Cathy's Art Diary

Enlightening online interview from the Art Fund with contemporary artists Lubaina Himid. Himid was interviewed by Zoe Whitney, director of the Chisham Hill Gallery and former phd student of Himid to mark the current exhibition of her work at Tate Modern. They discussed her work in detail including the current show and a work for the New York High Line in 2019. It was fascinating to hear Himid say how she doesn’t fee a piece of work has been finished until it’s been seen by an audience and how she likes to revisit shows to see how people are interacting with the work. They talked about HImid’s early life and how she was influenced by her textile designing mother who took her around art galleries, museums and department stores looking for inspiration for her work but also discussing what they were looking at. The Q&A session was lively with good questions which widened the discussion through what effect winning the Turner Prize had had, what responses to her art had she had wh...

Fun online discussion from the Art Fund looking at the role of humour in art. The event brought together a good panel chaired by Annie McGrath, a comedian and podcast host. She interviewed Emma Stirling-Middleton from the Cartoon Museum, artists Reuben Dangoor and David Shrigley, and Simon Minty, producer and member of Abnormally Funny People. They started by discussing how we don’t associate laughing with galleries and museums and why that might be. They talked about how humour can make art more approachable and that comedy is not the opposite of seriousness. The two artists discussed their work and talked about how it had been affected by Covid. I loved the image I use here by Dangoor. Both artists had turned to social media to share their work during lockdowns. Minty talked about how new ways of sharing art over the pandemic has made it more accessible to disabled people including talks like this one. Stirling-Middleton talked about the current show at the Cartoon Museum wh...

Fun new weekly podcast from the Art Fund each episode focusing on specific objects from different museums and galleries purchased with the help of the fund. Introduced by Ben Miller, the series so far, and at the time of writing we are on episode 6, have covered an eclectic collection of items from collaged screen by Joe Orton’s partner Kenneth Halliwell, through an 18th century organ, taking in the picture of the Spanish Armada shown here and a portrait of Charles Dickens. Each episode brings together a variety of experts and artists to comment on the piece and discuss themes that arise from it. For example an episode on the Great Bed of Ware looks a the history of sleep, travel and marketing as well as describing the object and it’s place in cultural history. My only criticism of this well produced series would be that it would be nice to have a webpage of images for each one so you can see the object in more detail and some of the other pieces mentioned particularly any conte...