Cathy's Art Diary

Delightful exhibition at the National Gallery bringing together four of Akseli Gallen-Kallela’s picture of Lake Keitele in Finland. I am very fond of the National Gallery’s version of this scene and it was lovely to see it with three other versions lined up on one wall showing the gradual change in composition and light changes. The others walls showed other work by the artist including paintings, pastels and stained glass which put the lake pictures into context. Closed on 4 February 2018  

Strange exhibition at the National Gallery looking at how artists have painted in black and white and why. The show was an interesting idea but it didn’t always hang together that well and I must admit it’s a while since I saw it and not many of the works have stayed with me. The first section looked at the religious use of lack of colour. It was interesting to see the Memling Donne triptych being used to show the paintings representing stone carving on the back but a bit annoying that this means the rest of the wonderful work wasn’t on show during this period. I was fascinated by a huge cloth with white paint on a indigo cloth which had been used as temporary decoration for a church. I’d never seen anything like that before. There was a nice section looking at how black and white is often imitating other art forms such as the Mantegna frieze made to look like sculpture. It also looked at how artists responsed to the rise in popularity of printing and later photography. It...

Striking installation at in the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern by Danish collective Superflex. The installation consists of an orange metal frame which twists in and out of the space including the courtyard outside and the bridge across the space. On the ground floor the frame has triple seated swings hanging from it. I’ve no idea what it means but it is fun. I’ve only been there on my own so haven’t been brave enough to try it out buy I’ll keep going back. There is also a bright striped carpet leading up the slope towards the exit which is in the colours of British bank notes over which hangs a spherical pendulum which swings with the movement of the earth. I took it to be a commentary on whether gravity or the economy pulls us down but I might be making that up! Closes on 2 April 2018 Reviews Times Guardian

Interesting exhibition at the Fashion and Textile Museum marking the 150th anniversary of the magazine Harper’s Bazaar. The show was mainly made up of information boards and pictures of covers but it focused on women who had been closely associated with the publication as editors and art directors. The first editor had been the intellectual Mary Booth who had campaigned against slavery and for women’s right to vote. All the women were fascinating characters and brought their own interests to the content of the magazine often commissioning work from the leading writers and artists of the day. It would be fun to see a complication of longer biographies of them as they seemed so different but had similar roles. Closed on 21 January 2018

Small display at the Fashion and Textile Museum to mark 70 years since the founding of Dior. I hadn’t realised that Christian Dior himself had only been at the helm of the company for the first ten years. There were five dresses from the museum’s own collection from the 1950s and 60s displayed in a line. It was a plain but classic display which seemed appropriate for Dior! Closed on 21 January 2018  

Dull exhibition at the Fashion and Textile Museum looking at the life and work of the fashion photographer Louise Dahl-Wolfe. I liked her early, non-fashion work, done in the Depression in Tennessee, including some lovely still lives such as an aubergine in a bowl. She then moved to New York and became a staff photographer for Harper’s Bazaar who she worked for for 22 years producing 86 covers. She did a lot of portrait work to accompany articles and the pictures were shown with good biographies of the sitters. There were lovely pictures of Bette Davis, Marlene Dietrich and Ginger Rogers. She also took the photograph of the 17 year old model Lauren Bacall which launched her film career. She was known for using natural light in real surroundings for her fashion work. She also liked to control the whole process from design, choosing the locations though to the final four-colour printing of the magazine. She was a pioneer in the use of colour and the development of fashi...

Fascinating small exhibition at the Fashion and Textile Museum looking at the work of the textile designers Harriett Wallace-Jones and Emma Sewell. The display looked at how they had started in design and their use of asymmetrical design and blocks of colour. However most interesting was the work they had done for Transport for London, following a competition, designing the material or marquette for the upholstery on the tube. There were good videos about this design process. How often have I sat on those seats and never realised that one design is based on the London Skyline with the London Eye, St Paul’s, Big Ben and Tower Bridge all blended into a small geometric design. The display cabinet had examples of this TFL work but also had colourful scarves and swatches of material. They take the colours from paintings then wind threads in those colours round a card to create the colour palette. Closed on 21 January 2018  

Strange exhibition at White Cube, Bermondsey, of new work by Gilbert and George. The first thing you saw as you came in was the long white corridor and the square room at the side which were just full of short phrases including the expletive that you can guess from the title! According to the commentary it “interrogates the nature of a primal word” but I had a horribly urge use the condescending phrase “It’s not smart and it’s not clever”. Some of them did make me laugh though! The other rooms were devoted to a series of pictures using Gilbert & George’s usual idea of including themselves in the work, in this case with surreal, symbolic beards and shadowed eyes. The commentary described them as “violent, eerie, grotesque, lurid and crazed” and I think I’d agree! There were interesting ideas and images in the pictures but I do wonder if there is a market for 99 of them and who might buy the huge versions at the centre of the show particularly as they were four on a them...

