Pop Classics: Robert Indiana & Roy Lichtenstein At Tate Modern

Robert Indiana, Sculptures, Tate Modern, London, July 2019

A slightly concerning slump in my general energy levels, and an attendant apathy regarding social media upkeep (remember when we didn't have to bother with all this striving for attention?), make this my first post of the month.  Only a Doctor might ultimately reveal if my physical lethargy represents anything more sinister than the creeping passage of middle age, and I guess it's ultimately up to me to decide about what I can and can't really be bothered with, digitally.  But, for now, let's persevere, and keep the pot at least simmering with a slight return to my last trip to London, in July.  In particular, this post relates to the pleasurable hour I spent with Tate Modern's current Pop Art display.  

Robert Indiana, Sculptures, Tate Modern, London, July 2019

I definitely enjoy the way the Tate constantly reshuffles and recontextualises its permanent or loaned collections - not least because it makes each repeat visit a potentially stimulating new experience.  Sometimes this leads one to discover something completely new, but this time it was also an opportunity to revisit some perennial favourites in a new configuration.  I remain a sucker for a bit of Pop, and am often surprised to discover how, in the case of the best examples at least, the genre's self-proclaimed superficialities haven't faded, anywhere near as rapidly as one might expect, over the years.  Some of this stuff is certainly very familiar, and has been rendered pretty ubiquitous through repeated mass-media regurgitation, but there is something quite appropriate about that, after all.  In reality,  I still find much of it can still raise a smile, when encountered at first hand.  

Robert Indiana, Sculptures, Tate Modern, London, July 2019

This time round, it was intriguing to witness how the Tate had juxtaposed certain American 'classics' with much less well-known, stylistically sympathetic examples from the other side of the Iron Curtain.  There's clearly plenty to consider regarding the apparent critique of Pop's embrace of Capitalist aesthetics, from opposing sides of the Twentieth Century's ideological divide, and perhaps that's something this post might have been about.  Instead, it's really about how I was more self-indulgently distracted by two of my old Pop favourites - and by certain correspondences between their work, and my own.

I've long been a fan of Robert Indiana - not least for the elegant, emblematic qualities of his work, and the elegance with which he incorporated textual elements into his visual statements.  This is all very familiar from his crisp two-dimensional works, but it's also there in his frequent forays into sculpture.  Best known of those are the welded steel 'Love' monuments which still crop up in various international cities, and have continued to proliferate in a variety of media and formats, over the decades.  But, here at Tate, I was delighted to discover a cluster of his slightly less familiar, herm-like totems, occupying the centre of a large room. 

'Sentinel' Sculptures, 'Visions Of A Free-Floating Island', Surface Gallery, Nottingham,
September 2018

I've always loved these, not least for their formal clarity, but perhaps most of all - for their distinctly human qualities.  It's difficult not to regard them as standing figures, I feel - and also not to notice their formal similarity to certain, far more ancient statues.  I'm also prompted to marvel at how Indiana was able to adapt the glib, monosyllabic invocations of commercial signage or labelling, to further suggest, something intrinsically human (either physically or emotionally).  Like all the best Pop Art, they allow scope for philosophical meditation, whilst retaining a formal accessibility.  Most importantly - they are distinctly witty.

And, of course, it's now impossible not to admit that they were clearly in my mind (either consciously or otherwise) as I was constructing my 'Sentinel' sculptures last year.  The scale, format, and resulting figurative characteristics of those, make the connection pretty obvious - as do my similar attempts to apply apposite textual excerpts to a sculptural format.  Also, they seem to be equally 'of the street' in their use of low grade, found materials.  There's even a submission to the somewhat corny, in at least one or two of the 'Sentinels' - although I certainly don't claim to have got away with that, with anything like the knowing cool of Robert Indiana.

