A Midwinter Night’s Dream

Each year, our old university friends meet to catch up with one another and also to commemorate our friends who died young – Malcolm, Steve and Hugh.

This year, we struggled to reach a consensus. 

Proposals included:

A starling murmuration in Brighton – too far to travel for some,

Hieroglyphics at the BM – out of bounds to those of us who disapprove of oil company BP greenwashing themselves by sponsoring exhibitions.

Cezanne at the Tate Modern – popular, but already seen by some.

Avatar II at Leicester Square – other audience members seem not to like it when we chat.

Magdalena Abakanowicz – Tate Modern -  a major artist of the 20^th century (and beyond) whom we all should have heard of, but never had.

 

In the end, we split between Cezanne, Hieroglyphics and Abakanowicz.

Although we meet in midwinter, it often feels like a Midsummer Night ‘s Dream, with people at cross purposes, popping up in odd corners of galleries and narrowly missing one another.  A bunch of us were at the Tate when somebody spotted the contingent from the BM arriving just outside.  Several people rushed out to meet them, but since it was nearly closing time, were not allowed back in.  Meanwhile another group of us waited fruitlessly in the Turbine Hall beneath a massive arrangement of hanging white fabric, lace and nets said to represent the knot language of South American indigenous peoples.

However, finally we regrouped fully for dinner.  And reassuringly, we reenacted the ritual of many years when, as usual, despite some of us having impressive credentials in mathematics, we were unable to match our payments to the bill. 

Photo shows Annabel, Stephen and an Abakan (one of the monumental textile sculptures of Magdalena Abakanowicz).