Wonder Woman

Had a bit of an art week last week. Before walking the camera last Monday, I checked out William Blake at Tate Britain (not my cup of tea at all, but I’m now all for getting educated and embracing what I don’t know - and I did find some of it very interesting). Then on Thursday, I somehow managed six exhibitions, after an 7.30am outdoor swim, and before a two hour Dutch evening lesson (and yes, I was fried when I got home). I didn't have my usual camera with me, and just before the battery died, I managed to take these pictures at the Ruth Asawa exhibition at the David Zwirner gallery. I had never heard of her before, but after having read a glowing review in the paper the weekend before, I though I should go check her out. I was not disappointed. Asawa was an incredible woman, mother, artist, and human, and her intricate wire sculptures are pure magic, as you can see here. There’s a half hour long documentary about her on Amazon Prime called Ruth Asawa: Of Forms and Growth, which I highly recommend, and here’s a five minute excerpt on YouTube that gives you a little taster. She made art in different mediums over fifty years, had six children and set up art workshops for children all over California in the 1970’s, amongst other things. What an inspiring woman! In an interview given in her 70s, she offered some advice: “It’s important to learn how to use your small bits of time, your five minutes, your ten minutes. All those begin to count up...Don’t wait until your children are grown, until your husband is retired... Learn how to use your snatches of time when they are given to you.” She certainly packed a lot into her life, and I find it serendipitous that I’ve found out about her just now, when I am myself experimenting with time, and how to be more effective with it. If you’re in London, do yourself a favour and go look at her amazing art. The exhibition closes on the 22nd of Feb. There’s also another show opening at Modern Art Oxford over the summer, and I for one am making sure I won’t miss it.

An arty November Sunday

Let’s continue with back tracking through my 2019, shall we? On a Sunday back in November, we went with a couple of friends to see the Antony Gormley exhibition at the Royal Academy. I’m lucky enough to be able to go to exhibitions on weekdays when it’s less busy, but we this time we went on what must be the busiest day in the week. It was actually quite nice to feel more collectively that we were sharing an experience with a lot of people at the same time.

Our friend’s daughter mimicked the statues throughout the exhibition which made us chuckle.

Most of the rooms were so busy that you had to simply walk behind each other in a circle to have a look at whatever was in the middle, like some sort of circle dance.

I have no idea how they managed to fix most of the art works into the spaces without wrecking the place, and I must say I enjoyed the contrast between his modern sculptures placed within the very classical Royal Academy.

Here we had to squeeze our way through, walking around the perimeter of it, in a neat little line.

This room could only be seen though a door opening, the whole floor was filled with water. Would have been fun if you could wade your way through it :)

We couldn’t figure out how they’d installed these thin metal rods that would span across four rooms or so, without them bending at all. So much of Gormley’s stuff makes you wonder “What the?! How the?!”.

I think this was hand drawn with chalk. Made your eyes hurt.

My favourite parts of the exhibition were his early watercolour work, as well as his notebooks. If I was to steal one thing from the show it would have been this last rusty coloured painting. Ha - just realised that it’s yet another painting with someone facing away, and here in silhouette, which reminds me a lot of a certain someone’s photographs… hmmmm.