When you're living life you don't quite realise all that you are doing or achieving as it's just rolling along as everyday life. So the end of the year is always a good time to reflect and look back on the last 12 months. Here's the first roundup of 2019, a look at all the exhibitions I saw in 2019:-
I also managed a trip to London in November & managed to see the Rembrandt's Light exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery. Luckily I saw it just a few days before they had an attempted robbery and subsequent closure of the gallery for 2 weeks. I also always see one of my favourite Rembrandt portraits 'Jacob de Gheyn III' which they have in their permanent collection when I'm there, but I couldn't find it & found out it's currently on loan to Museum de Lakenhal in the Netherlands for their exhibition 'Young Rembrandt: Rising Star' (curiously this painting has been stolen 4 times making it one of the most stolen paintings in the world!)
I feel like I haven't seen as much as I'd like to this year, so hopefully next year I can make the effort and go to see more special exhibitions as well as some new places I've never been to. Thanks 2019, roll on 2020!
There's always lots of art to see, but lately I've added lots of women artists to my wishlist to see! So I thought I'd highlight these women; some well known and thought about for years, others unknown and waiting to be discovered.
I've just got home from a trip to London which featured lots of Art, Spring blossoms, Museums, Sunshine, the Thames, Suffragettes, Parks, Authors and Mystery.
We stayed near Crystal Palace, so a visit to the park was a must, it has so many interesting things! The area and park is named after the Great Exhibition of 1851 which was re-located here from Hyde Park; it was a huge glass conservatory exhibition area (a crystal palace!) designed by Joseph Paxton (he also designed the great conservatory at Chatsworth and its gardens)
This is what the impressive crystal palace looked like, but it was sadly destroyed by fire in 1936. Nowadays you can still see some of the foundation arches, balustrades, stairways and sphinxes.
The park also contains stone dinosaurs designed by Benjamin Waterhouse Watkins in 1854, they had just restored and painted the one in the far left of the picture, but I liked the unrestored ones better; I recognise that we need to preserve and look after them for the future but I like to see their age and how the weather and nature has claimed them, its almost as if they are alive and live as part of the landscape. (More of Crystal Palace Park in part 2)
The next day I went to the Dulwich Picture Gallery which was the first public art gallery in the world and was even visited by Constable, Monet and Van Gogh! and John Soane designed the building (the John Soanes Museum, which was his house is also really great, near the British Museum its filled with his wonderful collections, sculpture and artefacts)
I was there to see the 'Nikolai Astrup: Painting Norway' exhibition; I didn't really know what to expect as I'd never heard of him before but I loved it so much. He grew up and lived in Jolster, Norway with his large family, painting and producing woodcuts of the amazing Norwegian landscape mixed with a bit of folklore and mysticism. The above prints show a winter tree which looks like a man stretching out of the ground and the background mountains are made up of a nude woman lying down. Must find some wood now to make some woodcuts of my own!
Whenever I'm at the Dulwich Picture Gallery I always pop in to see a favourite Rembrandt his portrait of 'Jacob de Gheyn III'. I love the detail in such a small face, the eyes that pierce through you and the grey background full of colour, its amazing. It's been stolen 4 times from the gallery and is the second most frequently stolen artwork in the world!
The Mausoleum there is a beautiful, eerie yet reflective space and this time it featured 'Forest Folk' an interactive video piece which responds to your movement, see the video below-
I then walked through spring blossoms and saw cute cottages to get the train from Herne Hill to Victoria.
Where I walked past Buckingham Palace (cue tons of tourists with selfie sticks!) and through the daffodils in Green Park to Oxford Street. I then walked through Hyde Park and along the Serpentine Lake (where the open water swimming events in the London 2012 olympics were held!) to get to the Serpentine Sackler Gallery.
Das Institut a collaboration between artists Kerstin Bratsch and Adele Roder of installational drawings created with such materials as neon, projections, stained glass and inks with solvents
Just that night I learned that the amazing architect Dame Zaha Hadid had died and she designed the Sackler Serpentine gallery, it was nice to have been able to experience one of her beautiful spaces; I love the darkened brick chambers for installations and the swoopy roof of the cafe, thank you Zaha for all you did for architecture, women and the world, you'll be missed.
My next stop was the main reason I was in Hyde Park, to visit the Serpentine Gallery Hilma Af Klint exhibition.
She is said to be one of the pioneers of abstract art, but because she feared being misunderstood and didn't want her work shown for 20 years after her death, everyone always assumes that Kandinsky was the first, but Hilma's work from the early 20th Century predates his, go Hilma, Queen of Abstract Art!
Her work is an incredible mixture of science and mysticism, botany & the spiritual, the minuscule & the cosmic, harmonious & challenging; I was in complete awe and will be researching her and her work much more.
--Part 2 coming soon featuring the Thames Barrier, Artillery, Gormley, Wildlife, Anthropology, Charlotte Bronte & Suffragettes!--
Last week I took a trip to Manchester to see some exhibitions; First off I walked
down Oxford Road to get to the Whitworth Art Gallery to see
Art_Textiles.
"Our Freedom Can't Wait" & "I Did Not Join the Struggle to be Poor' by Lawrence Lemaoana
Faith Wilding's 'Crocheted Environment' or (Womb Room)
It was okay with a few stand out pieces but lots of more
interesting contemporary artists who work with textiles were missing
like Sheila Hicks & Tim Davies or Kai Chan & Rebecca Medel
Next I popped into the Manchester Museum to see 'Gifts for the Gods: Animal Mummies Revealed' an exhibition of animal mummies: mainly crocodiles, ibis, hawks and cats. The main Egyptian part of the Manchester Museum is always good to see (even if it's always crowded) they used to have an unwrapped mummy in its own dark room and the energy of it along with its simple display always used to make my spine tingle (I think it's been changed now though). It's such a key to another world where these animals were revered enough to be preserved and taken care of in the after life & to think they have survived all this time, it's absolutely incredible.
I then went to the Manchester Art Gallery where I wanted to see the reopening of the craft gallery; seeing as it had been closed for over a year you would've thought that something major would've changed but no, it looks like the same cases and a lot of the same objects were just trans-placed into the Modern Japanese Design exhibition. But it was still a great display: I love these unusual architectural jewellery pieces by Mariko Sumioka.
I also loved the playfulness of the inverted handle jug & the comfy/sexy
rose chair along with beautiful sculptural paper lights by Issey Miyake.
"We find beauty not in the thing itself but in the patterns of shadows, the light and the darkness, that one thing against another creates...Were it not for shadows, there would be no beauty" - Junichiro Tanizaki
& Silhouette Cameos by Tore Svensson (photo from Tore Svensson)
There was also beautiful black jewellery in their 'Black on Black' jewellery exhibition. Black used to be saved to be worn while in mourning, while now these contemporary makers limited palette allows them to focus on blacks melancholic & sinister properties to make beautiful meaningful works focusing on touch & nature, Lore Langendries uses Springbuck hide & leather to make tactile hairy brooches. While Tore Svensson remakes Victorian cameo brooches into ghostly silhouettes full of character.
As it's nearly Chinese New Year there was lots of Chinese Lanterns hanging in the trees looking beautifully festive in the bare trees against the grey winter sky.