Translucent and Opaque: Rachel Whiteread's 'Ghost, Ghost II'

Rachel Whiteread's recent exhibition at Tate Britain included this quite astonishing piece. The most bizarre scale model or cast that one can imagine; it is positively spectral both clearly inhabiting this world but also seemingly shifting in and out of our consciousness as our perception of the exterior and internal spaces are constantly confused and confounded.

Made in polyurethane and light purple in colour it has the amazing quality of being both translucent and opaque. The effect is extraordinary because perception of the interior is never consistent. Visibility depends on the angle of sight and the specific point being viewed. It is possible to glimpse some of the interior - a staircase; a room; a corridor - but never to perceive it fully.

There are also shafts of real space intruding into the material that offer sight lines through which one has to squint to try to see more clearly what is happening inside the structure. This is generally a forlorn hope. One may simply see right through to the other side. It is as if the sculpture mocks attempts at seeing properly because all that one can see clearly is through to the world outside the building.

Then there are internal reflections as light is refracted through the structure. So the building contains a palimpsest of itself superimposed on its own internal surfaces. 

The structure has the modular look of being put together but it also feels complete as if there were no other way that these parts could possibly have been assembled. But the assembly is almost mischievous as if it could only be like it is now but that is not to say that at some future point it could equally convince as something subtly different.  It put me in mind of the deeply worrying House of Leaves :

Upon returning from a trip to Seattle, the Navidson family discovers a change in their home. A closet-like space shut behind an undecorated door appears inexplicably where previously there was only a blank wall. A second door appears at the end of the closet, leading to the children's room. As Navidson investigates this phenomenon, he finds that the internal measurements of the house are somehow larger than external measurements. Initially there is less than an inch of difference, but as time passes the interior of the house seems to expand while maintaining the same exterior proportions. A third and more extreme change asserts itself: a dark, cold hallway opens in an exterior living room wall that should project outside into their yard, but does not. Navidson films the outside of the house to show where the hallway should be but clearly is not. 

An equally disturbing echo is that of the eldritch shape shifting that seemingly responds to the perception of the viewer in Annihilation. This is particularly brought home by the fact that viewing Ghost, Ghost II from particular angles does indeed affect how it is seen. It is almost as if the house does indeed respond to the viewer.

One could look at this piece for hours. It is endlessly fascinating. 

A spectral shape shifter hovering at the very boundaries of perception. 

Is Football Uniquely Painful?

Two multi million pound businesses reach agreement for a prominent employee of one to start working for the other in exchange for a very substantial payment as compensation for early termination of a contract of employment. 

This must happen reasonably frequently throughout commercial environments and mostly passes without comment. 

When the businesses concerned are football clubs it can amount to something close the end of the world with a torrent of comment and contumely, metaphorical rending of garments akin to a funeral during the Trojan Wars, triumphant celebrations in one capital, fearful reading of the auspices (to mix metaphors) in another and a general sense of the world turned on its axis even on a day when we have the ghastly VSG being more geniuser than anyone has ever been.

The reason for this is not hidden. Football clubs inhabit a space that extends well beyond the commercial into communal bonds and culture, shared history, local and national rivalries and the very stuff of personal orientation; Red or Blue is a choice that matters more than most. It's essentially tribal. 

So early termination of a contract of employment by one of your very best employees comes with  personal and cultural baggage wholly out of proportion to the surface transaction. In particular:

- rejection. Few are good at dealing with this but for those left behind it feels like a personal kick in the teeth. Here is someone in whom trust has been deep; here is someone on whom to rely; here is someone akin to a saviour who can dig you out of a deep hole and can create magic almost on a whim. And then in a blink of an eye it's all gone

- jealousy. And of course it's gone somewhere else. To another team who are a European rival. We've been jilted and now our player is elsewhere. Worse, as anyone who has experienced the ending of a relationship knows, they're even happy to be elsewhere. It's as though you don't exist any more.

- inadequacy. We weren't big enough or good enough. We've failed. It's our fault for screwing up the chances that we had to win something that might have made us a genuine contender for the top.

- unfair competition. The playing field wasn't level. What chance did we have against this team who keep on telling everyone that they're the biggest/best/richest team in the world? It's impossible to compete against them.

