.................................the blog nobody reads

Paul Burwell

24 April 1949 – 4 February 2007

I had a dream the other night in which I suddenly remembered all the artists I had ever met in my life. After working for some 25+ years in the field it is a lot. From Richard Hamilton as a student at art college in Leicester with tutors Gavin Bryars and Fred Orton to people like David Mach and Richard Wentworth who both graciously did installations in Blackwell's Art Shop window for me as did Brian Catling's performance art students from the Ruskin School of Drawing when I ran that shop for a some 11 years. There were hundreds of artists who all seemed to parade through this dream in an oddly short space of time. From Joel Fisher to Jennifer Durrant, John Walker to David Hockney, photographers like Bill Brandt who sneaked in to his own show one afternoon when he thought no-one was looking. From Eve Arnold to Robert Doisneau, people on the Board of directors of MOMA like the most delightful of gentlemen John Piper & his wife Myfanwy to Sir Anthony Caro and Howard Hodgkin. This is not about name dropping it’s about art . . . .

Paul Burwell from 'The Zoo and Logical Times' (LMS)

For reasons best known to someone else I had awoken with the after taste of this dream echoing around my nogin and immediately called to mind the vivid installation and indelible performance art of the Bow Gamelan Ensemble at MOMA Oxford in the mid eighties. Many if not all the artists I most enjoyed and liked being there through shows curated by the Deputy Director at that time Marco Livingstone. Now Marco may not thank me for being reminded of his period at MOMA in Oxford but he is not only a world authority on Pop Art so much so that he became good friends with David Hockney and RB Kitaj whose worked I so admired but also he has a strong interest in pop music too (as a student he interviewed people like Phil Ochs and gave me a copy of the first ever press release for The Doors no less!) that abiding interest lead to his arranging many performance art installations. He it was who introduced me to the work of Nick Cave, and much proto and post punk era bands like Wire who not only reformed for a full blown gig at MOMA but an installation by Graham Lewis and Bruce Gilbert with artist Russell Mills. Many happy times are centred around artwork and installations and exhibitions organised by Marco from Duane Michals and Arthur Tress to David Mach and Graham Crowley and then soon to become Ruskin Master Stephen Farthing to name but a few. I took my son Matthew to see the Bow Gamelan when he must have been only still quite young, in single figures for sure and he has never forgotten the experience. Neither have I!

In Paul Burwell, Anne Bean and Richard Wilson, Bow Gamelan Ensemble were quite simply unique in terms of art performance and I became fond of them at MOMA as they prepared for their evening’s performance. Paul was gregarious and a powerhouse of energy, Anne somewhat like the feminine side of Paul's masculine energy, the yin to his yang if you will, and Richard a silent stoic partner seemingly benign and Zen in his quiet grounded centeredness somehow.

It was with sadness and a sudden sense of loss I discovered Paul had died back in 2007 a fact I discovered by looking him up on the computer so vividly had he resonated in the most peculiar dream

He is rightly described on Wikipedia as a thaumaturge and I salute whosoever described him as such (for some reason this makes me think of David Toop who may have decided upon such a suitable nomenclature). A graduate of the Royal College of Art , student of music and drums in particular he was a unique force of nature who seemed to defy categorisation in art, performance or music but his unerring sense of theatre, musicality drama and joy was without question an energy that defied containment. I found him affectionate, singular and driven above all to create. If the creative life force were a national grid Paul plugged in to it directly.

Bow Gamelan Ensemble stage

The performance by Bow Gamelan itself has been described elsewhere much much better than I can but that it involved an installation barely contained by the top gallery of MOMA with metal pipes and structures towering with industrial size scaffolding tubes, with flamethrowers inserted devices defying description that really only came to be understood when set to making sound, there were flames and smoke and breaking shattering glass, metal scraping on metal, fireworks and bull roarers, explosions and the smell of cordite or gunpowder. Three figures stood animated throughout setting alight, aflame and struck with sticks or rods, explosions lit, blue touch papers abounding like so many insane Lifeboat sailor men (and women!) sou'wester and oilskin bedecked maniacs straight faced and serious about their business yet with occasional grins and the broad smiles of sheer inescapable joy! The fact that the top gallery had several million pounds worth of painting hung in the top gallery and the guys were hurling those little explosive caps at the walls bothered the director to the point of apoplexy but no one else!

Unforgettable and whilst I went on to really appreciate similar forces conjured up by Richard Wilson's sculptural pieces, the Matts gallery installation of 20:50 a gallery room filled half way (waist height) with sump oil being amongst my favourite works of 20th Century art, not to say the magical impossibility of 'Turning the Place Over' (a huge rotating circle of a tower block (sic!) see below and Anne's sheer physical presence and effort in the performance it is Paul Burwell I will never forget for his enigmatic presence, his grin, his sense of joy and fascination with life in a world packed full of magic

Richard Wilson - Turning The Place Over 1

Richard Wilson - Turning The Place over II

Bow Gamelan on the beloved Thames

A track listing from a typical performance may help

SIDE 1

1.Water/Iron/Glass/Gas Burners/Water Jets/Motorised Wire Brush/Metal Plate/Caps/Pipes

2.Pyrophones i)Tapped ii)Gas Jets3.Tumble Dryer with Mixed Contents

Side1

4.Motorised Metal Percussion

5.Arc Welder i)Acoustic ii)Electric

SIDE 2

1.Whistling Worm Fan/Bagpipes with Dinghy Pump/Hooters and Horns

2.When I Grow Rich ( Extended Version)

3.Steam Whistles/Blow Torches/Siren

David Toop said of Paul

Paul Burwell, percussionist extraordinaire, flambeur, flaneur, bricoleur, fencer/adventurer, publisher, waterman-pirate, catalyst and force of nature, died at around 7.00pm on Sunday 4th February. How exactly can this person be described, circumscribed? Not perhaps exactly as outlined above. Flambeur could be a pyrotechnical chef, and although Paul once portrayed himself in exactly this role, tossing a flaming record in a frying pan, a better word is needed, a word denoting a controller of flame, a person of flame, flamethrower, eater and victim of flame.

From Brian Catling’s wonderful Obituary in the Guardian

The day was gone and the fog closed in. A chalky white bass note shivered the river and stopped the blood. Fast-lapping rhythms echoed and smouldered into a vast and unknown space. Burwell was playing the river. In fact he was playing a fleet of marooned concrete barges. Sticks in hand, jumping between their different pitches, fluttering their cadence with consummate skill. The music was eerie and solid, a combined sounding of place and dream.

There exists a BBC recording of Burwell playing on the Thames. When it was first aired, it so startled the ears of the listeners that it was asked for again and again, so that they might hear once more a resonance so perfect and so generously given. It is the sound of Burwell which endures, the drummer's flux between delicate whisper and furious vibration.