Culture

Culture

Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels

Passion and support for choreographic arts

The artistry will be glittering at the second edition of the Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels Festival, which runs in London from 12th March to 8th April at the Royal Ballet and Opera, Sadler’s Wells, South Bank Centre and Tate Modern.

Following on from the hugely successful inaugural event in 2022, this iteration of the festival created in partnership with the world-famous French luxury jewellery company features 15 dazzling shows from a whole gamut of different cultures.

Taking place at iconic venues in our capital city, Dance Reflections showcases artists who, in the words of Catherine Renier, President & CEO of Van Cleef & Arpels, have specialised in, “Collaborations with prestigious partners, contributions to major choreographic events, support for emerging and touring artists… These various commitments, in keeping with the values of creation, transmission and education dear to the Maison, all meet the same objective of celebrating contemporary choreographic art.”

Including repertory works, dance workshops, artist forums and awareness-raising initiatives, all emphasising the connections between dance heritage and modern choreography, the festival highlights imaginative ways in which dancers have evolved exciting new…

Culture

Hélène de Beauvoir: The Woman Destroyed

A tribute to the work of one of the fundamental figures of French Modernist painting

After three years in the making, the Amar Gallery is bringing to London Hélène de Beauvoir: The Woman Destroyed, a unique exhibition featuring paintings and works on paper from the 1950s to 1980s by this French artist, crucial to the feminist movement. Often overshadowed in the past by her older sister, Simone – the groundbreaking […]

Culture

Sigmar Polke. Affinities Revealed

The artistic encounter of two masters

Despite being separated in time by nearly 200 years, Sigmar Polke felt a deep admiration for Francisco de Goya. The show at Museo del Prado, Sigmar Polke. Affinities Revealed, explores how the Spanish master influenced the work of the German painter, after he saw for the first time Goya’s Time and the Old Women in […]

Culture

Julio Le Parc

The light bender

Argentine-born Julio Le Parc is a major figure in art history. As a leading experimental artist, precursor of Kinetic Art and Op Art, he was a founding member of the Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel (GRAV). In 1966, he received the Grand Prize for Painting at the 33rd Venice Biennale and the Konex Award from Argentina in 1982 and 2022. This socially conscious artist was expelled from France in May 1968 after participating in the Atelier Populaire and its protests against major institutions, growing himself a reputation as a major disruptor.

At 94 years of age, he is more in demand than ever, with solo shows being organised by international galleries across the globe, from Paris to Miami, New York to Punta del Este. His work has sold for six figures on the secondary market and belongs in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Tate, the Centre Pompidou, the Guggenheim Museum, the Museo Reina Sofía, the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Buenos Aires and the Museum Ludwig as well as in many private collections.

“From the very beginning of my journey as an artist, I would devote between eight and 12 hours a day to my art.”
– Julio Le Parc

With a career that spans seven decades, one can say that Le Parc has done it all. “I’ve never stopped working,” he says with satisfaction. In his early career, he was mostly focused on painting, engraving and creating monotypes. His first exhibition took place at the Bienal de Sáo Paulo in 1957. In 1958, he went to Paris on a French government scholarship and settled there. In what it could be considered a reaction against tachisme (a French style of abstract painting considered the European answer to abstract expressionism), Julio found inspiration in the work of artists like Victor Vasarely and Pete Mondrian and soon (1959) started to experiment with images produced by light multiplied by layers of planes of Plexiglas which resulted in works like Mobil Transparent, 1960 (a translucent cascade of small pieces of Plexiglas flowing from the ceiling).

Julio’s groundbreaking Mobile Transparent (1960) consisted of a translucent cascade of small pieces of Plexiglas flowing from the ceiling.

In 1962, he produced Light in Movement, a multi-sensorial piece aimed at being fully experiential. Visitors would come into a dark semi-circular hallway where light was experienced as a reflection and as a refraction. The piece was made of painted drywall, mirrors, stainless steel, nylon thread and two spotlights. By the time Julio won the Venice Biennale in 1966, one could say he was fully immersed in working and experimenting with light. The fact that he won is quite remarkable, given that the Biennale was a painting competition and none of the pieces Julio presented were paintings.“We wanted to highlight the spectator’s experience, to speak to them, and that’s why together with other artists such as Morellet, Sobrino, Demarco and Yvaral, I founded the group of visual art known as GRAV,” he explains. “It was all about what the spectators saw, without any guidance, so as not to influence their impression of the art they were seeing.”

The idea was very successful so Julio and the other artists in his movement went further experimenting with the viewer. They would try to displace the spectators, get them lost in a multisensorial labyrinth with the help of distorting mirrors, pulsating lights, play-rooms, etc. “We wanted to get them fully involved,” comments Julio, “and we certainly achieved that.” Julio considers this time in Paris as a young artist as key to his artistic development. “When I arrived in Paris, I realised that for the first in my life, I could devote myself 24/7 to being an artist,” he comments, “I could invest all my time in experimenting with visual art.”

“When I arrived in Paris, I realised that for the first time in my life, I could invest all my time in experimenting with visual art.”
– Julio Le Parc

The same year that GRAV was dissolved, 1968, Julio produced one of his most iconic works, Celule Avec Lumière en Vibration. Similar to the Mobil Transparent theme, the intention of this piece was to incorporate light and the sensorial experience of the viewer. A projector displays light on a wall and changes patterns in a rhythmical way that appears to be a vibration. This piece was placed in a separate room by itself to help the viewer enjoy the light and sound as if isolated from the rest of the world.

In the mid 1970s, he started to work on another of his most significant series, Modulation. “The basic theme of this series is waves and the creation of virtual volume,” Julio explains. “I used airbrush paint to obtain shades from dark to clear and a precise modulation of the surface. I found here a new domain of research.” In Modulation 2, Julio introduced colour and took the movement of these works in a way that they seemed to have a life of their own. “In each of my experiments I always try to reduce the number of elements, so the result is clearly in the relation between them rather than in their accumulation.” Overall, the Modulation series comprises hundreds of different works, the most praised of which is probably Modulation 1160, from 2004. The piece is split into quarters, right in the middle from top to bottom, with what appears to be a ray of light, and side to side with a structure that looks like an open fan. This painting gives the illusion of movement of both the light and the fan simultaneously. It appears that the light is actually making the fan move.

Modulation 1160, 2004, considered by many as one of the finest works from the Modulation series.

His appetite for continuous experimentation led to the Alchemy series. “This series was all about playing with surfaces and with perception.” Julio explains, “a natural evolution from Modulation.” The first Alchemy works appeared in 1988, based on small sketches. “I started with repetitive sketches that led to multiple drawings, some of which evolved into small paintings that served as the starting point for bigger pieces.” The most popular paintings in this series are probably Alchemy 175 (1991) and Alchemy 216 (1992), both picked for Julio’s exhibition in Miami in 2011.

Something that caught my attention about Julio’s style of work is the fact that he often works on several of his series at the same time, so pieces of Modulation develop in parallel with Alchemy works, or he may start something completely different from a forgotten sketch from the 1950s which he suddenly finds in a drawer. “I think of new works all the time,” he shares. “You see? Just in the last 40 minutes [the time of our interview] I have been thinking of a new work of art.”

Julio often works on several pieces at the same time from different series or starts something completely new from a forgotten sketch.

The 2010s saw a resurgence in the interest of international museums and galleries for Julio’s work. The exhibition in Miami in 2011 (Alchemist), was followed by a massive retrospective in 2013 at the Palais de Tokyo, organised by director Jean de Loisy, and which comprised 2,000m² of paintings, sculptures and monumental installations for viewers to immerse themselves in Julio’s art. He reckons that this is simply due to “a new wave of critics that discovered my work and decided they liked it.”

