Bit of Damien Hirst...

I extended the last Bank Holiday weekend of the summer and went to see the Damien Hirst exhibition before it finished. I always think of Eryn when I think of DH (not that I think of DH much to be honest!) - but years ago we saw his  Mother & Child (separated) - essentially a cow and her calf, cut in half and in formeldyhyde. Not one for the veges that one...

So there were certainly pieces in this retrospective that he wouldn't have liked! A Thousand Years may have tested his limits somewhat... I loved the butterfly works, and was affected by Black Sun a lot as well - that was a lot of flies...

Great exhibition though - really pleased I made the time to go see it. And not seeing it on a weekend was a bonus as well as it wasn't too busy.

Cracking exhibitions!

So today, in an effort to do more with my Bank Holiday than sit around and try to make a BIG decision, I decided to go into town and go and see something. I ended up going to two that weren't on my list of ones I wanted to see, but I'm so pleased I went - they were both great!

I chose 'Joy in People' as I just loved the name, and the banner image for it. That was also twinned with 'I am Dead' which I'd also noticed the adverts for - hard not to :-).

I thought 'Joy in People' was just great. Jeremy Deller's approach (certainly early on) was to create art that people wouldn't necessarily see as art, or things which wouldn't last. He staged an 'installation' in his bedroom while still living at home - he charged people to go in when his parents were away... There was a great short film where he talked about his work, and different projects he had done, and I could have watched all of the film 'The Battle of Orgreave' - but I was starving and my blood sugar was getting low. Hard to describe this exhibition, but I did come away with an idea of the 'Joy of People'. Loved it.

Fortunately 'I'm Dead' was a lot smaller than JIP. And David Shrigley's work sat very well as a combined ticket with Jeremy Deller's. Very funny, very clever.

They both finish next weekend, and when I left the gallery (about 3pm having got there about midday) the queue for tickets was out the door and around the corner - so I'm pleased I got in early!

Norman Rockwell

Saturday was a lovely spring day (as opposed to Scotland where it is still snowing!) and Jackie, Nicola and me headed off to Dulwich to visit the Dulwich Picture Gallery to check out the Norman Rockwell exhibition. We lunched first at the Crown & Greyhound - very nice 'fush & chups' with tasty minted peas :-).

The exhibition really very good - great history of America in lots of ways, and interesting to see some of the real paintings next to all of the covers as well. Lots of Dulwich is rather nice, so we had a nice time strolling around the streets admiring some of the beautiful houses. When I win the lottery I might move to Dulwich... :-)

Quality 'culcha'

Nice day spent seeing two very good cultural things...

First up was The Glasgow Boys at the Royal Academy with Nicola - very good and some great paintings. Very busy tho - but that does come of going the weekend before the exhibition ends...

Next up was The King's Speech with Jackie. Brilliant film - it has to be a shoe-in for an Oscar for Colin Firth, and Geoffrey Rush is also very good. Would absolutely recommend it - a fascinating story. I remember Mum talking about the abdication and how upset Nana was - that period has featured a lot in things I've seen recently so I might read a bit more about it.

Don't miss it!

Henry Moore and a glass of wine

Met Nicola quite late on Saturday and we headed off to Tate Britain to go to the new Henry Moore show that has just opened. Quite unusual for me to get to an exhibition so early on - I'm usually seeing it right at the end!

It was very good - although I think I preferred seeing his sculptures at Kew Gardens. But still definitely worth seeing - and he really did seem to have a thing with a certain part of the female anatomy...

Afterwards we went for a drink at the Arch Duke - nice wee winebar very close to Waterloo. Turned into more than one, but it was a lovely way to end the outing!

A wee round up...

Not been enormously busy lately as I've been settling back into the groove of work - aligned with the fact that January is always a quiet month as we get paid earlier in December so that December pay has to stretch out a looonnngg way...

But I did go and see Moctezuma at the British Library a couple of weeks ago. Not sure if that link will work or not as it finishes today so they may move the page... Very good exhibition tho - in the same theme as the Hadrian one I went to - didn't paint the Spanish in a very good light - although I guess they were fairly typical of any conquering sort of nation. Also interesting to see the 'name glyphs' they used, as opposed to the 'hieroglyphs' the Egyptians used...

