Century Club

 Tonight I'm in London accompanied by nervous excitement. I've been invited to the unveiling of 2 new rooms in Century Club. Century is a refuge of tranquility conveniently located in the heart of London's Theatreland. This oasis of calm is crowned with a roof-garden, a surviving bastion of tobacco camaraderie.

  I'm apprehensive because the rooms have been designed around my photographs and tonight is the first time I'll see them. Sophie (manager) commissioned two sets of prints- Cabaret for the new games-room and Fuerzabruta for the restaurant. The Cabaret photographs set a seductive and heady tone. All the details have been precisely worked out by interior designer Louise Begley, right down to the red felt cover of the pool-table.

The adjourning restaurant is in contrast light and airy. The suspended Fuerza dancers look down on the diners like sirens from a basilica fresco. To celebrate the occasion Sophie has laid on food and drinks. I've invited some friends on the condition that they're on their best behaviour.

Javier is already here, lounging resplendent under one of the Cabaret prints, cocktail in hand. He's talking to Josephine (Darvill Mills), cast member of Cabaret and subject of one of the photographs. Everyone is gobsmacked by the floor-to-ceiling print of Clemmie Sveaas and James Dreyfus that greets them.

Ralph (Brown), the only friend I know to be immortalised on celluloid and in cellulose, has turned up with that glint in his eye. We met when I was shooting the NT Auditions and hit it off like on-coming mail trains.

Ralph's a gifted pianist and saxophonist, you can find his recordings on CD and vinyl. He's about to perform at the Brighton Fringe Festival in the tribute band The Brighton Beach Boys and revels in the story of when I met Brian Wilson. As a side-line he's also an author, director, screenwriter, producer and prize-winning playwright. He is a polymath who just won't let go of his infatuation with acting.

Gerry (Cottle Jnr) arrived brandishing his Aussie amour, Sue. He's going through his Mungo-Gerry-fro-phase - the dude's a walking Van De Graaff de-generator. Hair apparent to the throne of the Cottle Dynasty, Gerry was born in a side-show, weened on midget's milk and has an incurable case of congenital showmanship. Gerry's the Philippe Petit of these occasions. When a party slackens and sides split Gerry gets out his metaphorical unicycle and stitches the void with a tightrope act of death-defying wit.

Rebecca (Daly) came up to me and took my arm for support. She'd been star struck and was still reeling. This involuntary reaction had never happened before. Bex, Avid Master and doyenne of the edit suite regularly rubs shoulders with the glitterati. Being confronted by her hero from adolescence 'Danny' (Withnail and I) was a disorienting experience. He'd obviously made a deeper impression on her than she'd realised. Ralph has that effect on people, beware!

As Abigail would agree "a party's not a party without vol-au-vents". Patrica (Lima) was that missing patisserie. She took the party up a gear and homed in on Iffat, the two of them committed social reformers.

 By day Iffat fights social injustice with a rolled copy of British Vogue under her arm. Tonight she was keeping a watchful, little-sisterly eye over me, making sure I was distributing myself equally. 
 

 Brother-in-arms Ed Webster (photographic producer at 4Creative) was casting a critical eye over the images. Ed's commitment to getting me representation is now taking it's toll. My photographs meet with his approval and he promises that the quest will not end until an agent sees sense.
 

Michael (Hulls) is a luminary in the world of theatre lighting design. The last time I spoke to him was to tell him his epitaph had just been read out on the radio. A panel of Saturday Review critics had savaged a performance he'd just worked on - 'in-i' by Juliette Binoche and Akram Khan. The critics agreed that the only saving grace was the lighting genius of Michael Hulls who eclipsed the show by turning 'Kapor into Rothko.' Michael was modestly horrified by this news; Anish Kapoor had designed the set!

When the final daiquiri was demolished we retreated to the roof-top garden and whiled away the night under the stars and smoke.

