Cathy's Art Diary

Wonderful architectural installations in the grounds of the Serpentine Gallery with their annual commissioned pavilion being joined by four summer houses down by the lake. This year’s pavilion is by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) and consists of a series of plastic brick shaped boxes put together to create an elegant pointed structure. The hollow boxes mean that you can see through the walls to the park and gardens around it. There were lots of places to sit and enjoy a drink As an addition to this annual event this year there were also four summer houses based around Queen Caroline’s Temple overlooking the Serpentine. Three of them took the temple and the architecture of William Kent as a starting point. Sadly Barkow Leibinger’s wooden structure was cordoned off when I was there. I suspect our wet and then hot summer has not been kind to it. I loved Kunle Adeyemi’s version of the temple tipped onto its size. This seemed most popular with visitors with people sitting on it to c...

Bright exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery of recent landscapes and portraits by Alex Katz. The first room had three wonderful big portraits with orange backgrounds which just zinged with colour. This contrasted with the lovely black and white pictures of windows in buildings one looked at through trees but the other just the shapes of windows on a black background. I loved the picture “Reflections in water” which was in a bold blue but gave the impression of being a night scene. Also the bold picture of a red house in a green wood. My favourite picture was called “Emma” and was a line of portraits of the same ballet dancer in different poses, again on an orange background. Closes on 11 September 2016. Reviews Times Guardian  

Colourful exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery of work by Etal Adnan including paintings, tapestry and drawings. I loved the quite from Adnan at the start of the show “Colour is the sign of the existence of life…. I exist because I see colours.” The paintings were bright abstracts in amazing colours. Some of the works were landscapes and I loved one called “Arizona” which had a cubist feel. The last wall had 20 pictures, all the same size, featuring a circle of colour on plain backgrounds, a great study of how different colours work together. I also liked her drawings in concertinaed sketchbooks partially the cityscapes of New York and San Gimignano and the large versions of these on alabaster screens. Closes on 11 September 2016. Reviews Times Evening Standard    

Fun exhibition at the Jewish Museum looking at the role of Jewish immigrants in creating and developing the recording industry. The show began by looking at the development of records and record players from the Emil Berliner’s invention of the gramophone and the birth of His Master’s Voice label and then went through technological development from shellac through vinyl and into CDs and the web. The main room was a wonderful display of record covers from various Jewish artists arranged by chronological themes. There was a great section on comedy records. There were av displays but quite a few of them didn’t work. The real shame was the exhibition was almost silent, just the occasional quiet records on a jukebox. I know I usually moan about noise in galleries but this one needed it. Closes on 16 October 2016  

Interesting small exhibition at the Jewish Museum of photographs by Dorothy Bohm of 1960s London. Bohm’s work focuses on social change in this period rather than the Swinging Sixties we normally think of in  London. She had a great eye for composition of a picture and capturing a moment as it happened. I loved a picture of two dogs and their owners meeting in the street, capturing the moment when dogs eye each other up, also one of people at a café in the Kings Road with a broken marble bust by the table. My favourite though was one of two men taking a break from work with pints of beer, sitting on ladders. Closed on 29 August 2016. Review Evening Standard  

Fun sculpture trail around London based on the idea of the Big Friendly Giant’s Dream Jars to coincide with the new film. I didn’t get around as many as I’d hoped but did find some fun ones! I liked one suggested by the Duchess of Cornwall whose dream was to share the magic of books with children. It is in St James Park and featured a sculpture of children reading on a pile of books. I also liked Steven Sondhiem’s pile of sweets and cakes in Leicester Square. A bit further afield was “Safe” by Ryan McElhinney by the Globe Theatre where the jar was balanced on large hand and supporting and protecting the small girl and her teddy bear inside. I still have a few more days to mop up a few more. My favourite was the Team GB one in Trafalgar Square which started out empty before the Olympics but gradually filled up with medals as the team won them. I wonder who ran out at night to add the new ones? Closes on 31 August 2016  