'Sentinel 5', Salvaged Cardboard Boxes, MDF, Adhesive Tape & Paper Collage & Acrylics,
 2018

'Sentinel 2' Salvaged Cardboard Boxes, MDF, Adhesive Tape, Paper Collage & Acrylics,
2018

Anyway, when not revelling in Indiana's statues, or struggling to find clear camera angles in what was a very popular gallery space - I was equally pleased to revisit two works by Roy Lichtenstein, hanging on the wall beyond.  As icons of Pop go, they don't get much more archetypal or over-familiar than Lichtenstein's 'Whaam!'.  In many respects, it could be said to encapsulate everything that's most resonant about American Pop Art.  Relish for the immediacy and mass-appeal of commercially motivated imagery - tick.  Exploration of the visual and formal tropes of mechanically reproduction - tick.  Dialogue between 'high' and 'low' art and the translation of imagery between certain media typical of them - tick.  Juxtaposition of the candy-coated blandishments of consumption-driven affluence, and the darker aspects of actual history - tick.  Exploitation of the potential of key imagery to both insulate the viewer from uncomfortable reality, and simultaneously open-up avenues of internal philosophical debate - tick.  Perhaps never were existential inconveniences (i.e: war and human slaughter), rendered quite so superficially cheery in a piece of gallery art.  And, perhaps most impressively, given its perennial recycling and possible slight fading of pigments - it still feels almost as crisp, fresh and provoking, as it must have in 1963.

Roy Lichtenstein, 'Whaam!', Acrylic & Oil on Canvas, 1963

Three years later, Lichtenstein made his own excursion into the third dimension, in the adjacent wall-mounted relief, 'Wall Explosion II'.  By extracting the already frozen and formalised emblem of the explosion, from 'Whaam!', and then rendering it in welded steel, he further pursued the idea of the instantaneous moment made tangible (or consumable - even).  Again, there's something both eloquent and undeniably 'Pop' (almost literally so) about the translation of a moment of destruction into a reproducible, and thus - marketable, commodity.  And his use of perforated mesh to allude to the ben-day dots of halftone reproduction, or even the stencils he might himself use to emulate them in paint, is just too damn clever for words.  Those are the same halftone dots I've tried to suggest or even collage into more than one of my own works, in recent years - but never in quite such a sophisticatedly oblique manner as Lichtenstein did here - sadly.

Roy Lichtenstein, 'Wall Explosion II', Enamel on Steel, 1965

Galleries Of Light

Tate Modern, London, July 2019

Visits to art galleries can still tend, by their very nature, to be an internalised type of experience.  Art works may (and increasingly do) function out here in the world, in a variety of contexts - both official and unofficial, but the default venue for much visual art still remains the gallery, of whatever variety - with all the associations that may imply.

David Zwirner Gallery, London, July 2019

Despite a growing imperative for galleries and museums to justify themselves in terms of some defined educational function or community outreach, (the sociological implications of which open up entire debates of their own), there is still a sense in which such spaces may act as crucibles of purely self-fulfilling, internal reflection.  Regardless of the agenda of an individual artist, curator or institution, 'Fine Art' (whatever the hell that now means) retains the function to act as a condenser of the viewer's individual thoughts and fantasies.  As long as that still applies, it seems desirable there should remain the possibility of a few 'neutral' spaces, shorn of any function other than to act as a venue for such unprescribed enlightenment.

Of course, I understand that any commercial gallery space has a very obvious economic function beyond the purely reflective, or that the transformation of many subsidised galleries into something identifying as 'arts labs' or educational outposts, implies a greater degree of participatory activation.  But even in these places, it's often still possible to sidestep a particular establishment's primary agenda, and just 'be' with artworks, if only as a peripheral activity.  For many this will sound elitist, socially unjustifiable, or just plain self indulgent.  I'm certainly not dismissing out of hand, the idea that art, and its consumption, may actually operate on various levels of functionality, (often simultaneously).  So, perhaps it's just a case of my reserving the right to decide what I think and feel for myself (in art as in life).  Maybe it's just the desire to retain some degree of subjectivity and personal mood-dependency, as significant components of my own art experience, alongside all the other stuff that might occur.

David Zwirner Gallery, London, July 2019

Which may be why, when a gallery context actually does intrude into my rarified 'art experience', as of course it must (context is everything, really - despite the above protestations), it can sometimes do so as its own variety of transferred aesthetic experience.  With surprising regularity, I find myself shifting focus from the actual work on display, to a portion of the physical environment in which it resides, or to the vista revealed through its windows - only for that to become it's own quasi-revelatory moment.  It's almost as though, rather than the functional imperatives of 'real life' always being applied to art from without - the current might also flow in the opposite direction.  Could it be that, a few meditative minutes spent with the right artworks, can transform one's perceptions of the material world beyond its own boundaries, once it re-intrudes, into something altogether more subjective or dreamlike?

Tate Modern, London, July 2019 (And Below)

Which is all mostly just a very pretentious way of saying - look at these slightly arty photos I took during my last gallery-going trip to London, whilst not focussing on the actual work. 