I think he is being modest. In Spain and Latin America he never ceased to be popular, with his work being in constant demand in countries like Mexico, Argentina and Brazil. Just in the last few months, Julio’s work has been the object of two great retrospectives. One of them too place at Gallery RGR in Mexico last November, Julio Le Parc: Visual Encounters, where he presented a selection of seminal and recent works across two-dimensional and three- dimensional pieces, showcasing his dedication to experimentation and research. In this show, five influential series: Surface-Colour (1959 – 2022), Light (1959 – 2022), Continuels-Mobils (1960 – 2022), Displacement (1963 – 2022), and Alchemy (1988 – 2022) were on view. “I have exhibited in Mexico several times, the first time in 1968 at the Museum of Bellas Artes, later at the Museum of Modern Art an exhibition about colour, a third one focused on light, at the Laboratorio de Arte Alameda in Mexico D.F. and several more. In this latest one last November, we introduced virtual reality, with pieces we call Virtual Alchemies.”

The exhibition, Visual Encounters, at the Galería RGR in Mexico last autumn, presented a selection of seminal and recent works by Julio Le Parc across two-dimensional and three- dimensional pieces.

In January 2023, Julio travelled to Uruguay to launch a new exhibition at MACA (Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Atchugarry) in Punta del Este, Quintaesencia. A bit like Visual Encounters, this retrospective explores the vast body of work of the artist from 1958 to the present date, taking the viewer into the artist’s life journey through his experimentation with light, painting, sculpture and immersive experiences.

After seven decades of constant work, there is very little Julio Le Parc hasn’t done, but he is still eager to do new things. These days, Julio’s children assist him in the development of new work and when putting together shows. Working with his kids makes him very proud but he confesses that “at times, it can be a headache”. Yamil takes care of the artistic direction of his exhibitions, Juan is immersed in the development of virtual reality projects, among them a virtual museum and Gabriel is in charge of his father’s archives and all the videography.

There is, however, one thing that Julio Le Parc has never done and would like to do, to be an urban artist. “The problem with that,” Julio says, “is that you have to be commissioned by the city. You can’t just go around a city displaying your work wherever you want. You have to be asked.”

It is with regret that I leave Julio Le Parc. This genius of contemporary art keeps working indefatigably to find innovative ways to invite viewers to interact with the world through his experiential art and I for one, have been completely seduced by both the man and the artist, his charisma and his infectious energy.

www.julio-le-parc.com

www.regrart.com

Words: Julia Pasarón

Opening picture: Julio Le Parc, Alchimie 492, 2021 Acrylic on canvas 195 x 260 cm. Courtesy Galería RGR, from the exhibition, Julio Le Parc,Visual Encounters, 2022.

Culture

The TEMPO Murders

Half a century of Tubular Bells

As Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells reaches its 50^th anniversary and the 19-year-old youth who composed it prepares to turn 70 and lives in virtual retirement, Mark Slattery re-discovers a furious exchange of letters between renowned classical composers about Mike Oldfield’s musical credentials.

Whatever one makes of the album’s classical credentials, Oldfield’s subsequent career has certainly taken in classical music. Woodhenge (1980) is distinctly classical, Mont St Michel (1996) is fully orchestral, and Lake Constance (1999) is a composition for strings. His piece de resistance is Music of the Spheres (2007), with the help of Karl Jenkins to transcribe for orchestra. One could add the remarkably touching score to 1984’s Killing Fields soundtrack. All this from a rock composer not working in, nor recognised by, the classical world and its tightly-knit fraternity. He is not a classical composer, this Oldfield, but he certainly knows how to create classical music.

Tubular Bells was the debut studio album by Mike Oldfield, released on the 25^th of May 1973, as the first album on Virgin Records. It is Oldfield’s best-selling album to date.

Now let us go back to a fascinating exchange about this same Oldfield in 1977 between three distinctly classical composers of renown, two of whom, sadly, are no longer with us. It raged in the pages of the quarterly academic journal TEMPO, which these days is part of Cambridge University Press but Boosey and Hawkes founded it in 1939. It begins with Bernard Benoliel, a classical composer and custodian of Ralph Vaughn Williams’s work, writing a piece about Oldfield and his first three albums (Tubular Bells, Hergest Ridge, Ommadawn) all of which were in two parts.

Citing certain luminaries of the day, such as Roberto Gerhard and Allan Pettersson, Benoliel argued in March 1977 that, “Compared to the rest of contemporary music – either that based on traditional principles or the classical avant-garde – Oldfield’s music, through its genuine emotional significance, comes closer in importance to the works of these men.” Benoliel railed against music, “weighted down by stifling academic traditions or by pseudo-scientific jargon which serves as a substitute for a highly developed individual musical language” and cited Oldfield – and his work with avant-garde composer David Bedford (composer of Star’s End) as offering something “fresh and alive.” He didn’t mean seafood.

Continuing his thesis, Benoliel, whose first nine opus works were all performed and broadcast either by the BBC or Dutch Radio, pointed out that Oldfield’s work has “technical limitations”, a “lack of solid musical architecture on a large scale”, a “very slow rate of change in events” and “a primitive use of tonality” (which is a drawback, one imagines for what Benoliel calls “tone-poems”) – but…but!… he says the same weaknesses are present in most avant-garde compositions and none, “possess the immediacy of appeal, direct emotional impact and small but definite vein of originality in Oldfield’s work.”

The premiere live performance of Tubular Bells took place at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the evening of the 25^th of June 1973, and was broadcast live on UK radio by the BBC.

Some among the quivering audience had begun to realise that Benoliel had compared Oldfield’s music with theirs. TEMPO rubbed it in by printing a whole-page advert for Oldfield’s work on the back cover. The stunned silence did not last long. In June, 1977, two irate letters perform a double-mugging of the unwary Benoliel. First into the attack is Colin Matthews, a scholar with a doctorate on Mahler and Composer Emeritus with the Hallé Orchestra. “Mr Benoliel… provides a foil for the unstructured and sentimental prettiness of the music of Mike Oldfield … the only possible reaction is one of near-hysterical disbelief. To allow such pointless and ill-judged formulations to be put into print is to devalue the pages of TEMPO.” As thick blood splattered on the carpet, onlookers gasped with the audacity of the knifing as the offender escaped capture.

Benoliel staggers and his creative vision blurs but a pincer movement is forming. For here comes Oliver Knussen, subsequently CBE, the London Sinfonietta’s music director between 1998 and 2002 and an artist in association with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. The late Knussen’s considerably acknowledged work needs no introduction here, nor did it then. Knussen wrote: “It is all very well to use a serious journal to air one’s personal prejudices…and to include the odd joke item…on music which is to me at least of rather questionable substance…” he commenced, adding “one’s blood begins to boil”.

“Mike Oldfield must really be something else!! The upshot of all this is that one’s faith in what Mr Benoliel has to say about his chosen subject is seriously undermined from the outset…perhaps an article entitled something like ‘my favourite contemporary composer’ would … not have been devoid of interest to some.” It is a smaller, more skilful incision, removing important vital organs and a wallet, but finally, spasming its last, Benoliel’s shredded form expels his spirt.

Mike Oldfield with the orchestra and chorus of the City of Bilbao performing Music of the Spheres, 2008.