Wonderful installation at Westminster Hall, Houses of Parliament, by artist, architect and conservationist Jorge Otero-Pailos and commissioned by Artangel. The piece was a 50m long latex cast of the interior wall of this medieval hall embedded with hundreds of years of surface dirt and pollution. The sheet is an art work but was also used as part of the process of cleaning the wall. It is hung alongside the wall about 8 feet away from it creating a corridor. You can stand by it and directly compare the dirt which has come off with the wall behind. The work is like a big peel off face mask! The title comes from a quote from John Ruskin. I’d like to know if there is to be any analysis of the dirt as, as the commentary pointed out, it included the dust of the Fire of London and the Blitz. This was an fantastic piece of work but also a treat to go and see this amazing medieval space in the middle of the Houses of Parliament. Closes on 1 September 2016. Review ...

Interesting exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery of photographs of people by William Eggleston. Eggleston was not a portraitist but people are central to his work picturing family, friends and strangers doing everyday tasks. A number of pictures came from a series called Nightclub portraits in 1973. These were lovely studies of people in clubs and leaving them. I loved a picture of an older lady with a fairground elephant, something ordinary about it yet unexplained. However I think my favourite was the one of an old lady in a patterned dress, sitting on an orange floral worn out sofa with her feet in fallen leaves. Despite the fact Eggleston warned people against looking for meaning in his pictures this one seemed to have layers of references time passing.   Closes on 23 October 2016. Reviews Times Guardian Independent

Innovative exhibition at Canada House looking at the work of Canadian 2015 Nobel Prize winner in physics Dr Arthur B. McDonald. This was   a great use of the space in this small gallery which usually just hangs pictures around the walls. It explained the work of the Sudbury Neutrino Observation Laboratory built in deep mines in Sudbury in Canada. I’ll admit I didn’t understand most of it but it still felt impressive to learn about this ground breaking work. There were lots of good av installations to explain the subject including a life sized Dr McDonald which talked to you. This was an amazing flat screen shaped like a person with a projection onto the back. It was eerie but effective. Closes on 17 September 2016

Eclectic exhibition at the Mall Galleries of new work by members of the Society of Designer Craftsmen. I think this year wood work came out of the show best. There was some amazing furniture including a desk by Stephen Hampson, angled shelves which appeared to be supported by books by Armando Magino and Kevin Stamper’s colourful pieces using inlay based on pixilated watercolours. There were also some nice smaller wood pieces including the wood turning of Richard Shock. The glass work was also a highlight with Charlotte Wilkinson’s bright, chunky pieces and Cathryn Shilling’s colourful work. Closed on 21 August 2016  

Disappointing year for this annual exhibition at the Royal Academy. Maybe I’ve been to too many Summer Exhibitions but not much jumped off the walls at me this year. As ever it was interesting to spot the usual suspects and to be introduced to new artists but I didn’t come away wanting to buy anything. In places it felt a bit over curated. I prefer the rooms that are just a wonderful jumble of work. So highlights! A number of David Tindle’s works struck me particularly “Windows and Walls”. I’m always a sucker for a view through a window. Talking of which I loved Trevor Dannatt’s “24th of January 2016” a tiny picture of the full moon from a suburban window. Frederick Cumming was a new find to me doing wonderful seascapes. Another seascape was a long small piece by Alison Watt-Cooper. I loved Chris Orr’s “Painting and engraving Tower Bridge” which was a wonderful picture of the Thames incorporating the picture he is working on in the foreground and an old clipper on...

Lovely exhibition at the Royal Academy of print works by Bill Jacklin covering the last 55 years. I liked the way each room showed a different period. The first room also looked at technique and included etching plates and sketch books as well as finished prints. I loved a series of prints called “Anemones” which showed a vase of the flowers from their perfect picked state through various stages of the petals falling. The prints become more and more abstract and decorative as the petals fall. There were some great prints of New York. I love his sense of light even the work are often monotone. There is also a wonderful sense of movement in the simplified figures. Sometimes this is just a sense of a mass of people moving rather than individuals. Interestingly most of the more recent work as monoprint, which are one off art works. There was a good description of his technique of dropping turpentine onto the plates to create a droplet effect on the image. Closed on 2...

