Latest news with #DerekJarman
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Irish Museum of Modern Art rejects censorship claims after Derek Jarman film cancellation
The Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) has rejected accusations of censorship after suspending screenings of a Derek Jarman film following a complaint against the showing of a gay kiss. In a statement, the museum's director Annie Fletcher said: 'We at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) are dismayed at the current supposition that we would actively censor the work of Derek Jarman and /or any artist from the LGBTQ+ community.' The museum cancelled screenings of Jarman's experimental 1985 film The Angelic Conversation, which depicts the relationship of two gay male lovers, after a parent raised a complaint in January that it was 'harmful' to their five-year-old child. According to a report in the Sunday Times, the complainant wrote: 'Your outdoor screen is displaying close-up footage of topless adults kissing intimately. My five-year-old daughter walks in this space.' The film, which features Judi Dench narrating 14 Shakespeare sonnets, was showing on IMMA's Living Canvas outdoor screen on the front lawn of its Dublin gallery, but was removed from the museum's programming following the complaint. However, IMMA insisted that they have removed the film briefly out of 'an abundance of caution' and that they 'would be delighted' to programme the film again. In the statement, Fletcher said: 'When the complaint was raised, towards the end of the film's two-week run, we made the decision to pause the screening of this work to seek clarification on the implication of showing a PG-rated film in a public domain to ensure we were not in conflict with any planning or screening legislation for art in a public space.' Fletcher added: 'It is regrettable that the event reported on in the Sunday Times has been misconstrued in a rush to judgment.' James Mackay, a close collaborator of Jarman's who produced many of his films including The Angelic Conversation says: 'Who would have thought that Angelic Conversation, the most tender of Derek's films, would offend. I know that we live in dark times but, really, two boys kissing with closed lips. Has it come to this?' Responding to the initial complaint, Mary Cremin, IMMA's head of programming, said the matter would be 'reviewed internally' and said the film was certified PG and suitable for public screening. The complaint was then referred to the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland who forwarded it on to the Irish Film Classification Office (IFCO). Jarman's film, only having shown for 10 days of its planned 14-day runtime, was removed from the museum as they awaited 'professional opinion'. Fletcher said that 'clarification has been attained' and they plan to reinstate screenings of the film, adding: 'We would like to assuage the valid disquiet of all our LGBTQ+ community that we shall continue to proudly programme inclusively across our site.' 'IMMA has been at the forefront of championing Jarman's practice, developing the first major retrospective since 1995 and a major accompanying publication. We have also purchased his works for the national collection. We have shown his films and will continue to do so as part of our public programme.'
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Irish Museum of Modern Art rejects censorship claims after Derek Jarman film cancellation
The Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) has rejected accusations of censorship after suspending screenings of a Derek Jarman film following a complaint against the showing of a gay kiss. In a statement, the museum's director Annie Fletcher said: 'We at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) are dismayed at the current supposition that we would actively censor the work of Derek Jarman and /or any artist from the LGBTQ+ community.' The museum cancelled screenings of Jarman's experimental 1985 film The Angelic Conversation, which depicts the relationship of two gay male lovers, after a parent raised a complaint in January that it was 'harmful' to their five-year-old child. According to a report in the Sunday Times, the complainant wrote: 'Your outdoor screen is displaying close-up footage of topless adults kissing intimately. My five-year-old daughter walks in this space.' The film, which features Judi Dench narrating 14 Shakespeare sonnets, was showing on IMMA's Living Canvas outdoor screen on the front lawn of its Dublin gallery, but was removed from the museum's programming following the complaint. However, IMMA insisted that they have removed the film briefly out of 'an abundance of caution' and that they 'would be delighted' to programme the film again. In the statement, Fletcher said: 'When the complaint was raised, towards the end of the film's two-week run, we made the decision to pause the screening of this work to seek clarification on the implication of showing a PG-rated film in a public domain to ensure we were not in conflict with any planning or screening legislation for art in a public space.' Fletcher added: 'It is regrettable that the event reported on in the Sunday Times has been misconstrued in a rush to judgment.' James Mackay, a close collaborator of Jarman's who produced many of his films including The Angelic Conversation says: 'Who would have thought that Angelic Conversation, the most tender of Derek's films, would offend. I know that we live in dark times but, really, two boys kissing with closed lips. Has it come to this?' Responding to the initial complaint, Mary Cremin, IMMA's head of programming, said the matter would be 'reviewed internally' and said the film was certified PG and suitable for public screening. The complaint was then referred to the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland who forwarded it on to the Irish Film Classification Office (IFCO). Jarman's film, only having shown for 10 days of its planned 14-day runtime, was removed from the museum as they awaited 'professional opinion'. Fletcher said that 'clarification has been attained' and they plan to reinstate screenings of the film, adding: 'We would like to assuage the valid disquiet of all our LGBTQ+ community that we shall continue to proudly programme inclusively across our site.' 'IMMA has been at the forefront of championing Jarman's practice, developing the first major retrospective since 1995 and a major accompanying publication. We have also purchased his works for the national collection. We have shown his films and will continue to do so as part of our public programme.'
