators are staff.” B.H.Q.F.U. responds to what it views as the over-commercialization of the current art school system, offering instead “an education in metaphor manipulation”. Admission is based on a peer-recommendation system; select public programming is also offered.