  Today our presence is graced by Karen (Lamond). Back in 1990 she winged it with me on an assignment to Romania. She had me under false pretenses, she said she was going to be my assistant. Karen brought her unique qualities to the role. Duties that jeopardised feminine poise, such as pushing and lifting, were the privilege of the photographer. I'd been commission by LIFT to travel to Romania by invitation of their Ministry of Culture and Religious Affairs. The assignment was to photograph 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' by the ironically titled 'Comedy Theatre of Bucharest'. The artists were now free of censorship and the prescriptive humour they were forced to perform under the dictatorship.
 By the time we got there the population had been served Nicolae and Elena Caecescu for Christmas. Whilst their son Nicu was banged away we had the run of his pad and the sheets were still warm. This was the caotically assembled headquarters of the newly formed Ministry of Culture and we were their first guests. Nicu had led the playboy life-style and his vulgar pretensions spewed over everything. The bedroom was circular, the bed was round too. When the door was shut it disappeared in a vacuum into the gold flock wallpaper. Above the bed a chandelier of crystal stalactites threatened to impale it's occupants at the flick of a switch. On arrival we were met by the night-porter, a gnarled curmudgeon coming to terms with the seismic upheaval to his life. With a chalk finger he drew our attention to the lampshade. He could swear it quivered. 'Bucharest has a terrible history of earthquakes'.
  Before we could give our hosts the gifts we bore from Scotland, it dawned on us that these perishables were to become our stable rations. At the International Hotel, the only place to eat, the vegetation had been wrestled from a mollusk- gastropod gastronomy. Karen was going through her pescetarian phase. The dishes on offer were a smorgasbord of grey, meat-based gelatinous knackerbrod. Anything would be better than this. So, Karen attempted to barter a tin of caviar from a waiter- Klass. These were the unique qualities she brought to the role of assistant. At night the city lights were extinguished to conserve power. The demonised gypsy population flooded the streets, besieging Bucharest until day-break. Curfew in Bucharest with Karen was a diet of smoked salmon, Drambuie and laughter. The things we brought fi hame.

  The shoot was grueling but an invaluable education in the healing properties of laughter. On our last night I had a kilogram of banknotes and no possible way of spending it. I offered the cash to the theatre but they refused it, preferring to democratically blow the lot on a party- fair do's. Two of the staff were elected to get the drinks: one to carry, the other to make sure he didn't take off with the money. They returned peering over stacks of crates. The party took place in the committee room at the rear of the theatre. A beige cell lit by a bank of migraine inducing fluorescent tubes segregated by a monolithic table. At one end of the room an exhausted upright piano slumped against the wall. Karen asked for a change of lighting- good call. Moments later the lights were killed and a chicane of gold candelabras lined the length of the table. Her next request- some music. They happily obliged with a pair of guitars and the full Beatles back catalogue. An official with an uncanny resemblance to Adolf Hitler frisked the piano and played "Boowgee Woowgie". "Does madam require anything more?" they gleefully pressed. "Two Pink Elephants" she replied, hurling the gauntlet squarely back at their feet. They came pirouetting back from the props department, trussed in pink hobby (horse) elephants. What a party!
In the intervening years she has become a successful and sought after beauty director and photographer. Karen learnt an important lesson; she'd need to change out of her Manolo's if she was going to travel down my path.

 1st of April, perfect timing for a session with comedian, yoof TV and 'Never Mind the Buzzcocks' presenter Simon Amstell. Thankfully he leaves the razor sharp wit he employs to ruthlessly dissect his interviewees, outside the studio door. The twenty-something Essex boy is a squeaky clean, totally tee-total, drug and caffeine-free Vegetarian. His body is a synagogue to satire and repository for emasculated young men, too feeble to escape his raffish grip.

 Throughout the day we explore every angle to find images for his PR and tour campaign. Portraits of a wide-eyed, aloof Amstell in his grunge counter-couture were chosen.

 In short, they showed his stage personality.
Of course Simon’s not one dimensional. The other images were perhaps too intimate or too revealing for this campaign. Perhaps in some I had portrayed him as his conquest, the hapless lover he wanted to entrap?
Maybe one day he'll let me show them to you. We'll have to wait to see.

Death and the King's Horseman

 January - another day of monotone. The sodden nap of winter's fire-blanket had long extinguished Autumn's pyrotechnic displays. Feeling seasonally maladjusted and in need of spiritual re-orientation I dial Javier. Whatever mood he's in, his irrepressible effervescence always lifts mine. Things start off well; his Latin temperament is cursing him for subjecting it to the Great British weather. Then he slips a Mickey Finn into my tonic, apologising that he'll be boarding a plane to Nigeria to research Yoruba dance and culture. To rub salt into my anemic wounds he tells me he'd be travelling with friends Rufus (Norris director) and Katrina (Lindsay costume designer). They were working together on the play 'Death and the King's Horseman' by Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka. And as if that wasn't enough, whilst there they'd venture out of Lagos to meet him. The leaden sky was now pouring acid. When I eventually caught breath from the blow to my solar plexus, I realised that this presented the perfect opportunity:

