Cathy's Art Diary

Charming exhibition at the British Museum of a Chinese scroll painting. The work is layed out in two sections. The main one is delicate paintings showing ladies of the court how to behave based on a poem. The painting is dated from somewhere between 400 and 700 AD so is well over a thousand years old. It is quite astonishing. As interesting is the second display case of the exquisite annotations added to it by various owners including emperors. It’s a piece with layers of story. The work can only be shown for 6 weeks a year due to its fragility. I found it interesting that when I was there a large party of young Chinese students were in to see it and seemed entranced by it. Closes 13 November 2022  

Interesting exhibition at the British Museum highlighting works from a donation of prints and drawings to the museum from the collector Hamish Parker. The show became a history of late 20th and early 21st century art and included some beautiful pieces. There were three exquisite portrait etchings by Lucien Freud as well as works by Richard Serra, Lee Krasner, Ed Rusha and Jake and Dinos Chapman. A new artist to me was Avigdor Ankha who has been in a concentration camp and lived in Paris after the Second World War. He was a friend of Samuel Beckett and there was a lovely portrait of him here. My favourite was an etching of a pair of shoes, shown here,   which I found touching. Another find was the tapestry like drawings by Caroline Kryzezechi the effect being achieved by small strokes from ball point pens. I also discovered the wonderfully named Blinky Palermo! I want to be called Blinky Palermo. Closes 5 March 2020  

Fascinating online talk  and exhibition from the British Museum on the repair of a collection of ancient glass which was destroyed in the August 2020 explosion in Beirut. I am reviewing these events together as after the talk there was little to say separately about the exhibition except how beautifully the repaired works were shown. The talk had brought together Nadine Panayot, the director of the American University of Beirut Archaeological Museum where the pieces come from and Duygu  Çamurcuoğlu,  from the British Museum who helped to conserve the pieces on show. Panayot spoke movingly about starting her new role at the museum just days after the explosion when it lost a case of 74 pieces of glass and how the British Museum had phoned the day after the explosion offering help to rebuild the collection. Çamurcuoğlu  then talked about receiving nine vessels to rebuild, the pieces having been brought together and identified in Beirut. It was interesting to hea...

Effective sculpture on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square by Samson Kambalu. I’m always excited to see the new installations on the Fourth Plinth and this is a surprisingly effective one. I’d not liked it in the exhibition of shortlisted works but scaled up and looked at properly from below and from many angles it works really well in the space. It restages a photograph of Baptist preacher and pan-Africanist John Chilembwe and European missionary John Chorley taken in 1914 at the opening of Chilembwe’s new church in Nyasaland, now Malawi. Chilembwe has his hat on, defying the colonial rule that forbade Africans from wearing hats in front of white people. A year later, he led an uprising against colonial rule.   Chilembwe was killed and his church was destroyed by the colonial police. In making the figure of Chilembwe larger Kambala elevates the man and his story and makes a comment on underrepresented figures in the history of Colonial Africa. However it is clever in that...

Beautiful exhibition at the National Gallery looking at Freud’s technique and art historic precedents rather than his life and sitters. I liked the perspective this show took as I love Freud’s work but find his detachment and self-absorption difficult. It was hung fairly sparsely so the pictures were easy to see even through it was busy. The commentaries were also quite brief leaving you to draw your own conclusions. Hanging them in the National Gallery did lead me   to make art historic connections I’d not noticed before, such as some beautiful views though windows which had an early Netherlandish feel. There was an audio guide, which I didn’t use which might have made some of this more obvious and I may need to revisit to try it out. I love the later works with thick impasto which seems to model the bodies and objects as well as depicting their surface. The last room of the monumental works was stunning and it was hard to imagine that some of them were painted when he was ...