Interesting exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery showing the shortlisted entries to this annual portrait photograph competition. There was a nice mix of pictures of famous people taken on commission and ordinary people caught at particular moments. In the first category I loved a picture of the artists Maggi Hambling by Harry Coy Wright,    sitting on a stool smoking which was made out of focus by the smoke from the cigarette enhanced by a smoke machine. It caught her character really well and was a nod to her sculpture of Oscar Wilde where is hair seems to be made of cigar smoke. I also liked the one of David Cameron by Charlie Bibby in Downing Street, adjusting his tie, taken a few days before his resignation. I loved a picture (sorry I forgot to write down the artist) of two boys playing Minecraft on a sofa with a women cooking seen through a hatch in the background. It had a feel a Velazquez. However my favourite was a delightful picture by Laurence Cart...

Charming exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery focusing on the portraits of Cezanne. Cezanne didn’t accept payment for portraits or work on commission, he just painted people who interested him. I was hooked from the first striking picture opposite the entrance of his father reading framed by a white chair. The show was quite sparsely hung, so even though it was popular, there was room to walk round and see the pictures properly, not just close up but also across the room to get the full effect. I liked his repetition of sitters so you could see them at different ages and in different moods, such as the set of his Uncle Dominique which were unknown until Cezanne’s death as they weren’t sold. I also liked the pictures of his wife throughout the show from soon after he met her when she was 19. And of course he often used himself as the subject and there were self-portraits scattered around the show. The show was very good at explaining Cezanne’s technique of using...

Fascinating exhibition at the Imperial War Museum looking at how contemporary artists reacted to the events of 9/11 and conflicts that have arisen since. I found the first section on 9/11 itself most interesting. I loved Hans-Peter Feldman’s installation of corridor of the front covers of world newspapers from the next day. These gave a sense of a moment when the world stood still. Tony Oursler’s video installation combining footage he shot of the immediate recreation to event as he lived nearby mixed with footage of the days afterwards was moving. It was also interesting to see a pot by Grayson Perry which he was making on the day and in which he included a reference to the events. A section looked at how an early reaction by many countries was to increase state control. This included a marble sculpture of a surveillance cabinet by Ai Weiwei. I liked a row of tiny figures by Jitish Katlat showing the strange relationship between figures undertaking and undergoing airport ...

Sweet exhibition at the Garden Museum of photographs by Damian Walker of sheds at Ealing Dean Gardens, the oldest surviving allotments which started in 1832. There was a lovely eclectic collection of sheds from an old Anderson shelter to a Wendy house. Each allotment has a similar patch of land and the show highlights how different things can happen in a similar space. Each shed is both functional and decorative. The pictures created a lovely image of community. Closed on 28 January 2018  

Dull exhibition at the Garden Museum looking at the life and work of garden designer John Brookes. I didn’t feel this show explained why Brookes work was important. The subtitle implied that he has influenced how our gardens look today but I didn’t come out of the show with any understanding of what his contribution to this was. I don’t have a garden and am not that interested in garden design and I felt this show required you to have some knowledge and interest before coming. There were a lot of designs but I’d have liked to see more photographs to show how a design becomes reality. There was a good video and it was interesting to listen to Brookes talk about his Chelsea contributions and it was a nice touch to have copies of his books around the show for you to flick through. Closes on 25 March 2018  

Fun exhibition at the Newport Street Gallery looking at the career of Dan Colen who has been exhibiting since 2001. From the first room which contained a huge US flag on a full sized crumped flag pole I was hooked. Of course it had visual links to the recent Jasper Johns exhibition. Who could resist a giant Scooby Doo puppet which gentle moved and dipped. I had to go back and look at this a second time after I’d finished the show. I was entranced. How about a Pollock like large canvas but made with chewing gum, bit yucky but it looked great! I was fascinated by the two Viscera picture made up of layers of pigment in fractionally different shades which seemed to pulse as you looked at them. An effect similar to Bridget Riley stripes and I couldn’t look at them for very long. All through the gallery there had been large silhouettes cut through the walls which were unexplained until the last room where there were large models of the artist and cartoon figures on the floo...

Interesting afternoon at the Victoria and Albert Museum to mark the launch of a new international declaration on digital reproductions which allow museums and galleries to produce, store and shares works from their collection. The keynote speech, given by Bill Sherman, Director of the Warburg Institute, looked at the history of reproductions. He pointed out that most of the Greek statues we know come from Roman copies   and siting the V&A’s own cast court as an example from the museum world. He also told us that the first declaration on reproduction was pioneered by Henry Cole who was first director of the V&A. That declaration had lasted since 1867 but 150 years later a new one was needed for the digital age. This was followed by an interesting panel discussion about the challenges and possibilities which the internet and brought to the cultural world and looked at different approaches from charging to providing free to see the collections used. The after...

