Mirrorcity - Hayward Gallery

Interesting but I was perhaps not in the mood for art that takes itself very seriously and takes lots of thinking to make sense of which I was too tired to do. Much of it was video art with sad monotone  poetic narration. Tim Etchell's work is interesting and text based, playing with perception/reality/humour - one piece was a row of framed description of a city each gradually changing with text in different colours and painting very different stories of a place. And I really liked Emma McNally's work (pictured) beautiful grey drawings in delicate lines of dots that conjure up maps or music that don't really exist.

Wangechi Mutu - Victoria Miro Gallery

Fantastical collages of mythical women in crazy seas.

Yoshitomo Nara: greetings from a place in my heart - Dairy Art Centre

beautiful colours. sinister children.

dairy art centre is a really nice space too and didn't mind photo taking!

lots to see - big paintings, little drawings, sculptures. loved the handwritten timeline along the bottom of the wall in the room of drawings. loved the 'reflected' colours in the eyes of the paintings.

Dairy Art Centre

Stranger that Fiction - Joan Fontcuberta - Science Museum

Ok. Favourite exhibition of the year. I LOVE this! Never heard of him before but YES. If I had time (there's not long left before this show ends) I would go again.

Fontcuberta creates stories with photography and plays with the trust we put into photographs and the things we see in a museum setting. (And it works - Stu got really confused at first thinking it seemed so real but couldn't be real but was it real?)

My favourite bit is the Fauna part at the beginning which shows the research of a fictional professor who was researching unusual animals and there are photographs and taxidermy and sound recordings and observations of wonderful animals. I particularly like what I call the Turtfluff. It has a turtle-y head and a fluffy body and when threatened it puts its fluffy tail in the air and it's head in the ground and pretends to be a bush.

Other animals included a clamshell with an arm, a baboon-centaur, a winged deer, a mousething with a snake for a tail, a unicorn winged monkey, a tortoise bird, a snake with legs.....I loved it and it was so convincing.

Other bodys of work showed fossilized mermaids, constellations that were really windscreen bugs, landscapes created by computers reading famous paintings, made up plants and miracles.

It's only on till 9 Nov - quick, quick go now!

Joan Fontcuberta - Science Museum

Ordinary Beauty - the photography of Edwin Smith - RIBA

I hadn't heard of Edwin Smith before and I think I really should have. His photographs are beautiful with amazing light and show the beauty of everyday life.

On till 6 Dec 2014

Ancient Lives, New Discoveries - British Museum

Fascinating look under the wrappings of Egyptian mummies. They put mummies through scanners and you can see the amulets and things wrapped in there as well as into those jars of hearts/lungs etc. You can see what the people looked like too. At the end you see their ghostly faces recreated. It's macabre and yet it conjures up real lives from the coffins.

On till 19 April 2015

Matisse: Cut Outs - Tate Modern

This was open all night last night because it is the last weekend/popularity so I went at 6am. It was glorious. Space to look at leisure and just wonderful.

The colours and the energy and the joy in the cut outs made me so happy.

Making Colour - National Gallery

I hadn't thought about how paint colours were made...very interesting to see how pigments were developed, illustrated by paintings and their use of colour. Favourite bit was history of blue. Historically, ground lapis lazuli was the best way to get blue!

Vikings - British Museum

I've tried to visit twice but it has been so incredibly crowded that I've not really been able to appreciate it it. The massive viking boat is very impressive and the exhibition opens up a bit here but the lead up to the boat is so awful I barely took anything in. 

I'm having some bad timing lately I think as I visited the Comics Unmasked exhibition at the British Library a couple of weeks ago and that was jammed too but less oppressively. 

It's frustrating shuffling in a disorganised queue around an expensive exhibition though and you barely get to see as you feel guilty holding other people up. 

I often go to popular and crowded exhibitions though but none that made me shut down like Vikings did. I just wanted to leave as soon as I went in the second time and pretty much did. Such a shame and I'm annoyed at myself as I'm interested in the Vikings. I will be reading a book instead I guess!

