Cathy's Art Diary

Disappointing exhibition at the British Library on how animals have been documented and researched through art, science and sound. I just say disappointing as the show felt like it was aimed at children and fair enough it is the summer holidays. I’d hoped it would look at the history of how we have recorded animals but instead it looked at the animals themselves via the themes of darkness, water, land and air. The history was hidden in there if you looked but on the surface, it was more about the animals. There were a number of children engaging well with the show via a good activities book. A small criticism is that this encouraged them to use the space where the labels were to lean on and write so they were often hard to read. I must admit I think I would have found it quite a dry show as a child but then I was never really that into animals. There were some amazing books and objects within the show. There was a copy of George Stubbs private publication on the anatomy of the h...

Astonishing exhibition at the British Library of high magnification photographs of insects by photographer Levon Biss. Created through a collaboration between the Oxford University Museum of Natural History and artists each extraordinary image was made up of approximately 8,000 individual photographs of the specimen in up to 30 different sections. Each section was lit in a specific way via a microscope stage. These works were shown in large format and revealed every detail of the insect alongside good descriptions of them. My favourite was the underside of a tortoise beetle whose detail created an almost abstract image. The works were hard to photograph in the show so I’ve used the poster image for the show of a colourful Marion Flightless Moth instead. The library has bought three of these images which are currently in their Animals exhibition along with the specimens they are based on. Closes 27 November 2023  

Intriguing exhibition at the British Library looking at eleven works where writers and artists have engaged with readers using digital technology. I must admit I thought this show might be quite dry but I was fascinated. I think by limiting it to eleven projects you can engage very directly with each one and focus on how it told a story rather than the technology. Some of them had a QR code to access the work if it was free. It would have been interesting to have a bit of information on how you’d access the other pieces. I was lucky the show was very quiet when I went round as there was usually only one example of the work to try out and if it was busier there might have been frustrating queues. It was interesting to watch a child going round with their mother and looking at which of the works kept there attention most. She seemed to particularly like one on the Windrush story which was like a children’s book which you navigated by moving photographs from a suitcase into a frame...

Interesting online lecture from the Victoria and Albert Museum looking at an exhibition they have put on in Paris at the Hotel de la Marine. James Robinson, Keeper of Decorative Art and Sculpture at the V&A explained how the subtitle of the show was “When the English Spoke French” and how he use that as a starting point to readdress the links with the continent in the Medieval period. He took us through the themes of the show from monastic ties, how dynastic marriages spread styles, English exports and the role of trade. All of these were illustrated with great images of the objects they had lent and the exhibition lay out. He included good details about many of the objects and I can’t wait to revisit them when they return home.

Strange exhibition which raised some interesting ideas at the Saatchi Gallery of new work by Michael Forbes. These works examined racial politics, migration history and religion in a variety of work mainly sculptural. Again I’m going to moan about the convoluted labels. Keep it simple to get your ideas across! If it’s too complicated people won’t engage. The effect of the work was creepy but effective. The centre of the room was taken up by a series of figures mainly covered in thick black plastic with just one, incorporating an African masks motif, left uncovered. I found the installation at the far end quite disturbing. It consisted of Renaissance style figures of Christ, hanging upside down on a large scaffold structure looking like the death scene of Mussolini. Some are in life jackets. Evidently is addressing how Christ is always shown as white in Western Art and how that is exploited. Lots to think about. Closed 28 August 2023  

Poignant and bright exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery looking at the life and work of Ukrainian artist Maria Prymachenko. Prymachenko died in 1997 aged nearly 90. She had been painting since 1935 and had barely left her village near Kyiv. The works show everyday scenes plus fantastic beats, plants and birds. These works were in bright colours and had a feel of folk art. They reminded me of illustrations for fairy stories as well as the embroidery of the region.   My favourites were the autobiographical pieces. There was also an interesting video about a planned museum of her work. I wonder if it will happen? Closed 31 August 2022 Review Times    

Interesting exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery looking at female, contemporary artists’ approach to landscape. There were some interesting pieces in the show but I found the commentaries impenetrable. Can I make my usual plea for simpler labels. What does women “who work with full agency to define the worldwide view from their own perspective” mean or “revelations of suppressed libidinal energies”? I liked Dannielle Hodson’s fantastical scenes which oddly reminded me of Titian’s poesies despite them being more Bosch. There was a lot to see in them but I’m not sure they were a landscape. Kirsty Harris’s pictures of atomic bomb explosions were very topical with Oppenheimer having only recently come out. A couple of the artists, Melissa Kime and Lisa Ivory, drew on British folk law. Closed 28 August 2023  

Interesting online discussion from Medieval Art Research looking ecology-related museum practices. Heather Alexis Smith from the Pulitzer Arts Foundation in St Louis talked us through a recent exhibition she had curated “ The Nature of Things: Medieval Art and Ecology 1100-1550 ” which looked at how medieval art objects relate to the natural world. She explained how they looked at how art making affected environments both temporarily and permanently and at how the environment affected the production of art influenced types of work and imagery. The show was arranged by type of environment forest, earth, field and quarries. Julia Perratore from The Cloisters in New York then discussed measures the museum are taking to aim to be carbon neutral including a recent test geothermal well which has proved to be a viable project. She also talked about work to interpret the collection emphasising environmental issues starting with the Saint-Guilhem-Le-Desert cloister from a Benedictine mona...

