Before yesterday, I’d been to Newcastle twice in my lifetime. Once was a weekend away with my family, and a second time was last year with my then girlfriend. I had three damn good reasons to return. Firstly, I’m moving back down south in a couple of months, and Geordieland will no longer be an hour and £10 away. Secondly, I took a lot of nice photos last time I went there. Somehow I managed to delete those, along with my pictures of England v Spain at Old Trafford (sob sob). I wanted to recapture Newcastle on my camera. Finally, Newcastle has art galleries. Good ones. So back to Newcastle it was.
If you’re travelling by train, and approaching from the south, you have the immense pleasure of going over the Tyne just before you pull into the station. This gives you a terrific view of Newcastle’s bridges, down towards the Baltic Art Gallery in Gateshead. The train station itself is nothing special. There aren’t many train stations which are. Except Peterborough’s. And that isn’t special in a good way, believe me. Once you get out, you’re about halfway between the river and Grey’s monument, both about five minutes walk away. The latter is the centre of the shopping district, and the former houses decent views, nice bars, and a pleasant walk to the art gallery I mentioned above. To get to the riverside, you have a great many steps to descend, but it’s worth the effort. You can admire The Sage, a sizeable music and conference centre designed by Norman Foster. It has been described variously as a slug, and a big shiny condom. I was less imaginative. I decided it should be called ‘the blob’. The Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art is located on the Gateshead side of the Gateshead Millennium bridge. Previously a flour mill, it now houses a few small floors of modern art in an imposing building which is clearly reminiscent of the Tate Modern.
Yesterday was not a good time to visit. At least three of the floors were empty, as exhibitions were being changed over. That left perhaps one floor, featuring some interesting work by Bharti Kher, whilst some other stuff was dotted about here and there. The link just there shows a piece I liked. The BALTIC doesn’t mention it, but I reckoned it to look like a great deal of aesthetically pleasing sperm and eggs. I’m sure you’ll see what I mean. If not, perhaps I am finally escaping from the clutches of sanity. My previous visit proved more successful. Only one floor was out of bounds then, and there were impressive exhibitions by Brian Eno and Vik Muniz. Nonetheless, at least half of the gallery is perpetually an exhibition of dreadful art, forming an overwhelmingly potent example of how banal, technically unimpressive, and unimaginatively crap most modern art can be (somewhat reminiscent of the modern art housed in the Tate Britain, which is fittingly located in the ugliest part of the building).
The trip to the Baltic was salvaged by a food fair taking place outside, which included a pizza stand (’The Fire In The Hole’) selling cheap and amazingly high quality pizza. A glance at their website reveals it to be an ethical affair, of locally sourced food and carbon-neutral fuelling, which is always a bonus for those who particularly buy into this kind of thing.
Next up, a visit to ‘The Biscuit Factory’ – another art gallery, which was located in the middle of an urban nowhere, fifteen minutes from the city centre. Now, upon viewing just a few works, you realise it to be a glorified art shop. Each painting has a price tag, which in 80% of the cases is far too steep for a useless work which most of us could create in a few hours, often less. There are some gems in there, however. In this case, I was impressed by the colourful material from local artist James Edwards. To be fair to the people who run the place, they advertise it as a store, but the tourism information makes it out to be a terrific gallery, which it most certainly is not.
Anyway, by now, Lucy and I were suffering art fatigue. We went to a cheap, friendly, and plush bar named Fusion, where we watched Man Utd rip West Ham to pieces on Sky Sports. This, for reasons probably unbeknown to all mankind, made me feel like viewing more art. Luckily, it was right next to the Laing Gallery. Now, unlike the previous two galleries, this one is not of dubious quality, featuring a decent collection of awesome C18 and C19 works – my favourite. When I went there last time, I didn’t have such an appreciation for art; this seems to have developed recently. So to see pieces by Gabriel Dante Rossetti, William Holman Hunt and Thomas Gainsborough was incredibly fun for a more appreciative me. I’d got used to seeing these artists’ works whilst touring London’s art galleries with Lucy a couple of months back, and wasn’t aware that the Laing had such prominent painters amongst its repertoire. It’s a fantastic gallery, in a splendid building, located in a pretty darn good city.
That left two things: St. James Park and a general exploration of the metropolis. St. James Park is the home of Newcastle United FC – one of the largest and most passionately supported clubs in England. The ground had been considerably enlarged since I saw it many years ago, with the result that it now towers over its surroundings, and can be seen from all around the city. I’m always harping on about how I consider football grounds to be architecturally impressive, the modern equivalent of coliseums indeed. St. James Park is one of the best examples of this.
The rest of the city centre consists of a few streets of brilliant Georgian architecture, and some brutalist sixties stuff surrounding it. The jury is constantly out for me about whether sixties architecture is pleasant or not. It has all of the high street shops which one expects, and obviously a handful of independent retailers. Meanwhile, it’s a really friendly place to be. Unlike London, it doesn’t appear to be city policy to stand in the way of people. Unlike Reading, it seems to ooze cheeriness. All in all, I could happily live in the area later on in my life. The city is packed with things to do, it’s linked to elsewhere with a decent train station and an airport, and is, weather aside, a warm place to be.
In summary, go to Newcastle, it’s great.