When I stand up for a pee it’s often in the bushes but yesterday it was at a urinal. There was a sign above. It did not say “We aim to please, You aim too please”; nor did it advertise prophylactics.
The Dulwich Picture Gallery is Class. It briefly name checked the gallery’s founders, three of whom are buried in a mausoleum, forming part of the public gallery. At present there is an installation there, the mausoleum, by “Estonian artist Kristina Õllek. Created during a residency in the Saaremaa islands, her sculptural installation uses sea salt, limestone, and cyanobacteria to explore the living, evolving nature of landscape, placing past and present in powerful dialogue” (Dulwich Gallery) . What bollocks and how disrespectful to the tombs of the founders. I will not waste space with a photograph.
The main exhibition is pictures by Konrad Mägi (1878-1925) – the first time his work has been shown in the UK. They have been hung in Norway, Finland, France and Italy, so UK has been a bit slow. But it is an excellent show depicting his development over sixteen years. They are hung chronologically along four galleries. First there are his early landscapes painted in Norway dating from 1909 that bought him recognition, enough to secure portrait commissions. They have their own gallery. I did not particularly warm to them but they paid his bills.
Then there are two rooms of sea and landscapes he painted in Estonia from 1913. They were done on two islands in south-west Estonia: Saaremaa and Vilsandi. These are much his best work and remind me in some instances of Cézanne and van Gogh. This is not so fanciful as he visited Paris in 1908. Writing home he said, having been in Germany, “France is completely different, the French themselves are truly likeable. Paris is an interesting city. There is a lot of art here to see. Overall, I like it here, although I only had a few francs in my pocket when I arrived,” He didn’t like all the modern art he saw; “you can often see such rubbish there that it is pointless to talk about it”. We all think that sometimes.
A town council was voting on funding for a public urinal. After a tied vote the Chairman voted against the proposal. When asked why he confessed to being compromised because he did not know what a urinal was. His colleague explained: “you know, a place where a chap stands up for a pee”. “Oh goodness”, replied the Chairman, “had I known that I’d have voted for an arsenal too”.