The Failure And Success Of Alberto Giacometti (Stanley Tucci: 'Final Portrait')

Alberto Giacometti, 'Portrait Of James Lord', Oil On Canvas, 1964

There are certain artists I always come back to over the years, regardless of how much, or how little, they influence my own work directly.  The sculptor [1.], Alberto Giacometti is one, so it’s no surprise I found myself at Leicester’s Phoenix media centre the other night, to watch Stanley Tucci’s film, ‘Final Portrait’ [2.].

Actually, it’s been a good year for Giacometti enthusiasts - with Tate Modern also staging themost recent in a series of excellent retrospectives that I’ve attended across the decades [3.].  Whilst I (seemingly alone) have a few reservations about the way the work was displayed in the Tate survey, I have very few about the actual selection.  And I definitely have none at all about the enduring power of those works to move me profoundly – even those with which I have become very familiar through repeat encounters.

'Giacometti' Exhibition, Tate Modern, London, 2017

Alberto Giacometti, 'Bust Of Diego', Plaster, c.1956

It was a thrill to experience once more, the particular variety of perceptual ambiguity exerted by Giacometti’s blade-form portrait busts, the disturbing sense of sexually-charged alienation embodied by ‘Four Figurines On A Stand’, [4.] or the inexplicable power of a tiny head to hold one it’s thrall from the far side of a crowded room.  All that sense of human presence, of energised space around his figures, or of one’s grip on perceived reality slipping away, the harder one stares, should be getting old by now – but it all still moves me every time.

Alberto Giacometti, 'Four Figurines On A Stand', Cast Bronze, 1950-66

'Giacometti' Exhibition, Tate Modern, London, 2017

Clearly, Giacometti’s work and preoccupations have little correspondence with my own current output.  However, as a student, and for many subsequent years of wrestling unsuccessfully with my own hang-ups about drawing, and how to even make art at all, he did seem to represent a kind of mountain I might yearn to climb – but never successfully scale.  The irony is, of course, that he was beset by much the same kind of self-doubt, even whilst operating at an elevation of which I (and most others) might only dream.  In fact, as Tucci’s film serves to reinforce – he really is the No.1 poster boy for a particular form of angst-ridden artistic authenticity.

Ernst Scheidegger, 'Giacometti In His Studio', 1958, (Foundation Ernst Scheidender/
Giacometti Estate

It’s a habit of thought in which it’s hopeless to even dream of producing anything of real value; in which all attempts are doomed to failure; in which the very task one has set oneself is impossible; and yet one that still compels an individual artist to sacrifice their whole life, happiness, and even sanity, in its pursuit.  It manifests itself in works which, however profound their effect on others, mostly feel like disappointments, wrong turnings, or aborted excursions along the way - and in a sense that the struggle is far more significant than any individual artefact thrown-up.

'Giacometti' Exhibition, Tate Modern, London, 2017

All this focus on futility, despair, and other such portentous stuff, clearly ties into what philosophers call Existentialism.  At its most profound, and in the hands of its most sincere exponents (Giacometti, Samuel Becket, Harold Pinter, even Ian Curtis, perhaps), it can cut deeper and more uncompromisingly than most other stuff.  It notably captured a distinct twentieth century zeitgeist, and Giacometti has often been identified as one of the few visual artists to fully engage with the genocidal implications of World War 2, in its immediate aftermath.  If he did so, it was through a stripping-away of everything other bar the essentials of human existence (what it is to simply inhabit this body, in this space).  Of course, all that soul searching can all too easily slip into affectation too (something that, the film suggests, even Giacometti was aware of).  It can become a performance or a form of indulgent self-sabotage.  It can surely become an alibi for failing to complete, or to advance by setting achievable goals.  Indeed, “If I can’t be as good as I want to be, it’s all meaningless – so I won’t do anything at all”, was my own sulky mantra for far too many years - I now realise.

Geoffrey Rush As Giacometti In: Stanley Tucci (Dir.), 'Final Portrait', 2017

‘Final Portrait’, might therefore just have been a vicarious excursion through the entertaining psychosis of yet another obsessive artist.  Certainly, it pulls few punches in examining Giacometti’s legendry eccentricities, and Geoffrey Rush brings an intensity commensurate to that of his subject’s reputation.  We first encounter him as a shuffling, hunched ruin of a man, who proceeds to chain-smoke and hack his way through the remainder of the movie – one minute frozen in despondent immobility – the next, leaping impulsively into an outburst of frustrated anger, or some inexplicable action.

