Cathy's Art Diary

Interesting exhibition at The Redfern Gallery featuring work by modern British artists. This was a good overview of work by artists in the latter half of the 20th century. It felt like you thought of an artist and lo they appeared! I loved a Winifred Nicholson of a Paris street from a window with her signature bunch of flowers in the window, really delightful. There was a nice Keith Vaughan portrait of Mahler and a Christopher Wood of a pickpocket. Oh and an Elizabeth Frink of a wild boar. My favourite was a view of Florence by Paul Fieler from 1954 which was done in thick paint with an almost abstract feel to it. Also oddly for me I also liked a purple and grey geometric abstract by John Wells from 1963, maybe the Black Square exhibition has had its effect!

Delightful exhibition at Browse & Darby of work by Elizabeth Blackadder from about 1954 to now. I often have Royal Academy notelets in by Elizabeth Blackadder but it is interesting to see the real work in the flesh. It has a slightly rougher look that the reproduced images which I liked, often with the underworking and thinking process showing in the finished work. I preferred the watercolours to the oils as they had a fragility to them. The oils tended to be slightly blockier. I think my favourite was “Carbs and other shells” as the subject matter gave it a Van Gogh feeling. I also liked tow of fruit on a Japanese plate.

Annual exhibition at the Royal Academy featuring the work of artists in their second year at the schools there. I did find this a bit of a mixed bag and I must admit rereading my notes now not a lot of images have stuck in my mind. I have written next to works by Rhys Coren “rather jolly and decorative” but I have no memory of them now. In my defence I have done a lot since! As you can see from the photo I did rather like a piece by Kira Freiji called “Closer than Morning” as it was quite fun and used the space in an interesting way. I also have to mention that one of Freije’s works was made of powdered coated steel and aluminium, cotton and baby oil! That’s a first for me! I liked Anna Hughes sculptures particularly one like a cross section of a melon but I found it hard to marry up the titles of items in the leaflet to the works. Robin Seir’s bright, decorative works reminded me of Gary Hume’s works based on hospital doors. I think my favourite piece was Wanda W...

The fabulous new sculpture on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square by Hans Haacke. I voted it for it in the competition a year or so ago and now it’s up I love it! The scale works really well on the plinth and I like the nod to the idea that it was designed for a man on a horse. I was worried that the ribbon on its leg with a feed from the Stock Exchange might not work but it does and it is lovely to have that little bit of colour and movement on it. It works well in daylight and at night. I’m not hearing it being talked about as much as the big blue cock on the bus as I pass though. I think it may not be quite so accessible plus being bronze, it doesn’t stand out quite so much so I think passersby who aren’t looking for it don’t see it which is a shame. I am looking forward to seeing it in all lights over the next year or so and seeing how it changes in different conditions. Review Guardian Telegraph Evening Standard    

Fascinating exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery of David Batchelor’s “Found Monochromes” series. For 20 years the artist has been photographing white rectangles and squares he finds on walks round cities. All 500 images were shown in a multi-screen installation which placed the similar sized square in the same place on each frame. It was a perfect contemporary counterbalance to the Black Square exhibition. I wouldn’t have imagined that there white squares were a phenomena but they seem to be spaces made plain ready form something to happen. I loved the fact you began by looking at the squares and how the area changed around them but they were constant. Then you turned you attention away from the squares and towards the urban environments they inhabited.   A really thought provoking show.

Annoying exhibition/installation at the Whitechapel Gallery of works chosen by British artist Fiona Banner from the V-A-C Collection from Moscow. This is one in a series of shows spotlighting rarely seen collections from around the world. The blurb says the show was exploring the blurred lines between photography and painting but I must admit I didn’t get that when I was at the show. The show used an interesting light effect with the room changing colour and changing from dark to light however in the dark phase and some of the colours you could see the pictures properly! I have a particular gripe that a Monet (which I guess is rarely seen as it’s in this collection) was hung high up and was impossible to see in the strange light. Another gripe is that, as with the last show I saw in this series, the commentary is in very small print, quite low down, in a door way! In fact in this show there was a work in the next room so it was a doorway that was being used. When this is t...

Useful exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery looking at 100 years of geometric abstraction starting with Malevich’s Black Square. I say useful because I am trying to understand and appreciate abstract art and this was an excellent guide through a specific type of abstraction. As with most of art I sort of get the early stuff but it loses me in about 1960! Having done the Malevich show at Tate Modern last year it is interesting to see where his ideas went next and I have also noticed since that show how many contemporary shows seem to be quoiting the Black Square. The leaflet contained the best description I’ve seen of geometric abstraction “art made up of pure line, form and colour set against non-illusionistic space”. It was worth going just for that definition. I loved the fact that in the early rooms there were so many catalogues on display but I would have liked to know a little bit more about the shows particularly the ones on those which weren’t written in Engli...