Delightful exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum showing the finalists of the Women’ Hour Craft Prize which was run to mark the 70th anniversary of the radio programme. The work was an eclectic collection from Caren Hartley’s handmade bicycles to exquisite delicate boxes by Romily Saumarez-Smith based on found objects. Some of the work seemed more to be like art works than a craft work such as Phoebe Cummings’ temporary sculptures made from raw clay which I loved. I do though think of craft as the making of an object which has a longer term use and life. Closed on 5 February 2018. Review Evening Standard  

Small but interesting exhibition at the Guildhall Art Gallery using a painting of the Forum in Rome by David Roberts from 1859 to examine his work and the use of the Forum in art. This was quite a lot to do in one small room but it worked well. Roberts started as a scenery painter but moved into topographical scenes. He mainly worked in the Middle East but the show included a picture he did of the Lord Mayor’s Show at Westminster Bridge. There were interesting photos of a digital 3D model which showed Rome in 315AD. These were shown with a Piranesi print. I am always fascinated to see how high the ground level was before the Forum was excavated. It was great to see Martin Parr’s photographs of tourists in Rome from 2005. I love his work and it keeps cropping up in lots of unexpected shows. Closed on 17 January 2018

Fascinating exhibition at the Guildhall Art Gallery looking at how contemporary artists use still life,   showing the work alongside historic works. The show takes the premise that still life is often looking at death and metaphors for death and is themed around this. There were some wonderful pieces. I loved Saara Ekstrom’s speeded up video of a rotting cup of tea which ran both forwards and backwards. I could have stood and watched is for ages. Jim Skull’s skulls should also get a mention and I particularly liked the one shown here in rainbow colours. I liked Clare Twoomey’s unfired clay flowers made in Stoke on Trend, so beautiful and fragile. I also like Nancy Fouts’ taxidermy rabbit head with its ears in curlers! Cammie Toloui’s photographs of discarded Christmas trees were rather fun as were Yaken Teruya’s tiny sculptures made of cut outs of bank notes. The highlight though was the video installation by Ori Gerhst of an exploding vase of flowers. It starts o...

Colourful exhibition at Bloomberg Space of two pieces by Isabel Nolan. The main work is a dramatic, bright tapestry taking up two walls of the space which represents the Walbook River which lies beneath the building. It thinks about the historical and physical layering of the site. It combines wonderful shapes and colours to create an abstract landscape which dilutes into black and white at the edges. It sits with an angular, cream and red sculpture. I wasn’t so attracted to this as it seemed to be quite abstract but according to the helpful guide I was chatting to   it represents a bull, the symbol of the Roman temple in the basement. Closes on 3 June 2018

Newly opened archaeological site of a Roman temple in the basement of the new Bloomberg Building. This Roman temple of Mithras has recently been relocated to the site on which it was originally discovered and is now in an attractive display in the basement of a new office block. It is free to go in but they recommend booking in advance. On the ground floor there is a wall of unlabelled objects found on the site with iPads provided to give details of the items. It is very moving to look at personal objects that were discarded in the past and to imagine the lives of the people who lost them. As you descend to the basement the street levels at different points in time are carved into the marble walls with details of historic events of the time. They limit the number of people going into the Mithraeum but there is a good video in the holding area to keep you occupied. You go into the main site in small groups and once in there you visit starts with a light and sound exper...

Fun display at the Design Museum of ties design and worn by Jon Snow on Channel 4 news. The commentary said that Snow likes his ties to reflect his mood but that he also mustn’t distract from the news he is reading. The display looked at how Snow developed an interest in colour fabric on a teenage trip to Uganda. All the fabric is designed by Victoria Richards and the ties are made at Vanners, one of the last specialist tie makers. The display included 30 ties in a stunning array of colours and three which had been commissioned for this exhibition. They were shown with Richards’ sketchbooks and swatches of fabric. Closed February 2018.

Stylish exhibition at the Design Museum looking at the history of the Ferrari company and its cars. OK I have to come clean that I know nothing about cars and hate Formula One racing so I did go into this with my “I’ll go and see anything“ hat on but I did enjoy it. The technology of the cars went over my head, but I loved the bits on the social history of the company and the cars were beautifully displayed and lit. The archive section at the start was fascinating with super photos of the factories plus early races. There was also a lovely wall of design drawings which I appreciated as art works if not technologically. I loved a video about the design of the body work and was amazed to see that the prototypes are modelled in clay so they can be developed in a very reactive way, being tested and tweaked without rebuilding. There was an example of a full size prototype with one side painted and the other side raw clay. There was a fun section with seats and steerin...

