Cathy's Art Diary

Novel loan display at the National Maritime Museum of this boat used in the Extinction Rebellion protests earlier this year. The boat is parked on the river side of the museum where it was moved to on 19 July under police escort when the Metropolitan Policy issued a section 12 notice banning the use of boats, vehicles and other structures in the protest. It’s shown with interesting facts and figures about the protest and looks great in the space. It’s rather nice to have a boat outside the confines of the gallery and not a bad place to park it until it’s needed again!

Excellent exhibition at the Oxo Tower Gallery of wildlife photographs by Roger Hooper. These were stunning, sharply focused images shown in a large scale prints. His pictures of birds were particularly beautiful including some lovely ones of penguins against a clear blue sky.   There was great sequence of two leopards play fighting in one of which he caught a wonderful curve in one animals body as it jumped out of the undergrowth. Closed 18 August 2019

Small exhibition   giving an overview of the career of Ed Ruscha. Ruscha began work in commercial graphics for a Los Angeles advertising agency and his art references the themes and techniques of advertising. I had seen his work before but hadn’t realised how much of it was painted. I’d assumed they were screen prints or manipulated photographs as they are so realistic. There were a number of his pictures combining idealised mountains with unrelated text and those painting realistic wood effects. I liked “Our Flag” the rather Jasper John’s like picture shown here. There were also some of his sequences of photographs shown both on the wall and in a small side room of the books he’s made. These included his pictures of parking lots from above taken in 1967 which he then revisted in 1999 and his Hockey like swimming pools of 1968. All the work felt like it was recording and commenting on the American Dream. Closing end of the year

Poignant exhibition at Tate Modern of photographs of Elizabeth Taylor’s house and possessions by Catherine Opie taken just before and after Taylor’s death. Opie got access to the house as she and Taylor had the same accountant but she never met Taylor. The pictures form a portrait of a person without showing the person themselves and record the opulent and the personal. The only picture of Taylor is a photograph of the famous Andy Warhol print which starts the sequence. The rest of the pictures record rooms and the detail of her possessions such as her make-up and handbags, shown reflected in a mirror in the picture I’ve used for this article. I loved the pictures of the garden including beautiful roses and a fish in the pond. Closes 17 November 2019

Colourful installation at Tate Modern by Yinka Shonibare. I had seen this work before when it was shown at Brighton Library a number of years ago and loved it then and   love it now. It consists of over 2000 books, recovered in Shonibare’s signature Dutch wax print fabric, with the names of first and second generation immigrants to Britain on the spine plus names of people who have famously opposed immigration. It is now accompanied by a website with up to date material on the topis //thebritishlibrrayinstallation.com. I love the detail of this work as you can stand and read the spines and think of all the stories behind them however it is also a very striking piece as a whole and warms the heart of this librarian. Closes 17 November 2019 Review Evening Standard

Interesting exhibition at Tate Modern of work by Dora Mauer, a Hungarian artist. Mauer’s work seems to be about method rather than product and there was some fascinating techniques and ideas used but I’m not sure I’d want to live with a lot of the product. She resisted the socialist regime in Hungary and mainly displayed her work in homes, cultural centres and student clubs. I loved the print pictured here which was made from a roughened aluminium plate folder in diagonals then used as a printing plate. Another used blocks of wood on a surface which she then ran acid through to form the printing plate. It was all about method and making. Some of the work was about altering the perception of the space and I liked a series of double sided mirrors hanging in the centre of the room with a pattern in their framing which was repeated in a painting behind and evidently reflected the Fibonacci sequence of numbers. The final room included works which mapped 2D images onto a...

Mesmeric exhibition at Tate Modern of work by Takis, the Greek artist who sadly died on 9 August this year while the show was running. It took me a while to realise what was happening in this show.   At first I thought the magnetic works were faked to look as they would have done then I realised the thin wires were to stop the pieces linking together not to hold them up! Once I got that I loved it! I loved a red canvas that had cones and fret work floating above the surface and casting shadows on surface. I found myself walking round the works to see the gap between the objects. The show also looked at Takis’s scientific work including ideas on renewable energy   and his work making art works from objects found in army surplus stores and discount electrical shops. I loved the work which made a sound, particularly the nine panels shown in a curve where metal rods, manipulated by random magnetic fields to bounce against instrument strings. It was a lovely calmin...