Cathy's Art Diary

Annual exhibition at Tate Britain of the short listed artists in the Turner Prize. I must admit none of them made me stand back and think “silly” this year. Goshka Macuga looked at archiving, exhibition making and museum display using the works and relationship of Paul Nash and Eileen Agar. This therefore grabbed me from the start and I loved the two large, half cylinders in glass. Cathy Wilkes, had done the manikin on the toilet with supermarket counter, which got the most publicity. I could hear my friend Linda’s voice in my ear saying “Messy”! Runa Islam, was three video installations. I liked the one of breaking china which had a strange tension like an artistic Aunt Sally! Finally Mark Leckey, who won this year, used found material to create images. I liked the fact that the small AV displays were shown on old projectors so making the thing projecting the art part of the piece. Reviews Times Independent Evening Standard

Retrospective exhibition at Tate Britain of the work of Francis Bacon. When you first went in you immediately felt like you were being bludgeoned round the head but it was good to see so many Bacon’s in one place. In other galleries I find I have a tendency to say “Oh it’s a Bacon and move on” but here you couldn’t so you concentrated and learnt what he was about. Basically he paints the psychological state of himself and others. I particularly like the room dedicated to the archive which is now held in Dublin. I remember seeing the mock up of the studio there a few years ago and being so struck by the layers of creativity and inspiration in the room. This could in other words be called mess! Hard to pick a favourite in an exhibition which was not necessarily relaxing to look at but I’d pick the small portrait of his lover George Dyer which was distorted but showed wonderful detail in the hair. I also have a weakness for screaming popes! Reviews Times Guardian Daily Telegraph Independ

Exhibition at the National Theatre of an annual competition of landscape photographs. I must admit I didn’t have long to do this, just the interval of a play while eating an ice cream but there were some beautiful images. Scotland seemed to come out of it best but its amazing how pictures of where you grew up (in my case Oxfordshire) are so recognisable.

Exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum looking at design during the years of the Cold War. I must admit I was slightly disappointed by the exhibition. I was expecting it to look at domestic design and things like the festival of Britain, rather as the Art Deco and Art Nouveau exhibitions did. Instead it looked at very high end design with a strong focus on architecture and engineering design, I had excepted it to be international but the concentration seemed to be on Eastern Europe with splattering of the USA. Having said that though there were some stunning objects. It was lovely to see a collection of Picasso ceramics made for the a peace congress and I loved the big biosphere with a hammock inside. All in all it was very serious and dare I say a little self regarding. Reviews Times Independent Daily Telegraph Evening Standard

Another lecture at the National Gallery to compliment the “ Renaissance Faces ” exhibition . This lecture was given by Nicholas Penny, the director of the National Gallery. I have to admit I thought it took a while to get going and it would have been nice if he had always said what a picture was before leaping into the point however he was very engaging and charismatic. The talk took wider view of pendants than I had assumed as it included diptyches and double portraits as well as traditional pendants.