Lazarus came back in but three days. TEMPO, being quarterly, obliged Bernard Benoliel to wait for three months. His spirit rose in September. He was not mincing his words. Zap! “Oliver Knussen and Colin Matthews find my review of Mike Oldfield so disturbing it’s robbed them of their ability to read the English language.” Pow! “In answer to [Knussen] I say: Why yes! Mike Oldfield achieves what he sets out to do. Intent and achievement are in balance.” Biff! “Then why the violence of their response? [They] imply that many more readers …share their opinions than mine, so why do my ‘pointless and ill-judged formulations’ make them feel so insecure? So insecure that Mr Matthews stoops so low … as to question my critical sincerity.”

One didn’t need Twitter in those days for a jolly good literary punch-up. One just needed patience. Three months hence, therefore, came Matthews’ response to the Holy Spirit of Bernard Benoliel. “I would like… to apologise to Bernard Benoliel for doubting his sincerity in what I agree was too violent a reaction to his article on Mike Oldfield.” It was too good to be true, because he added, how disturbing it was to for “Mr Benoliel’s linking of his group of admirably serious composers with the, to me, lightweight sentimentality of Oldfield.”

Despite that barb, in March 1978, TEMPO concludes the exchange with Benoliel accepting Matthews’ apology in good faith. No further word was heard from Oliver Knussen, and one must assume a line was drawn by the editor, following five successive issues, on the basis that there was no need to bathe in further bloodshed.

Oliver Knussen (1952-2018) was a leading figure in music, as composer, conductor, teacher and artistic director. He was renowned for his support of contemporary music.

Matthews remains living, an esteemed OBE, while Benoliel died in 2017 and Knussen in 2018, all of them held in high esteem and great champions, for different reasons, of their art. One can only imagine how they might have reacted to Oldfield’s Music of the Spheres being described as, ‘The Planets for the 21^st century.’ Ironically, later in 1978, Oldfield released Incantations, the most classical of any of his recordings to that point. He toured it with a 50-piece orchestra and a choir.

In 2017, Oldfield told The Guardian: “I listened to Ravel, Roedelius, Bartók, Stravinsky … or it might be Stevie Wonder or Led Zeppelin. It didn’t matter. It was just music – vibrations in the air. My last album was entirely classical, and this one is entirely live-band rock music. You can’t say I’m any one kind of artist.”

It is highly unlikely that he was ever aware of this exchange.

Words: Mark Slattery

Cover of Tubular Bells and poster of Mike Oldfield’s concert courtesy of Pete Buttle

For the official tour of the 50^th anniversary of Tubular Bells, click HERE. 12

Culture

CLASS S

Fear, Fame, Sex and Addiction

Written and directed by Darryl Duah-Boateng and produced by Pyraglyphix, Class S appears to present a current and revealing approach to young-adult angst and the dramatic effects of new psychoactive drugs, which are increasingly being the cause of the loss of many young lives. Duah-Boateng’s film focuses on university students to tell his take on this pressing topic. But don’t you think this is all it is about Class S. Trust me, you’ll be surprised, and you’ll like it.

The film is narrated from the point of view of the main character, a student called Leo, played by Reggie Banigo (known for his role as detective Lawson in Amazon Prime series Trust) speaking to his therapist, Dr Williams (Erina Mashate, Black Mail). At the beginning of our story, we can quickly see how this young man struggles with the different pressures from university life: assignments, exams, social life, relationships with girls… It is obvious he takes his studies very seriously, but he is surrounded by others who don’t, so temptation to “party” appears to be everywhere. I think that the director wants to make us understand from the very beginning how difficult it can be to stay on the straight and narrow when exposed to so many opportunities to take drugs and when faced with peer pressure.

Leo and Cherry get together for a movie night that turns into an experience completely new to Leo.

Basically, the desire to fit in and to be “cool” overrides common sense and our protagonist finds himself first agreeing to do drugs with his girlfriend Cherry (Charithra Chandran, Edwina Sharma in Netflix hit series Bridgerton and Sabina Pleasance in Alex Rider) and then with bad girl Zoe (Julia Holden), who introduces him to yet more powerful drugs. From here on, Leo goes down into a spiral of addiction until he reaches rock bottom and almost dies of an overdose. Thankfully he survives, his girlfriend forgives him and his doctor convinces him to get help.

Class S investigates the topic of drugs in the life of University students… but all is not as it appears. The end will most certainly surprise you.

For a film that runs for less than 50 minutes, Class S manages to narrate the whole story thoroughly and consistently, with touches of humour and tones of scepticism, including quite an obvious criticism of the establishment when it comes to the standard of care for those affected by drug addiction. Towards the end of the film, Leo kind of loses his temper and shouts at Dr Williams, “You parade pictures of your certificates around the room screaming out for attention… you are just like the rest of us, crying out for validation… trying not to be swallowed up by the big bad world.” But things are not what they seem… you’ll be surprised by the turn of events in the last ten minutes of the film. It is very clever, very timely, very pertinent. I can’t recommend it enough. I’ll give you a little clue. Suicide has been identified not only as an individual phenomenon, but as one influenced by social and environmental factors.

Curious about what else the team at Pyraglyphix have on store, I persuaded them to let me read the script of their next project, The Elexum, which will go into production in 2023. I really liked it. It is fresh, exciting and very original. What a talented team!

Learn more about Pyraglyphix independent film and production company HERE.

www.classsfilm.co.uk

Culture

A Letter to Black Men

Black survival, a Darwinian affair

Inspired by true events, A Letter to Black Men is a gritty showcase of life for youths living in the estates of inner-city London. But it’s also a tale of hope and redemption. I found most interesting that this work goes a little further and offers an insight from both the hardened criminals stuck in their ways as well as from the sympathetic voice of the narrator. However, by no means this softens the depiction of the harsh realities many people face living in our country, especially those from ethnic minorities. This award-winning short film by Kiosa Sukami is hard, pure and simple.

The opening sentences by the narrator are as harsh as harsh gets. “The culture of survival breeds people who riot rather than plan progressive change or revolution,” he says, within seconds of the start. The film kicks off with a kind of comical, yet extremely trivial discussion between three young men in a car, which is abruptly interrupted when another young man walks by and they all jump out covered with balaclavas and bring him down with extreme violence. What has brought all this on?

A Letter to Black Men addresses some of the rawest aspects of surviving in the “hood” in an entertaining way but without glamorising the culture.

In the following scene we view a pair of youths at a newsagent’s, one distracting the shopkeeper whilst the other steals food. With the mission complete, the two joke and laugh as they share the spoils in the backpack. Their next stop is to go and mark the walls with graffiti: really stamp their name and authority on their “hood”. The one with a keen eye for street art is named Kevin (played by Jesse Lihau), and he doesn’t even get a chance to zero into his work before he notices an old friend from the block, Black (Baba Oyejide, Nobody Gets Out Alive, 2021, Top Boy, 2019), who seems to be some kind of local hero fresh out of prison for dealing drugs.

Baba Oyejide gives a stellar performance as Black, the redeemed drug dealer and ultimate hero in this story.

Kevin is all smiles when he sees him and runs to embrace him. After a few pleasantries, Black gives him some stern banter about his graffiti and about hanging around with waste guys on the block. Before they leave each other, Black asks Kevin to pass by his flat later that evening. What could it be? Maybe Black is ready to re-establish his empire and needs a new lieutenant. Quite to the contrary, Black first gives Kevin a book, challenging him to expand his mind, also explaining how this book helped him to survive his prison sentence. But that’s not all. In the living room, there are two large white canvases for painting, Black intends to convert Kevin’s lust for street graffiti into legitimate art. Clearly, he has love for the boy.

