Culture and Cunts

On Friday evening Toblarina and I went to the Psycho Buildings exhibition at the Hayward Gallery. It’s a collection of works where artists have created habitat-like structures, most of which you can actually climb into. I like huge installations that you can become a part of rather than just staring at a canvas on a wall.

The first exhibit was made out a sheer fabric a bit like nylon tights, and even though we got shouted at for touching the cloth (lighten up!) we were still proud that we managed to identify all the major components of the piece – there were tits that smelled of pepper, a clove “love” (read boy’s tinkle), stone lips and a fog-like roof area that was vaguely shaped like a frog.

After that we went round the corner to a big metal tunnel that you could walk through and halfway across, if you looked up, you could see a blinding light through a gap at the top. Of course we then ran upstairs like excited children to look down through the gap and wave, but nobody waved back at us, so that was a little disappointing.

My favourite bit was a room filled with 250 dolls houses, it seemed very isolated and had a very tranquil feel, but this leads me on to one of the two things I hate about the Hayward – they never quite do things properly. If this had been one of the top galleries in America then the room would have been isolated from the rest of the exhibition, huge black curtains would have hung over the exit to block out external light and noise so that you could go into the room and completely immerse yourself in the experience, but here you could still see people wandering by and were distracted from the drama of the piece by sound of their inane prattle.

The other thing I don’t like is their exhibits will usually have one main centrepiece, but to take part in it will require a good half hour of queuing. Thus, although we were able to get into the huge transparent dome that has been built on the roof of the building and feels like being trapped inside a giant beach ball, we didn’t get to go on the mini row boats on the other side as the queues were just too damn long and waiting would have put me in too bad a mood to enjoy it. Surely it couldn’t be too hard for them to adopt some kind of time-slot thing so that everybody gets a go, even if they are chronically impatient.

Anyway, our heads full of culture, we then made our way to the Clore Ballroom in the Festival Hall to await the arrival of David Hoyle and guests for their evening as part of the Wizard of Oz season. Nathan Evans introduced the show and warned the people who had just wandered out of the musical, perhaps with wee kiddies in tow, that, um, something naughty might be about to happen.

He placed an egg timer on the stage to allow those of a nervous disposition to leave the room and for the time being David was contained behind a camera - his image being projected onto a huge canvas in the role of Oz, the all seeing, all hearing and rather bad tempered ruler of the kingdom. Fred Bear, Fancy Chance, Thom Shaw and Dickie Beau appeared as the tin man, lion, scarecrow and what have you, as Oz bellowed at them looking nasty and green and menacing.



Just as the last grains of sand were draining away, David emerged in bowler hat and fright make-up to launch into his usual tirades and assaults on the senses of the audience. I doubt very much that the chambers of the Royal Festival Hall have echoed so much with the word “cunt” in their entire existence. The inappropriate nature of the venue just made it all the more amusing and really, who has the right to claim they are offended anyway? It’s not like we complain if they want to listen to classical music that we find boring.

So there were celebrations of “queer” and spirited social observations in among the occasional return to the Oz theme. David sang a song, threw interpretive dance shapes and then he and his assembled cast covered each other in paint and ran off outside to the fountains. I wish I had followed to see the faces on the passing tourists – a mad Northerner in green make-up, a tiny girl with tattoos and her tits out, a bear and a couple of fairies all screaming and running through the water.

And people say the British are too reserved.