Imaginative exhibition at the Royal Academy of drawings by architect Peter Cook which he had submitted to the Summer Exhibition over the years. This was a good use of the strange space on the way to the café at the gallery. In particular l loved the drawing used as a mobile/chandelier on the staircase. As with many architectural exhibitions, I’d have liked a bit more of an idea of whether the concepts shown ever got built, whether they were plans which didn’t come to fruition or whether they are just imaginative drawings. It was only later when reading the leaflet that I realised one wall was built projects and the other unbuilt! Closes on 2 October 2016

Joyful exhibition at the Royal Academy of recent work by David Hockney. This was such a beautifully displayed show. All the portraits were the same size with the sitter on the same chair in the same space. They were hung round the room so the sitter’s heads were at your head height. It felt like being at a great party! The works were beautiful individual works as well. Somehow the sameness of the pictures makes you look hard at the differences and each showed an insight into the person. Some sitters sat back and looked relaxed, others leant forward as if they were talking to you. I loved the colours of the clothes. I particularly remember a lady in a wonderful long red skirt which had a Velazquez feel to the drapery. I also began to realise how many of the sitters were from the contemporary art world, not only artists but I recognised the names of dealers and gallery owners and even a publisher. This set will last, not only as a great art work, but also as a picture o...

Interesting exhibition at White Cube, Mason’s Yard, exploring abstraction in recent Chinese painting. The Chinese approach to abstraction takes a slightly different form taking Taoist philosophy and calligraphy as two starting points. It feels like a more natural form than the Western Modernist backlash. I loved Liu Wentoa’s pictures made up of thin pencil lines which interweave to produce pattern and light and shade. It felt a bit like intellectual Spirograph. Qian Jiahua’s work created an amazing 3D optical illusion where it looks like the canvas has large blocks sticking out from it but it’s actually a flat canvas. Yu Yauhan’s Circle pictures evidently reflected the Yin and Yan in philosophy but oddly I was seeing Renaissance town maps! I think I have now officially brainwashed myself to see everything in a Renaissance context. Most beautiful were Su Xiaobai’s monochrome works using laquerwork to create an opalescent effect with curves edges giving an idea of ...

Interesting exhibition at the Queen’s Gallery looking at the relationship between the royal family and Scottish artists in the 18th and 19th centuries. I saw this exhibition and reviewed it when I was in Edinburgh last year. I thought it was be interesting just to revisit that review and the show now it was in a different venue and see what stood out this time around. I found the narrative of the show clearer in the Holyrood galleries as it was a smaller, slightly more divided space. The London galleries gave you a chance to stand back more from some of the works but somehow the space lost the story. As before the section on Queen Victoria at Balmoral stood out and I still loved the watercolours of her servants by Kenneth MacLeay. This showing had a number of drawings which I didn’t remember from the earlier version including a lovely one by David Allan of the Piazza Navona in Rome. Closes on 2 October 2016

Delightful exhibition at the Queen’s Gallery of work by the natural scientist and artist Maria Merian. This exhibition told the story of Merian’s life well illustrating it with her work. Her step father was a still life artist who taught her. After a failed marriage she moved to Amsterdam with her daughters where she became interested in insects being brought back form the Dutch colony of Suriname. This inspired her to travel there and study the insects and plants in situ. The result of which was an amazing book of pictures and descriptions. The pictures were lovely delicate watercolours. She made a point of painting the insects a life sized and to depict them on the correct plants. She also painted different phases of an insect’s development in one picture for example showing the caterpillar, pupa and the butterfly they become. There was a nice section on her legacy talking about the pictures have been used by scientists and designers. Closes on 9 October 2016. ...