When Kevin returns home, his sister Kelsey (Lynsey Murrall) is putting a meal together. As the two sit down to dine, Kevin mentions that Black is back home, news to which Kelsey isn’t best pleased. She warns Kevin to stay away from him. The fact that he has just been in prison is proof enough that he is bad news to her, but as she explains, the passion in her voice suggests that there is a deeper reason why she wants nothing to do with him. Kevin’s rebuttal that Black isn’t involved in that life anymore fall on death ears, and the conversation ends there.

The film highlights the drama importance of father figures and family relationships in the development of youngsters.

A knock on the door sheds some light for us on their history. When Kelsey sees Black standing there, she slams the door on him immediately. He yells that he just wants to talk to her but she dismisses the notion. “Kelsey I just want you to hear me out. I’m sorry about the way things ended for us, also, I blame myself for what happened to Jordan. Can you forgive me?” Kelsey doesn’t hesitate in her answer, “Forgive you? You’ve got some nerve asking me that. You’re the reason Kevin doesn’t have a father anymore! Just leave us alone.”

Watch the trailer of A Letter to Black Men:

The plot thickens… Later that night, Kevin is trying to read a book given to him by Black but is being constantly distracted by texts coming to his phone. His team are all together chilling in the bunker. Temptation is too hard to resist so he joins them. The scene could have been something out of Scarface. A huge pack of cocaine on the table, weed smoke filling the air; and all the guys huddled up playing blackjack and sharing stories of their most recent sexual conquests. A gangsters’ paradise if you will. Back home, Kelsey is worried. It’s the early hours and her baby bro is not back home. She calls Black… who makes his way into the gang’s den and takes Kevin back with him. Unfortunately, the fragile ego of these guys feels severely bruised by this afront. And now we understand the start of the film.

I thoroughly enjoyed A Letter to Black Men but feel that the story is a bit straightjacketed by the restriction of a short film. I would have loved to see this story developed to its full potential. Writer and director Kiosa Sukami is known for his realism and has had works screened at several BAFTA and Oscar qualifying film festivals. In this work, he continues his journey into tackling stories about black representation in challenging and refreshing ways.

Words: Papa Sono-Abebrese

Culture

Made of Makers

Reimagining Creative Expression

Inaugurated in 2022, Jaeger-LeCoultre’s Made of Makers encapsulates a series of collaborations with artists and artisans from various disciplines outside of watchmaking, building a community of creators with similar values and visions of creativity. Expanding on the dialogue that exists between horology and art, the programme is founded on the core principles of the Maison: creativity, expertise and precision. Combining the creativity of the mind with the skill of the hand, the initiative focuses on world-class creators whose work explores new forms of expression through different and often unexpected materials and media. Each year, new works commissioned through the programme animates the exhibitions that Jaeger-LeCoultre stages around the world, amplifying the chosen theme and creating new opportunities for audiences to engage and to become part of the wider conversation about art, craft and design.

CEO of Jaeger-LeCoultre Catherine Rénier says about this initiative: “In the spirit of our founder, Antoine-LeCoultre, our Manufacture has always been driven by the belief that to be truly innovative we need to push boundaries. Through Made of Makers we are looking for different perspectives on how the practices of watchmaking, art and other creative disciplines can bring value to lived experiences.” These Makers are the creators of today and the shapers of tomorrow. While the chosen collaborators are all notable for having taken their disciplines in new directions, they share Jaeger-LeCoultre’s respect for the past as their creative foundation. Made of Makers highlights the importance of creating bridges between the past and the future – celebrating what is made, how it is made and who makes it.

On 4^th March 1931, René-Alfred Chauvot file the patent for the mechanism that would become synonymous with an icon in horology: the Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso.

The story of the Reverson began during the winter of 1930-1931. While travelling in India, the Swiss businessman and watch collector César de Trey attended a polo match at a club of British army officers. One of these officers, who had just broken the glass face of his watch, challenged de Trey to create a watch tough enough to resist to a polo match. César de Trey discussed the idea with Jacques-David LeCoultre who in turn, hired designer René-Alfred Chauvot, who invented the unique slide and flip mechanism and the whole enterprise resulted into the Reverso, an elegant watch with a dial that could flip, protecting it from shock while offering a case back with a generous surface that could be used for personalisation.

Spacetime by Michael Murphy, on display at the current Reverso Timeless Stories exhibition in Covent Garden, London. @Jaeger-LeCoultre

Artist and artisans that have collaborated in this programme include, among others: Guillaume Marmin, a French multi-media artist who created a new installation Passengers: Through Time for Jaeger-LeCoultre, expressing the Stellar Odyssey theme in a profound and exciting way; Matthias Giroud, a celestial alchemist renowned for his avant-garde approach and a leader among the new generation of mixologists; and Zimoun, the Swiss multi-media artist who uses simple raw materials and repurposed industrial components to create complex tapestries of sound and movement that redefine traditional ideas of sculpture, space and time.

Alex Trochut is the latest artist joining Jager-Le Coultre’s Made of Makers project.

The latest name joining this extraordinary group of talent is lettering artist Alex Trochut. Born in 1981, Alex began his career studying at Elisava Escola Superior de Disseny. After launching his own design studio in Barcelona, Alex relocated to New York where he has worked independently since 2012. His work is defined by an intense, fiercely original creativity that pushes the limits of language to produce a truly expressive, emotive visual lettering style. He has also been honoured with prestigious awards by Type Directors Club, Creative Review, Cannes, Clio, D&AD and others. Inspired by the architectural identity of New York and Jaeger-LeCoultre’s strong Art Deco heritage, Alex has crafted a bespoke signature alphabet for La Grande Maison, the 1931 Alphabet. “This concept unifies Art Deco and Jaeger-LeCoultre’s craft of watchmaking,” explains Alex, “I wanted these letters to feel physical and expose their intricate parts equally as functional and decorative, giving the sense of a moving machine.” Just looking at his new typeface, I can see how much it aligns with the origin of the Reverso, at the zenith of the Art Deco period.

Alex Trochut has created for Made of Makers the 1931 Alphabet, inspired by the architectural identity of New York and Jaeger-LeCoultre’s strong Art Deco heritage.

This exciting partnership will be showcased during a special exhibition from 15^th to 24^th December at The Piazza in Covent Garden: Reverso Timeless Stories, celebrating the heritage of their iconic Reverso collection, its innovation and metiers rares. Three exhibition areas include: the art installation Spacetime by American artist Michael Murphy, which transports visitors through the three physical dimensions of space and the fourth dimension of time and was exclusively created for Jaeger-LeCoultre; the Reverso Exhibition, the centrepiece of the pop-up and an exciting retrospective of the watch with a selection of iconic models, including – for the first time in London – The Quadriptyque, a true highlight of the Maison’s savoir-faire. End your exhibition experience with a visit to the 1931 Café which provides an exquisitely designed menu of pastries by French pastry-chef Nina Métayer, described as visual masterpieces that marry the evocative flavours of the Vallée de Joux with the timelessly elegant forms of Art Deco, and look as remarkable as they taste.

The Reverso Stories is a free exhibition open to the public from Monday to Sunday, 11am to 8pm at the East Piazza, Covent Garden. LONDON WC2E 8RF.

To book tickets to the exhibition please see HERE

Words: Shelley Campbell

Culture

1984 – Big Brother is Watching You

The manuscript of George Orwell’s masterpiece

Few books have had more impact on society than George Orwell’s 1984. Published in June, 1949, Orwell’s portrait of a dystopian future quickly become an iconic read, often taught at schools and colleges, maybe because although the book describes a made-up world, a lot of it feels creepily familiar.