I was first introduced to Wole Soyinka’s work in 1992 when shooting a campaign for Talawa Theatre Company’s production of his play ‘The Road’. Shortly after, when making ‘dis’, I had the youthful temerity to ask Wole if he'd write me a poem. I had created a photograph that I believed only his insight and vision could seal the marriage between image and word. Despite his perilous circumstances he humbled my adolescent arrogance with a poem of terrifying beauty, profound resonance and perfect symbiosis. I never met or spoke with Wole, back then in 1993 the only way to communicate was by fax. At the time of correspondence he had sought sanctuary at the Sheraton Lagos, before fleeing Nigeria for the USA. More than a decade later I have this chance to safely repatriate Wole’s poem with a print of the finished artwork.

 Skip to now. It's mid-March and the intransigent sky is still resolutely grey. Rehearsals are scheduled to start for Death and the King's Horseman when I get a call from Jenny(Jules). Over the years I have come to see Jenny as a wonderfully errant sister. She's an extraordinary talent, a gifted actor and stuff, but when we get together our senses of humour strain to be let off the leash and go bounding off in to the woods. She purrs she's got a lead part in a play at the NT. Enough, basta, comprendo, capiche! I get the message and catch the next train.

Rufus is the Zidane of the stage. He paces the action with the stealth of a predator, preying on the smallest indiscretion that strays from the script.

The role of King is filled by the imperious presence of Nonso Alozie. Standing in at a 6'6" he can quake the stage with the force of Ogun, or defy his mass and float with the light touch and agility of a bird.

Rufus's all black cast is a reassuringly welcome sight, peppered with familiar faces from past projects. Above them a newspaper advertisement hollered down. The Evening Standard is already stirring things in the direction of the box office with the headline 'Black Actors White Up at the National' -a provocatively cynical reference to Olivier's performance as Othello.

 My fee is redeemed before the shutter is depressed. No price could be put on sitting in on rehearsals, watching an apprehensive cast find their way under Rufus and Javier's masterful stewardship. No money is exchanged, the equation is simple: I get access to remarkable subject matter plus a unique insight into inspirational artists at work -

I was royally paid.

 

The opportunity to shoot the cast in full costume came during dress rehearsals. The only available space was off-stage in rehearsal room 6; a windowless casket of coffee stained cream walls and plastic stacking chairs. It could be have been a waiting room or reception you'd find anywhere - Lagos or London. I resisted the temptation to neutralise it and opted to work with its... banality. The contrast of the actors, extraordinary in Katrina's exquisite finery, set against the ubiquitous sterility of their surroundings could be made to work to my advantage.

 In Yoruban culture everything, including inanimate objects, has as spirit. The lampshade girl represents this 'Jinn' and she reappears throughout the sequence as a reminder of this belief. For the following six hours the session is a frenetic production line of masquerading black peacocks, priests, servants, musicians and African Royalty - real and fictional. Full dress rehearsals are a time of palpable panic, eyes in headlights stuff. I had between 90 seconds and 15 minutes to shoot each actor before they were spirited away, back on stage.

(footnote) The poem made it safely home to its maker. The present was received with joyful surprise- one more of Wole's lost poems had returned to the fold.


End of The Road. End of story.

 The re-scheduled shoot with Nick Cave was 3 hours away. My challenge was to get from my adopted home in West London, weighed down with kit, to Brighton by public transport. I'd worked it all out when Lee suggested that the family tag along. He'd drive us to Brighton and while I worked they'd eat fish 'n' chips and potter on the beach with son Ravi. Grandmother, son, grandson, childminder, buckets, cameras and me, packed into a groaning people carrier. On the M25 grandma Chander punctuated the jollities with howls of incredulity. She was keeping up with events from the motherland, scouring her newspaper for any reports from India. She delighted in systematically deriding the political, judicial and caste systems with unquestionable authority. Once in Brighton the satnav guided us to Nick's basement lair with air-traffic control precision. Nick greeted me tentatively and made the first move with the offer of a cuppa. I set up studio in a spare room at the back of the flat, penned in on all sides by racks of suits, keyboards, guitars, more guitars and a bed. The Nick I encountered two decades before was a brooding stupor of mistrust with eyes of dark-matter black. The revised Nick had crystalline pupils and could walk without the aid of a wall. I asked if he remembered the session? No. The location? No. Could he recall me asking him to stand in the corner of the room and how he then proceeded to flap his arms like a snared crow? No. Did he recognise me? No, no, no! Did he agree that the photograph was irrefutable proof of our encounter? Yes! He pleaded mitigating circumstances- the drugs.

