Cathy's Art Diary

Pretentious exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery looking at the style magazine The Face. The magazine ran from 1984 to 2004 and the blurb says it "played a vital role in creating contemporary culture". I'm afraid hadn't been part of my personal culture although I did recognise a number of the iconic images from it. The show emphasised the role of the photographers for the magazine both of celebrities and fashion and most pictures were accompanied by a quote from the photographer and I quite liked that geeky aspect of it. However I would have liked to have had a bit more information on the subjects of the pictures both the people and the clothes. The show was party a reflection of the history of a twenty year period but I felt that could have been brought out more. I did go on the members' preview day so I will give it another try and might take a friend to see the reaction of someone of a similar age to me. Maybe I'm just not ready for my 20s t...

Interesting exhibition at the Fashion and Textile Museum marking the 150th anniversary of the magazine Harper’s Bazaar. The show was mainly made up of information boards and pictures of covers but it focused on women who had been closely associated with the publication as editors and art directors. The first editor had been the intellectual Mary Booth who had campaigned against slavery and for women’s right to vote. All the women were fascinating characters and brought their own interests to the content of the magazine often commissioning work from the leading writers and artists of the day. It would be fun to see a complication of longer biographies of them as they seemed so different but had similar roles. Closed on 21 January 2018

Dense exhibition at the ICA on this radical architectural magazine. This show was very wordy and basically consisted of copies of the magazine in displays round the edge of the room with poster versions of some of the covers round the walls. I could see that it was a beautifully designed magazine but that it had taken an innovative approach however with the magazines to read and the long commentaries it was just too much!

Nostalgic exhibition on the South Bank as part of their Festival of Love season which marks the 50th anniversary of Jackie magazine and looks in particular at the agony aunts, Cathy and Claire. I loved the montage of covers on the walls and kept spotting ones I remembered. You could pick up phones and listen to members of the editorial team and readers. There was also a wall of replies to the letters and a board where you could write down what you wished you’d known at 15 of which my favourite was “Don’t grow up it’s a trap!”