The first time Madonna made a state visit to Margate, a few months ago, it was a fairly low-key affair. In fact, I was only aware of her arrival as she parked up outside a friend’s house and their street’s WhatsApp group went into meltdown thanks to the appearance of a large, blacked-out, luxury vehicle that seemed to instantly scream “gangsters!”
Usually though, that particular type of gangster tends to only exist in the films of Jason Statham. When it was revealed that it was actually the Queen of Pop, it was met with a baffled shrug.
Her more recent visit to Margate at the end of January made national headlines. Perhaps it was the comedy juxtaposition of such an icon descending on a town more musically connected with Chas & Dave at a time when the nation was enveloped in a suffocating gloom brought on by weather and news. Madonna in Margate had all the essential silly season elements and it felt much-needed.
She had been lured to Thanet by her pal, Dame Tracey Emin. She was there to witness the town’s Off Season arts festival, involving 150 exhibitions, crammed into every bit of Margatian wall space, over a two-day period. It must have made an impression, as her Madgeness described Margate as her “idea of heaven”.
Madonna spends her time between a 13-bedroom townhouse on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, a sprawling equestrian compound in the Hamptons and a historic estate in Portugal. Perhaps she’ll move here next.
Can you imagine? Madonna hustling the queue at Peter’s Fish Factory? Madonna moving into and renovating the Shell Grotto? Madonna grimly dropping 10 pences into the coin slot drop in the Flamingo Arcade?
It could happen. It must happen! Surely a concept album about the Napery (consisting of napkin art) at the Walpole Bay Hotel is only moments away.
As much as I love Madonna (like most of us, up to Hung Up) I feel it’s more of a miracle that Dame Tracey has also lured Goya to Margate. Now that’s a get! Goya! In Margate! About five minutes from my house!
OK, it’s not the La maja desnuda, or even La maja vestida, but rather three etchings from the Los Caprichos series, including Out Hunting for Teeth and Love and Death. Not exactly La Isla Bonita.
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It’s part of an exhibition at the Carl Freedman Gallery, curated by Emin, entitled Crossing Into Darkness. And it’s not just Goya trotted out, but a number of artistic big hitters.
There’s Edvard Munch, glaring at you from a stark self-portrait and resembling any number of the artisan bakers that currently reside around the town. Louise Bourgeois contributes a distorted, sculpted head that appears to be made from cream cheese and bubble gum. There’s a bunch of Anselm Kiefers, a grotesque Gilbert & George and a good solid block of Antony Gormley.
In among the heavyweights are artists well-known if you lurk in Margate’s galleries for any length of time. Ceramicist Lindsey Mendick provides busts of busted, pockmarked faces. Laura Footes displays a monumental work with disjointed figures engaged in “business” and screaming, Bacon-like, in either fear or financially driven ecstasy. And in Dutch transplant Joline Kwakkenbos, there are striking, colour-drenched paintings containing a touch of Egon Schiele and maybe the unsettling aura of Jenny Saville.
The gallery itself is kept dark. Very dark. So dark that you think perhaps something has gone wrong.
There’s a ban on dogs and pushchairs, due to the fragile nature of the work, and also because of the Escape Room-esque low light levels. In contrast to the perky, sun-filled Bridget Riley retrospective at the Turner Contemporary down the road, the darkness is front and centre.
In her notes on the exhibition, Emin claims that the artists on offer use darkness as a way to reach the light on the other side. That may be so, but what we’re witnessing is the roadmap, not the destination, the unlit journey through a menacing underpass, not the warm welcoming embrace of home.
It’s a thrilling, invigorating, unsettling collection that I can’t quite believe is on my doorstep. One of Emin’s own contributions to the exhibition is the huge and uneasy I Am Protected. But is the looming figure over her bed offering protection or is it what she needs to be protected from?
Until Madonna arrives, Emin is our saviour here on the North Sea coast. She’s helping to tart up decaying chunks of the town, opening galleries, encouraging artists, training chefs and adding energy.
Given weeks to live and then defeating cancer, she poured her new-found zest for life and creative compulsion into the area. She started feverishly making and dragged Margate along. The show she’s curated might be mired in darkness, but Emin is providing her home town with her own ray of light. Perhaps there is a new dawn beckoning. Or is that light at the end of the tunnel a train?
Crossing Into Darkness is at the Carl Freedman Gallery until April 12.
Dale Shaw’s books include Last Minute Rooms in Bethlehem: And Other Great Internet Search Histories of the Past
