Cathy's Art Diary

Fascinating exhibition at the Foundling Hospital using Hogarth’s “March of the Guards to Finchley” to look at the noises of 18th century London and how he showed the five senses in his work. Although this show was quite text heavy, and there wasn’t a lot of original material, it outlined its narrative really well and was packed full of interesting facts, figures and ideas. With the painting on one wall it took you around aspects of the pictures in detail while listening to a soundscape of the noises in it. It really showed you the detail of the picture and the symbolism of all aspects of it. I’d not come across the idea that a man peeing in a picture can be a reference to syphilis and therefore the problems in society as one symptom is the need to pee and this case this was highlighted by the gentleman in question looking at a poster for a cure. The girl shown here has a copy of the National Anthem in her basket which had been published in the new arrangement shown her...

Strange exhibition at the National Gallery which commissioned new music and sound installations in response to pictures in the gallery. As you may know I have issues about sound and how it is presented in galleries but this was done well except for the first piece which was the quietest but was shown in the only gallery which wasn’t sound proofed so you could hear the noise of the gallery as well as the quiet bird song. Maybe this was a deliberate move to compare the background noise you would normally hear with the picture to that which had been recorded but I suspect not! I wasn’t convinced by some of the pieces. The classical music works were nice but I’d have almost rather have heard music contemporary with the picture. It didn’t add anything for me. I want to go back again having now watched the video about the show and I was intrigued by it but I’m not sure what the music added. I particularly want to go back to listen to Jamie XX’s pointillist piece to go with ...