90 minutes later and outside the family was still braving the February squall. Timing was perfect, any longer and we'd both be suffering from photo-fatigue. Back at in London I asked Chander if I could take her photograph. She took my hand and placed it on firmly on her head saying "bless me."

 Nick chose 11 shots from the session, heaping unbridled praise on one image and blessing me with a quote worthy of my epitaph- 'LOVE this photo. One of my favourite Nick Cave (over 50) photo's. Hey, I'd fuck me!' 

London is pristine in paralysis and everyone's going nowhere. Marooned by an tsunami of snow I submit to this freak of nature and postpone todays shoot with Nick Cave. Before returning to Edinburgh I meet up with publisher Jamie Byng to discuss the rescheduled shoot.

  Jamie is a maverick rookie turned publishing colossus who's illustrious career is matched only by his lustrous mane. This lexicological gynecologist tenderly nurtures his artists through every stage of the creative birthing process. His vision has transformed Canongate from an esoteric publishing house to world contender. Jamie's publishing accolades include the Booker Prize for 'The Life of Pye' and the most audacious publishing coup of the decade- Barack Obama's trilogy:'Change We Can Believe In', 'Dreams From My Father' and 'The Audacity of Hope'.
  Nick (singer, songwriter, musican, author) Cave has written a new novel and Jamie needs shots for inside jacket and press. The brief is wide open as the session is likely to be dictated by the mood of the subject. I shot Nick over 20 years ago and I'm told that he continues to view most photographers with contempt and derision- my kind of challenge.

Tonight I rendezvoused with my amigo querido Javier De Frutos at Century Club. Century is Javier's Soho sanctuary and casa de casa. When he enters the club everyone welcomes him like a scene from Cheers- directed by Pedro Almodóvar. This evening he's accompanied by satirical composer Richard Thomas and musician-come-viking-come-cook Lore Lixenberg.

When Lore sleeps she dreams of food. On waking she writes down the recipes and then cooks them- with some considerable success!
 

 

Richard is best known for penning the score for 'Jerry Springer the Opera.' Last year he collaborated with Javier on 'Cattle Call' (a culled classic) and now they were cooking up another feast.

Conversation journeyed the four corners of absurdity and on the strike of 12 I slipped away- my pumpkin was due to depart from platform fifteen.

The unremittingly fabulous Patricia Lima set her trap. Could a show she was spinning prick my creative epidermis? The bait was the latest offering from Harry Lewiston's cadaverous contemporary - Gunther von Hagens. Dissect the anatomist and you'll find a pathological showman coursing the veins.

 

 The Beuys parodying-persona-snatcher was back with Body Worlds and a mission to 'encourage people to strive to live with inspiration'.
Inside the O2 we're plunged into black and funneled past glass coffins and spot lit displays. For our edification we are infotained by corpses painstakingly contrived into bathetic metaphors. Flayed gymnasts, apocalyptic equestrians and slam-dunking carcasses make learning real easy. The asinine posturing of the 'plastinates' strips away dignity and washes it down with a caustic soda.

The 'incredible marvel of engineering' of the brain display takes it's cue from Hannibal. A man sits at a chessboard with his brain exposed like a thousand-year egg. Has the Lecterer lost it? Body Worlds poses the question- where does exhibition end and sideshow begin?

  

 I have no qualms about consensual, ethically sourced cadavers on public display. Like the other 25 million visitors to Body Worlds, I too am seduced by an innate morbid curiosity. I've tried to out-stare the myriad of eyeballs on display at the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh. The ironic fate of body-snatcher-come-specimen William Burke, his sectioned head decaying in a glass tank, drew a dark chuckle. I have stood in the cool of the whitewashed galleries and contemplated the prematurely ejaculated lives of the babies- expressed from the amniotic fluid into preserve jars of formaldehyde. Their dead eye's, bonded to the glass , begged the question 'what are you looking at?' I'd have the answer, if I were a surgeon. I was looking for a freak show but I was in the wrong venue. 
 Later a friend confessed that he was moved to becoming a pro-lifer when he encountered the embryos and newborn at Body Worlds. Was this an own goal or part of Gunther's game plan?

Carlos at Costa's

A Costa cafe was the nearest place to steal a moment. Carlos's punishing schedule never lets up and whenever a blue moon rises we seize the moment and shoot the breeze.

