Monthly media and arts column

This month I wanted to write about four of the arty, media-cultural moments I’ve had since writing my last column.

They range from the sublime to the ridiculous; the Byzantium exhibition at the Royal Academy, music by Vaughan Williams at a church concert, High School Musical 3 and a derelict flat full of copper sulphate crystals. Three of them contained real little treasures and one was a real shocker.

Crystals in the flat

Let me start off with the condemned flat in Elephant and Castle which I headed off to with a group of friends on a grey and rainy Saturday morning, all kitted out in wellies.

The British artist Roger Hiorns specialises in creating installations involving crystals growing over familiar objects. When he heard that the flat in Harper Road was going to be torn down, he gained permission and funding to open a hole in the ceiling and to pour 80,000 litres of copper sulphate solution into it from the rooms above. He then sealed it up and left it for four months. The result was an incredible encrusting of beautiful deep blue crystals that have covered the walls and ceiling and even the bathtub and light fittings. The pulling factor is the shock of beauty that hits you. The crystals really sparkle, the colour is saturated and clear. The floor is a moonscape of crystalline matter and deep blue-black puddles. It is all so delicate and vulnerable, a momentary art that will be destroyed, probably by the time this article is printed. The contrast with the grim boarded-up exteriors as you return outside is significant, together with the annoyed looks in the queue for those who forgot their wellies. ‘Don’t write off the ugly exteriors because there might be something special inside’ seems to be a good enough message to come out of it, superficially at least. It was free, too.

High school

There are no ugly exteriors in High School Musical 3, that’s for sure and tickets to my Leicester Square screening were nowhere near free. Everyone is beautiful and airbrushed. The HSM phenomenon probably warrants more than a paragraph of an article because it is everywhere, particularly if you have a pre-teen girl in your care.

There are lots of reasons not to see it with children under ten, mostly to do with the teenage characters’ sensibilities and their preoccupations about fame, glamour and high school proms. But there are little gems there too, primarily in the treatment given to relationships. The sole ‘couple’ show surprising maturity in their communication skills and their loyalty to one another is exemplary. There is only one kiss in the whole film and in one of their songs together, Troy sings, ‘Take my hand, I’ll lead the way’, which must gladden the hearts of marriage prep organisers everywhere.

Winter music

The next cultural pearl was a concert at church. The modest Richard Simpkin, across the page there in the Music Exchange won’t tell you himself, but he produced a brilliant ‘Music for a Winter’s Evening’ concert at church the other night. It included a dozen performances from phenomenal musicians, many of whom are world-class, regularly commanding high fees and performing for audiences of thousands. Yet these Christian men and women were welcoming us, serving us dinner and washing up afterwards for nothing. It was clear why when we got to the interview with an obviously highly talented Christian musician, who revealed that he considered Jesus’s death for him far more exciting than the stunning ‘Lark Ascending’ by Vaughan Williams that he had just played.

Royal Academy

So what was the shocker? That was to be found at the Royal Academy of Arts’ Byzantium exhibition. It brought together artefacts collected from 800 AD onwards from the area around modern Turkey, most of which were Christian images and sculptures.

One of my ordained friends received a free invitation to the exhibition along with the usual junk mail that clergy often receive, like the ones that offer him 50% off bulk orders of incense. I guess the organisers thought that all church leaders would enjoy a bit of gilt-edged icon. The piece that acted as a centrepiece as you leave the exhibition was a golden panel from St. Catherine’s monastery, which is at the base of Mount Sinai in Egypt. The panel is called ‘The Heavenly Ladder’ and depicts monks literally climbing from earth up a ladder of 30 rungs to a cloud with God’s hand coming out of it. 23 of the rungs represent virtues to uphold and seven represent vices to avoid. Its message of the need to work our way into God’s acceptance couldn’t be further away from the great message of God’s grace given to us in the Bible. Paul explains it in his letter to the Philippian church: ‘I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ’ (Philippians 3.8-9).

Little gems

Crystals in the flat

High school

Winter music

Royal Academy

Eleanor Margesson

Main Articles

Other articles