Weeknote 38-39/2024
MoCAB, Moco, cryptic clue-ing, and autumnal witchery.
Prayer to the Angel of Uncertainty:
Please don’t let me screw it up,
but just screw it up a little bit,
just enough to make it interesting.
Verbs
Visiting: Belgrade Museum of Contemporary Art, and Moco Museum London
Two contemporary art gallery visits in a week. The first was Belgrade’s Museum of Contemporary Art - housed in a modernist building in Ušće Park the museum was founded in 1958 making it one of the oldest contemporary art galleries in the world. It’s not a big museum by any stretch, but the interior space is a wonderful collection of galleries, mezzanines, and wall-spanning windows. There was a really great selection of exhibitions when I visited, including two Serbian artists who I’d not come across before. The highlight for me was work by Michelangelo Pistoletto, presented under the banner The Preventive Peace, which was playful, provocative, and immersive in equal measure. I had seen some of Pistoletto’s work once before, a long time ago at an exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in London, but this much bigger collection of his work was particularly engrossing.
The second gallery visit was to the newly opened Moco Museum at London’s Marble Arch. I’m not entirely sure what Moco stands for. Museum of Contemporary… Objects? Otters? In any case, this new museum houses the private art collection of some rich and acquisitive people (Kim and Lionel Logchies Prins) and is intended to appeal to, and reflect, the ‘Instagram generation’. Considering Instagram is my main form of social media and I’m getting close to 40 I think they may have already missed the boat if their real intention is to appeal to ‘young people’ today. The collection is fun? Palatable? Easy to consume? There’s nothing particularly sparky or interesting here. Some Harings, some Koons, some of Kusama’s duller work, some neon from Emin.
It’s all curated and placed precisely to allow perfect 4:5 Instagram shots. But in the same way that viewing everything via your social media apps renders it impossible to be present in any meaningful way, none of the artwork really seemed to need you to bring much of yourself to things. I was left feeling that they’ve absolutely managed to produce a contemporary art exhibition that reflects Instagram - and what a dull and hollow thing that is. Plus, it was 17 quid a ticket - as a group. In comparison, Belgrade gave me change from a fiver and the work there was leagues more interesting.
Playing: Minute Cryptic
Thanks to Anja, in the last week or so I’ve started playing the NY Times’ suite of daily puzzles. Wordle’s fine, of course, but I like Connections a good deal - it appeals to the part of my brain that likes to find patterns and link things together. The game that I’ve really enjoyed, though, is Minute Cryptic which isn’t part of the NY Times’ game library. This one popped up on social media for me and it’s been a really enjoyable play for the last week or two. Essentially, you’re given a single cryptic crossword clue every day which you can solve with aid from some hints and tips. The great thing about it, though, is that for every clue there is a 90-second explainer video that takes the clue apart and tells you exactly how it works. I’ve always wanted to get into cryptic crosswords, but I’ve never really learnt all the tricks, insider techniques, and special little nods and winks that are necessary to solve them. If you’ve felt the same then Minute Cryptic is a lot of fun and the videos are fantastic at breaking down exactly how each clue works. They’re working on an app, I hear, which is great news but the very simple, clean, mobile site works great for now and they’ve even just been featured in The Times.
Today’s clue: Timeless story about Romeo is regretful (5 letters).
Watching: Agatha All Along
The new addition to our current watch-rota is Agatha All Along on Disney+. We’ve only seen the first two episodes so far but it seems like a lot of fun, with much more interesting and developed writing than a lot of the more recent Marvel output. It’s a show that comes off the back of the wonderful WandaVision and features a really bombastic central performance from Kathryn Hahn. We’re hoping that this one will keep up the momentum and intrigue of the first two episodes and might send the right signals to Marvel that creative and idiosyncratic projects should be what they’re all about - it’s right in the DNA of the whole history of Marvel comics for God’s sake!
Last week I was in the UK for a brief visit. The weather was suitably damp, cold, and Aumtumnal which really hit hard as it’s still pushing 30C here in Serbia some days. I seemed to only take my meals in various pubs whilst I was over, as well as the essential visit to my Chinatown beloved Leong’s Legend. Close to two decades I’ve been going there and I can still hoover down tray after tray of their Xiao Long Bao.
It was a good visit, pretty packed as usual, and there were lots of people to catch up with and see. It’s likely to be a little while before I’ll next be over so I was hoping to make the most of the 5 days I had and do as much as I could. Along with art galleries (see above) and soup dumplings in Chinatown, there was time with family, shopping trips, pub quizzes (we won), and dinners with friends. Sadly I missed Teddy The Dog’s 2nd birthday but I was treated to a video call to see him playing with his birthday present.
I’m currently working on an interesting proposal for a project partnering with friends and colleagues in Romania. I’ve done a good deal of work over the years with teachers in Romania and there is a strong and determined core of educators there who are looking to do new things, learn new skills, and challenge themselves and the systems they work within. It will be an interesting partnership and one which has the potential to be ongoing for some time so I am looking forward to getting everything up and running on that front in the next weeks.
- Mitch.