 When I first met Carlos Acosta 3 years ago all I knew was he was Cuban and Principal at the Royal Ballet-punto. Enlightenment came when we were locked together in a makeshift studio the size of a freight container. Over 2 days he taught me the difference between the Russian and French techniques and how the combination of disciplines gave him the competitive edge. I was privileged to a private performance of his ballet, folk, salsa and street moves. He danced with such carnal grace it was as if he'd made a pact with the devil, or a contract with Changó.

 Back in the cafe conversation turned to current issues: the political machinations in Cuba, his performance as Spartacus and his ambitious plan to present, for the first time, the Royal Ballet in Cuba. Carlos recommended several books in an effort to educate me on the Cuban condition. One revelation was the account of a 103 year old cimarron- 'Biography of a Runaway Slave' by anthropologist Miguel Barnet. Was this a subconscious reference to his life of cultural servitude?

 We're keeping an eye on the lunar diary. It looks like our next encounter will be in another blue moon.

touch 02

Then came Vladimir the bodyguard and Yevgenij, a student who took my hand and blew on it.

touch 01

 
This entry introduces a theme that will reoccur throughout Auto Focus:

Irina was the first touched. We met in 2005 on a hypothermic October morning in St.Petersburg.
 

 In flawless English she introduced herself as my guide and translator. Emissary and face of modern Russia, Irina was the consummate professional. Earnest and polite, to the point of prim, she never let her personality colour the facts.

Irina lit the touch paper.

 Winter has been stalking for some time and now it's making it's presence felt.

These snaps were taken on a sub-zero afternoon in St.Petersburg. Prize pooches, Laica and Sputnik, protected from the elements by their bespoke space suits, were paraded with obtuse pride to an numbed audience of destitute and homeless. This is the culture of dog couture where conspicuous avarice is a symbol of social pedigree.

   

Reprieve came in the guise of a wee snowman standing defiantly on an island of retreating ice. He gifted a sublime respite from the drudgery of the cold and, for a moment, all was well.

Fuerzabruta

The only place to shoot was at the back of a Portacabin. The front half was being used for costume changes and there were no alternative locations. It was the last night of Fuerzabruta's run at the Edinburgh Festival and my last opportunity to take photographs. On stage the performers danced a catatonic frenzy reminiscent of an entranced congregation at a Santeria party. The dance was the Murga, precursor of the Tango.

In between shots I took the opportunity to document the Murga on my digital compact- hence the scratchy quality.

 

Some of you may have noticed that the website has changed. After a 4 month trial of the old site a change in tack was needed. The site was inherently impeded by it's dependency on Java script. The advantage of a site programmed in Java is functionality- slideshows, clipboards etc. The major disadvantage is that the images contained within the site are not visible to search engines. To rectify this Kai has reprogrammed the site in HTML. The new site still contains all the previous images and videos (use the search facility to find them). Try this, add the name of the subject you want to view to the end of the url eg. www.gavinevans.com/tricky, this will bring up all of the images of Tricky. One important addition to the new site is this blog. Please link the site wherever possible, thanks.

I've received a request from Admiral Lord Roger Smith. He's archiving the life and crimes of KLF. 'Had I any evidence?' Roger once met Nico in a hotel bar and asked if he could borrow her pen. In a dulcet germane tone she replied 'yes but don't push the nib too hard'. Now he was asking a favour of me, so I started digging. I first met Jimmy Cauty (the musically inclined half of KLF) in the early 80's when we shared a squat in South London in - that’s me holding the flash. The only other stuff I have is a set of images of an ‘action’ I shot after their last gig at the Barbican, 1997. Primed with ladders, paint and rollers we scaled the east face of the South Bank. I took photographs as Jimmy and Bill Drummond daubed '1997 What the Fuck’s Going On' on the side of the hallowed wall.

 

 

 Shortly after, Bill asked if I could take a box of tapes shot at the gig and cut them together. The sublimely quixotic gig was a legendary moment in danger of becoming myth. On the night the MTV live feed didn’t give a sense of the occasion. Piecing together disparate takes, shot live and in rehearsals, had its challenges.I’ve turned on the radio and Bill’s plugging his choral project ‘The 17’. Ok, I’m on it!

 

Standing on the platform at Earl’s Court tube station I’m jarred out of my commuter stupor by the juxtaposition of these campaigns. One (left of frame) is for Oxfam, the other is for a gym. Oxfam asks us to consider the consequences of poverty and starvation whilst the other has the fix for over consumption.