Sensing Spaces: Architecture Reimagined at Royal Academy of Arts

Li Xiaodong

Diébédo Francis Kéré

Pezo Von Ellrichshausen

I was excited about this one but was actually a bit disappointed. It was interesting, feeling the change in space according to different light and different materials. And it was fun...I liked creeping through Diébédo Francis Kéré's tunnel, interactively decorated by the public with colourful cables and I liked climbing Pezo Von Ellrichshausen's spiral staircases and getting a good look at the ceiling. Best of all I liked wandering through Li Xiaodong's neat wooden stick lined darkened corridors on a sunlight through trees lightbox floor to a gravel garden. It felt safe and peaceful even though it was filled with people! That was lovely.

Overall though, I felt the entrance fee was overpriced. I didn't spend terribly long in there and I guess it didn't click with me. I could see how the different spaces had different effects...relaxed/lively/respectful but I'd have enjoyed exploring a list of actual places better and it would've cost less. There isn't much information either, so that you can draw your own conclusions. I think a bit more info wouldn't have gone amiss. Maybe more about how architecture can affect people and more on potential for the future.

For me, lots of daylight is essential. I can live in a teeny tiny flat as long as its filled with sunshine. One reason I've been unhappy with my current flat despite its glorious size is that it's really quite dark. I also feel safer in smaller spaces, more cosy and less exposed.

However this exhibition reminds me that I previously saw a Mariko Mori exhibition at the RA which I loved.

She created a space that felt incredibly spiritual and I could have spent hours gazing at this glowing monolith and gradually changing light. I'll look it up and post it. I know that wasn't architecture but it was amazing.

Edit:

The Mariko Mori work I loved is called Tom Na H-Iu and it's connected to a facility that measures particles released by the deaths of stars and this is what controls the ever changing colours and lights. It feels both ancient and futuristic and incredibly peaceful. It made me contemplate life, death and the vastness of the universe, all these stars constantly dying and people dying and who knows if it means anything or what will happen? I found it so beautiful that I could feel so small and peaceful even amongst all the other visitors.

Links:

Sensing Spaces

Diébédo Francis Kéré

Li Xiaodong

Pezo Von Ellrichshausen

Culture Lab: Mariko Mori (picture taken from here)

Sage Vaughn: Nobody's Home - Lazarides Gallery

Literally nobody home! Although the gallery says its open Tuesday to Saturday till 7pm, it was locked and empty when I visited half an hour ago!

Oh well, I had a good peep through the window and the paintings looked beautiful. Soft colours, everyday home scenes with bright birds and butterflies looking at the same time out of place as well as perfectly natural.

It's pouring with rain so I didn't remain long to ponder from outside the window, but if the show didn't finish tomorrow I'd like to try visit again. Even though it is one of those intimidating looking galleries where you feel out of place and noisy and scruffy.

http://www.lazinc.com/

Britain: One million years of the human story at Natural History Museum

Of course I loved this exhibition. Not only am I fascinated by how people live but I'm fascinated by the ice age and how people began. This is probably a lot due to my love of Jean Auel's Earths Children books, the first four of which I've re-read repeatedly since I was 13. The stories follow Ayla, an early modern human child who comes to be taken care of by a group of neanderthals. The detail is epic without being boring and describes so many imagined societies and culture.

Anyway, the exhibition tells the story of human life in Britain. You can actually touch replicas of their tools! And watch video of how the tools were made! And did you know hippos used to live in this country back in the day when we were still attached to Europe?? There were hippos right where Trafalgar Square is! They have maps showing how things looked attached to Europe and gradually changing into an island.

There are skeletons on hippos and other animals in the exhibition. Bones with knife marks on so they know the animals were hunted by people. Giant antlers. Magnified images of pollen which is how they can tell what kind of plants were about. Models showing a neanderthal and an early modern human.

The climate changed a lot over the millions of years, from hot for hippos, to too cold for anyone. Neanderthals and homosapiens both lived here and there was interbreeding. Many people today actually have neanderthal DNA. There is video at the end where people have found out how much neanderthal they have. So interesting.

I might actually visit again because I want to absorb more.

On till 28 Sept 2014


Links:

Britain: One million years of the human story
Earth's Children

Wildlife Photographer of the Year at Natural History Museum

I always enjoy this annual exhibition. Although every year it seems to get more crowded! So many beautiful photos though. Elephants greeting each other in the distance in black & white simplicity surrounded by sparse trees. A sunlit field of flowers. A view of trees from under water, framed by bubbles.