The Guardian
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘The hot tar splashed everywhere': remembering the dark magic of Derek Jarman
In Modern Nature, his journals, published two years before his death in 1994, Derek Jarman described the time his friend David arrived for lunch at Prospect Cottage, Jarman's home, some time in the summer of 1989. David was carrying an enormous block of pitch. The cottage and its boundless garden sits on the shingle at Dungeness, a place of immeasurable strangeness and beauty on the Kentish coast. 'After swimming,' Jarman wrote, 'we built a brick hearth, lit a bonfire, and melted the pitch in an old tin can.' The two men then rushed back and forth between the studio and the pot, fetching brushes, gloves, pillows, barbed wire, crucifixes, prayer books, bullets, a model fighter plane and a telephone and set about tarring and feathering objects and affixing them on to canvases. 'The hot tar splashed everywhere and set like shining jet,' he observed, with a childlike enthusiasm. The artworks in question are part of a series known as the Black Paintings, now the subject of a two-part chronological survey at Amanda Wilkinson Gallery in London. Jarman started working on these precious miniatures – most are only a forearm in width – in 1984. He used oils and found objects, building up from scarlet and gold underlayers. The red and sparkle seep through the impastoed black that encrusts and overwhelms everything on the surface. Broken glass, plastic figurines, a crushed Coca-Cola can, a model boat. When he was nominated for the Turner prize in 1986, Jarman exhibited about a dozen of the Black Paintings. The prize went to Gilbert and George, but Jarman remained focused, filming The Last of England in 1987 and The Garden in 1990, and gradually swapping oils for tar in his paintings. Jarman's journals open with his exhilaration at the boundless possibility Dungeness clearly proffered ('there is more sunlight here than anywhere in Britain') and the panic he experienced at the onset of the Great Storm of October 1987 (a neighbouring fisher's hut disintegrated, '80 years of tar and paint parting like a rifle shot'). He had been diagnosed with HIV just months earlier. The works in the show, like the entries in the book, duly trace his alchemical art-making and the pain and outrage of his reckoning with that generational cataclysm. Motifs including Christ's crown of thorns and blood surface in the works' iconography. 'He didn't think of himself as a film-maker or a gardener or a painter or a political activist,' Wilkinson says. 'He wasn't a queer artist. He was an artist. All of that was his art.' Fabled punk chronicler Jon Savage, who was close to Jarman, recently emphasised to the gallerist how crucial this point is. 'You mustn't pin Derek down,' he said. 'You can't pin Derek down. You can't put him in any box. He would always resist it.' Former lovers and friends often refer to Jarman's agitated energy, his enthusiasm. He was the most colourful man they had ever met, someone who had crazy ideas every day, an interlocutor with whom conversation remains, in death, just as strong and empowering as it was when he was alive. And anyone who has one of these Black Paintings (there is no official tally; unknowns keep emerging) knows to treasure it deeply. 'He just made everybody feel good,' Wilkinson says. 'He was so charming and funny and charismatic. Everybody loved Derek Jarman.' The Black Paintings: A Chronology Part 2 is at the Amanda Wilkinson Gallery, London, to 13 September Exit 1988 (main image)Jarman wasn't afraid to be complex, Wilkinson says. And he remained resolute and bright-eyed at the end of his life. 'I do not wish to die … yet,' he wrote in the summer of 1990, overwhelmed by the number of pills he has to take, his strength ebbing and flowing like the tide on the shingle outside. 'I would love to see my garden through several summers.' Death Is All Things We See Awake 1991Jarman's films, writing and paintings are steeped in his reading. Here, he was inspired by a quote from the philosopher Heraclitus. 'Jarman was fun, but he was a serious person,' Wilkinson says, 'cultured, not in a snobby way but in a deep-thinking way.' Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion Mirror Mirror 1988Mirrors connect back to Jarman's Super 8 films and feature in his paintings. In the summer of 1989, he recorded buying one at a fair along with an old sickle and a copy of Blonde on Blonde by Bob Dylan. 'Everyone sighs when you mention the 'Born Again' [Dylan],' he wrote in Modern Nature, 'but his voice echoed through a 60s summer almost as idyllic as this one.' Untitled (Clothes) 1989Old gardening overalls and feathers from a disused pillow are employed here in a reference, Wilkinson posits, to an intense scene in Jarman's 1990 film The Garden in which a gay couple are subjected to being tarred and feathered. INRI (Cross of Thorns) 1990The Garden uses the story of Christ as a persecuted man as an analogy of sorts for the persecution of queer people. 'He was very interested in the figure of Christ,' says Wilkinson. He would routinely visit churches with the art historian Simon Watney.