Super exhibition at the Foundling Museum which asked 60 artists from a   range of disciplines to respond to the theme of ‘found’ reflecting the museums heritage. It actually became a really good overview of the contemporary art scene with works by many of the big names. From Rachel Whiteread there was a bronze cast of a heel and instep of an old shoe from Governors’ Island in New York. From Gavin Turk a bronze of a sleeping bag. It was very creepy as it was very lifelike and looked like a homeless person had wandered in and fallen asleep. Yonika Shonibar ‘s contribution was a model of a child playing a trumpet which he had found on the Portobello Road. Other items which stood out were Graeme Miller’s “picked Hand”, an ongoing work using playing cards he had found around the world. Also Richard Deacon’s collection of found items which looked like something else. My favourite was a small Anthony Gormley called “Iron Baby”, a cast of his three day old child. This was just...

Stylish exhibition at the British Library looking at the height of the punk music era. There were fantastic black display case and great objects. I must admit I wasn’t quite sure which way round I was supposed to go but I guess it could be done in any order. I was fascinated to see where the different archive material had come from especially as so much seemed to have come from Liverpool. The show emphasised the do-it-yourself feel of punk with sections on fanzines and independent record labels, many of which still exist. It also talked about punk relationship to politics and how aspects were a reaction to white nationalist politics. It looked at the Rock against Racism concerts which I had forgotten. There was a good section on American punk looked at Patti Smith, Blondie and the Ramones. There were some great objects too. I loved Rat Scabies leather jacket and the letter from him which described it as protective layer. There was a demo version of God Save the Queen,...

Fantastic exhibition at the British Library to mark the 400th anniversary of the death of Shakespeare. The show took the novel approach of focusing on ten performances which showed different aspects of the development of the performance and influence of the plays. As a prologue it had some amazing documents from the handwritten accusations against Christopher Marlowe, a First Folio and various editions of the plays published in his lifetime. Two of the performances were from Shakespeare’s time, the first Hamlet at the Globe and the first play he wrote specifically for the Blackfriars indoor theatre, The Tempest. The Hamlet gave them the chance to look at different actor’s interpretation of the character. It also looked at the actors of the day and their stories. The Tempest section featured props from the Sam Wannamaker Theatre which I love. Other sections used specific performances to investigate themes. One looked at the first Hamlet to be performed outside Europe,...

Nice little exhibition at the Mall Galleries of life drawings from this art group which meets weekly with over 100 artists on its books. It was interesting to spot pictures obviously done at the same sitting so you got a sense of the sitter from various angles plus you could compare the approach the artists took. My favourites were Graham Wood’s simple water colour of female nude lying down from the back and Kalpna Saksena’s rather broken up images. Closed on 7 August 2016.  

Varied exhibition at the Mall Galleries for the Society of Women Artists. As ever at the Mall Galleries there was a really nice hang which set up interesting dialogues between works. Still lives seemed to come out of the show well. I loved Dani Humberstone’s surreal pictures which looked fine at first then you realised there were jigsaw shaped pieces taken out of them also Raquel Alvarez Sardina’s lovely still life of pears and Doreen Langhorn’s picture of a pestle and mortar. I liked Sara Knight’s picture of the steps to an underground station in the rain painted on a patchwork of magazine articles, also of London Rosemary Miller’s pictures in muted colours. Finally I loved Valerie Warren’s townscapes of Tuscany and Morocco. Closed on 7 August 2016.

Dense exhibition at the ICA looking at the Detroit Techno music scene. OK I admit I went thinking this would be about Motown but it turns out there was a later electronic music explosion in the city which completely passed me by! It did reflect a similar period to the other two shows which were on at the gallery at the same time. The show has a classy display using old recording equipment to play the music on earphones. There was a lot of commentary but it quite small print and just too much to read. It was probably a good show for fans of this music but it didn’t really give a narrative which would pull you in to find out more. Closes on 4 September 2016.