Thoughtful exhibition at White Cube Bermondsey of new work by Michael Armitage. I first saw Armitage’s work at a Venice Biennale and was attracted by its vibrancy. He paints on Lubugo, a cloth made from fig tree bark from Uganda that is traditionally used in ceremonial burial rituals, sewing pieces together to make canvases and using the imperfections in the cloth in the work. I like the way he layers images and I would like to know more of the stories behind them. The paintings were shown with some of his sketches and watercolours which I find them delightful. I liked Armitage’s choice to show his work with terracotta sculptures by Seyni Awa Camara, an artist from Senegal who is now in her 80s. These were totem like pieces with bodies covered in creatures and tiny heads. They were set into the walls as well as being shown among the paintings. Closes 30 October 2022 Review Telegraph

Interesting exhibition at David Zwirner of new work by Andra Ursuta. I was interested in the technique of the works. The pictures were created using objects from her studio which she arranged and then took photographs of. This was meant to mirror the early idea of ghost photographs. The rather complex description on the website also quotes various art historic precedents but I found the language over complex and my brain switched off. I like layers of meaning but this was too much. It had been a long day of looking at art. There were also sculptures made of lead-crystal but   I found them hard to engage with. I also have a gripe that the show was over three floors with a steep staircase and the lift was out of action. It had no sign on it just a notice to say you should ask to use it. When I asked I was just told no I couldn’t as it was broken, no apology for that so I’m afraid I walked out without doing the upper floors. As I said it had been a long day! I did notice th...

Exquisite exhibition at Messums of portraits by Antony Williams. Williams works in egg tempura giving a detailed matt finish and up close you can see the tiny, multicoloured hatch marks which create the effect. As a fan of early Italian egg tempura works it is always fascinating to see the technique used by contemporary artists. The show consisted of two sets of work. One revisited models he had used before and introduced a new one. The last show of his I saw was of still lives he did in lockdown and a is was delightful to spot the doll’s house which featured in some of those in the background of one picture. Most moving though were a series he had done of the landlady of his studio. He painted a picture of her every year for 15 years until she died aged 96. The picture I am using here is of that last portrait. These were a tender but honest study of old age. Closed 14 October 2022

Effective exhibition at Waddington Custot of sculpture and drawings by Bernar Venet. These works looked wonderful in the white gallery space. The sculptures were called Angles and were purely mathematical works. It was refreshing to read that he presented mathematics as a subject “for its clarity as a subject with no disagreement over its meaning”. Compared to some of the nonsense I’ve read in exhibitions recently this was refreshingly simple. I liked the vistas across the gallery of the works as well as looking into them at the clashing lines. The drawings seemed to be of the sculptures rather than for their production and were a nice contrast to the three dimensional works. Closes 12 November 2022

Fascinating exhibition at the Mayor Gallery of work by New Orleans, untrained artist Roy Ferdinand. These pictures of daily life in the city’s poorest neighbours were often brutal subjects but tenderly painted with an inside understanding of the lives being lived there. They had a documentary quality while being naïve in style. It was useful to have the good press release to learn about the life of Ferdinand who sadly died of cancer at 45. I got a real sense of standing in a group of people who knew and interacted with each other. It is probably better to see a group of them rather than individual works. Closed 7 October 2022

Vibrant  exhibition at Flowers Gallery of new work by Lucy Jones. These were big bold landscapes and portraits painted since the start of the pandemic so they reflect the painting of the landscape and people around her in Shropshire as well as works which mark liberation and a seeking of new locations. I preferred the landscapes, loving their bold colours and slightly quirky viewpoints. Reading the press release I learned that the artist has physical challenges and paints on the ground and remaining close to her car. There was also a beautiful, full length, nude self-portrait with lovely skin tones and a piercing, insightful gaze. Closed 8 October 2022

Entrancing exhibition at the Royal Academy of work by William Kentridge and curated by him. The works originate from exquisite drawings but then Kentridge does wonderful things with them from animations to making tapestries, designing operas to huge pictures of flower arrangements. It’s varied but you can tell it all comes from the same artistic mind. I loved the videos and particularly liked the most recent one “Deep City” which seemed to depict a decaying art gallery. It was beautifully shown in a cork lined room with four videos showing in   large format but the sound was cleverly managed so they didn’t conflict. There was a super room of tapestries which were based on collages of drawings on old maps. All the interiors were beautiful, subtly altering the familiar space. The commentaries were excellent not only pointing out the depth of meaning in some of the works but also pointing out the techniques used. There was a real sense of craftsmanship and of the substance of t...

