Thoughtland

PK column in The National: Banksy's balloon girl is deserving of the title of the UK's favourite artwork

By Pat Kane. First published on JULY 29TH, 2017

SO it seems that Banksy’s Balloon Girl – from a shortlist compiled by “art experts”, via a poll commissioned by a tech company – has been chosen as the best-loved artwork of these islands.

The harrumphing has already started (and with Jack Vettriano’s The Singing Butler at three, and Jamie Reid’s Never Mind the Bollocks album cover at 20, it will undoubtedly continue). There is enough Turner, Hockey, Moore, Gormley and Constable in the list to placate the art police (though I assume the Scots-beloved Joan Eardley was nowhere on the list).

But I am intrigued that a piece of spray-painted, sentimental street-art – from a self-proclaimed “political” artist – has topped this list. If you wanted to make Balloon Girl an indicator of our collective mood, it would be easy to do.

PK column in The National: Nationalism can be force for good – as Scotland has shown the world

By Pat Kane. First published on JULY 22ND, 2017

ANOTHER day, another metropolitan front cover with “nationalism” in scare-quotes. This time, at least, there is the merit of a considerable intellect behind the charge.

The Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari is the author of Sapiens and Homo Deus – two volumes that together chart the past, present and future of humankind. They are popular enough to sit beneath the crime thrillers in your local train-station newsagent.

PK column in The National: Is it any wonder ‘Dunkirk spirit’ is being summoned in this age of jingoism?

By Pat Kane. First published on JULY 15TH, 2017

IT’S hard to take all these WWII movies, as Brexit staggers towards its awkward, broken conclusion.

Before the end of 2017, we will have seen Their Finest (a romantic comedy about wartime filmmaking), two Churchill movies (played by Brian Cox and, in November, by Gary Oldman), and now Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk. Ridley Scott’s Battle of Britain will land on us in 2018.

PK column in The National: Technology can be good for the soul ... when seen as a tool and not a drug

By Pat Kane. First published on JULY 8TH, 2017

IT’S graduation day, with two happy sets of families around a table in Birmingham.

And everyone’s smart devices are being used in a variety of all-too-human ways. There is a 14-year-old girl whose sputtering, shattered phone is vital to her very being. She is awkwardly tethered to my barely-long-enough power cable, which is stuck into a dusty socket behind the booth. She taps and stabs away impassively.

But there has also been much joyous image-taking by all the generations. Some are editing the burst-mode shot of a mortar board thrown up into the air. Others are enjoying a live video clip of The Boy Himself receiving his hard-won degree, huge pride all round.

PK column in The National: Arts for the arts’ sake? No, for all of our sakes

By Pat Kane. First published on JULY 1ST, 2017

ANOTHER “national cultural strategy” summit in Scotland, this time at the quite glorious Glasgow Women’s Library, in a room drawn from the firmament of Scottish arts. I’m there as a table facilitator, and I find myself chatting to someone on the government side (no names or functions, we’re all under Chatham House rules). Our blether is all very pleasant and exploratory, until I am stopped short by this statement: “Everybody has to realise: we can’t change the structures and we don’t have any money left.”