Moving small display outside the Dorfman auditorium at the National Theatre marking 6 years since the Grenfell fire. The theatre is currently running a fabulous play based on verbatim accounts by survivors of the fire and from the public enquiry and this display compliments that. It combines parts of a photo series on the people at the heart of the tragedy, by photographer and bereaved family member Feruza Afewerki, alongside excerpts from a poem written by Grenfell resident and bereaved family member Sara Chebiouni when she was 11 years old. I would like to see more of this series and learn a bit more about the people so I will look out for future showings of it. This was just a small display with little commentary. Closed 26 August 2023    

Fun installation outside the Royal Festival Hall by Fefe Talavera. The work consists of two large fantastical animals on top of two bars created in the Mexican folk art tradition of Alebrijes, brightly coloured sculptures of imaginary creatures, traditionally made of paper or wood. These were made in collaboration with Glow Inflatables although they look very solid and permanent. I love the way they dominate the space. I hadn’t known they were there and got a pleasant surprise as I came round the corner. A lovely colourful addition for Summer. Closed 3 September 2023  

Impressive installation/pavilion outside the Hayward Gallery by Asim Waqif. The piece consists of poles and strips of bamboo woven together and supported by steel. Evidently the piece was improvised over 10 days. It is billed as a place of contemplation but that is a bit hard when it also has sticks with which to hit the poles to use them as musical instruments. I love the contrast of the natural materials against the brutalist concrete of the gallery and the way it entices you to walk through. This is the third annual commission presented in partnership with the Bagri Foundation to bring new public artworks by artists from or inspired by Asia and its diaspora to the Southbank Centre. Closes 22 October 2023  

Delightful exhibition at gallery@oxo of photographs by Roger Hooper. These were stunning wildlife photographs in sharp focus seemingly catching hidden moments. My favourite pictures were off a black leopard who was so regal. At first glance you assumed it was a panther but when you looked closely you saw the leopard markings in the black fur. So beautiful. Closed 6 August 2023

Enlightening exhibition at the National Gallery which invites primary schools to respond to themes they see in a nominated painting from the gallery. This year’s picture was Claude-Joseph Vernet's “A Shipwreck in Stormy Seas” from 1773 which I must admit I had never consciously looked at. I always love this show as the children often see different things in the work. It was interesting to see how many associated the ships with slavery and the sea with plastic pollution. Is an indication of what is being taught? A number of schools imagined diaries of the characters involved and wrote these up on tea-stained paper to look old. One school also made these into messages in bottles.   There were some lovely collage versions of the picture and even a couple of wonderful boats made of paper and willow shown on waves based on theatre sets off the time. Heads up to Andrew, 11, from St Anselm's School, Derbyshire who has spotted the discovery of the wreck of Endurance and its ba...

Delightful exhibition at the National Gallery focusing on Paula Rego’s mural for the gallery’s restaurant. As the restaurant area is being refurbished, this was a chance to show the mural as a work of art. It was created during Rego’s year as the first artist in residence at the gallery in 1991 in response to an altarpiece by Crivelli which was also shown in the space. The mural looked beautiful and was smaller than I remembered it. It was great to be able to look at all the detail close up and to see the preparatory drawings, many based on National Gallery staff of the time. The figures in the mural represent Biblical and Mythological women and it was fun to sit in front of it and play spot the character. My recent mythology course came in handy! I later realised there is a guide on the website to check your answers.   Closes 29 October 2033 Reviews Times Guardian Evening Standard  

Beautiful but baffling installation at Somerset House by Theresa Weber. The work was a long hanging down the Stamp Stairwell in bright colours. According to the blurb it is a “site-specific response to the colonial history and imperial architecture” but I’m afraid I didn’t get that from looking at it. That said I did think it looked wonderful in the space and drew you to look up and down the vertiginous space. It reminded me of a colourful version of Cecilia Vicuña’s recent installation at Tate Modern. Closes 30 November 2022  

Intriguing exhibition at Somerset House of work by Black women artists and photographers looking  at black women. I liked the fact the exhibition set itself in the context of historically negative images which often sexualised women or presented them as a representation of ‘other’ via a wall of such images and explanations of them. Some of the artists had addressed these issues directly but others had looked more generally at the subject often using their own image and bodies. I had been to the African photography exhibition at Tate Modern then day before so was interested to spot some photographers in both and the show felt like it continued a conversation I’d started the day before. Shout outs to Ayana V. Jackson who uses at historic tropes to make her point, Coreen Simpson who uses African masks to create Picasso like portraits commenting on the use of such masks by European artists and Maxine Walker’s photo booth style images. Closes 24 September 2022 Reviews Times...