Daily Mirror
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
UK's most divisive seaside town as Brits can't decide if it's beautiful or bleak
Consumer rights magazine Which? has surveyed 3,800 members of the British public to find out what is the overall best seaside town, with Bamburgh in Northumberland hitting the topspot again A 'unique' coastal spot that is variously loved and loathed has been named one of the best seaside towns in the country. Dungeness in Kent has been named the seventh-best beach town in the UK in Which?'s annual survey of the British public. The consumer organisation surveyed more than 3,800 people about their experiences of UK seaside destinations and their opinions on beaches, scenery, food and drink offerings, accommodation, tourist attractions, and value for money. The elevation of Dungeness into the top ten is a major scoop for the Kentish settlement, which languished in 35th place last year. Not everyone is a major fan of Dungeness. It is a curious place long haunted by rumours that it is technically the UK's only desert—something that the Met Office has previously confirmed is pure myth. You'd be forgiven for believing the lie, given the way random shacks, homes and cafs stretch out across the shingled headland. It is a place that feels like it should be the setting for an American Western dystopian flick, rather than somewhere that sits on the south coast of England. Bikers whizz along the roads that wind through its flat, marshland extremities; a constant breeze ruffles the pampas grass; wildfowl bleat mournfully. To add to the end-of-days feel of the place, boats filled with asylum seekers regularly make land here. Inarguably, the bleak jewel in the Dungeness crown is its twin nuclear power plants, which once whipped a patch of nearby sea into a whirlpool but have lain dormant and decommissioned for the past 19 years. The unique feel of the place has been best captured by artist, filmmaker, gay rights activist, and gardener Derek Jarman, who turned his home into Prospect Cottage—a point of pilgrimage for his fans and those who love the way he carefully manicured the garden into a concentrated miniature form of Dungeness. But not everyone is a fan. In fact, many are left cold by Dungeness' charms. "Bleak is an understatement," one detractor of the place recently wrote on Reddit. Another added: "Bleak to Dungeness is like 'a wee bit cold' in Antarctica. The missus loved it though…" A third wrote: "I find it dismal down there. Old nuclear power station for a view." Others love Dungeness and how different it feels from other parts of the UK. The science writer Ben Goldacre recalled his experience of riding through Dungeness on the small railway that takes day-trippers down the coastline. "The Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway has a strange, dreamlike existence, on the border between fantasy and reality. You leave toytown in a cute miniature train, surrounded by excited children. But Disney, this is not. Suddenly you're riding through real life: past clothes lines, collapsing breezeblock walls, an abandoned washing machine in a back garden, chuffing along behind a miniature steam train. Finally, you're ferried across a beautiful, windswept shingle peninsula, spotted with railway carriage houses and abandoned shipping containers. Then you are delivered to the foot of a nuclear power station," Ben wrote. "This meeting of toy train sets and grim industrial purpose is what makes the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway so perfect." Top 20 Bamburgh: 84% Beer: 80% Portmeirion: 79% Saint David's: 79% Sidmouth: 79% Tynemouth: 79% Dungeness: 78% Tenby: 78% Aldeburgh: 77% Wells-Next-The-Sea: 77% Whitby: 77% Lynmouth: 76% Nairn: 76% Saint Andrews: 76% St Mawes: 76% Swanage: 76% Broadstairs: 75% Bude: 75% Lyme Regis: 75% Robin Hood's Bay: 75% Bottom 20 Ilfracombe: 55% Littlehampton: 54% Mablethorpe: 54% Ramsgate: 54% Skegness: 54% Fishguard: 53% Barton on sea: 52% Cleethorpes: 52% Lowestoft: 52% New Brighton: 52% Ayr: 51% Great Yarmouth: 50% Weston-super-Mare: 49% Blackpool: 48% Burnham-on-Sea: 46% Fleetwood: 46% Southend-on-Sea: 43% Clacton-on-Sea: 42% Bangor: 38% Bognor Regis: 36%
Irish Times
21-06-2025
- General
- Irish Times
Poppies symbolise the fleeting, bittersweet beauty of summer gardens
