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.

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

blood swept lands and seas of red

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

Books about town: Greenwich and Riverside Trails

Spectra - Ryoji Ikeda - Victoria Tower Gardens

Just caught this on the last night and was well worth hanging about to experience. Bright jets of light straight up in the sky in the middle of London and hypnotic sounds as you move amongst the pillars of light in memory of the first world war. Dust sparkled as it passed through the beams. Beautiful.

Books about town - City & Bloomsbury Trails

I love a charity art hunt and the big egg hunt was very disappointing this year - rows of eggs in Covent Garden is not an egg hunt!

Hello, books about town! These are benches that look like a big book, each illustrated by a different artist to convey a different book and all to promote literacy. Come October, the benches will be auctioned and the proceeds will go to the National Literacy Trust.

It's a really fun way to explore London, support a charity and see some free art. And I love books! Yay! Yay!

They even provide maps, tick lists and quizzes on the website. My love of ticking off lists loves this!

Noughts & Crosses - Malorie Blackman - City Trail

Tick List!

Cricketers Almanack - City Trail

The Lion, the witch & the wardrobe - CS Lewis - Bloomsbury Trail

JM Barrie - Bloomsbury Trail

James Bond & Agatha Christie - Bloomsbury Trail

Next stops: Riverside trail and Greenwich trail!

Links:

Books about town

V&A Late - Synthetic Aesthetics - Friday 25th April 2014

The V&A is open late every Friday (which is excellent) and every last Friday of the month they do a special late. Last Friday was themed 'Synthetic Aesthetics' and I popped along before meeting friends at Nandos.

V. interesting stuff. My highlight was 'Bacterial DNA Beats' which was music/imagined sounds of the inside of a DNA helix, apparantly inspired by 'bacteria's ability to transmit EMF signals' whatever that means (too tired to learn about this right now and no info provided). The sounds were played in the v. impressive Cast Court and was good and loud so felt very atmospheric and sparked my imagination.

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)

Károly Reich

Stumbled across this Hungarian illustrator while in Budapest this week and love the innocence of these drawings. So simple and sweet and fantastic.

Links:

Károly Reich

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/

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

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

Big Egg Hunt Zone 12: Canary Wharf

Found all but one in this area! I struggle with the indoor eggs :( Click here to see the rest of my egg finds.

Big Egg Hunt Zone 8: Carnaby Street

Egg hunting is so fun! Click here for the rest of my finds...

Big Egg Hunt Zone 4: Green Park

Click here for the rest :)

ObsessionArt 5th Anniversary Exhibition

ObsessionArt is an online boutique that specialises in nude and erotic artwork and they are having a 5 year anniversary exhibition next week. I'm excited, mainly to see the work of Stephen Perry and John Wellington who will be on show among others including Hajime Sorayama.

Stephen Perry's photography is beautiful. Beautiful use of light and human form, and very sexy. I've been looking at his non nude work on his website as well. I think his pictures are so full of personality and life. I'm very visually pleased!

John Wellington's paintings are intriguing, like a fragment of dream or story. An odd mix of dramatic landscape, modern toys and naked women. I don't know how much I like them, but they interest me.

I very much like Stephen Perry's photos though.

12th - 17th March
The Gallery, 28 Cork Street, London W1S 3NG

http://www.obsessionart.com/
http://www.stephenperry.com/
http://johnwellington.com/