Ellen Gallagher, fat ladies and Pan sex with goat: my week of London kulcher

POMPEII, HERCULANEUM AND ICE AGE ART

In the cultural whirl that's been my life this past week, I've seen not only the sold-out sexily titled Life and Death: Pompeii and Herculaneum exhibition (on until 29 September), I also caught Ice Age Art now in its final weeks: both at the British Museum. Some of the ice-age artefacts go back 31,000 years and, as the curators blast out from the posters, it does indeed mark the arrival of the modern mind.

Female forms abound. Closer to Beryl Cook than Vogue, them were the days when being voluptuous (or as we called it in Hackney, "podgy") made you an object of beauty and the muse of artists. I wonder if those cavemen slept with their models.

The funniest exhibit to have survived the volcanic wrath of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79 is the statue of Pan shagging a goat — a garden ornament, it is believed, and certainly one I'd have frightening the squirrels in my back yard any day. It's a nanny, not a male goat the god of the wild is penetrating, so, hey, at least Pan's not GAY, thus preserving some decorum for the elderly ladies and school parties clogging up the aisles. However, I bet she's under age, thereby opening up another can of net-curtainland anxieties.

But she looks happy enough, and Pan has the manners to take her missionary stylee rather than doggy, so he's showing respect and not a little affection in the way he's playing with her beard. If a guy tugs fondly at your facial hair while making sweet lurve instead of demanding electrolysis, you know you're in with a second date. Up close enough for my breath to steam up the glass case, the wickedness in his smile is achieved with such subtlety that I could swear he winked at me.

ELLEN GALLAGHER

At Tate Modern, I did one last circuit of the Lichtenstein on its last day, quite liked the Saloua Raouda Choucair but fell head over heels in love with Ellen Gallagher who I'd never even heard of before.

Motifs of boggle eyes and big grinning thick-lipped mouths run through her early work and are immediate clues as to her identity as a mixed-race black woman working in the US. She's funny, beautiful and political so that's my fandom sewn up.

Three vast canvasses made up of hundreds of original mid-20th century newsprint magazine adverts targeting American black people sport new hairdos courtesy of the artist made out of bright yellow plasticene in an amusing and imaginative series of ludicrous formations that aren't half as mad as the neuroses those magazines were feeding.

One of my favourite pictures, Abu Simbel, is a mucked around photogravure of the three giant statues of pharoahs sitting outside one of the pyramids. Again, thick minstrel lips, broad noses and boggle eyes are stuck on the pharoahs' faces. Heads of murdered black men tumble in a heap at the base, two nurses smile and three tiny men in suits point feebly at a flying saucer made of yellow plasticene, turquoise fun-fur and spangles shooting its death rays.

Those nurses are referenced throughout Gallagher's earlier work but it wasn't until I read the notes for another big canvas and my overall favourite, An Experiment of Unusual Opportunity (2008), that I realised the significance.

The experiment referred to is the notorious Tuskegee experiment where hundreds of poor black men were deliberately infected with syphylis and observed over 40 years from 1932 with no medical treatment even when penicillin was found to be a cure. Nurse Eunice Rivers was the trusted intermediary between the men and an insane medical establishment.

This work is an abstract, like several other of the 100 or so works on show, made of hundreds of paper strips soaked in blue ink to varying intensities so that the whole surface ripples, and contrasted with  oranges, ochres and umbers. It is the most beautiful thing to look at yet represents one of the ugliest events in modern American history. The reproductions don't do it justice so do see the real deal.

There's a ton more from Gallagher in the huge AxME restrospective, with her tendrilly marine drawings most notable. Don't miss it.

Coming up, Luke Bedford and the London Sinfonietta, and David Henry Hwang's Yellow Face at London's new Park Theatre.

Gauguin at the Tate review: Derek & Clive go to the pictures

I finally saw the Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) exhibition at the Tate Modern yesterday and, yep, it had more breasts than a Bernard Matthews turkey farm.

It's an interesting look at a former impressionist who predates Matisse in his use of colour and the surface plane of the canvas. Murkier than the great colourist or even Van Gogh en masse, the subject matter was also a bit more, er, limited? A tiny tad "one note', shall we say? All T & A, or, for variety, T or A. As my lovely companion observed, the arses follow you around the room.

There's a hilarious schizophrenic collision of what the gallery wants you to focus on through their high-tone wall texts, and the glaring obviousity that Gauguin was a white bourgeois having much fun with the native girls of Tahiti and the Polynesian South Seas whilst away from his Parisian home.