Also went to see Up In The Air last week - the new George Clooney movie. I didn't know much about it so was expecting a rom com. Doesn't quite fall into that category it has to be said... Enjoyed it tho - wasn't expecting the ending at all.

Fantastic Pop Life

Continuing to make the most of my time off between Xmas and New Year, after meeting Craig for lunch at the very delicious Pacific Oriental I headed off to the Tate Modern to check out the Pop Life exhibition. Interesting to read the reviews of the restaurant - it was fine for us, although the chairs weren't that comfortable. I did notice the big screen up on the wall, but nothing was showing when we were there fortunately.

Pop Life was great. I got an audio guide, which now comes on an iTouch so I had fun using that as well. Has made me want an iTouch/iPhone even more, but being fiscally responsible, that ain't going to happen sadly. Really enjoyed the exhibition - interesting to see how the featured artists have used business and commerce - and the three R18 rooms were definitely very explicit!

Arty last day of the year...

I spent a lovely afternoon on the last day of 2008 with Nicola. We started off with lunch at a restaurant en-route to the Tate, then we went to see the Rothko exhibition.

Nicola was horrified that I had never been to the Rothko room at the Tate (I had never even heard of Rothko until a few months ago when Tracey texted me to ask if I had seen his work at the Tate...) so I suspect she may be taking a more firmer hand in my art education going forward! Before we went to the exhibition she joined the Tate as a member + 1, so I didn't have to pay to get in either which was a real bonus!

The show was really good - I wasn't too keen on his black pieces, but some of the others were just amazing. And there were a lot more than you usually see in the Rothko room (according to Nicola) so it was definitely worth going. And afterwards we went to the Members Room and enjoyed a very nice glass of mulled wine :-).

Cold War Modern

I took myself off to this exhibition on Monday - it was a bit of a marathon effort to get there as there were problems on the trains, but I've got a list of things to get done before I go back to work on the 5th so I persevered!

As I was by myself I got an audio guide as well - it was the first time I used my Art Fund membership (which gives me half price entrance to loads of different galleries and exhibitions) so I was quite pleased to start to save money immediately.

It was a really interesting exhibition, although by the end of the 7th room I was flagging somewhat it has to be said... The first half was fascinating - seeing how the East and West were competing each other through their designs as well - and how much that influenced the stuff that we still use today. When it got more in to the art and the paintings at the end it wasn't quite as interesting for me.

Well worth the effort though!

Actually this time I haven't been doing much...

Which is why I haven't blogged recently. Although then I looked at my phone and found some photos I'd taken and thought there probably is stuff I could be talking about...

I went to the Tate Modern a couple of weeks ago to get Tracey's birthday present (see I couldn't have mentioned that until I knew she had got her parcel...) where I had a great time wandering around the latest exhibition in the Turbine Hall - TH-2058. Read the essay on the Tate site - best way to understand it. Very cool though. I liked the apple core but the skeleton was a bit scary for me...

Apple core

Apple core
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

TH-2058 at the Tate Modern

Powerful photos

I went to see the 'Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer's Life' exhibition today with Nicola and her friend Sarah.

It was a great show - I'm a fan of Annie Liebovitz anyhow as she is often in Vanity Fair, but what I loved about it was that it had some of her family snaps and photos of her partner Susan Sontag as well.

She had a series of photos of Susan Sontag when she was ill with cancer, and also of her father when he was very ill taken just before he passed away. I could look at the Sontag photos but not at the ones of her father - I just had to walk away. Very powerful and really quite emotional.

Hadrian - Empire and Conflict

I went to this exhibition tonight after work with a friend from work - "the other Megan" - although technically that should be "the other Meagen" as we have different spellings...

We'd been talking about going to this for a few weeks, both of us thinking it was on until the New Year, until we realised it finished on Sunday... so it was a Friday night outing for us. It did feel strange going to an exhibition on a Friday night and I have to admit at 5pm on Friday it was the last thing I felt like doing.

But it was great! Really interesting, and fascinating to see some of the statues etc they had. An enormous head of Hadrian at the start in particular - only unearthed in January 2007 - quite something to see photos of them finding it in the ground, and then to see it in front of you. Made me realise the appeal of archaeology!