But we’re far from the Hollywood excesses of ‘Lust For Life’ [5.] or ‘The Agony And The Ecstasy’ [6.] here.  This film is actually based on American author, James Lord’s celebrated factual account of sitting for a painting, ‘A Giacometti Portrait’; late in the artist’s own life.  I think he’s generally accepted as a pretty reliable narrator.  Aside from those periodic demonstrations of ‘artistic temperament’ and the bohemian lifestyle choices, the real experience of modeling for Giacometti, it would appear, was one of a baffling endurance test.  As his wife Annette, and heroically stoic brother (and studio technician), Diego attest, the artist really knew how to torture his sitters.

(L.) Armie Hammer As James Lord, And (R.) Geoffrey Rush As Giacometti, In:
Stanley Tucci (Dir.), 'Final Portrait', 2017

Thus, Lord finds himself sequestered in the Spartan, cave–like environs of the Giacometti atelier - a place where the standard rules of time, consideration of a model’s other commitments, and clearly defined deadlines, are all sacrificed to the artist’s obsession.  The insights into Giacometti’s unorthodox domestic arrangements, openly triangular (and emotionally abusive) love life, and totally cavalier disregard for money, actually represent colourful, if disturbing, punctuations, it transpires.  Otherwise, it’s mostly an interminable process of sitting immobile, as the days tick by and the artist goes through his cycles of attempting to really ‘start’ (drawing with the small black brush) and collapsing in despair at the impossibility of his task (obliterating with the large, grey brush).  It might be ‘Waiting For Godot’, by another name.

(L.) Sylvie Testud As Annette, And (R.) Geoffrey Rush As Giacometti, In:
Stanley Tucci (Dir.), 'Final Portrait', 2017

It would be foolish to ignore the fact that, aside from creating a cauldron of existential drama/non-drama, within four walls – the film’s other real strength lies in the power of its five main performances.  Geoffrey Rush himself pulls-out what feels like one of those ‘career-defining’ turns as Giacometti - tempering the forbidding aspects of his subject with moments of genuine vulnerability, and even wry amusement at his own acknowledged character defects.  His achievement is to depict with considerable nuance, his selfish disregard for the feelings of others, and apparent appreciation of the sacrifices and discomfort they endure on his behalf.  We are left with the sense of a fallible but deeply ‘human’ personality (if not exactly a humane one).

Alberto Giacometti, 'Portrait Of Annette', Oil On Canvas, 1964

Alongside him, Armie Hammer depicts the growing exasperation of the initially urbane Lord with aplomb, whilst Tony Shaloub proves eminently convincing as the disengaged, but palpably benign Diego.  Clemence Poesy’s depiction of Giacometti’s paid-for mistress, Caroline, has a certain built-in caricature quality, but is enjoyable nonetheless.  Sylvie Testud, on the other hand, feels immensely relatable as his wife, Annette.  She’s a woman carelessly spurned, and yet heroically aware of her enduring importance as the mainstay of Giacometti’s domestic (and, as we discover - emotional) wellbeing.  It’s a tough role to play with dignity over victimhood – in drama, as in life.

Alberto Giacometti, 'Caroline', Oil On Canvas, 1965

Actually, for me, there’s a sixth member of the cast – namely, the recreation of post-war bohemian Paris.  The surrounding streets and cafés of Montparnasse reek of seductive bohemia, but shun excessive romanticism - preferring a more convincingly gritty squalor  [7.].  The Studio and adjacent courtyard, at Rue Hyppolite Maindron, appear to have been very faithfully reconstructed from various familiar documentary photos.  And while we’re at it - whomever did Mr. Rush’s costume, hair and make-up would definitely get my vote for Oscars.

Henri Cartier-Bresson, 'Portrait Of Alberto Giacometti', 1961

I’m sure many keen moviegoers will have succumbed to the perennial temptation to adopt the demeanor of a favourite character, on emerging into the ‘real world’.  So it may just be that I exited Phoenix with a slight Existentialist’s trudge, or possibly surveyed the car park with a particular weary gaze.  However, the fact is I no longer really identify with all that stuff.  My own creative re-awakening actually came when I consciously gave up fetishising ‘the struggle’, accepting that it’s okay to actually finish things - and even to take pleasure in the process, and in one’s achievement.  If something’s not good enough, these days – that’s just a reason to look forward to making something else.  Certainly, my own work no longer aspires to looking or proceeding anything like Giacometti’s (like that was ever possible!) - and I’m happy to just try to make the kind of art I probably should have been making all along (for better or worse).