Overwhelmingly comprising paintings of naked and half-clad dusky women, the exhibition provides a slightly disturbing portrait of a white man immersing himself in the local "colour" and enthusiastically dipping his paintbrush at the drop of a lei. As if Gary Glitter, having spent happy times in Indo-China, produced an oeuvre of work recording the musical delights of his exploits for our delectation.

Gauguin, the double of Alfred Molina (who played him in a recent TV biopic), sought the pagan but initially found the missionary position as the Christian missionaries got there before he did, arming the islanders against their own innocent sexuality with biblical tracts in a process some call civilising and others might think was bloody imperialist cheek. Gauguin made the reverse journey, recreating primitivist fantasies of a lost age in his art. He morphed from bourgeois banker to "savage" ... and he did it very well.

In the last room we were most gobsmacked to learn that Gauguin died of syphillis. WHAT??? Yer kiiiiddiiiing! I'd've thought him more likely to have been hit by an Acme piano dropped from a great height by Wile E. Coyote.

But here's Derek & Clive putting it far more eloquently than I ever could. (Phooey to the purists who point out that this is actually a Pete 'n' Dud routine.)

Admission: Adult £13.50.
Runs until 16 Jan. Sun-Thu 10.00-18.00. Fri & Sat 10.00-22.00. Closed 24-26 Dec.
Telephone: 020 7887 8888.

Days out in London for free: South Bank larks

A free day in London can mean varied entertainment and practically no dosh required. This is how I spent yesterday.

We take the bus into town, intending to head straight for the Tate Modern a little way up from the stop at Waterloo Bridge. But London transport being the roulette game it is, we're all turfed off early in Trafalgar Square.

No great problem, though, as it allows us to have a look at the Fourth Plinth activity (artist Anthony Gormley's idea that more than 2,000 people will spend an hour each on the vacant plinth until October). This consists of a bored looking guy reading a newspaper. The safety net ruins the exciting possibilities of the unexpected so we move on past the National Gallery (free entry), down Villiers Street past Charing Cross Station, and over the beautiful pedestrian Hungerford Bridge with some of the most spectacular views of London, to the South Bank.

Here are London plane trees wrapped in red fabric with white polka-dots, giving the impression that they've caught lurgy — a precursor to the Swine Flu pandemic expected this year.

We'd normally pause at the National Film Theatre where you could once relax with a pint or a coffee on one of the democratic benches overlooking the bookstalls and river, and maybe chat to your neighbours, mostly film buffs. But some bureaucrat bean-counter had them all dug up earlier this year and replaced with chi-chi tables and chairs, surrounded by a barrier of topiary and clear messages that the hoi-polloi can frakk off! This is now for the haute bourgeoisie with spending power, not skint movie fans.

So on to the National Theatre where I bump into a friend, actor Stephen Hoo looking very fit, exercising with playwright Rikki Beadle-Blair and a bunch of mates. We exchange air-kisses and leave them to their exertions while we settle at a table on the almost deserted first floor of the NT. When the weather's nice, I sometimes pick up a box of sushi from the Embankment station Wasabi for a few quid and picnic outside on the balcony. Today it's grey and showery so we eat our Tesco's sandwiches in the warm.

We walk to the Tate Modern, running past the boarded up length of pathway where they're building a new entrance for Blackfriars station and which stinks of chemicals. It's like sniffing glue and I feel quite light-headed by the time we reach the gallery. We head straight for the Members Room (membership allows you and a guest free access to the exhibitions meaning you can save hundreds in a year if you're a regular visitor to the Tates) with its great views across the river to St Pauls and beyond. The Dunkertons perry cider is the best — a scrumpy-like earthyness, lovely flavour, and it's 7.5%! It costs £4 per 500ml bottle but definitely worth it as a treat. [Note: in the Members Room it's £4.05, in the other restaurants it's £4.50.]

A bit squiffy, we catch a bit of the art including animee films (Anna Lee) and some arty nude footage which look like parody but turn out to be the genuine item from the 1960s. Sorry we guffawed like the drunken philistines we were, but they made us do it!! I did haul at Delightful Chum's arm when he pointed at the Free Willy and chortled. Thus distracted, we're too late for the Futurism exhibition which we'll have to see next time.

Outside, the RSPB have set up telescopes trained on the top of the Tate Mod tower where a female peregrine and her mate have taken to hanging out for the past five years, feasting on the feral pigeons who don't seem the least bit bothered. She's sitting peacefully with nuthin' but the breeze ruffling her feathers — a good state to be in.