He was an interesting character, and the exhibition was done very well - although it was mainly comprised of a lot of statues of him, it actually told the story of his life very well, and didn't feel dry or dull at all. But it was BUSY - even on a Friday night we were often 3 or 4 people deep trying to read about the exhibits. Still - it was worth it. So now I understand a bit more about Hadrian's Wall (which I went to many years ago with my friend Kathryn), and also the Pantheon. He got about did Hadrian!

And as according to Wikipedia Adrian comes from Hadrian there was even a family connection as well!

Tate and a mate

Well two mates really.

I met up with the 'newlyweds' David and Dominic on Saturday afternoon and we headed off to the Tate Modern to see the Street & Studio: An Urban History of Photography exhibition (which I think Leigh and Maurie went to when they were here as well).

The exhibition was great - there was a fantastic set of video clips at the end of teenagers in a club in Liverpool - very funny, and very telling. And a couple of truly outstanding shellsuits on the boys... We then went and had cake and coffee which rounded the afternoon off perfectly.

It was great to see the two D's (as I've taken to calling them), and see their photos from the honeymoon in Greece - it is absolutely on my list to visit next year...

Psycho Buildings!

Great title huh? Also the name of the latest exhibition I went to see on Friday with Nicola. We started off with a glass of wine at the Concrete Bar - as it was 2 for 1 it would have been criminal not to really... Plus it was Friday evening and I think we were both in dire need of a glass - well I certainly was given the week I'd had!!

It was really interesting - and a lot of the exhibits you wondered how exactly they have managed to get that set up inside! Or outside even - particularly the boating lake on the roof of the exhibition. We didn't go into the row boats - the queue was huge, and despite the fact that it is the middle of August it was also quite cold outside! But we did go out and have a look, and thanks to Nicola's prompting I took a couple of snaps on my phone to give you an idea of what it looked like.

Another interesting piece was the Observatory, Air-Port-City, 2008 which is essentially a big orb with a top level. You can either stay and observe from the bottom, or go into a lucky dip to go on to the top level. We didn't bother with the lucky dip, but did quite enjoy lying around and watching people manage to navigate themselves around - especially the women who were wearing skirts... To enter it you had to go through an airlock door to maintain the pressure.

I really liked Fallen Star by Do Ho Suh (a scale model of his home from Korea crashing into an American house), and Place by Rachel Whiteread - a collection of dolls houses lit up. Both very cool. These pictures from the Guardian will also give you a good idea of the exhibition.

Normally, Proceeding and Unrestricted With Without Title (2008)

Normally, Proceeding and Unrestricted With Without Title (2008)
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

No I don't get the title either... but this gives you an idea of what it looked like! The water is about 0.9m deep I think. I was stood on a very wobbly 'jetty' to take this!

Tut Tut Tut

Tracey and I went to this after work - which was great. And not busy at all. Friends of mine had been during the weekend and apparently it was heaving, but Tracey and I got to wander around almost by ourselves.

Some quite amazing artefacts - lots of gold! Quite a lot of it which he would have worn in life as well which is just sort of mind blowing really...

Fantastic Peter Doig

So on Sunday I toddled off to see the Peter Doig exhibition with Mhairi and Nicola - as usual just squeaking in before it closes...

Absolutely loved it! Very supernatural quality to a lot of his paintings - I found them really eerie and quite scary some of them. Was sorely tempted to buy the catalogue (which is unusual for me), but I'll wait until I've been paid and go back and get it when I can afford it!

But just stunning paintings - and obviously appealed to the horror fan in me :-).

A few snaps...

Yesterday Nicola and I went to see the Vanity Fair exhibition on at the National Portrait Gallery - which was great. I quite often buy the mag so it was interesting to see some of the photos 'in the flesh' as it were.

After that we lunched then wandered around many shops - and Nicola showed me some really rather cool streets off the beaten track which I'd never found before. But it was rainy and cold and busy so our enthusiasm for shopping diminished as the day went on...

Henry Moore at Kew Gardens

Last Monday Julia and I went to Kew to see the Henry Moore sculptures which have been on display at Kew since September but which finished yesterday.

It was a freezing day, and in between the snow and sleet showers we wandered around and looked at the sculptures which I thought were fantastic. I did wish I had managed to go on a sunny day as I think they would have looked even better in brilliant sunshine.

But they still took my breath away - a couple of snaps here, and more in my Flickr account...