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Damien Hirst: Chortling All The Way To The Bank

Share When Damien Hirst was organising Freeze, I was studying art history in Australia. While he painted a few boxes and stuck them on the wall (Boxes, 1988), I wrote about Michelangelo painting the Sistine Ceiling. As Hirst befriended Saatchi and got free rein to suspend a shark in a tank of formaldehyde (The Physical...

Travels by Film – Roman Holiday (Rome, 1953)

Share I’ve been to Rome a couple of times. Though I’ve never been there with Gregory Peck. And I’ve never been there with a wardrobe designed by that legend of film Edith Head. Or been there as a princess pretending to be a pauper. Mine is more the journey of a pauper acting like a...

Travels by Film – Grease (Los Angeles, 1978)

Share Rydell High School. Children, welcome to 1950s America by way of 1970s America by way of some expat Australians. It’s gonna be a wild ride. I have friends who can sing all the songs from Grease, that Disney-esque view of being cool in high school. (Fair play, Grease does declare its fantasy-realm from the...

MONTSERRAT by Philippa Burne

Share She’d stayed in Barcelona because of him. Unpacked her suitcase into his closet. Stayed in his empty boy-room. Filled the space with her: her clothes, shoes, books. Her smell. He said he liked it. They never talked about for how long. They’d met on a bus trip to Montserrat. He was the guide; she...

Travels By Film – The Sound of Music (Salzburg, 1930s)

Share Opening Scene: The Sound of Music (Salzburg, 1930s) They say give me the child until 7 and I will give you the adult. Well, I think I’m in real trouble. My mother was obsessed with The Sound of Music. By the time I was 7 I had seen the saccharine musical at least a...