seeseeseeandthink

in London for the a.n Christmas party https://www.a-n.co.uk/news - great fun with lovely committed people from all over the country.  Who knew Elton John has such poor taste? I've been looking forward to see his collection of photos at Tate Modern as they are some of the images that have inspired and informed my thinking - but the choice of framing and the frames themselves somehow managed to diminish and overwhelm the images, this with the hang, where tiny images are above head height means that you actually cannot physically see some of the work - my advice get the catalogue and really see the work, it makes you realise the skill of galleries, what they do when showing work. meanwhile http://www.carrollfletcher.com/ has an excellent group show - Looking at one thing and thinking of something else. Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's Tape Recordings is great fun, I love the work of Manfred Mohr so it was good to see it again but Between Simonetta is an outstanding technical feat morphing two images into each other - sort of! http://www.frithstreetgallery.com/shows/current has a series of stunning photographs of bundles of documents within folded cloth by Dayanita Singh. http://www.mariangoodman.com/ has a very eclectic show called  Animality. it's a great show to get loads of inspiration around animals and their behaviour, for me stand out pieces are the octopus film and the joke/representation of the eye of the needle quote upstairs! A highlight of the day was The infinite mix http://www.theinfinitemix.com/ the whole experience is awesome - incredible work in a great space - it's difficult to pick out highlights because they all had excellent moments but the trees in Cyprien Gaillard's Nightlife have a bewildering sense of otherness, taking on animal forms. the whole experience is a joy go and see otherwise you will feel that you have missed out! Popped into The Museum of London to check out their 'modern' displays - they have some excellent objects and some stunning imagery of London making sense of itself and often in the process poor people appear to come off badly! At the wonderful Toynbee Studios http://www.artsadmin.co.uk/toynbee-studios saw The People Show perform http://www.peopleshow.co.uk/ a poignant comment on the 60s and their work over the past 50 years. As ever with their work it takes you on a journey to a place you didn't know existed but when you get there it makes a kind of sense. Truly marvellous. If you want a fabulous experience I recommend getting a tube to Greenwich and then biking along the Thames path from Greenwich to Tate Modern. You can pick up a bike at a Docking station just after you come out of the tunnel on the North Bank at Greenwich - an experience in itself. The whole of London is laid out in front of you and at the same time moving through it you get a real sense of change. I can remember working with Four Corners filming the building works pre Canary Wharf (yes it hasn't always existed) and being tufted off the road by heavy security guards whilst being informed that the road was owned by Docklands Development Corporation and we had no rights to be on what was the 'public highway'.

coveredbutexhibited

Well Gravity http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1454468/is all that you would want from a film - it really is most excellent and I recommend everybody to see it. From the extraordinary ‘special effects’ (so special that the film could be a documentary)! - to the range of emotions that Sarah Bullock conveys – all wrapped up in 90 minutes of suspended belief. Meanwhile Alpha Papa http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0469021/?ref_=nv_sr_1 mines a particular version of embarrassed bitter humour that had me cringing with knowing laughter – in a good way. Elizabeth 1^st and Her people - the show at the National Portrait Gallery http://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/elizabethi/exhibition.php is stunning. A spectacular show with some real gems from the dynamic portraits (the representation of cloth and costumes is all subsuming) to the actual artefacts – one cannot help being moved by the tiny knitted glove.

We held the group MA Book Art Camberwell dissertation tutorials on the 4^th floor of the Festival Hall. Teaching doesn’t get much better with the added spectacle of the view of north side of the Thames. Afterwards we visited Annely Juda who have a show by Suzanne Treister - http://www.annelyjudafineart.co.uk/artists/treister/treister.htm In The Name Of Art a dense and layered show which requires a nuanced knowledge of 20^th century art history, a working understanding of recent cultural cold war history and a newspaper to fully understand the work (it is supplied). Moving on to the beautiful Frith Street Gallery http://www.frithstreetgallery.com/shows/ which has a body of work by Anna Barriball. The pieces work with the space as they both have a sense of being in the process of becoming.  

While working on the MA Design and the Book at the Minories I popped into the show at Firstsite which has a retrospective of Agnes Denes http://www.firstsite.uk.net/page/agnes-denes. There are some very delicate drawings which are underpinned by smart thinking around philosophical, environmental and sexual politics. The show at the Minories, Mr Eighty http://www.colchester.ac.uk/art/minories/event/mr-eighty has an intriguing range of works, my favourite is the piece created from 4 pins and sellotape – the catalogue description – ‘The edges of the works are reduced to such an extreme that they seem to question their own existence.’ Is a great starting point to thinking about the work.

An image of porta-cabins covered in the image of a building and a collection of velvet ropes behind the scenes at the National Portrait Gallery.