Mind How You Go

LSD is back in fashion, but with a difference. Whereas we Boomers were accustomed to take it in unmeasured doses and at irregular intervals, the Millennials have adopted a systematic approach: in Silicone Valley, at least, people are ‘micro- dosing’ themselves regularly, convinced that they reap mind-enhancing benefits without the hallucinations more usually associated with it. They are using LSD to sharpen their creative and business skills, disdaining the practices of 1960’s ‘trippers’, whose random experimentation with the potentially mind-altering drug they regard as foolish and reckless. Meanwhile, those of us Boomers who survived the experience are now free to spend our dog days (with one eye on the Millennials’ progress) savouring such enhancements of the mind as we may have accumulated. In my case, this translates into spending more time in galleries, museums and gigs.

Last week’s incessant rain had put the dampers on a plan to spend the day in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park so, instead, I opted for The Hepworth gallery in nearby Wakefield to see an exhibition of Howard Hodgkin’s Indian Paintings, inspired by his time in Mumbai. I would happily take home any one of these paintings, so that their exuberant, colourful expression would cheer and inspire me on even the dullest day. Alas, the cost is beyond my means and, although prints are available, I have a limited amount of wall space and don’t spend that much time staring at it, so I left the gallery empty-handed but elated, passing as I did so, a group of boisterous Boomers on their way in – not unusual on a Tuesday, except that these were all dressed in traditional Indian garb. I hoped they were not expecting to see figurative paintings of their ancestral city.

A few days later I was at The Whitworth Gallery, which I enjoy because it displays both art and design. The debate over what differentiates one from the other may have been resolved long ago and by higher authorities than me, however, seeing the two disciplines mixed together certainly encourages comparison, questioning and probing into the blurry boundary. I acknowledge no hierarchy of relative importance: art may be deemed inspiring, though it serves no practical use; design might be equally uplifting insofar as it introduces aesthetics into everyday experiences. Whatever, body and mind must both be served in the interest of overall good health.

Raquib Shaw’s exhibition at The Whitworth includes artefacts from various collections displayed along with his own extraordinarily complex and colourful creations, demonstrating the cross-fertilisation of traditions, techniques and materials over time, cultures and continents. It seems appropriate that, for this show, Shaw was commissioned to create a design for wallpaper – given that The Whitworth is home to many historically important examples – and it is his wallpaper that covers the walls of the gallery. From a distance, it looks like a richly coloured pattern comprising lush, exotic foliage. Get close, however, and you see myriad mythical figures and weird faces woven into the forms. It makes a fascinating backdrop for his strange paintings, all of which glow with colour and shine with glitter.

In an adjoining gallery, there is a completely contrasting show – a display of furnishing fabrics, designed for Heals in the late sixties, by Barbara Brown. The geometric forms and simplified colour palettes she employed typify the ‘pop-art’ of the period. The patterns that she – and others like her – created, formed a literal backdrop to much of my life back then, signalling a bright, modern future stripped of fussy, overblown decoration and obscurely classical references.

Of course, I have no idea if either of them used LSD – but, if they had, I would guess that Boomer Brown discovered micro-dosing way ahead of its time, while Millennial Shaw must have gone retro and dropped a random tab.