As it is

Liu Wei’s ‘Love it! Bite it!’ is a model city made entirely from edible dog chews. It’s in the Saatchi Gallery. It’s probably not the best place to go walkies. Famous buildings, such as The Colosseum and The Guggenheim, are replicated to amazing levels of detail. Hove Town Hall is notably absent. It made me think of deserted cities, long abandoned by humankind. Society collapses and the city very slowly collapses. In ‘Love it! Bite it!’, even the plants are dead. Nothing has broken though the mock concrete ground. It is desolate and beautiful.

Zhang Huan’s ‘Ash Head 1’, albeit in smaller form, is what might remain of humankind if the city had been set alight or bombed. It makes me think of Hiroshima. The face looks calm in its decomposed and cindered state. Enter a meditative trance before you’re burnt alive and create a serene token to your lost life.

Galleries 1,2 and 13 are my favourites. 13 is best savoured last. Throughout the gallery, silica gel replicas of the human form are outstanding, but the works in Gallery 13 will mark my mind forever. Here 13 decrepit dictators dither about in dynamoelectric wheelchairs. They glide and collide as they drool and die. You can walk amongst them. Sun Yuan and Peng Yu 'Old Persons Home' is a place that anyone can visit.

Harold Pinter’s ‘No Man’s Land’ completed my Gloomy Saturday. As the rain hammered down outside, tube trains rattled by. Was that my imagination? Does the underground pass through the Duke of York Theatre?

The long monologues and low lighting made me comfortable and sleepy. I drifted away from the words, caught myself and tried to come back. My head lolled back. For a moment, sleep took me. The word CUNT doesn’t shock me. Old women tutted. Meanwhile, I desperately tried to blink myself into a wakeful state. This is not a criticism of the play. In many ways, I loved it. I am eager to read the script. There were some beautiful lines. It felt like there was little plot, but great atmosphere. It was all so wonderfully bleak and meaningless, to the point of giving meaning to nothing much at all.

At times, the wordplay and repetition was tiresome. At times, it stunned.

Michael Gambon should always have more lines, or perhaps he should play all parts. I watched BBC’s The Singing Detective series earlier this year, and singing moments aside, it was a work of brilliance.

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In keeping with this blog, here is bleak and beautiful tune. You may know it well.

Download MP3: Billie Holiday – Gloomy Sunday (courtesy of skr3amy.free.fr)