Wednesday, June 13, 2007

An interview conducted in the DCA

The second of my interviews with the postgraduate Kennie Pome was conducted in the DCA building. In this acronym, the letters 'D', 'C', and 'A' stand for 'Dundee', 'Contemporary', and 'Arts', which is lucky because the full name of the building is 'Dundee Contemporary Arts'. The building is in Dundee's fashionable West End, around the corner from Dundee Rep Theatre, where last week they were showing a production of Happy Days by Samuel Beckett, the time traveller from Quantum Leap. I wonder who they got to play the Fonz. Further up the road is the University of Dundee, which is the better of the two universities in Dundee because it is more conveniently situated for buses, etc.

For those of you who do not know, the DCA (Dundee Contemporary Arts) is a building that has the following things in it: a cinema, an art gallery, a restaurant/bar, a gift shop, and toilets for male, female, and disabled patrons. Its cinema is not up to much because it can only afford films in foreign languages - if you want proper films in English, you are better off going to the Odeon. The DCA (Dundee Contemporary Arts) only has a bar downstairs, unlike Dundee Rep Theatre which has one bar downstairs and one bar upstairs, so if you are looking for a building with more than one bar, you would be far better served by going round the corner to Dundee Rep Theatre. The art gallery in the DCA (Dundee Contemporary Arts) is quite nice, but by plumping for the 'Contemporary' part in the name 'Dundee Contemporary Arts' (DCA), they are obliged to only show art that is contemporary. They are missing a trick here because if they omitted the 'Contemporary' part and just called themselves 'DA' (Dundee Arts), they could also be showing old art too, which is better.

Here is a picture of the DCA ('Dundee Contemporary Arts' (DCA)):


As you will see from the image, immediately outside the Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA) is a sculpture by Lochee artist Bilko Dervish entitled 'Man 'n' Cone', which is a photorealistic piece depicting a man and a traffic cone. It is universally hated.

I went into the DCA (Dundee Contemporary Arts) and proceeded downstairs to the bar, because as you will remember, there is no bar upstairs. There I met with the postgraduate Kennie Pome who greeted me convivially and offered to buy me a fine Belgian lager to keep me refreshed during our interview

I will describe the interview in greater depth tomorrow, for this entry has already become overlong and I imagine your attention is beginning to wander.

1 comment:

Wilf said...

I actually quite like the sculpture and believed it to be entitled, 'Conan Man' but I could be wrong.