Cathy's Art Diary

Beautiful exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum of works by contemporary sculptor, Thomas J Price, among the older pieces in the collection’s sculpture galleries. I’ve admired Price’s hyper-real work for a while and it worked well in this space. I liked the fact it included small and large work but I would have liked to see more of it. I just counted five pieces plus a sixth in the British Galleries which I missed. It was lovely to set up a dialogue between the old and new pieces and between the sculptors of the past with this contemporary black view. Closes 27 May 2024  

Interesting small display at the Victoria and Albert Museum looking at the digital art collection of Patric Prince which has been donated to the museum. I’m not sure I’m understood all the pieces but was moved to see that many of them would no longer exist if she hadn’t collected them. It feels like it’s almost too early to assess their importance. It was interesting to see how many pieces included notes by the artists/producers when they gave them to her. I particularly liked the idea of an event in 1992 when photographs were transferred between machines and enhanced by the receiver. The picture in the show from this was a portrait of Prince. Closes 15 September 2024  

Small display at the Victoria and Albert Museum highlighting the donation of over 2400 drawings and items relating to Beatrix Potter by Leslie Linder.  Linder died in 1973 and his collection was left to the museum. The display looked at how his collecting started with a drawing of gardening Guinea Pigs which led him to be a scholar of her work publishing “The Art of Beatrix Potter” in 1952.  Most significantly, when Potter’s niece, who inherited her house, discovered a collection of her journa ls written in code, Linder deciphered them discovering many of the stories behind the books.  In a few objects the display told this complicated story simply and clearly.  Closes 14 September 2024

Fascinating exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum looking at portraits of   two Jamaican gentlemen scholars who lived nearly 300 years apart. There was a room devoted to each figure, putting them in context, and discussing their lives. This was a great way of contrasting but linking different lives. I started with the room on contemporary photographer, Vanley Burke, whose portrait was a self-portrait taken this year. Burke has recorded black lives via his photography and the artefacts he has collected relating to the black presence in Britain. The photographs and objects were shown together and created a picture of life in this country since the 1950s. It was interesting to then contrast this to the life of Francis Williams, a free born black Jamaican who was educated in England then returned to the island to manage the family estates. The portrait is quite naïve but beautiful and full of objects. It may be a self-portrait. I was interested to see that the globe to th...

Beautiful exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum looking at the work of Gabrielle Chanel. I found the pieces in this show stunning and the narrative it built excellent, but I do have some criticism on the layout. The show is a sell out and so is very busy, particularly as I think people are becoming   members in order to get in. The layout is innovative but not for the numbers it is catering for, so the early section, which is laid out charmingly like small shop fronts, is very cramped. It becomes nearly impossible to read the information boards. I had done an online lecture on the show so could live without the boards but it was annoying, as was the showing of films in such narrow spaces that they caused bottle necks. While I’m moaning I’ll also add that the glass cases where too reflective so at times, particularly if a film was running nearby it was difficult to see the clothes. Moaning over because the clothes themselves were stunning. It was amazing to see so many...

Useful online lecture from ARTscapades introducing the exhibition on Rubens and women at Dulwich Picture Gallery. I say useful as I’d hoped to get to the show but I’ve run out of time now so I was pleased to hear an explanation of what was there and what narrative they are suggesting. Amy Orrock, a co-curator of the show, guided us through the four rooms and their themes. The show is built around the seven pictures by Rubens owned by the gallery which are all of women. She guided us though those as well as the excellent loans which illuminate those works and add to the story. The show looks at portraits, Biblical subjects and Rubens development of the nude discussing the idea of the Rubenesque figure. I was interested to hear that Orrock feels it is based on the antique “Crouching Venus” figure. Wherever it comes from I think I have it!

Sublime exhibition at the Hayward Gallery of work by photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto. I say sublime as a lot of the work had that awe inspiring quality of sublime landscapes particularly the seascapes. Some of the pieces also had an eerie quality like the portraits of wax works from Madame Tussaud’s which looked real. I loved the idea of layers of history in them from the original subject, the wax work, the photograph and us the viewer. I loved the first baffling series which appeared to be perfectly posed wildlife shots although the one of an early man and women messed with your mind. You then realised they were dioramas from the Museum of Natural History in New York.   I also liked the pictures of interiors of cinemas and theatres. Sugimoto had taken them on a timed exposure the same length as a feature film that was shown. This resulted in the screen in the centre being an intense light. I found myself slowing down I look at them in detail and being drawn into that centr...