Cathy's Art Diary

Fun exhibition at the Jewish Museum looking at the role of Jewish immigrants in creating and developing the recording industry. The show began by looking at the development of records and record players from the Emil Berliner’s invention of the gramophone and the birth of His Master’s Voice label and then went through technological development from shellac through vinyl and into CDs and the web. The main room was a wonderful display of record covers from various Jewish artists arranged by chronological themes. There was a great section on comedy records. There were av displays but quite a few of them didn’t work. The real shame was the exhibition was almost silent, just the occasional quiet records on a jukebox. I know I usually moan about noise in galleries but this one needed it. Closes on 16 October 2016  

Interesting small exhibition at the Jewish Museum of photographs by Dorothy Bohm of 1960s London. Bohm’s work focuses on social change in this period rather than the Swinging Sixties we normally think of in  London. She had a great eye for composition of a picture and capturing a moment as it happened. I loved a picture of two dogs and their owners meeting in the street, capturing the moment when dogs eye each other up, also one of people at a café in the Kings Road with a broken marble bust by the table. My favourite though was one of two men taking a break from work with pints of beer, sitting on ladders. Closed on 29 August 2016. Review Evening Standard