14th February
It’s Valentines Day so it is ironic that I return to the blog after spending the past two weeks with her. She has now returned to Hong Kong albeit via Bangkok and then Laos.

She came and I met her in Birmingham, she stayed with me in Leeds where she met with staff from the metropolitan uni. We visited Scotland and St Andrews, drove the Fife coast, argued and took some time to get to know one another again, or at least get used to each other after 8 months apart. She met with her old PHD professor, had lunch bought haggis and we returned home to Leeds for a day and then went to London for a couple more. I went to Tate modern, she too London Met. I did the full circuit and saw great works by Robert Morris “Mirrored cubes” and “Cacophony” by an artist who’s name evades me. Paid little attention to the Gilbert and George retrospective as I find them repetitive, obvious and lazy. Obviously I was born a little too late to understand or appreciate their impact.

Visited Brick Lane that night and had curry with the locals in a small Indian cafe, no frills and no money. Food was great and authentic. Happy days. Followed this with a cocktail and a beer before returning to the hotel.

Woke up left the hotel and had breakfast in Whitechapel at the indoor market. Bumped into Tracey Emmin walking down the street. Went to the Hoxten square White Cube and got redirected to the other White Cube. She was not amused. Visited the Royal Academy and saw Kiefers “Jericho” installation, amazing. Then onto the White Cube itself where I saw his paintings, breathtaking. I can not say enough to do them justice; I was simply struck mute by the layers and textures in his work.

I had first seen this work in an article in the Guardian some time in late January. Before I had either read the artists name or anything about his subject matter. “Rorate coeli desuper et nubes pliant iustum”, the photograph reproduced in newsprint only, still conveyed everything I could have read or understood.


If I was clever enough my words would be able to do some justice to such powerful works. If I was able to, I would extract what it was that stopped me dead when I turned the page, and what it was, about his work that I felt I instantly knew. Instead I must at length, draw upon the words of Simon Schama.

“Lately the undertaker of History has turned gardener. From deep beneath the loam of memory heaped over the canvas, Kiefers vast, rutted wastelands have germinated brilliant resurrections: pastel blooms spikes of verdure sprouting irrepressibly through the skin of a hard baked earth-rind: or peachy pink poppies trembling atop spindly black stalks that climb gawkily from bitumous slag”(33)

Further into the article Schama moves on to Kiefers underlying principles and beliefs concerning the modes and methods of the production of his work, and it is here that Schama manages to put into words those swirling thoughts and ideas that until now had been little more than instinct in my own practice.

“Kiefer does earth space not cyberspace. No luddite, he none the less has let it be known that what he dislikes most about computers is the indiscriminate quality of there memory, a universe of data held simultaneously, accessible at the click of a mouse, permanently available and impervious to either natural of poetic distortion. Since nothing may be digitally forgotten nothing may be truly recalled.” (34)

He continues,

“Kiefers work burrows away at time, and what it exposes also makes visible the painful toil of the dig, skinned knuckles, barked shins and all.” (35)

Had late lunch in Soho (at her favourite kitchen). Walked to the tube and bumped into Sir Richard Attenboutgh. Tube, followed by the drive home.

Had Jamie at the weekend and took him to stay in Windsor, well Eton common/ Dorney. Stayed in the converted barn of a 16th centaury house on the banks of the Thames. Beautiful and rather cheap considering. Went to Windsor castle on the third day and saw opulence beyond imagination. One door handle from one room was worth as much as my house. Looked at some stunning Da Vinci sketches, Michelangelo studies, Rembrandts, many Van dykes and Ruben’s. Crazy shit really, almost too much to take in and believe. I wonder what they keep in the many other rooms of this and the many other properties they have, that we don’t get to see.

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(33)Simon Schama “review” section Saturday guardian January 2007 pp 12 paragraph 3, (34) pp 12 paragraph 4 (35) pp 12 paragraph 6.