Interesting exhibition at the ICA of contemporary art work to present the work of Judy Blame, accessories designer to whom their other exhibition is dedicated, into context. It looks at connections between the art, music and design worlds in the 1980s and 1990s. There were some strange works in this show including Linder’s photo collage of a women with an iron for a head and mouths as nipples. There was also the Chapman Brothers “Disasters of War 4” including the reworking of Goya etchings. A nice link to another exhibition I’ll cover soon was a copy of the James Reid “Never Mind the Buzzcocks” poster for the Sex Pistols. Closes on 4 September 2016.  

Strange exhibition at the ICA by accessories designer, art director and fashion stylist Judy Blame. I hadn’t heard of Blame however as I went round I realised he was one of the major designers for early 80s London Club Scene so his accessories were worn by Boy George, Nenah Cherry, Massive Attack and Bjork. He also worked for various design houses such as John Galliano, Louis Vitton and Marc Jacobs. The exhibition was presented as a series of montages of clothes, accessories and eclectic objects. One included a manhole cover with cigarette ends! He specialised in using found objects to make his pieces which includes necklaces made of keys and fob watches.   It also featured the work he’d done as an art director on fashion magazines. The show gave an interesting impression of a varied career in the fashion industry and made you think about the cross over between fashion and contemporary art. Closes on 4 September 2016.

Fascinating exhibition at Somerset House of the short listed candidates for these illustration awards. It’s always interesting to see the diversity of places where illustrations are used. I loved Rose Gray’s picture of women looking out from a tall building at a city in shades of brown. Also Andy Tuohy’s Great Modern Artists A-Z, pictures of modern artists in their own styles as book illustrations. I particularly liked the Mondrian. The most exquisite pictures were stamp designs of bees by Richard Lewington but my favourite picture was Anna + Elena = Balbusso Twins’ of Richard II for the cover of his Penguin Monarchs Series. It was a new take on the old Westminster Abbey portrait. Closes on 29 August 2016

Interesting exhibition at Somerset House by stylist Ibrahim Kamara, stylist, and Kristen-Lee Moolman, photographer, part of the Utopian Voices series. The aim is to look at how men might dress in 10 years’ time and to address ‘heteronormative attitudes to self-expression’. Their words not mine! It consisted of a series of photographs of men in clothes sources from landfill sites and styled for a ‘Utopian future with no policing of masculinity’. I loved the use of a suit made from a tablecloth and collars made of doilies and the fact that some of the clothes were in frames on the wall. I was unsure about an image of one man wearing two pairs of low slung trousers. Surely in 10 years that horrible fashion will have disappeared rather than doubled up! Closes on 29 August 2016  

Colourful exhibition at Somerset House of work by Matthew Stone, part of the Utopian Vices series. This work uses CGI techniques to combine brushstrokes and staged photography to create huge bright pictures. The work had a weird feeling of that Renaissance painter who paints portraits of people made of vegetables. The pictures had a great sense of movement. I loved a take on a Caravaggio John the Baptist with the wonderful twist to the body. They do however play with your mind as you marvel at the wonderful brush strokes then realise it’s a photo of the brush stokes manipulated into a picture. I did come away with a wish that they had actually been painted. Closes on 29 August 2016  

Stylish exhibition at Somerset House exploring the impact of the films of Stanley Kubrick on contemporary artists. This is where I have to admit I’d not seen many of the films so some of the allusions were lost on me, but there was a good booklet with a commentary. The show created an amazing, slightly threatening atmosphere which was a good reflection of the films in itself. Stand out works included Mat Collishaw’s monkey face in a space helmet. The monkey face was a hologram which overlaid a human skull. The initial view was quite unnerving of this real looking monkey in a helmet which then turned into a skull as you walked round it. Also Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard’s room of 114 radio sets each playing a different voice singing a Dies Irae used by Kubrick in two of his films. The voices are not singing the same bit at the same time so different harmonies appear and there are also period of silence and broken reception. I also liked Seamus Farrell’s shelf of glass...