Birds and Bags Show, London or How I Found Myself In A Bin Bag

I ran a news piece on the Birds and Bags show at Gallery 46 (ooh, get me, Lois Lane) and – because it’s been a short but sweet run of dates – thought I’d leave it at that. But it was such a good show that I couldn’t resist writing about it. I’m not keen on people ‘reviewing’ art, so I’m not going to do that. I’m just going to pick out three aspects of this show that I particularly enjoyed.

1. Well, obviously, the paintings!

Aren’t they gorgeous?

Julian Smith: BAGS

are a particular surprise to me, as I would not have staked all the housekeeping on the notion that someone could paint bags of rubbish and make them so exuberant, expressive and life-affirming that I would want to live with them up on my walls or propped against them, but behold … he can work such magic.

My very favourite of his paintings is not here for you to see. It was a transparent bag of rubbish, captured front-on, that had me standing in front of it for ages.

That bag was bulging. And looking at it, I could remember exactly what it felt like to be full-term with each of my children. Not quite so full-term that you’re at the apprehensive-of-the-horrors-of-delivery-stage (e.g. the night before they deign to come out) but at that point where one’s belly is enormous, and when what’s inside moves it can be seen rippling under the skin like Tarka the Otter.

If you’re especially lucky (or what’s inside is particularly large and overdue) when they punch and kick, you can see a tiny fist or a tiny foot pushing out against the wall that encloses it. Smith’s fecund transparent rubbish bag brought my memory of this magical experience back to mind with perfect clarity.

I often see myself in other things, people, and animals, and because I’m a massive egotist this instantly elevates them to being my FAVOURITE things, people and animals. Never did I ever think I’d see myself in a bin-bag though, but then, never did I think a bin-bag could be so beautiful and engaging. Like moi.

Thelma Speirs: BIRDS

were not such a surprise, as I have been drooling over each one that I saw pop up on her instagram feed over the past few weeks. Seeing them in real life was a proper wow moment though. Scale and texture, up close and in the reality, is everything, in art as in life, right?

It’s very difficult to pick a favourite from this avian collection, as they are all enchanting. Margot and I had to retreat to the garden of the Gallery, for the equivalent of oranges at half-time, to look carefully through the handout* listing all the works in order to narrow down the contenders for purchase.

There was a particularly gorgeous fluffy gull chick caught from behind that was very hard to resist, and a group of three wading birds that we kept returning to, but in the end it was a crow with an especially saucy eye that ended up being The Print That Went Home with Margot.

2. Discovering the room of seagulls, and Gallery 46 itself

I thought I knew exactly what I was going to see in this show, but I didn’t! One room was a complete surprise to me, and a surprise that I’d like to recreate at home, in order to terrify my little black cat, who’s in a feud with the family of magpies that live in our tree. It was very funny and very enjoyable (and not scary at all unless you happen to be avian- or rubbish-phobic, but then if you were, you’d hardly have been at this show, would you?).

I absolutely adore seagulls, and definitely see myself in them. Seagulls and I both love chips, and seem to be in a near-constant war with the more irate kind of pensioners. I could possibly have enjoyed this space even more had I been dolled up in either Umbrellas of Cherbourg style seaside drag or a neat tailored suit in pale green, but if I’d known what was coming it would have wrecked the laugh out loud joy of stepping inside for the first time. 

Gallery 46 is a beautiful space: two Georgian houses integrated into one, with all the narrow staircases and steps up and down into rooms that that implies. Very nice to wander about in, excellent for a bit of self-torture lamenting that you never worked hard enough or married well enough to have such a lovely building to fill up with all your own treasures accumulated over the decades.

3. This would have been a very excellent show to visit in the company of lovely children (alas, mine weren’t available).

If you have children – nicely brought-up children, OBVIOUSLY, that can conduct themselves well in public spaces, and that you will supervise appropriately, not rotten little horrors** that can’t appreciate nice things – this is a show they’d absolutely love. In my experience, little children are quite interested in and unfazed by nudes, so I would have seen no need to avoid the portraits in the second room, however if you’re the kind of adult that would rather not answer questions like “But why is it so BIG?”, you might not have wanted to take under-18s in there without first gagging them.

Visiting museums and galleries with children (they don’t have to be mine) is one of my favourite things to do, and indeed, one of the things I always most looked forward to doing during the parts of my life when I was as big as a house*** anticipating a child’s arrival.

Writing this, I’m wondering how it feels for artists when they commit all their vision, talent and skill to creating something figurative, not abstract, only to have some self-obsessed maniac like me stand in front of it crying, “That’s ME, that is!” Much like having children, in a way: you bend all your efforts to raising them as best as you know how to do, but when they go out into the world and away from you, you have no control on how the world sees and treats them. 

In my younger years, I boycotted the Royal Academy for a decade or so because I was so outraged by the rudeness of an unpleasant woman who was up-from-the-country-for-a-day, and – from this place of authority – told me that an Art Gallery was no place for the quiet, well-behaved five-year-old at my side. Bitches like her are the reason that governments can cut funding to the arts, and attack arts provision in schools. 

Art is for  the enjoyment of all.  Art has no age limit, and there are no limits to the joy that art can bring. The Birds and Bags show at Gallery 46, Whitechapel, was a fine example of this.

Footnotes:

*A more professional woman wouldn’t have mislaid that useful hand-out, and would have been able to refer to these works by their title – alas, you’re stuck with me.

** That was a joke: there are no naturally horrible children, and those whose behaviour makes them seem so are just kids who sadly haven’t been well-served by the adults in their lives.

***  An apt simile because when I was pregnant, I was – quite literally – a house for the small person inside me.

Rights:

The images at the top of this post are courtesy of Thelma Speirs and Julian Smith.

The photograph of the Thelma Speirs limited edition print was taken by Margot, and the copyright is hers.

Want more?

You can:-

• Find Birds and Bags instagram here
• Find Thelma Speirs instagram here
• Find Julian Smith instagram here
• Find Gallery 46 instagram here
• Find Cozette McCreery instagram here