We intended to take the boat to the Tate Britain (a fiver) but it's nearly six and everything's closing so we note that you can get a day roaming pass for £12 which gets you to all stops between Westminster Pier and the O2 Centre downriver, and resolve to do this next time.

We cross the Millennium Bridge, now disappointingly stable since its opening week as the Wobbly Bridge. Halfway across, we meet a guy with a juvenile Asian python. For £2 he'll let you take pictures with it which we did. As you can see above.

St Pauls Cathedral is closed — tough if you're in a crisis and in need of something numinous. Thankfully, we're not, so we take the bus home having spent under a tenner each.

Days out in London for free: South Bank larks

A free day in London can mean varied entertainment and practically no dosh required. This is how I spent yesterday.

We take the bus into town, intending to head straight for the Tate Modern a little way up from the stop at Waterloo Bridge. But London transport being the roulette game it is, we're all turfed off early in Trafalgar Square.

No great problem, though, as it allows us to have a look at the Fourth Plinth activity (artist Anthony Gormley's idea that more than 2,000 people will spend an hour each on the vacant plinth until October). This consists of a bored looking guy reading a newspaper. The safety net ruins the exciting possibilities of the unexpected so we move on past the National Gallery (free entry), down Villiers Street past Charing Cross Station, and over the beautiful pedestrian Hungerford Bridge with some of the most spectacular views of London, to the South Bank.

Here are London plane trees wrapped in red fabric with white polka-dots, giving the impression that they've caught lurgy — a precursor to the Swine Flu pandemic expected this year.

We'd normally pause at the National Film Theatre where you could once relax with a pint or a coffee on one of the democratic benches overlooking the bookstalls and river, and maybe chat to your neighbours, mostly film buffs. But some bureaucrat bean-counter had them all dug up earlier this year and replaced with chi-chi tables and chairs, surrounded by a barrier of topiary and clear messages that the hoi-polloi can frakk off! This is now for the haute bourgeoisie with spending power, not skint movie fans.

So on to the National Theatre where I bump into a friend, actor Stephen Hoo looking very fit, exercising with playwright Rikki Beadle-Blair and a bunch of mates. We exchange air-kisses and leave them to their exertions while we settle at a table on the almost deserted first floor of the NT. When the weather's nice, I sometimes pick up a box of sushi from the Embankment station Wasabi for a few quid and picnic outside on the balcony. Today it's grey and showery so we eat our Tesco's sandwiches in the warm.

We walk to the Tate Modern, running past the boarded up length of pathway where they're building a new entrance for Blackfriars station and which stinks of chemicals. It's like sniffing glue and I feel quite light-headed by the time we reach the gallery. We head straight for the Members Room (membership allows you and a guest free access to the exhibitions meaning you can save hundreds in a year if you're a regular visitor to the Tates) with its great views across the river to St Pauls and beyond. The Dunkertons perry cider is the best — a scrumpy-like earthyness, lovely flavour, and it's 7.5%! It costs £4 per 500ml bottle but definitely worth it as a treat. [Note: in the Members Room it's £4.05, in the other restaurants it's £4.50.]

A bit squiffy, we catch a bit of the art including animee films (Anna Lee) and some arty nude footage which look like parody but turn out to be the genuine item from the 1960s. Sorry we guffawed like the drunken philistines we were, but they made us do it!! I did haul at Delightful Chum's arm when he pointed at the Free Willy and chortled. Thus distracted, we're too late for the Futurism exhibition which we'll have to see next time.

Outside, the RSPB have set up telescopes trained on the top of the Tate Mod tower where a female peregrine and her mate have taken to hanging out for the past five years, feasting on the feral pigeons who don't seem the least bit bothered. She's sitting peacefully with nuthin' but the breeze ruffling her feathers — a good state to be in.

We intended to take the boat to the Tate Britain (a fiver) but it's nearly six and everything's closing so we note that you can get a day roaming pass for £12 which gets you to all stops between Westminster Pier and the O2 Centre downriver, and resolve to do this next time.

We cross the Millennium Bridge, now disappointingly stable since its opening week as the Wobbly Bridge. Halfway across, we meet a guy with a juvenile Asian python. For £2 he'll let you take pictures with it which we did. As you can see above.

St Pauls Cathedral is closed — tough if you're in a crisis and in need of something numinous. Thankfully, we're not, so we take the bus home having spent under a tenner each.