Cathy's Art Diary

Delightful exhibition at Tate Britain by Steve McQueen of 76,000 7 and 8 year old London school children. I loved this exhibition which was much better than I expected. I’d read about it and thought it might be a bit twee and was skeptical of how it would work as an exhibition. However the sheer scale of it was stunning as the small pictures, all about A4 in size, took over the large Duveen Gallery. The fact that the pictures were hung in school groups set up a rhythm like a geometric abstract picture as it created small banks of colour. The work also worked on the small scale as each picture showed a group of eager faces grouped around their teacher and with any teaching assistants at the side. They have caught a moment in time in those children’s live which McQueen saw as a significant moment when they become conscious of things outside their family. You can’t help but question what direction their lived will take. I would love to see the classes brought back together in...

Small exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery by Steve McQueen who is an official war artist. It consists of a large cabinet with vertical pull out shelves which each have a mock up set of stamps of it baring the faces of soldiers filled in Iraq between 2003 and 2009. It was originally commissioned by the Imperial War Museum and has travelled the country. The repetition of the faces on the stamps is a moving reminder of the soldiers who have died. There is now a campaign to get these mock stamps taken up by the Royal Mail and made into real stamps. Sign the petition to make it happen.