Publishers of limited facsimile editions of literary manuscripts SP Books have produced a limited edition of Orwell’s 1984 manuscript, which has been held at the John Hay Library (Brown University, Providence) since 1992. After Orwell’s death, his widow Sonia visited his last home on the Hebridean island of Jura, where she found the 1984 manuscript. She donated it to a charity auction in London in June 1952. The manuscript was purchased by Scribner’s of New York, then sold to bookseller and rare book collector Daniel G. Siegel in June 1969 (the June thing spooks me too). In 1992, Mr. Siegel gave the manuscript to the Brown University Library (Providence, USA). It is the only substantial Orwell manuscript that survives.

The manuscript of 1984 reflects Orwell’s creative process during World War II and its aftermath, as well as five years of health struggles, the loss of his wife, and his doubts while writing.

Unfortunately, only about 44 percent of the final text survives and according to Orwell’s biographer D.J. Taylor, “What remains derives from four different sources. (…) The manuscript of Nineteen Eighty-Four is a very curious piece of work: incomplete, chaotic and oddly provisional. As such, it reflects the highly unusual conditions in which it was written”. Several pages in the manuscript were cast aside by Orwell, such as a scene in which Winston and Julia come across each other after leaving the flat (p. 66); or the lynching of a black woman in the propaganda movie watched by Winston. Other passages reveal Orwell’s self-censorship “on grounds of possible racial prejudice or taste.” (pp. 17-18)

Of the 197 remaining pages of Orwell’s manuscript of 1984, 183 are hand-written and 14 are typewritten, with unedited passages.

The story of how 1984 came to be is quite tortuous. Due to many crises in his personal life, including the sudden and devastating loss of his first wife, Eileen, and his increasingly fragile health, it took Orwell more than five years to create his final masterpiece. Although he conceived the basic plan for 1984 late in 1943, it was not published by Secker & Warburg until five years later. Many of the essays Orwell wrote during this period, such as “You and the Atom Bomb” (1945), “Freedom and Happiness” and “Politics and the English Language” (both 1946), were crucial to the novel’s development as it was the effect of World War II and its aftermath in the author’s creative process.

I read 1984 when I was 16, a time during which I was a teenage literary sponge. I had read other dystopian novels before, such as Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury and A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, both of which I loved, but there was something about 1984 that made it particularly spine-chilling.

The novel’s all-seeing leader, known as “Big Brother”, is a universal symbol for intrusive government and oppressive bureaucracy. The society it describes is one where the so-called Ministry of Truth kind of rewrites history books, press articles or whichever it needs in order to obliterate independent thinking. Big Brother watches everyone. Propaganda sinks into people’s minds as they are fully distracted by their small lives and the rubbish they see in media, which is all about sport, scandal, astrology, sex… and which hits them from all angles, so nobody really has the time or the appetite to care much about politics, science or history. Facts and dates become blurry and the Party is praised for the efforts is undertaking to make Oceania (the name of the country) great again. Sounds familiar?

Hand-numbered from 1 to 1,000, SP Books’ deluxe edition of 1984 in Oxford blue is presented in a large format handmade slipcase and priced at just £170.

This deluxe edition by SP Books with foreword by D.J. Taylor is an absolute delight, a book that I promise you’ll cherish for the rest of your life. I have a copy and it has become one of my most precious possessions. Numbered from 1 to 1,000, this Oxford blue edition is presented in a large format (25.4 x 35.56cm), with a handmade slipcase. Printed with vegetal ink on eco-friendly paper, each book is bound and sewn using only the finest materials. At just £170, this is an unforgettable gift to yourself or to anyone who loves the written word. Get your copy HERE.

Words: Julia Pasarón

Opening image by Pete Linforth, Pixabay

Culture

Making Modernism

Vacheron Constantin celebrates Scottish craftmanship

Making Modernism is the first major UK exhibition devoted to women artists working in Germany in the early 20th century. Although less familiar than their male counterparts, these artists were central to the development and dissemination of modernism. The show includes 65 paintings and works on paper primarily by Paula Modersohn- Becker, Käthe Kollwitz, Gabriele Münter and Marianne Werefkin, with additional works by Erma Bossi and Jacoba van Heemskerck.

Seen through the lens of these artists, key themes of modernism such as self-portraiture, still-life and urban and rural scenes are revaluated, with the attention focused on the female body, childhood, and maternal experience, themes that resonate with today’s concerns about identity, representation and belonging. The exhibition is arranged thematically, beginning with Ourselves and Others, where self-portraits and portraits, show the increasing participation of women artists in public life, revealing their crucial role in creating and sustaining the networks that supported various aspects of emergent modernism in Germany.

Portrait of Marianne Werefkin by Erma Bossi, c. 1910. Oil on cardboard, 71.6 x 58 cm. Gabriele Munter- und Johannes Eichner-Stiftung, Munich.

Paintings include Erma Bossi’s Portrait of Marianne Werefkin, 1910 (Gabriele Munter- und Johannes Eichner-Stiftung, Munich) and Gabriele Münter’s Portrait of Anna Roslund, 1917 (Leicester Museums and Galleries, UK). The Century of the Child, titled after Swedish writer Ellen Key’s influential 1900 publication, explores how each of the artists depicted children. Although domestic themes were an established genre, modernist treatments of such subjects depart from sentimental works to explore melancholy, tension, curiosity, and unfulfilled desire. Many artworks reflect the fact that women artists’ desire to work was frequently tested by the social expectation that demanded they marry and devote themselves to producing a family. Paintings and drawings include Werefkin’s Twins, 1909 (Fondazione Marianne Werefkin, Museo Comunale d’Arte Moderna, Ascona), Kollwitz’s Woman with Dead Child, 1903 (Käthe Kollwitz Museum, Köln) Modersohn-Becker’s Girl with Child, 1902 (Kunstmuseum Den Haag, The Hague), and Münter’s Portrait of a Boy (Willi Blabb), 1908/09 (Gabriele Münter- und Johannes Eichner-Stiftung, Munich).

Mother with Child on her Arm, Nude II, by Paula Modershohn-Becker, autumn 1906. Oil on canvas, 80 x 59 cm. Museum Ostwall im Dortmunder U.

Sites of Intimacy delves into the inner lives of Modersohn-Becker and Kollwitz, further exploring maternal instinct as well as the female body and eroticism. In these works, the mother and child theme is secularised and modernised to reflect the physicality and psychological depth of the choices surrounding motherhood. Images established through masculine representations of the female nude are overturned. Here we find Kollwitz’s Love Scene I, c.1909/1910 (Käthe Kollwitz Museum, Köln), Ottilie Reyaender’s Beta naked, c. 1900 (Worpsweder Kunststiftung Friedrich Netzel, Worpsweder Kunsthalle) and Modersohn-Becker’s Mother with Child on her Arm, Nude II, autumn 1906 (Museum Ostwall im Dortmunder U, Dortmund) and Self-portrait as a Standing Nude with Hat, summer 1906 (Paula- Modersohn-Becker-Stiftung, Bremen, on loan from a private collection).

City and Country: Journeys and Migrations presents paintings of urban life and explores changing roles for women in a variety of contexts, including the artists’ search for refuge in rural areas to produce art that celebrated the natural beauty of the countryside.

Portrait of Anna Roslund by Gabriele Münter, 1917. Oil on canvas, 94 x 68 cm. Leicester Museums & Galleries.

The final part of the exhibition considers the significant role of still life in the work of these artists. The concept of “still lives” suggests quiet moments of reflection and meditation recorded by the artists in their letters, diaries, and journals.

Making Modernism
The Royal Academy of Arts. Piccadilly, London W1J 0BD
12th November 2022 to 12th February 2023
For tickets, visit HERE.

