Cathy's Art Diary

Small exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery by Steve McQueen who is an official war artist. It consists of a large cabinet with vertical pull out shelves which each have a mock up set of stamps of it baring the faces of soldiers filled in Iraq between 2003 and 2009. It was originally commissioned by the Imperial War Museum and has travelled the country. The repetition of the faces on the stamps is a moving reminder of the soldiers who have died. There is now a campaign to get these mock stamps taken up by the Royal Mail and made into real stamps. Sign the petition to make it happen.

Small exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery of recent works by New York artist Alex Katz. The first room was a wonderful installation portrait of flat cuts outs of heads on a shoulder height table. Arranged in 5 layers it is like looking into a crowd or across the room at a party. I liked the fact you could walk round it and discover the face of the back of the head you’d seen earlier. I was not so keen on the second room which had three large pictures which were not as intimate. Reviews Daily Telegraph

Nice exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery looking at the tradition and role of portraiture in India from 1560 to 1860. The exhibition was arranged by court with pictures of emperors, holy men, scribes and courtiers. Many of the pictures are of groups and events and include a portrait. These are wonderfully dense pictures with elaborate borders. One the whole the pictures stood on their own merits but at times attention was drawn to the influence of Western art. I love the later pictures as the British move in and to see how they were viewed and portrayed. My favourite picture was one of a elderly scribe which is a picture of age and concentration. It could be a picture from any place and any time and it would remain true to its subject. Reviews Times Evening Standard

Seminar on new technologies to enhance the experience of musuems and how they deliver information organised by the International Society for Knowledge Organisation UK (ISKO UK) and held at the Christopher Ingold Chemistry Lecture Theatre, University College London. I am cheating a bit here as this was an event I attended for work but as it was about museums etc I thought I'd count it for the blog! I found it fascinating and although some bits made me ask why, Anthony Hudson-Smith's web project to tag objects and record memories associated with them, Tales of Things , others made me want to sign up to help such as the Transcribe Bentham porject at UCL which is asking the publci to help them transcribe the papers of Jeremy Bentham. Anyway here is a list of all the talks : Shaping Up : 3D documentation and knowledge in cultural heritage by David Arnold – Department of Computer Science, University of Brighton Tales of things : archiving and viewing the cultural heritage of everythi

Exhibition at the National Theatre of the best entries in a competition launched by RIBA and Design for London to seek out unused areas of London and suggest new uses for them. This was a fascinating exhibition consisting of photos, models and mock ups of the new uses. I particularly liked a swimming pool made in an old tramway exit. It would be wonderful if some of the ideas were developed!