Grayson Perry Plays Hide and Seek in York

The BBC reports:

Museums, galleries and historic spaces are preparing to host almost 700 night-time events over the next three days.

The annual Museums at Night festival gives visitors free access to museums from sunset onwards while special one-off events are planned around the UK.

It gets under way later on Thursday and runs until Saturday.

Events include an appearance at Nottinghamshire allotments by celebrity photographer Rankin and artist Grayson Perry playing hide and seek in York.

And the Museums at Night website confirms, with the heading:

Grayson Perry and Alan Measles play hide and seek in York for Museums at Night.

Composition of place.

The city of York is seen from below: narrow streets and cuts, squares, a fountain, a marketplace now empty and shuttered, a river flowing through. From Micklegate over Bridge Street a lady appears and is submurged, now striding steadily, now swaying uncertainly in the warm windless evening, wearing the insignia of the traffic light: three green circles, as the seven women weaving and clustering about her wear amber and red. It is soon to be the lady’s wedding day. From across the street a group of men shout boisterously in her direction. One of the men is dressed in imitation of a frog. His muffled calls, emanating through a mouthpiece of green, black and red felt, are directed not at the celebrant but towards one of her maidens: a blonde of short stature who has on a pair of yellow sunglasses, and holds another, in purple, in her dangling hand. The men cross the street: the groups entangle boisterously: before the men descend the stairs to the waterfront and the sanctuary of the Kings Arms.

Somewhere in York Grayson Perry is hiding.

Around York Minster groups gather, in preparation for the search. Some bear maps across their forearms, others prod and swipe at smartphones. Perhaps in the future we will be able to track, by virtue of Google Maps, individuals by their scent – but nobody knows what perfume Grayson Perry is wearing; perhaps in some future we will be able to track individuals by their shape – but nobody knows what outfit Grayson Perry is wearing either, and besides, the technology has not been invented yet. A man in loose-fitting grey flannel with a backwards growth of greyblonde hair is gently turned with anticipation, somewhere about Swinegate – but it is not Grayson Perry, and the gentleman now turns of his own volition and is soon on his way. The gathered groups ask aloud: is a citizen of the city of York of value in the present circumstance, or is he not; would his knowledge of the inner configuration of the city be of use, or ought one possess instead the same naiveté which Grayson Perry is presumably bringing to the affair? An unrelated quarrel threatens to break out; and somebody suggests that the groups move off.

You’ve found me, assures a voice.

I’ve done what? queries a gruff man in tracksuit trousers.

He never wanted you to begin with, offers the gruff man’s friend, and the two walk on.

Grayson Perry is confused. He doesn’t know how to act; emerging from underneath the arch by Cox’s Leather Shop at the far end of the Shambles, he considers whether to return to his hiding place, whether to find a new one, or whether to simply give up the ghost. A calculation as to how many people have passed him by over the last however so many minutes – failing to catch his eye as he pressed his back slimly against the flat of the wall and halted his breath – proves inconducive to determining how soon he is likely to be uncovered. I should have worn a watch at least, Grayson Perry says to himself; and how well has this been advertised anyway, he wonders. And when will it be his turn to seek?

It has been hours now since the event began; the searchers are growing tired and thirsty. If only they could narrow their search, set it within certain confines; if only it hadn’t been set to cover the full extent of the city. Then, they would stand a chance of finding Grayson Perry, but now they are floundering. They wish they could pen him in somehow, in the Minster Gardens, or in Clifford’s Tower. But then the Jews of York had been penned in Clifford’s Tower back in 1190: around 150 had died in total, burnt alive, by suicide, or murdered by the mob: York still remembers: and that – the searching groups and splintered individuals understood – was not art.

Grayson Perry looks out the window of a train marked for London. Fields, barn, fields, pylons; someone has left the shutter in the vestibule open, and there is a draft throughout the cabin.

Amsterdam Watercolour: Two Sheds in Autumn

At the end of last October, my partner and I departed Amsterdam and returned to York. The cause was my commencing a PhD in literature at the University of York. While there were possibilities for undertaking doctoral research at a university which would have enabled us to continue living in Amsterdam – including an excellent opportunity with the University of Antwerp – we ultimately decided that York presented the best scenario for study. Preparations for the move occupied much of late October; there was the fact of the move itself; and then followed the process of finding and inhabiting an apartment in York while also developing a working habit at the University.

