Cathy's Art Diary

Nice little exhibition at the National Maritime Museum looking at the role the sea and sailors played in the First World War. At first glance the show just looks like a slightly musty model ship display but it uses the ships to outline the history of the war and along the centre aisle are smaller personal objects and super interactive information boards telling the stories of the men whose medals are displayed, giving more detail on the main battles and looking at the role of the merchant navy and the home front. Don’t do what I did which was walk round the outside first and moan that there was no narrative, just head down the middle straight away. I was moved by the German bullet which had been made into a cross and was used by a Royal Naval Reserve Chaplain throughout the war. I also loved a film of the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich (of course!) There were a number of incidents I didn’t know about such as the fact that the German fleet was interred in the Firth of ...

Interesting exhibition at the Queen’s House, Greenwich looking at the role artists played on Captain Cook’s three voyages of discovery. These artists established the structure and style for documenting voyages which lasted until photography. Hodges, who went on the second voyage, came out of the show best. He was the first professional artist to meet people unaffected any European contact. He produced pictures both on the trip and on his return to London. He seems to be a genius at using white paint and I loved the way he used thick white paint to show the sailors trousers. As well as developed scenes Hodges also made detailed coastal profiles to mirror the maps the expedition were making and trained the officers to paint so they could help him. I wasn’t quite sure that Stubbs and Zoffany fitted into the picture as they did work back in London based on the voyages however I guess it was another way of showing the Stubbs pictures of the kangaroo and dingo! The las...

Fun installation in Covent Garden of a Santa and his reindeer made of LEGO. OK I might be stretching this to include it in an art diary but it is public artistic work and if there can be whole exhibitions of work made in LEGO I decided I could have a fun Santa! It was designed and built by the UK’s only LEGO Certified Professional, Duncan Titmarsh, what a job! It was a lovely addiction to a busy shopping area at Christmas!

Disappointing exhibition at Somerset House of the work of fashion photographer Guy Bourdin. There were some lovely work in this show but I found it became quite repetitive and the work came from quite a narrow time frame. I would also have liked more commentary on the pictures to tell me more about who the model was and what the clothes were. It was very much a style of fashion photography which was more about the style of the picture than the clothes. I did like the first section where he had been commissioned to do a series of adverts for the shoe maker Charles Jourdan so he set off around Britain with a pair of manikin legs and lots of shoes and photographer the disembodied legs in various settings. There were some striking images but I found the whole show rather sterile and unengaging. Review Times

Fascinating exhibition at the Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace tracing a journey made by the then Price of Wales (later Edward VII) to the Middle East in 1862. The show told the story through the photographs of Francis Bedford who was among the entourage and used them to look at the cultural and political significance of the region at that time. There were also objects which the Prince collected on his travels which had been in the Royall Collection ever since. It is easy to forget when looking at slightly clichéd pictures of Egypt that these were early days of exploring the area and when the photographs were exhibited on their return to England that these may have been some of the first images the public had seen of the region. I loved a photo of a display of objects which the Prince had bought in a market shown with all but one of the objects in the same arrangement. The later section on the Holy Land was fascinating and included pictures of the great crusa...

Nice exhibition at the Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace looking at gold, it’s uses and the techniques for working it. Gold is thought to be the first metal discovered by man and has always been associated with the high status people and the divine because it does not deteriorate. The first section looked at gold an royalty and included an Ecuadorian crown and a lion’s head from an Indian princes throne as well as looking at the Coronation of British Monarchs via a lovely picture of Queen Victoria’s coronation. The next section looked at the artists meaning of gold in art with a lovely picture by Reymerswaele of two misers to show avarice and how artists have shown the gold light of sun rise and sunset. An substantial part of the show looked at how gold has been worked with the earliest object being the Rillaton Cup dating from1700-1500 BC which was probably worked with stones. It was shown next to a lovely picture by William Nicholson of a gold cup to show artists...

Installation of illuminated inflated rabbits at the Royal Festival Hall by Amanda Parer. They are made of paper so there is fragility to the work which makes them seem rather vulnerable. I am sure I saw them displayed outside earlier in the month but I guess they didn’t cope too well with London weather, or that might have been launch night. Anyway I have no idea what they mean, but who can resist a giant inflatable rabbit!