Colourful exhibition at White Cube Masons’ Yard of work from the 1960s to 1980s by Léon Wuidar. The top floor was beautiful, bright geometric abstracts which felt like an exercise in how colours worked together. I loved the orange one shown here which looked like a big bookmark. I like the way when you got closer you could see the paint define the very precise lines. Downstairs there was also earlier work in more muted colours which seemed to be feeling their way to being something figurative. I liked the grey one below which had a 3D effect from a distance. I liked how many of the paintings had dates as titles and the press release says Wuidar has a practice even now in his 80s of drawing every day in sketchbooks like a visual diary. Closes 8 October 2022 Review Guardian    

Useful online lecture from the Victoria and Albert Museum on their current exhibition on South Korean culture. The curators’ of the show Rosalie Kim and Yoojin Choi took us through the show section by section explaining why they had divide the show up in this way and highlighting some of the main objects and ideas. I had been to see the show a week or so before and had been a bit confused by some of it, so this talk was helpful in filling some of the gaps for me. In particular, I’d not really understood the K-Drama and cinema section and this made it a bit clearer. I might even go back for a second look and see it makes a bit more sense to me.

Heart  warming exhibition at Woolwich Works which is the culmination of a project by artist Kay Rufai, which aims to challenge negative narratives and stereotypes associated with black boys. I had noticed this show in a couple of other places recently as it is travelling around London but hadn’t had time to engage with it properly. However it is now in a venue near me and in a much larger format. Here it not only has the outside displays, which do look good in this historic environment, but also larger ones inside which much more information about the project. The main focus of the exhibition were some lovely big photo portraits of young black boys smiling with the idea of dispelling negative perceptions however these came at the end of a series of creative workshops with Rufai, exploring a range of topics connected to agency, culture, identity, mental health and society. This display gave more opportunity to show off the work involved with recordings of the boys and some of t...

Fascinating study day from the London Art History Society looking at the art of the papacy in Avignon from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century. Alexandra Gajewski from the Burlington Magazine and a specialist on architecture of this period took us though the history of the city in this period looking at how that history influenced art and architecture. I don’t know the city at all and now want to visit. There were some wonderful slides of the papal palace, the remains of the bridge and various chapels from around the city. For a brief half an hour, I may have understood the papal schism, which I never did when studying Medieval history at university! I was fascinated to learn that Simone Martini worked and died in the city and fragments of the frescos he did for the cathedral survive in the museum. Also to see the drawing of Cardinal Jean de la Grange’s tomb which was destroyed in the French Revolution but was probably one the largest and greatest tombs of this period.

Effective installation at the Victoria and Albert Museum by female art collective Xcessive Aesthetics. I liked the look of this work in the space but must admit I didn’t really understand how it had been created. I’d already done at lot that day! There was a video installation nearby but it didn’t help me. I think it was something to with digitising real figures in poses of a work in the cast gallery but don’t hold me to that! Closed 25 September 2022

Interesting exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum of the winners of this year’s Illustration awards. I always try to go to this show and I always discover new work I’d not come across before. There are four categories for a book cover, book illustration, journalistic illustration and student work. My favourite this year, shown here, is a book cover by Kerry Hyndman for a Stella Gibbons book I’d not come across so I discovered a picture and a book. As it was the 50th anniversary of the award there was a wall dedicated to previous winners and runners up and I remembered a few. It was odd to see Quintin Blake just getting a second in 1996. Closes 9 October 2022

Striking sculpture at the Victoria and Albert Museum by Nigerian artist Sokari Douglas Camp.   This work complements the African Fashion exhibition and is a modern take in the Three Graces using Nigerian influences. It also evidently quotes a William Blake anti-slavery print which I’m off to look up. I love the way this is made of what looks at first glance to be coloured scrap metal and how it sits among the Rodin pieces. Closes 14 May 2023

