Cathy's Art Diary

Funny video installation at the National Gallery by Rachel Maclean looking at the relationship between England and Scotland. I loved the way the room was set up like a grand theatre with red and blue drapes and comfortable pouffes. The film lasted about 15 minutes so it was easy to wait for the beginning and watch it in full. You know my usual moans about long video art! The film featured real recordings of the Queen being mimed by Maclean in a wonderful, lavish comic costume. It was odd to see this strange figure speaking with such a familiar voice. The two countries were then represented by the lion and unicorn of the title, based on an interview of Alex Salmon (Unicorn) by Jeremy Paxman (a very suave lion). Again there were lovely lavish costumes and the comedy figures emphasised the difference in the two characters. It’s rare that a video installation makes me laugh but I did laugh out loud at this one and yet it was also making very valid and interesting points. ...

Small but full exhibition at the National Gallery to mark the loan of Landseer’s “Monarch of the Glen” from the Scottish National Gallery. It’s rather fun as you walk towards the gallery to see this wonderful clique shining out from the wall. Like many art cliques it’ a much better picture than the endless shortbread tins and whiskey bottles convey. I loved the white highlights on the horns and on his nose which give it a sense of space and scale. The show put this picture in context including some Stubb’s anatomical pictures which Landseer copied and pointing out that Whistlejacket is a precursor for this picture. It also hung it with other pictures of staffs by Landseer including a copy of a now lost mural by him by Queen Victoria. The show discussed Landseer’s religious views and hinted that the stag is actually an allegory for the risen Christ. Antlers, which fall off an regrow, have often been taken a symbol of Christ and the stance of the stag putting itself in a...

Interesting exhibition at the National Theatre looking at how scale models are used for set design. It showed how models had been used in theatre since Ancient Greece and how the standard scale is now 1:25 as it is difficult to incorporate detail in anything smaller. I loved a big display of pencils of different sizes to illustrate what scale means. It then went on to look at six productions in the Olivier starting with the 1977 production of “The Plough and the Stars” to show how scale models had been used in practice. It featured a lot of work by Jocelyn Herbert and included a recreation of her studio with an interview with her from the archive playing on a telephone. Each show featured the scale model used and archive material to describe the design process. It was nice to see show’s I’d seen features such as the recent “Anthony and Cleopatra” and the “Comedy of Errors” from 2011.   The display also discussed how the models are used from being in the room dur...

Fabulous exhibition at the British Museum looking at the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal. I love Assyrian art and this show makes you realise how much of what we see is from this period. This is partly because the British Museum led the excavations at Nineveh. The show gave a picture of an absolute ruler but a much more subtle man than we see from biblical texts. The first section looked at the palace at Nineveh and court life. It cleverly used the reliefs to tell this story including sections on banquets and gardens and of course the already mentioned lion hunts. It was also lovely to see other objects from the site such as chair ornaments. I loved the section which discussed the library he created which contained over 100,000 works mostly newly copied in the finest clay. Each piece has his name on it. There was a lovely display of these tablets in a floor to ceiling glass case to give an idea of the enormity and coverage of this reference library. Before looking at th...

Fascinating lecture at the British Museum examining the lion reliefs from Nineveh some of which are included in the current I am Ashurbanipal. The lecture was given by Paul Collins from the Ashmolean Museum. He started by describing the two palaces at Nineveh and looking at where these reliefs were situated. He then went on to describe them in detail with excellent slides and then to try to unpick what they might mean. He compared the very formal looking king with the naturalist lions and pointed out that the hunt was taking place in a formal space not in the wild. He related this to the Assyrian creation myths where the gods overcome chaos and bring peace and stability. The king is therefore showing himself as overcoming the chaos of wild life and building a stable empire. I was lovely to be able to leave the lecture and go to see the reliefs which were left in the normal museum galleries and then to do the exhibition. The lecture certainly shed light on the exhibition wh...

Small exhibition   at the British Museum looking at the history of boundaries in the Middle East. The main part of the show looked at the moment when natural boundaries changed to man made one which often led to conflict. The term “No Man’s Land” for disputed territory goes back to the Assyrians. There were some fascinating artefacts from this time including a newly identified border pillar which have shown a white in the landscape. There was also a plaque, shown here,   showing a border ceremony. It was nice to show these items with photographs from the 1980s by Ursula Schulz of the Ur and Uruk landscape which has since been destroyed but war and the Picot agreement which divided up the area following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Closes on 27 January 2019 Review Times

Colourful exhibition at Alon Zakaim Fine Art of work by the Soviet artist, Yakov Chernikhov. Chernikhov was an architect and a theorist on the art of drawing who organised his own Research and Experimental Laboratory of Architectural Forms and Methods where he taught drawing. This show was mainly his geometric abstract works in gouche and ink. Many of those had a structural 3D effect and were in bright colours. They are very precise works and I liked one like a brick plus his lively colour combinations. There were also some architectural works. I wasn’t sure if they were real designs or fantasy works. But I liked the shadowy backgrounds. Closes 21 January 2019