DCA – Poetry Beyond Text
I’ve wanted to visit the DCA (Dundee Contemporary Arts) since moving to the area three years ago. This last week I finally made it there not once, but twice, and each visit produced some interesting thoughts.
The first visit was last Saturday, Kathryn had caught the train down to visit for the weekend and after spending some time playing at a science fair in St Andrews we went over to Dundee to look at a few exhibitions I was curious about at the DCA. The first d’eja`Vu by Manfred Pernice was underwhelming. Boxes, structures, scribbled notes and dangling messes of rubbish items. There was no feeling of, effort, thought or communication.
The second exhibition I didn’t want to leave. Poetry Beyond Text: Vision, Text and Cognition. Kathryn and I spent quite a bit of time exploring the artist’s books. Books as pieces of art moving beyond the collection of words and incorporating the physical presence of the book itself as a means of expression. Some were gorgeous, painstaking examples of love and dedication. One in particular caused such intense ire in me that I almost snarled, the centre of each page had been cut out and replaced with weaving of trashy silken and cotton threads. There was no reason to it, lazy destruction masquerading as art.
I spent a happy few minutes playing with a poem that had been separated into couplets on glass plates which could be rearranged and slotted into the display at will.
If there is time next weekend I’d like to go back and have another look around.
The second visit to the DCA this week was to view the live screening of Frankenstein from the National Theatre in London. Directed by Danny Boyle and starring Benedict Cumberbatch as the Creature and Jonny Lee Miller as Victor.
Stunning. The best adaptation of the novel I’ve come across. The physicality of the roles and the duality, the echo of energy, created by the actors swapping roles each night was superb. My favourite moment came towards the very end when the creature has led Victor into ice and snow and pain, Victor can barely move and the creature drags him across the stage, Victor’s movements mimicking those of the creature when he first learnt to crawl and then walk.
I would love to go again this coming Thursday and see it with the roles reversed however the show is, unsurprisingly, sold out.
At least I can return to play some more with the exhibition of words.