Geoffrey Rush As Giacometti In, Stanley Tucci (Dir.),  'Final Portrait' 2017

My  love for Giacometti's oeuvre, and my fascination with the various accounts of his life and times, remain undiminished though.  I no longer want to live and work that way - but I'm glad he did.

Alberto Giacometti, 'Small Man On Plinth', Cast Bronze, c. 1939-45

[1.]:  Giacometti painted a lot for someone primarily thought of as a sculptor.   They must be some of the least 'painterly' canvases ever made however.  Anyway, it's my view that (in terms of his his mature work, at least), pretty much everything he did was actually drawing - regardless of the medium. 

[2.]:  Stanley Tucci (Dir.), 'Final Portrait', UK, Olive Productions, Potboiler Productions, Riverstone Pictures, 2017

[3.]:  'Giacometti', Tate Modern, London, Until 10. 09.17.  (There's still just time, if you're quick).

[4.]:  Famously, Giacometti linked this piece to a memory of viewing four prostitutes in a brothel.  It was an experience, he claimed - in which sexual desire was combined with a sense of the seemingly uncrossable distance in the room, between himself and the women.  Giacometti's psycho-sexual hinterland - and indeed, his sexual politics - were more than somewhat 'complex'.  His four figurines are both remote, and quite literally - on a pedestal.

[5.]:  'Vincente Minelli (With George Cukor) (Dir.), 'Lust For Life', U.S., John Houseman/MGM, 1956).  Kirk Douglas does his best raving madman impression, in Hollywood's depiction of the life of Vincent Van Gogh.

[6.]:  Carol Reed (Dir.), 'The Agony And The Ecstasy', U.S., Carol Reed/C20 Fox, 1965.  A physically implausible Charlton Heston, as Michelangelo, tries to complete the Sistine Chapel ceiling, as Rex Harrison's Pope Julius II looks on in exasperation.

[7.]:  It turns out the best way to recapture the flavour of post-war Montparnasse, is to shoot your film in Stoke Newington.  Who knew?  

'Monument For The Living' / Monument For The Dead

First Twelve Images:  Grenfell Tower, North Kensington, London, June 2017 (Various Sources). 

Recent events have reminded me thatI seem to view even the most momentous occurrences through a filter of art.  I’m not sure exactly how healthy this really is, (or if it’s necessarily anything to be proud of) but it does appear to be my default method for negotiating even the most harrowing realities of life.  There seem to plenty of those to confront these days.

Thus it is that, even in the midst of the distressing news reports from the recent Grenfell Tower disaster, I couldn’t help but be struck by the iconic and symbolic aspects of the edifice, both as the fire raged, and in it’s subsequent burnt-out state.  In this respect, the visual impact seems not unlike that of the Twin Towers, back in 2001, even if the loss of life and far-reaching geo-political impact are somewhat less this time round [1.].  For all their grimness, the numerous images of Grenfell Tower now circulating make an impression that is undeniably spectacular.

Even in their non-catastrophic state, the monolithic character of such buildings, makes them resonant statements within the urban landscape - extending far beyond considerations of architectural functionality (or lack of).  Indeed, many have argued that the imperative to build towers has as much to say about (male?) Human psychology, as it does the need to maximise habitable space in congested regions.  Once disaster strikes, that resonance multiplies exponentially, and prosaic architecture is transformed into a monument to hubris, folly, or whatever you will.  

In iconographic terms, Grenfell and the Twin Towers join a list that might include The Tower of Babel, The Lighthouse at Alexandria, Rowan Point, ‘The Towering Inferno’, Ballard’s ‘High Rise’ block, and the apocalyptic high-rise playgrounds of ‘Godzilla’ and ‘Cloverfield’, amongst many others.  The fact of several of those being purely fictional only returns me to my own quandaries over a perceived tendency to confuse art and reality.

Even as I type, I’m aware this may all sound appallingly cold or detached.  I should emphasise that the victims and survivors of Grenfell Tower have my utmost sympathy regarding their trauma and loss, and not a little understanding of the anger many of them have expressed in relation to their treatment both before and since the tragedy.  They don’t need to, (and shouldn’t) give a damn about my quasi-intellectual agonising on here.  In search of some smidgeon of redemption, I’m struck by the realisation that, of all the images deriving from Grenfell - the one which affected me most was of people waving for help in the window of their apartment as the inferno took hold.  It brought everything back to a human scale and forces us to confront the horror unfolding before our eyes in ways that render talk of ‘symbolism’ or ‘iconography’ irrelevant [2.].

