“It would be more rock’n’roll if he showed up” jokes
a journalist in a black leather jacket. As he points out, a musician that let
the press wait (and eventually does not come to the Q&A at all), is such a
cliché, especially when the musician is Peter Doherty (see Libertines and
Babyshambles). But even without his
physical presence, his complex personality emerges from (or sinks into) the
extraordinary amounts of objects he collected, a not inferior part of his solo
exhibition.
Camden Town’s Cob Gallery, in association with Guts
for Garters, presents Peter Doherty’s infamous blood paintings in the
exhibition “On Blood: A Portrait of the Artist”, from February 26 until March 4.
I asked Victoria (Cob Gallery), a young lady in a black pencil skirt with fairylike
golden bleached hair and mauve hues, how did they think of Peter. “He thought
of us”, she replied, highlighting the address of the Gallery, 205 Royal College
Street, at the opposite end of that number 8 where Rimbaud and Verlaine lived.
The accursed musician joins his beloved accursed poets.
Cassie (Guts for Garters), a regally elegant figure in
a black trench dress on red velvet platforms (matching her lipstick and hair
colour) explains the artist had approached them during their past exhibition “Anatomy”.
He then mentioned his works with blood, and they promptly understood that such
a controversial figure deserved a whole study, beyond the collective projects
they usually do. There are so many objects in the room you hardly believe they
belonged to only one person. “I think this is just a eight of what we found”,
she adds, and you can see in her eyes the memory of the overwhelming view of
his rooms, stuffed with vinyls, bottles, uniforms, guitars, tobacco cases… This
eight is enough to make us feel like in the novel À Rebours, a
catalogue of the curiosities collected by a Nineteenth Century aesthete. And
while jumping into this literary painting we listen to the homonym Babyshambles’
song.
Peter chameleon tastes
are the expression of a depth that separates him from today’s shallow and
Shylock-like artists and musicians, and instead links him to the troubled souls of
the Romantic poets, struggling to cope with the ‘unbearable lightness of being’.
No surprise he is going to play the role of a Victorian writer in his upcoming
movie Confession of a Child of the Century, he belongs there.
“His personality goes
far beyond this exhibition […] you could do a whole exhibition on his literary
influences.” As art lovers, the curators of “On Blood” couldn’t but be charmed
by the artistic qualities of Peter. “This is a side of Peter Doherty you wouldn’t
immediately think of”, states Rachel (Guts for Garters), purple blazer
bordered with fur. In this temporary Wunderkammer you can find his Books of Albion, pictures of some of his
memorabilia in the mansion he rent in Wiltshire, a portrait of his friend Peter
Wolfe (with whom he recorded For Lovers),
collaborations with Amy Winehouse, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Alizé Meurisse.
All the paintings contain blood, a literal metaphor of how much of himself
Peter put in them. Cassie refers to this technique as a form of control, which
unveils a rational thought behind the apparent folly of this extravagance. I chatted
with Rachel about the means Peter chose to express himself through. “When you
write a poem you manipulate something to express something inexpressible.
Language is inability to describe emotions […] fine art does it”. And what is
more expressive than your own blood?
If you wonder how Alice felt when jumping down the
rabbit hole, or if you are interested in contemporary art with a Schile-like
allure, have a look at “On Blood”. If you wish to discover Peter Doherty as an
actor, wait until next summer for his movie Confession of a Child of the Century. If you want to enjoy his lyrical rock, visit
the Yard Life Festival on April 28 (and help to raise money for Multiple
Sclerosis Research). But even if you do all these things, you still will be
unable to completely sum up his nature. In Boris Pasternak words “to belong to
a type is the end of a man, his condemnation. If he doesn’t fall into any
category, if he’s not representative, half of what’s demanded of him is there.
He’s free of himself, he has achieved a grain of immortality.”
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