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Underground > Art, Fashion & Design >

Matthew Collins

Ganesh

09:09 / 30.07.01

I really, really like him. This evening's 'Hello Culture' on nihilism was joyous.

Ellis

09:17 / 30.07.01

ooh I watched that too, I found it enjoyable, now I will have to look up Rimbauld and Beckett, Beckett especially he sounds utterly morbid and cool.

Regrettable Juvenilia

09:17 / 30.07.01

I really like this series in theory (in fact, no, I REALLY, REALLY like this series in theory), and I did like the first one, on 'wildness/romanticism', which went from Coleridge to Kerouac to Glenn Gould. I love the idea of taking what might seem an esoteric, high culture concept and tracing it through to modern popular culture, and I like Collings' personable, approachable manner/style.

However. Two big gripes.

1) On both programmes so far he has attempted to shoehorn contemporary London-based modern artists into his themes in an unconvincing and contrived way. Why? I'm not dissing these artists per se, but why does he feel the need to try and place them in a tradition to which they may or may not belong?

2) His coverage of "depression in modern rock", ie the few minutes he spent talking about Nirvana, Joy Division and the Manics (would it really have been too much effort for the researcher to check that Ritchie Edwards wasn't the singer, eh?), was appalling: a hackneyed, surface-reading that has been done far too many times. And he completely misread the famous Nirvana performance of TOTP: it was taking the piss, luv...

But I'll watch the next one. We do need more telly like this - it's better than the South Wank Show at any rate.

12:14 / 30.07.01

I've found the progs interesting, but I'm not sure I like Collins as a presenter. I find his faux chummy "I might be taking the piss - but I might not" presentation style very annoying ("Hey viewers, can you guess what I really think about this?"). However, there are a few brief moments in each prog where you see him interviewing people, and in those moments I like him a great deal because, as he communicates directly (unscripted) with another person rather than a tv audience and therefore loses the need to affect an entertaining style, the chumminess and interest he displays then appear genuine. I'd like to see more of that, for the above reason plus the fact that watching contemporary artists attempting to answer questions about their work and motivation etc is a rare treat. The media is full of people telling us what living artists are trying to achieve, it's nice to get it direct from the artists themselves once in a while.

Ganesh

21:15 / 19.08.01

Anyone see last night's one where he was photographed for OK! magazine (with his lovely wife in his beautiful home) in order to explore the relationships between art, culture and celebrity?

(That's his story, anyway.)

Regrettable Juvenilia

21:37 / 19.08.01

Yes. It was okay, but I really don't think we need another middle class ponce saying "wow, people are famous for no reason now..." And it had Noble and cockbothering Webster on it, who must die by fire.

Looking back on the whole series... a big disappointment. Glib, passionless, badly-researched, and staggeringly un-informative about the stuff of culture itself... Ugh.

Ironically, contrary to what I said above, the South Bank Show with Mad Tracey from Margate last night was much better.

[ 20-08-2001: Message edited by: The Flyboy ]

Ganesh

21:44 / 19.08.01

I liked it - and I knew relatively little about the artists concerned, so I'm arguably more representative of his target audience.

Nyeh.

deletia

21:53 / 19.08.01

Noble and Webster are scum. That is all ye know on Earth, and all ye need to know.