MOMENTS - Modern art in Bury St Edmunds

An exhibition of modern art taking place in Bury St Edmunds at Moyes Hall, (with a mention of artists such as Banksy and Tracey Emin) caught my eye and, thinking it would be a good morning out, we determined to visit.  It was well worth the visit. However, the artists who really caught my eye were the `Connor Brothers`- who are not in fact related at all!

Art has always asked us tough questions about where truth ends and where artifice begins — and indeed, whether there can or should be a boundary at all. However, in an era of obsessive social media use, competing cultural narratives, ‘fake news’ and post-truth, it is a matter that may have never been more pressing for our world.

It is into such a world that The Connor Brothers have stepped — and are already enjoying staggering commercial success and cultural currency. But in the case of this once-mysterious duo, it is now a little easier to separate fact from fiction — or at least, that may seem so on first inspection.

They just bonded in their art work and have become an international success story, making people smile while empowering them to pursue humanitarian projects. The brothers created their original pieces as a project to reshape their lives. When you see their work you have to smile, its one step away from Banksy’s two-dimensional style using vintage images with a new twist.

Here are photographs of three of their images (this was allowed by the organisers!), but first a `Banksy`.

Hula Hoop Girl

Removed from a salon in Nottingham and offered temporarily to Moyes`s Hall for the `Moments` exhibition a week later by its new owner, Brandler Galleries. The owner of the salon had wanted the work removed as it appeared to be leading to criminality such as theft and vandalism, not only to the salon but the `Hula Hoop Girl` herself. Unfortunately, not an unusual occurrence for these street art works. 

Now for three images from The Connor Brothers which made me smile, and made me think - hope they do for you as well.

There were several other prints by these artists, but I just picked these three to photograph, as they were all hung together. Some of the artists `humanitarian` ones were very thought provoking. To give a little background to the artist, I have quoted the following:

`Mike Snelle and James Golding—who make art under the moniker “the Connor Brothers”—juxtapose pin-up style portraits of women with blocks of solid colour and deadpan snippets of text. The British artists’ chic, slick paintings and works on paper explore artifice and sensational storytelling, themes that they initially folded into their fictional artist personas: The Connor Brothers at first maintained that they were twin brothers who had escaped from a California extremist Christian cult known as 'The Family.' At sixteen the twins escaped to Brooklyn where they began creating artworks in order to make sense of the world they had been deprived of. However, in October 2014 these characters were revealed as a myth and art dealers Mike Snelle and James Golding exposed themselves as The Connor Brothers.` 

A great exhibition which I am pleased I visited.

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What has Bawdsey to offer?

In answer to the question posed in the title, my initial reply was "not a lot". After two recent visits, I can now answer "Quite a lot"!

Sitting on the opposite shore of the Deben to Felixstowe Ferry, it is a beautiful river estuary with mooring for large number of small boats. Then it has Bawdsey Manor where Bawdsey Radar Transmitter Block was the first operational radar station in the world, and the exhibition it has, is housed in the original 1937 building. The exhibition tells the story of the "Invention that Changed the World". It reveals how scientists, engineers and technicians came together at Bawdsey in the 1930s in total secrecy to prove that radio waves could locate aircraft, ships and other targets. Bawdsey became the world's first operational radar station in 1937 and played a pivotal role in the Battle of Britain in 1940.

The Manor itself is now a School Adventure Centre.

Just shows how wrong you can be! My visits during the past week were as part of a group photographing the area with a view to looking really closely at Bawdsey and these are some of my images from this couple of days.

On the second visit, we were hoping for a sunset across the river, but not to be. So, as the light mellowed, a couple of shots of moored boats.

The shingle beach in the area is littered with World War remains. Constructions of various sorts are strewn around in various stages of decay.

Gun tower making an interesting image.

To add a bit more drama, one of the above images turned into a monochrome image.

Patterns in the crumbled buildings.

Patterns in nature

The geology of the cliff area is described in Wikipedia as `providing the largest exposure of the Early Pleistocene Red Crag Formation, and it is rich in fossils of marine molluscs. It is described by Natural England as having great potential for the study of non-glacial Pleistocene environments.`

Furthermore, `it is a geological Site of Special Scientific Interest, also a Geological Conservation Review site, and is in the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.` Well worth a visit.

Then, we came across this structure perched on the cliffs and asked `How did that get there?` It turns out that Amazon have been filming `The Power`, and this building is the Convent, supposedly in North Carolina! It plays a major part in the book (by Naomi Alderman) so will probably in the film. Then it will be demolished!

I managed to scramble onto some highish rocks to get this image. Security was not pleased with people photographing from the top of the cliff!

Shame about the lack of a sunset across the Deben, but well worth photographing the other parts of the area.

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