Tooth House

I have been to the Henry Moore Institute to see their latest exhibition 'Ian Kiaer: Tooth House'. I can already hear you asking the obvious question and believe me I have asked it of myself a number of times. Why? I clearly don't like modern art and yet every time they have a new show off I go to stand there aghast thinking 'God this is pants' (honourable exception for Robert Filliou). And indeed this one is. Pants that is. Don't bother.

Much better

The title of the exhibition and of some of its exhibits comes from the work of the surrealist architect Frederick John Kiesler. (For the record, I have no idea whether the title of some of the other exhibits really does come from either the book by Dumas père or the Alain Delon film, but finding a link between 'a frame stretching six metres high, only just capable of holding its own weight' and anything much is a bit of a challenge.) Anyway, I suspect most wargamers have probably never heard of Kiesler, but when you look more closely I would suggest that many of us have certain traits in common with him. One of his colleagues at Columbia University was quoted as saying: "If Kiesler wants to hold two pieces of wood together, he pretends he's never heard of nails or screws. He tests the tensile strengths of various metal alloys, experiments with different methods and shapes, and after six months comes up with a very expensive device that holds two pieces of wood together almost as well as a screw".

 

I couple of weeks ago I had to admit to never having read 'Of Mice and Men'. However, I have read 'Tortilla Flat' (recommended - essentially a reworking of the legends of King Arthur with the knights of the round table becoming a group of indigent Californians). In order to demonstrate that this blog isn't simply just thrown together, the above photo shows Hedy Lamarr starring alongside Spencer Tracy in the film version. The pulchritudinous Ms Lamarr was Kiesler's niece.