Here are two of my favourites.

Simplicity by Valter Binotto - blurred dew around a delicate violet.

Twin Hope by Diana Rebman - the MOST adorable baby twin gorillas in their mothers arms. No one I've excitedly shown my baby gorilla postcard to seems to think they're as cute as I do but I can't stop melting when I look at them!

Wildlife photographer mainly celebrates nature and its beauty but also at the end there are photographs showing how it is being destroyed. There seemed to be less of this, this year but there are some traumatising photos of elephants killed for ivory. It was really upsetting. Although the elephants had no heads, the guys who worked in the wildlife park could still tell which elephants they were as they had cared for them closely for so long.

I think the destruction hits harder after having looked at so many intimate photographs of life and beauty. I hope this exhibition can help us to think of the environment and creatures that live here. It's so hard to be good, everything seems to be bad. I'm slowly making tiny steps. I usually only eat free range meat. (I'm not ready to be a vegetarian but at the very least I think farm animals should be well treated and respected) I'm starting to avoid palm oil (I'm unclear on the details but I believe deforestation to get palm oil is destroying habitats). Sometimes it feels like these small things don't matter and can never make a difference and I get embarrassed if I have to mention it because people think I'm being ridiculous. But little by little attitudes do change and little by little things can change.

On till 23 March 2014.


Links:

Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Diana Rebman

Valter Binotto

Compassion in World Farming

Say no to palm oil

World Wildlife Fund

Cheapside Hoard at Museum of London

A mystery! Workmen demolishing buildings in 1912 smashed through a cellar floor and discovered piles of sparkling jewellery! Hidden treasure that had been abandoned. And it's the largest collection of Elizabethan/Stuart jewellery in the world.

There's background history to begin with including an actual mocked up jewellery workshop based on a drawing from that time, shop signs and a beautiful painting that shows London before the Great Fire.
Then you go round a corner and there is so much delicate sparkling decadent jewellery! Some is so tiny and detailed! Magnifying glasses are provided for closer looks but I preferred looking with just my eyes. I find the smallness beautiful. I saw pieces from the official photos and they are much more beautiful and tiny in real life.

There are paintings on the walls showing how the pieces may have been worn and also videos showing close ups.

I particularly loved a case of pearl pendants. The pearls were a bit decayed, not having enjoyed their time in the cellar, but still lovely and attached to intricate little teardrop shaped cages. There were also the most amazing tiny buttons encrusted with precious stones and yet not ugly! Sounds so ugly in my head but it wasn't.

There is a pin with a tiny ship on it, there's an emerald watch, there's an amazing perfume bottle. Folks used perfume to cover the stench of the times and Roja Dove created a perfume that may be similar to theirs and you can smell it from behind a little door in the wall! And there is much more than I mention,I've only mentioned my favourite things.

As you leave you can watch a short film wondering who might have hidden the hoard and why they never came back. The hoard was hidden before the Great Fire and at a time of civil war. The film tells a possible story and suggests more.

Museum of London is one of my top museums. The permanent collection is fantastic, so informative, interesting and fun and so far I've always enjoyed their exhibitions and events.

Security is high as the hoard is so valuable so you are required to put your coat and bag in a locker which costs £1. I never usually bother to use a cloakroom so it was kind of nice to do it this once but I was lucky I had the change on me as I didn't realise ahead of time.

On till 27 April.

Links:

Cheapside Hoard

Georgians Revealed at British Library

Bit of a history lesson for me...despite having grown up near Bath and its beautiful Georgian architecture, I don't know much about the Georgians. I know a little more now though, mainly about how people lived. I think how people lived is the most interesting thing in history. Secondary school history really put me off because it was ALL politics and war. Obviously this is important but young me wanted to know about people and how they lived and felt. Present me still finds that more interesting but I do now want to understand politics and war as well although I find it hard.

This exhibition covers everyday Georgian life and pleasures. As you wall in there is a brief timeline of Georgian kings and historical events and we go on to normal people.

