Is This Tomorrow?


Confused exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery which invited architects and artists to respond to issues we face today.

I found the show a bit hit and miss. I liked the idea it was reimagining a similar show at the gallery in 1956 and it might have been interesting to see some archive material from that as a comparison. I didn’t understand some of the installations as their descriptions were just so convoluted that I gave up trying to work through the text. I did however like the idea that the works were ‘numbered’ by symbols rather than numbers of letters. Because each installation looked at a different topic that whole thing felt disjointed however some of them did spark ideas.

I loved the fact as you entered the show you were invited to walk through a sheep management system decorated with animal related objects such as dog toys and a hamster tunnel. I’m still not too sure what it meant but it was fun! It was also nice to see a work by Sir David Adjaye, the architect who has just had a show at the Design Museum. I’d enjoyed that so it was nice to see this pavilion made of glass which filtered out certain wavelengths to create different colours.

I thought Farshid Moussavi and Zineb Sedira’s installation looking at the free movement of people and goods was clever as it consisted of nine turnstiles closely packed together to create a maze As you moved through it you activated sounds including alarms and bird song. Rachel Armstrong and Cecile B Evan’s work in which an animated blue bird dying and rising again over and over again in a curtain of vapour was mesmeric.

My favourite piece was David Kohn and Simon Fujiwara’s “Salvator Mundi Experience”, a model building composed of sampled architecture which you ducked into to find various small models of exhibition spaces showing the Leonardo Salvator Mundi which is so much in the news at the moment. It spoke to me of how certain works of art can become bigger that their reality and at how the perception of work can vary depending on how we view it. Also it was very beautiful and what’s wrong with that?

Closes on 12 May 2019

Reviews
Guardian
Telegraph
Evening Standard


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year Exhibition 2019

Image
Delightful exhibition at Clarendon Fine Art showing pictures from the Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year TV series. I had loved the series which had set nine artists, both professional and amateur, to paint one of three celebrities. It then had a semi-final and final with them all looking at one sitter and in the final they also took on a commission. I loved the way you watched a picture build and how some were then made or spoiled by one stroke of paint.   Finding these pictures I knew so well in the flesh was therefore fascinating. None of them disappointed. My favourite artist from the final, Tom Mead, works looked just as good in real life if not better as you could see the detail. The show included his impressive self-portrait which he submitted to enter the competition, a wonderful fragmented picture of his reflection in a mirror giving a sense of movement. I loved that it included a large version of him and a miniature. His commission for the final of Jazzie B was
Read more

Thomas Becket: Murder and Making of a Saint

Image
Stunning exhibition at the British Museum on the life and afterlife of Thomas Becket. I studied Becket both at A Level and at university so I was really looking forward to this show and it did not disappoint. From walking in to see an old friend, the early Limoges casket showing the murder from the Victoria and Albert Museum, I was gripped. The show told the story well using fantastic objects and led you through his life, the murder, the political aftermath, his sainthood and miracles, and how Canterbury became a major pilgrimage site. It is hard to pick out the best objects as so many were wonderful. I loved that they had early copies of some of the five eyewitness accounts of the murder which made you fell you were almost touching the event. I liked the manuscript on his time in exile which was almost like a comic strip. How wonderful to get a 13th century font from Sweden which shows how far and how quickly the news that Henry II had integrated the murder spread. I think my
Read more

Courtauld summer school day 1

Image
Today has been my first day of this year’s week at the Courtauld Institute’s summer schools. This year I am doing “Painting in Renaissance Venice” which is being led by Michael Douglas-Scott. It was nice to see some familiar faces and there are at least five of us who did Michael’s course last year. Today has been two lectures. Firstly setting out the background of Venice in this period looking at how the city had set up a myth of itself, the role of the Doge. the nature of the Republic and the role of citizens. The second lecture looked at why the nature of Renaissance was different in Venice. There was still a sense of the coming of antiquity and humanism but in Venice it fused with the Gothic and Byzantine rather than replacing it. The day ended with a choice of gallery talks. I went to one on the second floor of the Courtauld on the coming of Modernism. In essence it looked at the Impressionists and discussed what they were reacting against and what themes they portrayed. All in a
Read more