Interesting exhibition at White Cube Bermondsey of new work by Christian Marclay looking at the relationship between image and sound. There was one room of bright pop art style pictures of the written sound in cartoons. Focusing on wet noises he used dripping plaint to reflect this. Another room also used cartoon sound images but projected onto the walls around you in an animating which reflected the sound. One of the best video installations I’ve seen in a while. The corridor featured a video installation shown on multiple screens at foot level of a walk along a street on a morning walk in which the artists ‘coaxes sound’ from the empty glasses, bottles and cans which he finds, entitled “Pub Crawl” you walk through it casting your shadow as you go. At weekends there is music being performed in the spaces which is recorded then during the week is made into vinyl records is a pressing plant set up in one of the rooms. I found this mesmerizing! A hard working man moved ...

Nostalgic exhibition at the Fashion and Textile Museum looking at the life and work of the 1970s designer Thea Porter. OK I have to start with one big gripe! The clothes were shown in interesting display cases like sheds in nice arrangements; I particularly liked the one to represent the shop window. However sections of these were covered by black gauze. I’m guessing this was to stop the clothes fading but I’ve been to shows at this museum of much older items which didn’t use this. In meant some of the clothes were really difficult to see and sat in a haze! It really spoilt my enjoyment of the show partly because I couldn’t see items but also because I got so irritated by it. Don’t do it again! The clothes were lovely and it was one of those moments when you realise what you were being influenced by in your youth without realising it at the time. I kept remembering a lovely brown flowered Indian style dress I had and the illustrations in girls’ magazines at the time. ...

Fantastic exhibition at the National Gallery looking at the life, work and collections of Paul Durand-Ruel, the art dealer who championed the Impressionists. From the first room which is laid out to represent Durand-Ruel’s grand salon, complete with arm chairs, doors painted by Monet and a selection of painting which were known to have hung in that room including two Renoirs of dancers. Durand-Ruel developed a new way of dealing in and showing art. He introduced the idea of exclusivity deals with artists and showed off the work of his artists at exhibitions and in in publications. Prior to this the main place to display art was the jury-selected salon. One room was devoted to two exhibitions by Monet in 1883 and 1892, the first time a retrospective had been held of a living artists work. The second exhibition had featured 15 of the poplar series and five of them were displayed here again brought together from all over the world. I loved the final room which brought to...

Fascinating exhibition at the Wellcome Collection looking at the history of forensic science. The exhibition was themed by the place where the evidence might be collected or used so there was the crime scene, the morgue, the laboratory, the search and the courtroom. I loved the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death made by Frances Glessner Lee, small 3D models of crime scenes still used to train police today. Also the plan of the area where Jack the Ripper’s 4th victim was found made by a city architect which included a sketch of the body in situ. The morgue section was grisly and I found it quite hard to look at the post mortem table but the early pathology books were fascinating. The laboratory sections looked at the development of mug shots and the use of fingerprints. The courtroom looked at how scientific evidence has been used in court but also looked at press coverage of court cases. The Medical Witness Act of 1836 allowed qualified medical witnesses to te...

Interesting but slightly disappointing exhibition at the Wellcome Collection looking at the history of the scientific study of sex. I say disappointing because I had really looked forward to it as the adverts had been great and I knew about the erotica collection at the Wellcome but the exhibition seemed to wander a bit and have two distinct halves which were not really joined together well. The first section, which might have made more sense if I’d gone in through the correct door (better directions please!) focused on the Wellcome Collection and was fascinating. It looked at first gender reassignment, early sex   aids, gay and lesbian life through the ages and much more. However it all felt a bit random. The second section looked at the history of the scientific study of sex starting with Freud and Stopes   and working through to current studies. It covered Kinsey, Masters and Johnson who were the study of a wonderful recent TV series and much more. It was ...

Small selling exhibition at the Watts Gallery of watercolours by HRH The Prince of Wales and Alexander Creswell. These works are shown together as Cresswell as produced commissioned works for Prince Charles plus has taught at his summer school. The works by Prince Charles are signed lithographs. Prince Charles work is very focused and precise and of places he knows well. Creswells are freer and more colourful. I loved the set of fireworks in Venice done from a boat. There is a real sense of the movement and of being there. A proportion of the sales will support the work of Watts Gallery Trust, including the Limnerslease Project, which will save the home of G F and Mary Watts.

Sumptuous   exhibition at the Watts Gallery looking at the Aesthetic Dress Movement and using portraits of the time to help tell the story. The top gallery set the scene for the movement with photographs of some of the Pre-Raphaelite women in this looser rather mediaeval style clothing and a wonderful picture by Frith of the Royal Academy which showed women in aesthetic dress alongside the fashion of the time for tight corsets and bustles. It also looked at the contemporary criticism of the style including by Gilbert and Sullivan in “Patience”. The lower gallery was a wonderful collection of portraits by artists like Watts, Alma Tadema, Burne Jones and others of women wearing   these type of dresses. The colours were amazing and the work also gave glimpse of aesthetic interiors. I loved the touch that the pictures were shown where possible alongside Liberty adverts for similar styles to point out these were clothes you could buy. I came away wanting to dress ...