Interesting exhibition at Tate Modern of work by 36 contemporary African photographers who reimagine Africa’s place in the world. Arranged around three themes, identity and tradition, counter histories and imagined futures, the show discussed how there is no single history of Africa and the effects of colonialism. From the majestic portraits of Nigerian monarchs by George Osodi you were pulled into the images and ideas. I’m not sure I grasped all of them, and at times it became quite philosophical, but it certainly made me think. Images which stood out for me included Edson Chagas’s take on passport photos using traditional Bantu masks which partly spoke to the export of such masks to Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries. I loved the section on the role of studio photography to create identity and the juxtaposition of James Barnor’s work which had been featured at the Serpentine with more contemporary work by Ruth Einika Ossai picking up similar themes. The librarian in me ...

Thought provoking  exhibition at Tate Modern examining the relationship between photography and painting in modern and contemporary art. This is a topic that fascinates me and the show introduced me to lots of new ideas. From the first quote from Susan Sontag “The painter constructs, the photographer discloses” I was hooked even though a lot of the show argued against the statement. I loved the use of quotes to plant ideas, my favourite being this David Hockney one. “A photograph is a fraction of a second, frozen. So, the moment you’ve looked at it for even four seconds you are looking at it for longer than the camera did”. The show looked at painters who use photographs and who imitate them as well as at photographers who reference paintings. It also looked at how photographs can be constructs not just paintings and how some paintings pretend to record a moment. I think my favourite room was the one on photography as painting and I recognised a number of the photographers...

Fascinating exhibition at Tate Modern comparing 20th century abstract artists Hilma af Klint and Piet Mondrian. This show guided you through how these artists reached their abstract ideas based on similar ideas and influences and yet they never met. I thought it was an interesting idea to bring together two artists who didn’t know each other as so many shows are about relationships. The show explained simply and well how their art developed and for the first time I understood Mondrian’s grid pictures. It was an excellent idea to have a section at the centre called The Ether which went into more depth on some of the ideas without getting in the way of the narrative and the paintings. I liked that you could enter this from two directions either quite near the start of your visit or near the end. I did it near the start but popped back in later for more explanation of Theosophy which I hadn’t really understood. I was more drawn to Mondrian’s work which seemed to be driven more by l...

Interesting exhibition in the undercroft of the Painted Hall at the Old Royal Naval College of photographs by Hamish MacPherson as part of the Wren300 celebrations. The photographs were atmospheric portraits of contemporary people involved in aspects of science and architecture pioneered by Sir Christopher Wren. A useful leaflet told you about the sitter and the aspect of Wrens work they represented. The pictures had an ethereal quality and were created using a flatbed scanner, which creates an intriguing and mysterious quality and as the commentary said gave the impression the sitters also “possess their own shifting legacies”. They made the research relevant to today while illuminating areas of Wrens interests which I hadn’t known about before such as the fact he developed two finger spelling alphabets for deaf people. No closing date given.

Disappointing  online lecture from the National Gallery looking back at their St Francis of Assis exhibition. I only say disappointing because other similar lectures have looked at what the gallery have learnt from an exhibition or reflected more deeply on one of the themes of the show. In this talk Richard Stemp took us through the show but it was more like a guide talk than a reflection. It would have been good to know a bit about visitor reactions to the show which had combined religious and environmental themes. Richard is always good and took us through the life of Francis via the Sassetta altarpiece which is beautifully displayed in the show. He also had an excellent introduction taking us through the first room which combines the Zurbaran painting with contemporary pieces and I gained a better insight into the links between them. This was still an interesting talk but I felt Richard could have been briefed better.

Interesting day of lectures from London Art History Society held at Friend’s House on the reaction against Modernist art by the dictators of the inter war years. Richard Humphreys organised the talks by country starting with an overview of what was happening at the centre of the avant-garde in Paris. We tend to concentrate on the major modern movements which started there like Cubism and Surrealism but Humprey’s looked at the reaction against these movements often led by the right wing and nationalism. He then used this discussion of the reaction to lead to talks on Italy and Mussolini, Russia and Stalin and Germany and Hitler where similar themes and subjects emerged such as the role of technology and how it represented in art, the desire to memorialise and use the history of the countries and the propaganda use of art. Because of the similar themes the country talks became a bit repetitive so I wonder if it might have been better to arrange it by theme, flagging what was happe...