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We had a great time in London. One of the highlights was the Lucia Fraud at the National Portrait Gallery. I cannot remember ever being in a gallery with so many other people, it was packed! It was so busy that people frequently walked in front of you as you looked at the pictures. The space the work was hung in was quite small so this happened a lot. I was really glad that the ‘Benefits Supervisor Sleeping’ was in the exhibition, a really great painting and one of a series of four that were painted at about the same time ( I thought it was on its own). The other painting that really caught my eye was ‘Leigh Bowery (Seated). A very powerful image. On the audio guide everyone interviewed commented about how slowly Fraud worked. Getting close to the painting the brushwork is very direct and bold, full of texture and in parts the paint is built up to significant thickness and daubed on. I would have thought that such a direct way of working could have been a quick way of painting, like VG. There is a portrait of David Hockney which I really enjoyed as well. He is wearing glasses just like mine!
The tour around the Houses of Parliament was very interesting our guide was very amusing. Airport security to get in including a mug shot on your ID badge. We were taken through both the debating chambers, strictly no sitting, although I did stand right in front of the dispatch box the scene of so much action over the years.
I love visiting the Imperial War Museum, ‘Big Beautiful Doll’ in all its glory. We went to see the Don McCullan ‘Shaped by War’. I had seen many of the photographs before, a lot are in ‘Sleeping with Ghosts’. But in that setting hand printed by the man himself they had a power and impact that was truly impressive. The most powerful image for me was the shell shocked marine grasping his gun.
We went out to Stratford to see the Olympic stadium, the view from the third floor of John Lewis was very good but you don’t get a sense of how large the stadiums are. I had to see the Anish Kapoor, you can see it for miles.
The Design Museum had a Jasper Conran Habitat exhibition. Its really strange looking at chairs that your parent bought and you sat in as a kid. The paper bags that you took things home in and then threw away. How many of the wooden spoons in the kitchen draw came originally from Habitat? There was a very interesting outside show outside on the viewing balcony about how people go to the toilet, to use their words ‘shit’. When you think about it very few people out of the worlds total population can afford the drinking water we use to flush away our business. There are some very cleaver ideas and a great section about how the people of Christchurch dealt with the issues caused by the drains of being broken after the earthquake. You have to see it yourself to really get the idea, displayed in blue shanty type huts.
I love the British Museum just walking into the place and looking up is a thrill. Jack and I went to see the head which I photographed very carefully. I touched on the audio trail from the BBC series about the ‘100 Objects’, I managed three. I was very taken with the bark shield that was carried by the first aboriginal that Captain Cook came across, it has a hole in the front of it. The label said it was a spear thrust hole. It looked suspiciously like a bullet hole to me. I will take a trip to the BM in September and use the 100 objects as an investigation trail. Ready made final Major Project.
Overall a great time and good to recharge ones cultural batteries.
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