If ever there was a flower that symbolises the fleeting, bittersweet beauty of the garden in summer, then it's surely the poppy, with its gossamer-thin petals and delicate, slender stems. But do you know your short-lived, sun-loving annual poppy species, including many that are suitable for poorer, free-draining soils, from longer-lived biennial, perennial and shrubby kinds, including some that will only flourish in cool, damp, humus-rich, woodland conditions? If you're lucky, you may have come across the very rare, yellow-horned poppy, Glaucium flavum (a particular favourite of the late British artist and gardener Derek Jarman), a wild biennial or short-lived perennial species sometimes found growing in shingly beaches along sheltered Irish coastlines. Much more common is the annual wild field poppy or corn poppy, Papaver rhoeas, whose vermilion blooms light up road verges and waste ground at this time of year. Each ephemeral flower lasts just three to four days, but then another quickly takes its place, resulting in a long-lasting display over several months. READ MORE For those who dislike red, consider the cultivated forms of this sun-loving, hardy annual, commonly known as the Shirley poppy, which are also available to gardeners, with both double and single flowers in soft shades of pink, apricot, white, peach and sooty purple. An enduring favourite is Papaver rhoeas 'Amazing Grey', famed for its silver-purple blooms. To enjoy it as a cut-flower indoors, simply sear the end of each stem with a lighter or candle or plunge the tips into boiling water for 7-10 seconds before quickly placing them in cold water. [ Slow Flower power is all about the local and the seasonal Opens in new window ] Easily raised from seed in autumn or early spring, the conventional advice is to direct-sow these into the ground where you want the plants to flower. But I've had much greater success with module-raised seedlings transplanted into the garden in very late spring and early summer. Just make sure to do this while they're still small. The annual/short-lived perennial poppy species commonly known as the Californian poppy, Eschscholzia californica, similarly loves a warm, sunny spot. But it usefully combines this with a remarkable ability to thrive in the poorest and stoniest of soils, making it a great choice for drought-prone gardens where it will also often self-seed. Typically known for its flame-orange flowers which appear throughout summer, many new varieties with blooms in shades of peach, pink, coral, cream, buttercup and apricot have been introduced in recent years and are easily raised from seed. Examples include the 'Thai Silk' series, especially 'Thai Silk Apricot Chiffon' with its luminously beautiful, deep apricot flowers. The Californian poppy, Eschscholzia californica, loves a warm, sunny spot By comparison, growing the outlandishly beautiful but famously capricious Icelandic poppy is a challenge for even seasoned gardeners. Best known as Papaver nudicaule, but recently renamed as Oreomecon nudicaulis, this late spring/early summer-flowering species loathes intense heat, preferring cool, bright conditions. Technically a perennial, it's best treated as a biennial raised from seed sowed in late spring and then planted out in autumn to flower the following year. Getting its tiny seeds to successfully germinate and then preventing them from damping-off can be fiendishly difficult, a challenge made more aggravating by the fact that seed of the most desirable strain – the Colibri poppy, originally bred for the cut-flower trade – is also mind-wateringly expensive. Icelandic poppy: Outlandishly beautiful but famously capricious But for those who succeed, the reward is giant poppy flowers in shades of peach, watermelon-pink, gold and brilliant orange, which emerge like tropical butterflies out of giant sculptural flower pods. Equally famous for its disdain of anything other than ideal growing conditions, the exquisite Himalayan poppy (Meconopsis baileyi; M 'Lingholm'; M 'Slieve Donard') is also that rarest of things in nature, which is blue-flowering. To grow it well – indeed, to grow it at all – you must give this summer-flowering perennial a cool, damp but free-draining, humus rich, neutral to slightly acid soil and edge-of-woodland growing conditions where its delicate blooms are protected from harsh winds and strong sunlight. For this reason, it's generally only found growing in parts of the country where