A blog on Newcastle Arts and Culture, Cinema and Life.
The best cinemas show more than just films. Cinema auditoriums are now spaces in which to enjoy the latest plays and operas, experience live music alongside silent classics and, thanks to Mamma Mia, indulge in karaoke sing-a-longs. Ever a passionate advocate of the versatility of the cinema screen, Newcastle’s Tyneside Cinema played host to Manet: [...]
Enter Newcastle’s distinguished Laing Art Gallery and you will hear a strange clicking noise. At first it sounds like the chirping of crickets in long grass, but if you listen more closely you’ll notice the sound is different to that made by insects in the wild. This sound is more rhythmic and tinny – like [...]
After months spent standing to attention on the walls of the Shipley Art Gallery, an elegant collection of portraits have finally been allowed a moment’s respite away from the gaze of the public. Their well-earned break makes way for the prestigious Jerwood Makers Open, a new exhibition of work by five of the most exceptional [...]
To me, Norman Cornish has always seemed to be a painfully romantic character. Working at the Dean and Chapter colliery near Ferryhill from the age of fourteen, Cornish spent much of his working life as a miner, enduring the daily back-breaking toil and hours of suffocating darkness of the pits. Yet, with no money, little [...]
Recently, I dreamt that I was at an elegant social gathering in a giant marble hall. All around me people were sipping champagne, nibbling at canapés and enjoying illuminating conversations. It was a bit like something out of The Bonfire of the Vanities and all very exciting. Soon, I realised that something was very, very [...]
When I was growing up I wasn’t entirely sure what schizophrenia was, but I knew it was bad. ‘Schizo’ was an insult, like ‘psycho’, a way of referring to the alcoholic and potentially homeless men who hung around the park, and ‘Schizy’ (pronounced skit-zy) was an adjective used to describe unnecessarily anxious or compulsive behaviour; [...]
I don’t know about you, but I’m a bit sick of seeing the same tourist-friendly photos of Newcastle and the surrounding areas, in particular snaps of the Quayside. For one, there never seems to be anybody in the pictures. Even though, as you all know, Newcastle is a city that never sleeps. No matter what [...]
If asked to list the people in your life in order of importance, it’s likely that you would rank your close family members pretty highly. Unless, of course, you know a drug dealer or someone famous, in which case actual family members may get bumped down the list. Those with family members ranking top trumps [...]
‘Thingness’. Now, that’s a good word. It’s a real word too, you can use it in Scrabble, and yet a definition of ‘thingness’ is almost impossible to convey. ‘Thingness’ fails spectacularly in its mission to adequately communicate the thought/feeling/experience it’s supposed to express. The Newbridge Project’s latest exhibition Malarei: Painting as Object is an exploration [...]
In my view the crowning jewels of the whole festival, two film installations from artist Cyprien Gaillard are currently being exhibited at mima: Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art. As you enter the first gallery space, a 16mm projection entitled Mysterious Cities of Gold plays on a continues loop accompanied by both the projector’s steady whirring [...]
I'm interested in what you think. No, really, I am. Leave a comment below, talk to me on Twitter and Facebook or send me an email.