There were more middle class people so more people were able to read for fun, decorate their homes, go on holiday and go out dancing etc

Highlights for me include a set of teeny tiny exquisite little books called 'The Infants Library', various massive books with botanical illustrations, Jane Austen's writing desk and tiny glasses, plans of dance steps and Harriet Parry's 1825 travel diary. The travel diary is a scroll map annotated with pen and ink with drawings and notes as she records her tour Scotland. It's beautiful and I want to do this!
Then the last room is a giant map reproduced on the floor of Georgian London. They had wanted to show every house and number on it but realised it would be impossible! It's a beautiful map (love old maps anyway) and it's great to see it so big.

On till 11th March

Links:

Georgians Revealed

Jameel Prize 3 - V&A

This fast and beatiful circle of pattern by Mounir Fatmi caught my eye as I wandered into the V&A and so I visited the Jameel Prize 3 exhibition.

I love arabic calligraphy so the work of Mounir Fatmi and Nasser Al Salem immediately appealed to me as both play with arabic lettering. Nasser Al Salem in a more minimalist way. Mounir Fatmi with layers and movement to create the effect of machinery and the fast pace of cities, change and development.

Faig Ahmed also depicts change and development with his carpets which follow traditional designs with surprising twists - a sudden warping of the design or a half pixellated carpet. Showing how traditions can change.

Another piece I liked was a a section of floor that looked beautifully tiled but was actually created using spices by Laurent Mareschal.

The Jameel Prize is for contemporary art and design inspired by Islamic traditions. All the work is interesting and there is more info and pictures on the V&A website (link below). On till 21st April 2014.


Link:

Jameel Prize 3 - V&A

February Exhibition Wish List

I'm going to try to squeeze as many of these as possible into February, as my ArtFund card (which gets me really good discounts) will expire at the end of the month :( A couple of these are free though (yay). 

Astronomy Photographer of the Year - Royal Observatory

Hello my name is Paul Smith - Design Museum

Georgians Revealed - British Library

Wildlife Photographer of the Year - Natural History Museum

Britain: 1 Million Years of the Human Story - Natural History Museum

The Cheapside Hoard - Museum of London

Tomfoolery - Museum of London

Nobody's Home - Sage Vaughn - Lazarides Gallery

Universal Everything & You - Science Museum

I stumbled upon this as I wandered through the Science Museum post Collider and spent ages just sitting in the darkness enjoying this. Universal Everything & You is two digital art works shown together.

A dark room with an inner screen for the interactive '1000 hands', glowing with mutating doodles submitted by visitors/participants and an outer wall showing the non interactive 'Presence' which shows dancers dancing but not as people. I think they may have worn sensors or something which translated their movement to glowing computer generated lines and patterns dancing with hints of human form.

Sometimes you can clearly see people dancing, sometimes just a twirl of pattern. I found it beautiful and soothing and watched Presence for quite a while.

On till 7th February 2014 so visit soon!


Links:

Science Museum - Universal Everything & You
Universal Everything

Collider - Science Museum

This exhibition gives the effect of visiting the Large Hadron Collider, the massive experiment that I had heard of but didn't really understand. I can't tell you I really understand it now, but I understand it better.

It begins with a video on a massive curved screen (you are supposed to feel you are in the lecture theatre with the scientists who are talking about their excitement about the experiment and finding out the results) which is a nice start but I did find the computer generated people used to fill seats in video lecture theatre a bit weird and distracting.

You then walk round a model of the experiment complete with photographic tabletops scattered with notes ad safety goggles etc which is a lovely touch! There are whiteboards and videos explaining things along the way. You then enter another large curved screen area which gives you an idea of the scale of the experiment and visualizes the particles travelling through at almost the speed of light and colliding.

The last bit shows the offices of the scientist and gives a little more information on what/why they wanted to discover.

I get the gist of how the Large Hadron Collider works and it's great to feel I learned some science, 10 years after dropping AS Level Biology and Chemistry. What I don't fully understand is why the Boson Higgs Particle (that they proved exists with this experiment) is so important and what it really means and where things go from here.

It is entirely possible that this information is explained and I missed it. Although I chatted with some cleverer people than me (my dad that day, my scientist boss the next day) and both said it was very difficult to understand even for scientists....which is both comforting and frustrating as I hate being unable to understand! I think I'll need to learn slowly for myself.

Full understanding or not, this is a fascinating exhibition and provides insight and inspiration. On till 6th May 2014.


Links:

Science Museum - Collider
Wiki - Higgs Boson
CERN - Large Hadron Collider