rainfall levels are high and summers rarely get too hot. Himalayan blue poppy Only when it's entirely happy will it then self-seed, the caveat here being that you must grow a non-sterile variety for it to do so. Yet such is the glorious sight of it flowering en masse that many gardeners still go to extraordinary lengths to encourage this aristocratic poppy to establish. But nothing could be further from the case when it comes to the opium poppy, Papaver somniferum, a hardy, sun-loving annual species so promiscuous that once introduced, it's likely to self-seed itself about the place with happy abandon. It can even arrive unannounced, its tiny seeds hitching a lift in the soil of a potted plant or brought on the soles of muddy gardening boots. In my own garden, an unnamed variety with shocking-pink, double flowers did just this a few years ago, producing tall, large, violently colourful blooms so entirely out of place that it's as if a flock of noisy flamingos had descended without warning into the cool, damp green of an Irish landscape. Somehow, I just don't have the heart to pull the numerous seedlings out, excusing them on account of the large, long-lasting, ornamental seed-heads that eventually follow. But my favourite will always be the altogether subtler, plum-coloured Papaver 'Lauren's Grape'. Pink opium poppies Other abundantly self-seeding members of the poppy family eminently suitable for an Irish garden include the shade-loving Welsh poppy, Meconopsis cambricum, a late spring to early autumn flowering perennial species with an endearing way of insinuating itself into shady cracks in paving, steps and stone walls. A woodland plant at home in cool, damp, moderately rich but free-draining soils, the pretty flowers come in shades of orange, soft coral and bright yellow. Among the loveliest is the pale apricot-coloured Meconopsis cambricum var. aurantiacum. Also making the list is the oriental poppy, Papaver orientale, a herbaceous perennial species whose large, flouncy flowers are the stuff of cottage garden dreams. Its great failing, however, is the ugly gap left behind after this sun-loving border plant finishes flowering in early summer, a flaw best managed by cutting it back hard and then quickly following with a liquid feed. [ Natural liquid nettle feed is superb for keeping your plants healthy – it just smells terrible Opens in new window ] Last, but not least, is the Californian tree poppy, one of the few shrub-like members of the poppy family, with silver-grey foliage and giant, golden-eyed white flowers that appear on long, lax stems in late summer. This showstopper also has strong Irish connections, with its genus and species names celebrating two Irishmen, the botanist Thomas Coulter and the astronomer Thomas Romney Robinson. Flower of a California tree poppy, Romneya coulteri, whose genus and species names celebrate Irishmen Thomas Coulter and Thomas Romney Robinson Introduced into cultivation in the late 19th century, it first flowered in the National Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin in 1877. Typically requiring a sunny, sheltered spot and famously difficult to establish, it can unfortunately become too much of a good thing when it finally does, often sending out suckers that appear metres away from the parent plant. Still, such is its undeniable charm in full bloom that few gardeners can resist it. This week in the garden Deadhead, deadhead, deadhead … Heavy rain and hail showers in recent weeks have damaged the flowers of many plants. To encourage them to recover and start producing new blooms, use a sharp secateurs or snippers to cut them away, making sure not to accidentally remove any newly emerging flower buds. Mulch around the base of newly planted shrubs and trees to lock in moisture while soils are still wet after heavy rainfall. Suitable materials include fresh grass clippings, home-made compost, well-rotted garden manure and seaweed. Dates for dour diary Tullynally Castle & Gardens Plant Fair – Castlepollard, Co Westmeath. Saturday, June 21st. With stalls by many of the country's leading nurseries. Fruitlawn Garden Open Day – Abbeyleix, Co Laois. Sunday, June 22nd. With plant sales and refreshments. Delgany and District Horticultural Society Rose Show – St Patrick's National School, Greystones, Co Wicklow, Saturday, June 28th. All entries welcome, email by Thursday, June 25th.