Interesting exhibition at the Design Museum showing award winning designs from 2017. The show itself was an amazing design with large concrete looking structures made of recycled material with the signage slotting into holes in the blocks. It was themed loosely by the purpose of the designs. As ever there was so much to see, much of it fascinating. Practical highlights included a wheelchair which could go up and downstairs, a real time, spoken word translator and interactive fabric from Google. There was a political section including Wolfgang Tillman’s pro-Europe posters, the flag used at the Rio Olympics for refugees which was inspired by the colours of life jackets, and a pussy hat. I hadn’t realised that the knitting pattern for the hat was downloadable, free from the internet. I loved a virtual reality trip round an Art Deco House and the designs for a new shopping centre in a Renaissance palazzo by the Rialto Bridge in Venice as I had stayed next to it when ...

Colourful exhibition at Somerset House of work by Moroccan artist Hassan Hajjaj. The first room was dominated by a fun sofa made of Coke crates and cable ties and this was surrounded by bright photos in frames decorated with tin cans. A lot of the pictures were of Moroccan women in Islamic dress on motorbikes. I loved a video installation which, at first sight, looked like photo portraits of a band of musicians in matching frames but you gradually realised they were gently reacting to music, tapping feet and figures, and in turn each become more animated and appeared as if carrying the tune. Closed on 7 January 2018  

Odd exhibition at Somerset House looking at how the North of England is depicted in photography, art and fashion. I’m afraid the first question that came to mind in this show was, why? I might have been born in Oxfordshire, but I like to think I am a Northerner in all but birth place, so I found it quite strange to single out the area in this way. I also found that it rather humourless in style which made it feel patronising in places. It was just two minutes into the show before the first flat cap appeared! The show followed various themes such as family, women, sport and subculture and rural and industrial landscapes but I didn’t always find these that obvious. The photographers came out of the show best and I liked Paul O’Donnell’s picture of Liverpool and Alice Hawkin’s of the Leyton Institute in Blackpool. My favourite picture was of a glamorous elderly lady in a fancy purple hat, smoking a cigarette by Shirley Baker. She has a wonderful sense of style with a wrin...

Strange but entrancing exhibition at the Inigo   Rooms   at King’s College in Somerset House examining the idea of melancholia and in particular W.G. Sebald's use of the idea to describe post-war Germany. According to the booklet the show traces a path through Germany from the ruins of 1945 to the present day. I’ll be honest I’m not sure I understood where that was going, but some of the works and sentiments in the show were beautiful. Any show which starts with Durer’s Melancholia print is OK by me. Sebald had held that there had been a lack of response from German writers and artists to the destruction in the immediate post war years but this shows gives examples of that response for example the drawings of the ruins of Dresden by Wilhelm Rudolph. It also points out that some of the gap was due to the number of writers and artists who had been killed in the war. The show commissioned two works by Tacita Dean in chalk and paint on antique school slates based...

Confused exhibition at the Courtauld looking at prints and drawings from the Courtauld collection and how they have influenced living artists. The definition of the show was clear but the pairing of works didn’t always follow the theme. I liked sketches of women by Watteau showing the detail in the draping put with a 16th century study of draping but there was no sign of a living artist there. However there were some lovely works, regardless of the theme, such as a drawing by Mendelssohn and a beautiful picture by Il Domenichino of the back of a girl’s head with an intricate hairstyle. Also a portrait by Jenny Saville of a girl with her arms in various positions on the same picture to give a real sense of movement. It was interesting to see a Stephen Farthing drawing commissioned for this show influenced by a drawing by Il Guerano and analysing the form and technique used in the original. Closed on 2 January 2018

Lovely exhibition at the Courtauld of paintings of hotel and restaurant staff by Chaim Soutine from the 1920s and 30s. Soutine was considered by many to the be the heir of Van Gogh and Cezanne who, following the purchase of a picture of a pastry chef by a collector in 1923, specialised in portraits of staff at fashionable hotels. I loved the way this show was hung in groups of similar occupations. There was a real sense of looking at a group of unknown people who seemed to be looking back at the viewer too. Part of the commentary said that he enjoyed the challenge of painting white cloth and it was wonderful to see the huge range of colours in the pastry chefs’ clothing yet which your eye saw as white. I loved the way most pictures had a plain blue background giving them the gravitas of a Renaissance portrait. The brush work was wonderfully loose with the paint used to mirror the texture of the buttons. They had the feel of Velazquez pictures and I could see how they ...