Words: Lavinia Dickson-Robinson

**Opening picture: Marianne Werefkin, Twins, 1909. Tempera on paper, 27.5 x 36.5 cm. Fondazione Marianne Werefkin, Museo Comunale d’Arte Moderna, Ascona.**

Culture

Provenance Collection

Vacheron Constantin celebrates Scottish craftmanship

Just over a year ago, the luxury watchmaking Swiss brand Vacheron Constantin opened its first boutique in Edinburgh, just a stone-throw from the castle. To celebrate its first anniversary, the Maison has commissioned five local artisans to create a collection of unique items to celebrate traditional crafts by exploring the themes of place, time and heritage and celebrating traditional crafts. Eight of these works would be permanently on display at the boutique.

From the beginning of its journey more than two hundred and sixty years ago, Vacheron Constantin has championed artistry and craftmanship. From the unrivalled dexterity of its master watchmakers to the highly skilled of its artisans, the Maison has been passing on all the knowledge for nearly three centuries through the different generations. The constant values that have permeated through could be crystallised in very few words: One of Not Many. It was this idea that was shared with the five artists commissioned to create bespoke works for its Edinburgh boutique, housed in a historic building from the 18^th– century.

The first of these artists are the husband-and-wife team known as Chalk Plaster. Ffion and Steven Blench are devoted to restoration. They work with Scagliola plaster, a medium that appeared in Europe in the 1590s and that for many years was used only for works destined to Royalty. The technique relies on just a few simple natural ingredients: gypsum plaster, pearl glue and pigments. Its simplicity is deceitful. In the skilled hands of a master craftsman, scagliola plaster can become a material as exquisite and beautiful as the most exotic of marbles.

“The Provenance project was particularly fun. Using hand processed pigments is always a bit of an adventure. They contain all sorts of impurities which can have surprising consequences in the final pieces.”
– Steven Blench

For this collaboration, the artisan couple made a gorgeous scagliola side table pigmented with a roiling stracciatella of dark and light tones. Steven told me that the materials for this piece were gathered during a six-month restoration project on the Adam Dome at General register House in Edinburgh – a grand classical building designed by Robert Adam to house the treasured records of Scotland’s history. “The dark is airborne soot from Edinburgh’s coal fires which had accumulated on the back of the ceiling since its construction in 1785,” he explains. “The fine soot produced a jet-black pigment which we contrasted with a lighter one made from old lime plaster finish which came from the interior of the dome. This material had been supplied by an Edinburgh lime merchant called William Laing during the 1780s.”

The very nature of these pigments means that often, surprises come out at the very end. “In this particular piece tiny fragments of iron were present, which oxidised during the making process creating small bursts of orange within the surface,” Steven explained. “In a way, the table is a kind of time capsule holding all these layers of Edinburgh’s history. These materials were refined, combined, cast, and painstakingly polished. As a complement, Chalk designed is a series of bespoke coasters, inspired by the singular form of the master watchmaker’s rose engine lathe. They were also cast from scagliola and pigmented with soot collected from the same source.

The second artisan commissioned by Vacheron Constantin is the young ceramist Hazel Frost. Hazel studied in Central St Martins and, upon graduating in 2013, she opened her own studio in Edinburgh. Inspired by the Scottish landscape, she works with a variety of ceramics, from locally foraged clays to fine porcelain to create tactile pieces that explore the natural elements – water, minerals, plant and animal residue – that make the clay itself over millions of years of geological evolution. “Pottery has an inherent sense of time and place,” she tells me, “from the clays which are dug up from the ground beneath us to the glazes that are made from the ash of our fires. Each found material results in nuances of texture and colour that only reveal themselves once they have been fired in a kiln.”

Hazel Frost’s series of traditional tea bowls and carafe (top shelf) and the two coil-built vessels (bottom shelf).

Using foraged clays from six regions of Scotland, Hazel threw and glazed a series of fine traditional tea bowls and a carafe for the Provenance Collection. Each clay, dug from sites including Leith Walk and Blair Adam, brings with it a different makeup of ingredients, tones and textures, distinctively resonant of the ground in which it was found. “This collaboration allowed me the space to explore the materials around me, to compare the variations in clay from different localities. Using simple pottery techniques that have been around since the early days of humanity, is an element that connects me to the craft, to those potters who have come before me and to the land around me.” She also produced a pair of dramatic coil-built vessels, which required a lot of patience and many weeks to meticulously layer and handshape. One is smooth and burnished, almost lustrous; the other, painstakingly chiselled prior to firing. The surfaces of both pieces have been smoke-glazed with burnt leaves gathered from around her home in Edinburgh.

Textiles is another media that Vacheron Constantin wanted to explore within this Provenance collection. And so they invited weaver and designer Araminta Campbell. Araminta’s interest in textiles comes from her childhood, thanks to the tartan she saw at special family occasions and her love of the woodlands, glens and lochs near her home in Aberdeenshire, which have inspired her throughout her career.

Araminta’s artisans produced a stunning fabric using traditional looms and British alpaca which was used to produce soft furnishings for the boutique.

Araminta was struck by Vacheron Constantin’s remarkable guilloché work, by the skill, artistry and technical mastery required to create these precise patterns and textures, the way the light plays on the finely worked surfaces of the metal. In an effort to emulate this dramatic relief, she developed a complex woven design, incorporating twenty shafts of contrasting yarn delineated by curves that arc softly through the fabric’s structure. As a result, the fabric has an extraordinary depth, to the point that it almost shimmers. Using traditional looms and the finest sustainably sourced British alpaca, her artisans have woven this design into a stunning textile, used to create a unique series of soft furnishings for the boutique. “Like Vacheron Constantin guilloché work, my designs are works of art,” says Araminta, “I translate stories into textiles which stand the test of time. I admire the skill and mastery that goes into each and every Vacheron Constantin timepiece and feel that we have the same ethos in creating one-off pieces using centuries old skills and traditions.”

Very few materials are as tactile and evocative as wood. The scars on their bark, the knots and cracks in their trunk and branches are all a reflection of lives that are bound to a place, but which flow through time. With a lifespan of 800 years, there are few trees with more character than the Scottish oak. Methods Studio is a company of multidisciplinary creatives and craftsmen working in the hidden depths of the West Lothian woods.

The umbrella made of Scottish oak and the larger of the two Codex mirrors created by Method Studio, founded by architect Marisa Giannasi and woodworker Callum Robinson.

For this project, they showed the scope of their creativity by making two pieces. The first, an umbrella stand for the boutique, crafted from local Scottish oak. Its tapering 12-sided form drawing from the opening of an umbrella and, from deep within, its elegantly interlaced spokes. Their other contribution to the Provenance collection is influenced by Creag a’ Chaisteil, or Castle Rock, seat of Edinburgh’s legendary stronghold, which casts a massive and ancient shadow on the Vacheron Constantin boutique. This enduring slab of volcanic geology is the inspiration for the stratified form of Codex Mirrors created by the Method team, one large and one small. The brass threads that weave their way around the forms give the pieces their name. These find their roots in the secret codes that have for centuries passed between Scottish Royalty – for good and ill – their careful placement evoking the letters “V” and “C” in binary.

Another geological wonderous material that couldn’t be amiss in the Provenance collection is glass. Although volcanic magma, meteor and lightning strike can form glass in nature, the vast majority of it is industrially made. Sand, soda ash, limestone, and extreme heat. For nearly four thousand years, glassmaking is about as close to alchemy as we have come. It is estimated, however, that a single glass bottle would take over a million years to decompose in the environment. This, in turn, means there is a lot of lonely, discarded glass out there waiting for a second life. Vacheron Constantin went to Costa Rican born artist and designer Juli Bolaños-Durman to create a glass piece to complete this unprecedented collection.