 To orient myself in the art world I need to find the best guides and destinations. Frieze, Zoo and Connections art fairs coincide today. This is an opportunity to check out many of the key players in one go. My mission is to collect the business cards of as many exhibitors as possible and share the info - pause the clip for details. 11.00 Frieze Art Fair, Regents Park, London. On the first leg of the expedition I’m accompanied to the Frieze tent by artist Leila Galloway. It’s like the New Year sales and we’re at the front of the queue. The doors are opened and the throng floods inside, carrying us with it. Under the big top the art sophists and protagonists champion their prodigies. Galleries display their wares with the aplomb of a Rodeo Drive boutique. This is art gastronomy - Michelin style. In the mêlée I come across the cognoscente of art cool - Gavin Brown. It’s been many years since we holidayed with him in New York.

 (holiday pic, Times Square/ W43 St, 1997) 

 At that time his gallery was beginning to make waves in the art scene. In the intervening years he’s turned into an art tsunami. At another display I came across Wim Delvoye’s tattooed pigs. In ‘94 I made a proposal to the BAC featuring tattooed pigs. Before getting out of the starting blocks I was emphatically trumped by the brilliant artist Xu Bing. In "Cultural Animal”, Xu’s subversive and hilarious use of calligraphy and pigs put pay to my idea. In the Argentinean zone I bumped into the ‘unremittingly fabulous’ Patricia Lima and her artist beau Gregory, grandson of circus showman Billy Smart. This was a timely cue to exit the big top. 16.00 Zoo Art Fair, the Royal Academy of Arts, London. Zoo is perceived as a counter point to Frieze but their goals are in essence the same. Here the audience is more youthful, the sales pitch less overt. I can’t help feel that its credentials have been compromised by its relocation from London Zoo to the RA. Inside I’m met by guards in military uniform. This is ‘Action No. 60, durational intervention’ by Reza Aramesh - performance art for sale. More of a convention of stripper-grams than platoon, these soldiers wouldn’t go amiss at a Tyneside hen night. Durational Intervention curtailed and things start to look up. Here the art is more visceral and doesn’t take itself too seriously; Zoo has the convivial air of an arts degree show.

 18.30 The final leg - Le Book’s ‘Connections’ is the tradeshow for the creative industry. This is where photographers and illustrators agents show portfolios to prospective clients. It is strictly a photographer-free zone: I’ve surreptitiously acquired a pass and I’m posing incognito as an art director. It has been over 17 years without representation. This is an opportunity to meet with some of the best agents and assess the competition. My guide and interpreter for the evening is Ed Webster of 4Creative. Ed is something of a mentor and champion of my work - the geezer’s a diamond. I'm primarily interested in folios - presentation, how many images, what format etc. The portfolios contained anywhere between 30 and 100 images, many were comprised of ‘stories’, each with up to 10 shots. Pixel perfection stifles almost everything here. I need some air, marathon over, I limp home. Conclusion: there's no great mystery, the requisite basics for survival in the art world are agents and galleries.

 Thursday 16th October. I’m in London acclimatising for tomorrow’s art fair marathon. I take time out from checking facilities in the East End and make a trip to Hoxton Square. The White Cube is festooned with explosions of metal and glass. Josiah McElheny’s: Island Universe transforms the space into a celestial foyer befitting a Vegas hotel- portal to the temple of high art. Reminiscent of planetarium projectors, chrome rods trace trajectories to stars and constellations of hand blown glass and electric bulbs: the Big Bang materialised. Who is the Creator; artist, curator?

 ‘Creatures Great and Small’ at the Kinetica Museum reminds me of the time I met Jim Whiting (above). In the 80’s Jim was synonymous with his dislocated androids, his ‘Purvey Legs’ and the automatons in Herbie Hanckock’s music video ‘Rocket’. With Jim’s creations there was always a frisson of pending laceration as pneumatic pistons belched life into metal limbs with terrifying force.

At Kinetica there is no imminent fear of hospitalisation. Here the exhibits vie for my attention like freaks in a cyber sideshow. ‘Creatures Great and Small’ takes a broad swipe at the genre and succeeds in giving the uninitiated an insightful inauguration. Best in Show must go to Tim Lewis for his tour de force ‘Pony’. With an empty trap in tow, Pony tentatively sniffs the air as it tiptoes up to the visitor on satin gloved fingers. The drama of the exhibits resonate with the work of Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller at the Fruitmarket Gallery. Their Killing Machine (which tragically committed auto-mechanical suicide one week before the end of the show) would have not gone amiss here.