Charming exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum looking at Beatrix Potter’s relationship with nature. This was a beautifully designed show and in telling this story it also told the story of the author's life. It looked at her study of nature and how that fed into her stories as well as her move to the Lake District and her role in forming the National Trust. There was lovely use made of the book illustrations as well as other drawings and sketch books. I loved seeing objects from her family home in Kensington as well as her later properties in the Lake District which often appeared in the books. Mr McGregor’s handkerchief anyone?! My favourite section was on her study of nature. It included a photo of her with her rabbit Benjamin Bouncer but sadly what also may be his pelt! I loved her wonderfully detailed drawings of plants and fossils. Closes 8 January 2022 Reviews Telegraph Evening Standard      

Fascinating installation at the Victoria and Albert Museum by Omer Arbet of works made from glass and copper objects sourced from charity shops in London. This was in two parts. In the John Madejdski Garden there was an exhibition of the found objects and a furnace at which the artist and his team were working at certain times of day. They seemed to be melting down the objects and blending them together into new works. When I was there Arbet was chatting to people and a new piece was cooling on sand nearby. The second part was in the Medieval and Renaissance Gallery in the Santa Chiara Chapel and showed finished pieces. It worked well in the chapel space. I wish I’d gone later in the short run to see more of the new pieces. Closed 25 September 2022  

Stylish but annoying exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum on the rise in South Korean culture and style. The show was a work of art with beautifully designed rooms and display cases all styled to match the objects they were showing. However the excessive use of light boxes and multiple video screens made some of the items hard to look at, such as a lovely screen which was impossible to see without reflections of a video of beauty products or a big screen from the previous room. It was also sometimes hard to work out which label went with which object. This was a topic I knew nothing about and felt quite old, rather than informed, when I came out. I found some aspects quite sinister like the very realistic digitally created girl group and the sheer consumerism of a lot of it. However I did love the clothes both the traditional and the contemporary take on traditions and I might need to go and look up some of the historically based K-television. Closes 25 June 2023 R...

Three site specific installations at the Victoria and Albert Museum by Osman Yousefzada responding to the 75th anniversary of Pakistan. In the entrance hall were there were three bright banners representing Talismanic figures and storytelling. They made a dramatic statement in this familiar space. By one of the staircases was a tower of encased household objects representing the bundles migrant women, such as his mother, travelled with. I liked the variety of textures. My favourite pieces were remodelled furniture in the courtyard. He had taken old tables, bed etc and added wooden tops in recycled clothing waste and other found objects. I loved this one which had being a door. Closed 25 September 2022    

Austere Pavilion at the Serpentine gallery designed by Theaster Gates. I always enjoy coming to this annual installation and this year's is large and impressive. It’s less open than other years but I love the vista through it and the deep, dark space it creates. Outside there is wood at the bottom and a soft metal like zinc round the top but inside it is all lined in back wood. There are benches around the walls with a lovely set of seven silvered pictures on one side. Reading the commentary it references ceramic kilns both from Stoke on Trent and America as well as various African buildings and the Rothko chapel. I love the fact the pictures are made with a roofing technique as a nod to Gates father who was a roofer. Outside the structure is a bell salvaged from St. Laurence, a landmark Catholic Church that once stood in Chicago's South Side where Gates was born. Closes 16 October 2022 Reviews Times Guardian Telegraph Evening Standard

Interesting online lecture from the National Portrait Gallery looking the gallery’s reference collection. Paul Cox, Curator of the Reference Collection, explained how the collection sat within the library and archive department and was originally a collection of material to help curators research portraits and people but as it had a lot of prints of portraits it seems to have grown into the print and ephemera collection for the gallery. Cox showed us some of the highlights of the collection including the sketchbooks of the first director of the gallery, Sir George Scharf, who went round all the country houses of England making annotated sketches of their portraits. We also looked at the collection over 80,000 prints collected by Henry Witt Martin and the volumes of John Smith’s mezzotints of portraits by Sir Geoffrey Kneller. He also talked about new acquisitions broadening out the collection such as items on national stereotypes such as John Bull and examples of the sorts of por...