Juli’s sculptural piece, made of reclaimed glass, is a reflection of her love for colour.

After studying in San José, New York and Venice, Juli chose Edinburgh as the location for her studio. Like in any other city, she realised she could find here as much discarded glass as she could dream of. By collecting, modifying and repurposing these found objects, Juli found a means to give them new lives, creating precious, sustainable, charismatic objects which each tell a story of redemption. For this commission, she produced a unique sculptural piece that displays her characteristic Costa Rican love of vibrant colour, composed of just three tones and three fragments of abandoned Edinburgh glass. The work draws inspiration from the original stained-glass windows in Vacheron Constantin’s boutique and the elegant city beyond. Speaking to you Juli, she shared with me some of her notes, showing how her methodology aligned with the Maison’s “Past, Present & Future” depicted metaphorically. “Its heritage and respect for tradition are the values I took from Vacheron’s past. From the present, I took the optimism and the idea of working with what we have to make it beautiful. For the future, I wanted to reflect its sense of innovation and the idea of leaving a better Earth than we found, as a good ancestor would do.”

Juli also kindly explained to me the creative process for this beautiful piece, “After visiting the boutique and researching the values of Vacheron Constantin, I decided to create a glass sculpture that visualises the passage of time, using found glass collected from the community and embellished by using heritage hand-cutting techniques local to the area. The markings on the glass and the colour combination are directly linked to the boutique’s stained-glass windows dating back almost 200 years.”

The artists had the chance to meet and learn a bit about what the others were making. “We were all creating something new from our usual practice, so it was a great surprise to see how all the objects came together.”

Discover the Provenance Collection at the Vacheron Constantin boutique in Edinburgh.

Vacheron Constantin
3 Frederick Street, Edinburgh, EH2 2EY
Tel. 0131 322 1980
To visit the boutique’s website, click HERE.
Monday – Saturday 9am – 6.30pm
Sunday 11am – 5pm

Words: Julia Pasarón

Culture

Reuben James

It’s about time

With his slightly husky, silky evocative voice, easy smile and casual manner, singer-songwriter and pianist Reuben James has become one of the most exciting artists to have emerged in recent years on the music scene.

Reuben grew up in a musical house in Bromford, Birmingham, with parents who loved music and had a huge vinyl collection. He listened to Frank Sinatra, Bob Dylan and reggae and started playing the piano at the age of just three – by himself, without any formal tuition. By his teenage years, Reuben had developed a fascination for jazz and was playing with the charity responsible for Symphony Hall and Town Hall in Birmingham (now rebranded B:Music). Reuben remembers those days with true fondness. “B:Music gave me my first real platform and a chance to showcase my skills. They had me playing after Jamie Cullum and they even let me open for saxophonist Wayne Shorter at the Town Hall. With them I learnt about the craft of performance and how to interact with an audience.”

His success though is not just based on his natural talent or his discipline (he used to practise piano up to six hours a day) but as he says, “There are many other factors to consider,” he adds, “The most important to me is to have personality and stories to tell, so your music connects with people at an emotional level, but it takes a very long time to realise who you are. In my case, I found a community of artists that inspire and push me to be a better musician.” It was the influence of another artist, John Legend, whom he saw performing at the Birmingham Academy, which encouraged him to pursue a career in music.

It takes a very long time to realise who you are. In my case, I found a community of artists that inspire and push me to be a better musician.

– Reuben James

His talent earned him a scholarship to Trinity College of Music, which, to his mum’s dismay, he gave up to go on tour with an up-and-coming artist he’d met. Reuben famously said to his friends that he had a gut feeling this guy was going to be big. That guy was Sam Smith, with whom he co-wrote songs for his four million-selling album The Thrill of It All. A couple of years later, Reuben found himself performing at the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles and sitting next to Stevie Wonder. Since, he has worked with living legends such as Nile Rodgers, Joni Mitchell, Liam Payne and Bonnie Raitt among many others. My colleague Papa, a devotee of jazz, defines Reuben’s music as “an intricate fusion of a classical jazzy style, made with authentic original instruments but also sweetly blended with a contemporary sensational sound. Like a blast from the past, a journey into sound, played by the greats, but in a 21st-century studio, with state-of-the-art equipment”.

Reuben shows his range and variety of skill throughout all his albums. Papa mentions how he feels the influence of some of the old-school jazz gods, such as John Coltrane, Miles Davis and Charlie Parker but also detects some new-school flavours, which make him think of D’Angelo, Justin Timberlake or Anderson Paak, even Michael Jackson, particularly in the Adore album. Reuben agrees, “I grew up listening to Michael and love his music. He has definitely influenced my work, especially my singing, where I like introducing falsettos; him and classics like Robin Thicke and Marvin Gaye.”

In music, timing is very important. From measuring beats to when I improvise on stage and get completely lost in time, a kind of zen feeling that I am always chasing.

– Reuben James

Even if his singing has been received with open arms by his adoring fans, Reuben still sees himself as an instrumentalist with jazz and soul at the heart of everything he writes. As such, he feels heavily influenced by the likes of Robert Glasper, Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis and Charlie Parker, and his piano style pays homage to musicians such as Ahmad Jamal “and some of the jazz guys that really get me going in the morning”, he adds. Reuben was mentored by artists such as Roy Ayers, Jon Batiste and Eric Lewis. “Education is everything,” he states, “so I want to get involved and work with the next generation, especially in Birmingham, and with B:Music.”

This self-taught talent, who by his own admission, “can’t read music”, left critics and music enthusiasts with their jaws on the floor with his debut album, Adore, released in 2019. The eponymous track, maybe the most popular, “came to me in a dream,” Reuben shares, “well, rather that time when you are kind of both awake and asleep. I got out of bed and recorded the whole thing there and then. It was mental.” It is worth mentioning the last track in the album, “Outro”, which sounds like a poem, but he explains “is just my friend Michael Mwenso, who used to feature with James Brown from a young age and is one of my most important mentors. I asked him to send me a voice memo speaking about jazz. I liked it so much that I just chopped it up a little bit and added it at the end of the album.”

**From left to right, Reuben’s albums Adore (2019), Slow Down (2020) and Tunnel Vision (2021).**

From Adore (2019), to Slow Down (2020), an album conceived during lockdown, which received general critical acclaim. “I had moved back with my parents as my life dramatically slowed down,” he explains. “I wrote the album mostly to help me relax and heal and I thought that if it helped me, it could help other people at such a difficult time.” By the time his third album, Tunnel Vision, was released in 2021, the world had gone back to some kind of normality and one can feel that effervescent mood in the songs. “Tunnel Vision is like a mixtape of loads of new kinds of vibey singles that have been weighing on me. I’m not stuck in one style. I want to experiment and try new things and if people don’t like it, so be it.” Well, people loved it and so did the critics, who have openly praised the album and Reuben for his top instrumental talent and the skill with which he has ventured into a jazzy nu-soul R&B style.

Hearing how influenced Reuben’s work is by great artists of the past, Papa wonders what he makes of the mainstream music that most of the youth listen to these days. “I am not really into that scene; not in a bad way, it is just that I don’t listen to much radio pop, I am an old soul so I am into different stuff, but some of the mainstream music I hear is very good. I like bands like Khruangbin and Thee Sacred Souls.” Reuben particularly likes the jazz-influenced R&B that is coming out of America these days. “Artists such as Kamasi, Robert Glasper and Terrace Martin. That’s why I feel that maybe my music is more appreciated out there.”

Reuben has just finished recording Sam Smith’s new album and is currently working with several other artists such as Tom Misch, Marcus Mumford and Disclosure.