That serves as a loose explanation for my lack of posts between last September and mid-March; but as much as I was preoccupied with other things, I simply fell out of the habit of posting. More, during September and October, I began and wrote significant portions and passages for articles which were intended for the site, but never finished. Aside from no longer possessing a surfeit of time, and aside from the diminishing of a regular article-writing habit, the existence of these unfinished pieces served to further pervert the end of publication. As those articles which I had begun became less and less relevant, the inclination was to consider how their material could be repurposed – rather than focusing on what else I ought to write. What had been written became a barrier to further work. The situation in Ukraine and Crimea compelled several pieces last month, and marked my return to posting.

In the last few weeks before we left Amsterdam, I painted a small number of paintings comprising views from the rear balcony of our apartment, in the ‘Oud-Zuid’ of the city. The paintings are in watercolour and ink. Some of their views will be visible in earlier collections of photographs posted on this site; or else via my Instagram account. This first painting looks down upon two sheds, and contains all of the relevant fallen leaves and foliage.

York, Gateshead, Newcastle: Instagram IV

I spent the second week of April in York, visiting during the week Gateshead and Newcastle. The following sixteen photographs show Antony Gormley’s Angel of the North; the area around the Sage and the BALTIC, featuring both institutes, street art, and the Millenium and Tyne bridges; St James’ Park, where an abject Newcastle performance still threatened, for a time in the second half, to send the side through to the semi-finals of the Europa League; and then York’s River Ouse, Minster, City Walls, Clifford’s Tower, and Treasurer’s House garden.

Bookshops in York

I am spending this week in York: the city in which I lived from the age of two until the age of nineteen; then returning, after four years in Sweden, for three years before moving to Amsterdam last October. York’s city centre is compact but plentiful, with a good variety of shops, an abundance of places to eat and drink, and a solid group of cultural venues: though York Art Gallery, traditionally insufficient, is currently undergoing an £8 million redevelopment – set to increase the gallery space by 60%, furnishing it with its own garden, and due to be completed by spring 2015 – there are a handful of contemporary art galleries, notably at Bar Lane Studios and According to McGee; the central cinema, City Screen, shows a consistent selection of foreign and classic films; the city boasts the National Centre for Early Music; and there are regular jazz performances, and comedy evenings at the city’s two theatres and at the City Screen basement.

One of the things York most excels in is books, for there are a profundity of second-hand bookstores across the city. These have stood and have even flourished – or at least slightly increased in number – following the demise of Borders in 2009 (which, however, has left the city short of magazines and international newspapers), and whilst WH Smith continues to excise and limit its range. I know these second-hand and antiquarian bookstores well, and thought I’d depict them here for the sake of specific planning, or else general knowledge and broad or vague interest.

Entering the centre through Micklegate Bar, one will ineluctably spend some period of time on Micklegate itself. The street has been popularly known for the ‘Micklegate Run’, a figurative term suggesting the profusion of bars along its course, and the traversing of the street at night by inebriated revellers. Micklegate used to possess two wonderful music shops, devoted to new and second-hand classical, jazz and world music; these departed years ago, along with the much-missed Track Records in the very centre; still, York retains a quantity of independent stores selling secondhand CDs and, more so, LPs. Passing beyond Bar Lane Studios at the top of the street, the first good bookstore arrived at is Ken Spelman, arguably the best in the city. It sells books of all sorts over two floors, with a particularly strong collection of books about literature, and in art, architecture and design; a wide selection of travel writing; and rare books and manuscripts. Ken Spelman is also increasingly showing the drawings and etchings of contemporary artists throughout its shop, and is selling their prints and photographs. Those books you buy will typically – provided their size renders this possible – be wrapped in heavy green paper.