Lovely little exhibition at Somerset House of fashion show ephemera from the collection of Ian R. Webb, the fashion journalist. The show included lots of invitations which not only gave an idea of how contemporary fashion had changed since the 1960s but also gave a history of graphic design in the period. Some looked almost hand produced such as A Westwood McLaren one for Punkature in 1983. There was other general ephemera such as name badges and soundtrack tapes for Versace shows in the 1990s. There was also a   display on the wall of facsimiles of Webb’s note books with the notes he made from the catwalk front rows and of articles which had written. A nice little show for London Fashion Week.

Fascinating and learned exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery bringing together nearly all the pictures from a Goya album of drawings. I was lucky enough to attend the friends’ private view of this show with a talk by the curator Stephanie Buck which was a real insight into the work to bring these pictures together and to work out the order they appeared in the album. She said she become obsessed by dirt on the pictures as often it wasn’t dirt but an imprint of the picture on the previous or next page! The pictures have hung in the order they appeared in the album and show Goya working through various creative ideas starting with floating figures and ending with very tender pictures of old women. The pictures were very freely drawn and yet were finished drawings of a fine quality. A display in the centre of the room looked at Goya’s experiments with lithographs, which was a new technique, at this time. With the drawings this showed a man still experimenting with ideas a...

Colourful exhibition at the Hayward Gallery of textile art by Sheila Hicks. Hicks describes her work as working with “supple materials” rather than textiles. I loved the medallions she had done in gold thread for the Ford Foundation and the textured experimental decorative panels. For this show she had created “Sunset Pavilion Inhabited” a lovely work of large soft woollen bean bag style shapes in the pavilion space on the roof of the gallery. They were in bright cheerful colours and people were lounging on them and relaxing. A lovely use of the space.

Interesting exhibition at the Hayward Gallery which asked seven contemporary artists to examine the social and cultural history of Britain since the end of the Second World War. Each artists have created a section looking at different themes and episodes via objects and the art of the time. The results were a bit mixed. I loved a couple of the galleries but some of the others lefts me a bit cold and one annoyed me! Let’s start with what annoyed me! Sorry but I am going to say video art! There was a whole room of films curated by John Akomfrah. They were mainly shown on small screen with earphones but the main room was dominated by a film which created a flashing effect which I found so distracting I couldn’t stop and look at anything else. There was a large screen dark section but if you’d wanted to watch all the films show there you would have taken 3 hours 20 minutes! Really! Anyway on a more positive note the last section I looked at was about the end of the war and the...

Interesting workshop at the National Gallery looking at the Rococo artists and trying to define what the Rococo style was. The talk was given by Jacqui Astell, who is also an expert on the history of costume, so the talk was particularly interesting on the clothes and textiles in the pictures. We started by looking in detail at “Psyche showing her sisters her gifts from Cupid” by Fragonard and talked about all the different attributions it had had over the years and the different subjects it had been thought to show. We also talked about the style of the picture and what made it Rococo. After coffee we looked in detail at Madame de Pompadour and how she not only epitomised Rococo style but also encouraged and commissioned it. I still don’t warm to this era but I do now feel I understand it better.

Fun lunchtime talk at the National Gallery on Renoir’s “Dancing Girl with Castanets”. This talk pitched two regular speakers at the gallery against each other to talk for (Jo Rhymer) and against (Richard Stemp) the picture. It was a playful argument and in amongst the different discussion you learnt a lot about the picture, why is was painted, where is say in Renoir’s career and it’s possible symbolism. It also addressed whether taste should be part of looking at a picture art historically. In the end I was firmly in Richard’s camp. I’ve always thought this picture, and its pair, where hideous. Although they make more sense now I know they were painted as decorative panels I do worry what colour the walls were to match the awful background colour. Note to Farrow and Ball, don’t try to reproduce that one!

Fascinating exhibition at the Science Museum giving an overview of the history of photography and of the work of the Royal Photographic Society. I liked the fact this show concentrated on the images that were made rather than too much on the changing technology. The pictures were displayed cleverly to create gentle connections between images without labeling the point.   I particularly liked the wall where they had recreated an exhibition of the 1850s showing the dense way the pictures were hung and the mix of genres. I was amazed by the coloured pictures at the far end which looks like a girl on the beach in the 1970s. I was astonished to find they were actually taken in 1913! My favourite image, just because is was so quirky, was the contents of an ostriches stomach! You’d be amazed what it had eaten! Reviews Times Guardian Evening Standard

Display of the angels made for Cardinal Wolsey’s tomb but never used at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The museum has just bought these lovely bronze Renaissance angels and is showing them for a short period in their original condition before they are conserved a restored. It is fascinating to see them at this stage. They were split up into two pairs and have been kept in different conditions. One pair has what looks like a near perfect condition but the other paid have taken on the turquoise hew of weathered bronze. I must admit I rather preferred the weathered pair where the detail on them shows up better in the gallery light conditions. These are important British Renaissance pieces but what fun to see them during the current “Wolf Hall” excitement! Review Guardian