For the last few years, Reuben has been a friend of the luxury watch brand Audemars Piguet, and as such, played at many of its private events as well as larger gigs, such as the party it threw in London for the 50th anniversary of the iconic Royal Oak watch. “It doesn’t really feel like work when I come to AP house [London] to play, it feels more like visiting friends and family,” he comments. “Also, it is kind of fitting, a musician partnering up with a watch brand. In music, timing is very important. From measuring beats to when I improvise on stage and get completely lost in time, a kind of zen feeling that I am always chasing.” His rich history and lineage in jazz music allows Reuben to transport his audience to different times, different worlds. Listening to him playing, I certainly feel that way, as if suspended in time – “suspended chords are my favourite” – he comments.

Reuben has just finished recording Sam Smith’s new album and is currently working with several other artists such as Tom Misch, Marcus Mumford and Disclosure, to mention but a few. As if this wasn’t enough, he reveals to us that he has just finished writing a new album, working with New York-based producer Carrtoons, and plans to release it either end of this year or early in 2023. He looks very proud when he says, “This album is groovy, very cool, a bit more fun than the previous ones. I think it has some of the best stuff I’ve ever made.” He is not sure about the name yet but Papa presses on a bit and he shares, “It may be called Champagne Kisses but that may change.” The celebratory title could be owed to the fact that Reuben’s first child is due in just a few weeks. Definitely an occasion for champagne and kisses.

I want to play in bigger venues, make better music. I want to push myself to be the best musician I can be…
– Reuben James

Alongside this new album, Reuben is set to release his first ever collection of solo piano music. Piano Love 1 is a five-track EP based around the theme of love. It features a selection of music recorded at his home studio in South-East London. The repertoire includes Reuben’s version of the Bob Dylan’s classic “Make You Feel My Love” as well as three original compositions. A restlessly creative spirit, Reuben is determined to keep developing and growing as an artist. “Within the next five years, I’d like to reach three, five, even 10 times as many people as I do at present with my music,” he shares. “I want to play in bigger venues, make better music. I want to push myself to be the best musician I can be.”

Piano Love 1 is out on December 2nd.

Track list:

Love At Christmas Time (Reuben James)
A Mother’s Love (Reuben James)
Make You Feel My Love (Bob Dylan)
I’m Through With Love (Kahn/Livingston/Malneck)
Love From The Other Side (Reuben James)

Reuben’s recently released Tunnel Vision mixtape is available HERE and 2020’s Slow Down HERE.

www.reubenjames.com

Culture

Passion and support for choreographic arts

A tribute to the work of one of the fundamental figures of French Modernist painting

The artistic encounter of two masters

The light bender

“From the very beginning of my journey as an artist, I would devote between eight and 12 hours a day to my art.”

– Julio Le Parc

Julio’s groundbreaking Mobile Transparent (1960) consisted of a translucent cascade of small pieces of Plexiglas flowing from the ceiling.

“When I arrived in Paris, I realised that for the first time in my life, I could invest all my time in experimenting with visual art.”

– Julio Le Parc

Half a century of Tubular Bells

Tubular Bells was the debut studio album by Mike Oldfield, released on the 25th of May 1973, as the first album on Virgin Records. It is Oldfield’s best-selling album to date.

The premiere live performance of Tubular Bells took place at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the evening of the 25th of June 1973, and was broadcast live on UK radio by the BBC.

Oliver Knussen (1952-2018) was a leading figure in music, as composer, conductor, teacher and artistic director. He was renowned for his support of contemporary music.

Fear, Fame, Sex and Addiction

Leo and Cherry get together for a movie night that turns into an experience completely new to Leo.

Class S investigates the topic of drugs in the life of University students… but all is not as it appears. The end will most certainly surprise you.

Black survival, a Darwinian affair

Reimagining Creative Expression

The Reverso Stories is a free exhibition open to the public from Monday to Sunday, 11am to 8pm at the East Piazza, Covent Garden. LONDON WC2E 8RF.

The manuscript of George Orwell’s masterpiece

Hand-numbered from 1 to 1,000, SP Books’ deluxe edition of 1984 in Oxford blue is presented in a large format handmade slipcase and priced at just £170.

Vacheron Constantin celebrates Scottish craftmanship

Portrait of Marianne Werefkin by Erma Bossi, c. 1910. Oil on cardboard, 71.6 x 58 cm. Gabriele Munter- und Johannes Eichner-Stiftung, Munich.

Mother with Child on her Arm, Nude II, by Paula Modershohn-Becker, autumn 1906. Oil on canvas, 80 x 59 cm. Museum Ostwall im Dortmunder U.

Portrait of Anna Roslund by Gabriele Münter, 1917. Oil on canvas, 94 x 68 cm. Leicester Museums & Galleries.

Words: Lavinia Dickson-Robinson

Opening picture: Marianne Werefkin, Twins, 1909. Tempera on paper, 27.5 x 36.5 cm. Fondazione Marianne Werefkin, Museo Comunale d’Arte Moderna, Ascona.

Vacheron Constantin celebrates Scottish craftmanship

“The Provenance project was particularly fun. Using hand processed pigments is always a bit of an adventure. They contain all sorts of impurities which can have surprising consequences in the final pieces.”

– Steven Blench

Hazel Frost’s series of traditional tea bowls and carafe (top shelf) and the two coil-built vessels (bottom shelf).

Araminta’s artisans produced a stunning fabric using traditional looms and British alpaca which was used to produce soft furnishings for the boutique.

The umbrella made of Scottish oak and the larger of the two Codex mirrors created by Method Studio, founded by architect Marisa Giannasi and woodworker Callum Robinson.

Juli’s sculptural piece, made of reclaimed glass, is a reflection of her love for colour.

Discover the Provenance Collection at the Vacheron Constantin boutique in Edinburgh.

Words: Julia Pasarón

It’s about time

With his slightly husky, silky evocative voice, easy smile and casual manner, singer-songwriter and pianist Reuben James has become one of the most exciting artists to have emerged in recent years on the music scene.

It takes a very long time to realise who you are. In my case, I found a community of artists that inspire and push me to be a better musician.

– Reuben James

In music, timing is very important. From measuring beats to when I improvise on stage and get completely lost in time, a kind of zen feeling that I am always chasing.

– Reuben James

From left to right, Reuben’s albums Adore (2019), Slow Down (2020) and Tunnel Vision (2021).

Reuben has just finished recording Sam Smith’s new album and is currently working with several other artists such as Tom Misch, Marcus Mumford and Disclosure.

I want to play in bigger venues, make better music. I want to push myself to be the best musician I can be…

– Reuben James

Interview by Julia Pasarón and Papa Abebrese, conducted at AP house, London.Photography by The Best of Simple (except for the album covers)

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Tubular Bells was the debut studio album by Mike Oldfield, released on the 25^th of May 1973, as the first album on Virgin Records. It is Oldfield’s best-selling album to date.

**The premiere live performance of Tubular Bells took place at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the evening of the 25^th of June 1973, and was broadcast live on UK radio by the BBC.**

**Hand-numbered from 1 to 1,000, SP Books’ deluxe edition of 1984 in Oxford blue is presented in a large format handmade slipcase and priced at just £170.**

**Opening picture: Marianne Werefkin, Twins, 1909. Tempera on paper, 27.5 x 36.5 cm. Fondazione Marianne Werefkin, Museo Comunale d’Arte Moderna, Ascona.**

**From left to right, Reuben’s albums Adore (2019), Slow Down (2020) and Tunnel Vision (2021).**

Interview by Julia Pasarón and Papa Abebrese, conducted at AP house, London.
Photography by The Best of Simple (except for the album covers)