The first of two Oxfam bookshops is located just a few doors further down Micklegate. This Oxfam has solid selections of literature, including foreign language literature and poetry; of history and politics; and it stands out as it specialises in classical music LPs, bearing by far the most extensive and accomplished accumulation of these in the city. There are also popular music LPs, books on music, and DVDs. Continuing on down Micklegate, over the bridge crossing the River Ouse, and Waterstones, on High Ousegate, is the outstanding chain bookstore in the centre (there is also a Blackwell’s out at the University of York campus). Alas, this post is not to discuss the demise and persistence of chain bookstores across the United Kingdom.

And so on to Fossgate, on which street there are three offerings to the world in bookstore form. Fossgate Books, the furthest down the street, has a superb collection of books containing and concerning literature, and on poetry, art and architecture. Up narrow stairs, there is rare and antiquarian literature, and strong sections on philosophy, film, food, and languages. Lucius Books, a few shops up, is dedicated to rare books, first editions and manuscripts; with an inclination towards illustrated books, crime, fantasy and science-fiction. Across the road, the Barbican Bookshop is a Christian book store, with large holdings of books about York and Yorkshire, wildlife, aviation, the railways, and upstairs nineteenth century literature, poetry and Greek Classics.

Across from Fossgate, along Colliergate there is an Arthritis Research UK bookshop, with a good choice of books on two floors at good prices. St Pauls Bookshop on Kings Square hosts, in its book section downstairs, not only a wide range of religious books, but a significant collection of books in theology and philosophy. The second Oxfam store focusing on books is down Low Petergate, with a ranging selection including much contemporary fiction and classic literature. The Minster Gate Bookshop, at 8 Minster Gates – a short street which then opens out onto the south façade of York Minster, usually the Minster’s entryway (though not while restoration works are ongoing) – possesses all manner of books across five floors. The basement contains literature and assorted books on art, travel and culture at reduced prices; the ground floor boasts maps, lithographs and prints in addition to antiquarian and oversized books; the first floor has a fantastic array of art, architecture, design and religion; and the next two floors are home to books featuring history, literary biography and criticism, foreign literature, and the Classics.

Books For Amnesty on Goodramgate offers an interesting choice of books in a variety of subjects, including a few rare items. The Red House Antique Centre has, on its upper floor, an antiquarian collection, as well as maps and prints. Finally, Janette Ray towards the top of Bootham bears rare and out of print books in architecture, art, urban planning, and garden design.

A Top Three for Books Alone:

• Ken Spelman – 70 Micklegate, York.
• The Minster Gate Bookshop – 8 Minster Gates, York.
• Fossgate Books – 36 Fossgate, York.

Four Purchases Memorable at This Moment:

• Two Soviet Studies on Frege (translated and edited by Ignatio Angelelli) – bought at Fossgate Books.
• Romance of the Three Kingdoms, by Luo Guanzhong (two-volume boxed set) – procured at Ken Spelman.
• King, Queen, Knave, by Vladimir Nabokov (second UK edition, published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson) – discovered at the Red House Antique Centre.
• Pages from the Goncourt Journals (hardcover, edited and translated by Robert Baldick) – via Ken Spelman once again.

From York to Amsterdam via Instagram

I opened and began using my Instagram account at:

http://instagram.com/culturedarm/

several weeks ago. I upload frequently those photographs which I take when present in the world. Most are taken in Amsterdam, where I live; some have been and will continue to be taken elsewhere, for instance, York, where I am from and where my family lives.

My Instagram account is linked via my tumblr. page

http://culturedallroundman.tumblr.com/

permanently linked in the menu above; and I share the odd photo on tumblr. – which I use primarily for images, videos, quotations, and briefer pieces and comments (recently, for example, on John Cale’s ‘Hanky Panky Nohow’, and photographs from the International Space Station) – and via Twitter and Facebook. I will, I think, occasionally collate a small group of the photographs here; as I’m doing right at this moment.

I was in York a couple of weekends ago – and in fact my stay was prolonged owing to the snow across England and in Amsterdam in particular – and took a group of photographs in York Minster. There are then pictures of the snow, lying and falling, in Amsterdam; a series of constructions – bandstand and two cafés – in the Vondelpark; and finally two photos looking over and along the Amstel. This is a selection of twelve of the currently thirty-three photographs comprising my Instagram account.