If anything, that leads me to question even more, my own tendency to seek a formalisation of even the most existential events through artifice [3.].  Ultimately, it is only what all forms of art seek to do, I suppose – and it’s really just the degree of perceived emotional detachment within any work, that may be worth arguing over.  Even then, I’m drawn to reflect that Expressionism is far from the only valid response in such cases, and can even feel like an over- histrionic blunt tool, in some cases.

Either way, the realisation that all this may really just be a form of psychic defence mechanism is brought home to me by an experience of my own around the time of my Father’s death.  Late one evening, as he lay critically ill in Sheffield’s Royal Hallamshire Hospital, I found myself lingering for a few unnecessary minutes in the car park, to stare up at the complex’s main block (another prime example of architectural Brutalism).  I imagined him as one tiny individual, hanging on to life by a thread, and lost somewhere within that vast, impersonal immensity of concrete.  Perplexingly, as I wrestled with the awful pathos of that moment, part of my brain sought to concoct an imaginary film sequence out of the experience - even to the point of considering how one might light and compose the scene.  Some years later, I still wonder how and why I found the time and detachment to do that – instead of simply running into the building as quickly as possible [4.].

Marwan Rechmaoui, 'Monument For The Living', Concrete & Wood, 2001 -08

There’s one last connection worth making here – with Marwan Rechmaoui’s sculpture, ‘Monument For The Living’, which impressed me during a recent trip to London’s Tate Modern.  At first glance, this appears to be a fairly straightforward elegy to the Brutalist tower, realised in wood and concrete. However, the accompanying information panel reveals it is a model of Beirut’s Burj El Murr – a tower whose construction began in 1974, but was abandoned during the Lebanese Civil War.  The structure was only ever used as a sniper position, and has stood as a monument to the conflict ever since due to the impracticality of demolishing it.  Rechmaoui’s piece is a classic example of how an artifact with, admittedly, considerable existing presence, can take on far more emotional resonance, once its backstory is understood.  And it is, of course, further testament to the symbolic potential of towers themselves.

On reflection, I’m going to stop beating myself up about all this Art vs ‘real’ emotion stuff.  Who said there’s only one way to process emotion anyway?  The artifacts of Art need not simply stand-in for human response, but can act as distillers and magnifiers of it too, for some of us at least.  Overt emoting may be an obvious and instinctive signifier of our reactions, but a more reflective slow burn, possibly apprehended via images, objects or environments, may be no less deeply felt in the long run.  Our emotions are, above all, our own [5.].

[1.]:  Similar questions over the relationship between Art and catastrophic events were clearly preoccupying me when I wrote a post relating to Gerhard Richter’s treatment of the 9/11 atrocity, some time ago.

[2.]:  It may be no coincidence that this image is already in much less evidence – perhaps out of respect for grieving relatives, or possibly because it really is just too ‘real’ for many to stomach.

[3.]:  Indeed, is not ‘Existentialism’ itself a prime example of that very impulse to formalise?

[4.]:  It sometimes feels like my autobiography of significant memories is made up from a series of such imagined cinematic moments.  Film has always felt like the closest medium to memory, and indeed dreams, to me.  Even so, it still feels strange that I should seek to construct a memory quite so self-consciously, in the midst of such trauma.

[5.]:  Whilst the admission embarrasses me, I’ve actually felt the briefest atom of sympathy for Prime Minister, Theresa May - despite her ill-judged ‘cold fish’ act as the Grenfell Tower tragedy unfolded.  Her real crime would seem to be to preside over a regime whose values and actions may have contributed to the societal inequalities and reckless penny-pinching reflected in Grenfell Tower.  Furthermore, she certainly failed to recognise that her job description requires her to provide constructive leadership in a crisis FOR ALL, and to just – ‘represent’.  But, given her track record, it was always going to be impossible for anything resembling a ‘real’ person to turn up, or be heard.  I may despise most of what she stands for, and understand the motivations underlying many of the brickbats hurled her way – but it behoves us all to suspend judgement over what, or how deeply, another person really feels.  Emotional intelligence must cut both ways, if it is to be a viable currency.