Freewheelin' Bob Dylan [but is he ART?]

At Halcyon Gallery [no 'The'] in Mayfair, you can see 'Mood Swings' - an exhibition of Bob Dylan's artwork. 'Exhibition' makes it sound friendlier and less like a very posh shop than it is. There are two heavies on the door [wired up like FBI goons] and there are roped-off areas where, if you take a peek, you can see offices manned by sharp-suited art-future managers doing deals over the phone. Never mind all that, we're here for the ART.

The 'Zim does roughly four kinds of ART.

1) Pictures.
For his 'Self Portrait' LP, Bob Dylan put a self-portrait on the cover. It doesn't look like him but I still like it because it looks like he didn't try TOO hard and enjoyed doing it. It's loose. At Halcyon we see 4-foot-tall sketches, paintings and prints all in this loose style. Some of them work as decoration because they're colourful and look like things [houses, trees etc.] but most look like Van Gogh homages. They're loose up to a point but when he gets to a face they tighten up & overwork. You want to take an eraser to them and tidy them up although they are supposed to be untidy. You could do better.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self_Portrait_(Bob_Dylan_album)

2) 'Sculptures'.
Specifically: gates and wall hangings made from old bits of iron, spanners, toothed wheels and the like. I have no problem with novelty gates. In Norfolk you often get a garden gate with bullrushes woven into the railings, perhaps climbed by a little mouse or perched-on by a heron. I bet they don't cost £100.000 each. There's a picture of Bob on Halcyon's website, standing astride one of his circular wall iron 'images'. This proves that he did them I suppose; I'm not doubting he has, but I'd rather see a short film of him speaking to camera saying: "I have a team of 200 students doing all the work, I just visit the scrapyard and choose the bits." It would be more like ART that way. Instead, he seems to be saying: "Concentrate, Bob - you're gonna be chargin' huuuge bucks for these...."

http://www.halcyongallery.com/

3) 'Genuine Car Doors Used By The Most Famous Gangsters Still With The Bullet Holes From When They Were Finally Tracked Down By The Cops'*
*Old car doors, with bullet holes and dents, from the gangster era indicated, with a black & white poster about a different gangster with each door. The sort of poster you might get to advertise a village féte or whist drive.

[look close enough and there are no actual claims that these doors belong to those gangsters SO WHY HAVE THE BRASS NECK TO CALL THEM ART & CHARGE TONS OF MONEY FOR THEM?]

4) Enormous Blow-Ups Of Magazine Covers
In which Bob takes a cover of 'LIFE' Magazine, blows it up to 6 feet and changes the headlines. There's a really nice one with Woody Allen, Groucho Marx's son features on another, Gadhafi as Superman... they look impressive. Buuuut they'd look impressive if they were just 'LIFE' magazine covers blown up - because the 'LIFE' logo looks great. But Bob Dylan didn't design the 'LIFE' logo so what is his input? He's found a good printer? The satirical headlines are thought-provoking but printed so sharply as to ruin the illusion that they're original. Again, you could do it yourself. Better. And cheaper.



The best piece is a black & white photo of Bob in his studio, guitar resting on a wall, oil paintings in various stages dotted about the shelves. It's not for sale. I might not know a lot about art, but I know what I like; I might not know a lot about Bob Dylan, but I know he's not ART*.



*apart from the music