Cathy's Art Diary

Interesting exhibition at Tate Modern looking at the art which emerged from the civil rights movement. Before you went in there was a useful installation of five TVs showing speeches from the main protagonists which gave a good grounding in the politics of the time. The show then ran in roughly chronological order starting with a catalyst of a 1963 show at the Metropolitan Museum called Harlem on my Mind which did not include any art by African American artists. I realise now I come to write that, as the leaflet was mainly a poster style list of artists, I’m not too sure what my notes mean and what bit they apply to! So apologies for this slightly random write up! There was a good room early on looking at street art focusing on the Chicago Wall of Respect which was referred to thought-out the rest of the show as so many of the artists mentioned later had worked on it. Artists partly took to working on the streets as they felt excluded from galleries plus were worki...

Fun exhibition at the O2 using costumes, props and art works from the Star Wars films to explore the idea of where our identity comes from. The identity bit was fun as you go round with a clever bracelet on and making choices and recording the answers which then creates a character for you at the end. I went round being fairly true to how I am an felt quite pleased with the outcome. If it hadn’t been so expensive it would have been fun to go round as an evil character to see what happened! There were interesting videos at each stage looking at nature, nurture, place values etc as elements which help to make up our personalities. However it has to be said most people, including me, were there to see the artefacts. The identity idea gave the show a good narrative but a storm trooper uniform is exciting whatever the context! I think the costumes were my favourite things and It was exciting to see the famous Princess Leia bikini. There was a good mix form the old and new films...

Annual opening of Clarence House giving the opportunity to see five of the ground floor rooms of this Royal house currently home to Prince Charles. I mainly went because the descriptions said that some of the Queen Mother’s art collection was on show and I knew she had collected a lot of the artists I like from the first half of the 20th century.   I wasn’t disappointed as there were a couple of Sickerts, an Augustus John and more Pipers than I could count. I was also to see various models for sculptures I knew such as the one of Churchill and his wife by the lake at Chartwell. It was interesting to see the rooms as well. Although grand they had a homely feel to them and as ever at the Royal Palaces the guide was brilliant and really brought the place to life. She had a good blend of stories from the past and present and showed a real personal interest in some of the objects. Closed on 31 August 2017