- recurrence. We've been here before. Our best players keep on being stolen by other teams. How can we ever win something significant if this just keeps on happening? It's doubly unfair. Every time we look like we can break through it's snatched away.

- the hope kills you. We're just starting to play some of the most expansive attacking football on the planet and have just signed a player than other top teams really wanted (whatever they might say). He's just scored a winner against our bitter local rivals. Then this happens. 

- we were better in the past. Just can't escape the history. We deserve to be at the top because we used to be there. Forget all of those other fallen idols, the Ozymandiases of the football world. Your team always has a certain exceptionalism; a manifest destiny to be the best. 

- catastrophising. It's all downhill now. Only the downsides will come to pass. We won't win another game all season. We've handed our rivals a massive advantage. We might as well just take the pearl handled revolver out of the desk drawer and put ourselves out of our collective misery. It's just not worth going on. And we just hate those other teams so much (see jealousy, unfairness, recurrence ...)

- decline. This is another one of those signs of mortality. It's inexorable. 

So basically the ending of a contract of employment in football is akin to ending a relationship in the most acrimonious manner possible; experiencing severe depression and feelings of worthlessness; meeting people who share and reinforce these feelings; hating their new partner; fearing that you'll never have another meaningful relationship whilst those in the new relationship are having a great time somewhere on the east coast of Spain (as it happens) and feeling that you might as well just end it all now. It's better than the pain of ongoing failure. 

That's why football is so painful. 

Life and Death. It's more important than that. 

Top Ten (and Worst Five) Films of 2017

Some reflections on last year at the cinema including five absolute turkeys to be avoided at all costs.

First the best ....

1. Zama : A simply wondrous existential fever dream of disappointment and dashed hopes with a stunning walk on llama adding further bathos.

2. Personal Shopper : Grief and loneliness have rarely been as fascinating. The contemporary world expands the opportunities for communication whilst enhancing the resonance of the insight that you can be most lonely in a crowd. Coming to terms with loss involves psychologically either believing that what has been lost is in fact still there or the fact that it truly has gone. The account of that process in this film is a tour de force.

3. Toni Erdmann :' He's less a dentist; more an architect'. Side splitting, disquieting and moving and brilliantly performed and directed.

4. Columbus : The quiet comforts of modernist architecture and dumb phones. Wonderful to behold.

5. The Killing Of A Sacred Deer : Revelatory marrying of medium and material with affectless delivery perfect for the Absurd but also ancient inexorable fate being encountered. Stiff drinks required after viewing.

6. Aquarius : A mesmeric central performance by Sonia Braga and a meditation on life, death and property development.

7. Montparnasse Bienvenue : An absolute powerhouse of a performance by Laetitia Dosch cast adrift in the Paris precariat and nostalgic for things she never had.

8. The Son Of Joseph : None more droll. From the deliberate stately Baroque staging and the beautifully delivered lines to the wonderfully beatific Natacha Regnier this is an absolute delight. And careful reading of the credits delivers some final amusement.

9. A Quiet Passion : Riveting, literate, enraged, bitter, humane and with a simply astonishing rhapsodic sequence to the accompaniment of The First I Ever Saw Your Face.

10. La La Land : This is for the fools who dream.

And now the worst in descending order with the bottom one in the inner ring of the Inferno ...

5. The Lost City Of Z : Dullsville, Amazonia.

4. Marguerite et Julien : 'We must never meet again'. That may be a problem for the main characters but certainly not for the viewer who is unlikely ever to wish to see this wildly misconceived turkey a second time.

3. The Girl On The Train : Interminable; dull enough, indeed, to drive one to drink.

2. Elle : Manages to be both exhaustingly dull and deeply reprehensible and has a by the numbers Isabelle Hupert performance that is now becoming worryingly familiar: icy, detached, clipped and boring.

1. Good Time : I did actually run screaming silently from the cinema after seeing this. If being shut in a room for an hour and three quarters with people for whom you have zero empathy or interest, the most annoying soundtrack on the planet (unless you're reliving your Tangerine Dream days) and some of the most pretentious direction imaginable then by all means go and see this totally empty, dispiriting pile of crap. Otherwise do yourself a favour and avoid like the proverbial plague.