Last dose of culture for the year

Weekend before last, me and my pal D went to the V&A for a dose of culture. Seeing as London is going into tier 3 this week (all indoor social venues will shut again) it was a good call, as in the in-between periods of various levels of lockdown and social distancing rules I’ve been making sure that I’ve kept myself topped up on the places that bring me the most joy. We started with lunch in the courtyard (stunning, isn’t it?) and felt like we were somewhere in Italy. A very cold Italy.

As we were sitting there I saw a guy take a picture of himself with a self-timer, which made me remember my favourite button on the camera. I placed it on a table and ran back for this shot, and we came to the conclusion that from now on I shall always take a self-timer pic of myself whenever I bring the camera somewhere, as I barely exist in pictures.

The V&A is my favourite museum in London; I’ve gone there so many times in the past 28 years, and I still haven’t seen everything. I do feel I’m getting close though, and it’ll be so weird when that happens, but I’ll keep on going, and besides, my interests will keep changing so different parts of the museum will appeal. D took me to the Cast Courts, which I’ve somehow missed in the past, and this is a cast of Trajan’s Column in Rome. It was way too high to show in one piece, but the room was still built high enough so it could be shown in two halves.

Making casts of famous world artefacts was a way to show non-travelling Victorians art and sculptures from around the globe, which is kind of ironically apt for these times we live in too. Like I said, sitting in the courtyard made us feel a million miles away from London, so seeing these golden doors and other casts must have been a wonderful window into what else was out there in the late 1880’s.

Hiya Dave! You alright? I doubt I’ll ever go to Florence so looking at this cast model of Michelangelo’s David is probably the nearest I’ll get to it. I never knew the proportions were so all over the place.

This cast of the baby Jesus (although I would argue that his face is very un-baby like here - look closely and you’ll see what I mean) being kissed on the foot by one of the three wise men made us giggle. The beard makes it look like he’s about to take a huge bite out of little fella’s foot. Actually, maybe he already got the right hand? Nom nom.

I can’t remember where these heads were salvaged from, but they were modelled on the carvers themselves, their friends and family. So cool to think their faces are still here, hundreds and hundreds of years later.

This carving was apparently put up as discouragement for stealing back in the day. There are so many brilliant parts to this carving. Brilliant and funny.

There’s a whole section dedicated to iron work, and this gate caught my eye.

As did this miniature carving, not much bigger than a walnut shell. So cool!

The photography section is really great, and I love this collection of old photographs where you can see the shadows of the people taking the pictures.

Mark Cohen’s colour photography from the 1970’s is a total new find for me. This wall of pictures made me sigh and wish that I was more loose with my picture taking again, like I was pre-blogging. My pictures now sometimes feel so boring and functional. I need to fix that. I just watched a short clip of Cohen taking pictures and it horrified me though. So intrusive! You’d get punched in the face if you did that now, but seeing him not looking through the view finder reminded me of my Lomo days in the late ‘90s, and how fun that was. Maybe it’s time I set myself some challenges from this book which I’ve had for years but not used.

Anyway, anyway, anyway. The last room we looked at was the Tapestries Room which is amazing. The walls are covered by huge Dutch tapestries from 1500, and they’re mind blowing. My head hurts just thinking of all the work that went into them. Pressing the button on a camera is easy yo! Blog post title aside I still have a backlog of my cultural highlights of the year (including another V&A visit in September), so at least here on the blog there will be more culture coming for sure. And hopefully some wonky pictures too :)

A trip to the Arctic - kind of

So, we managed one cultural outing during half term a couple of weeks ago when we went to see that Arctic: Culture and Climate exhibition at the British Museum. It was fascinating to learn about how the four million people who live there live and have lived for thousands of years. It’s also depressing to see how their surroundings are changing beyond recognition due to climate change. Their and all of our lives will look very different in the coming decades, but I guess ultimately everything is constantly changing on our planet, and always has done, but the difference now is that we’re to blame. Sigh. Stupid humans! It’s crazy how we can be so clever but also so incredibly ignorant. Anyway… it was quite dark and busy in exhibition (no social distancing but lots of face masks) so I didn’t manage to take many pictures. This map made out of seal skin was amazing. The indigenous people of the Arctic Circle made/make use of every part of animals that they hunted for food, so a seal skin could end up being a map or waterproofs among other things.

It was one of those exhibitions where there was quite a bit to read about every piece, which of course was very good and informative, but I find that if I read too much I then don’t end up looking properly. I should always remember to look first and then read. I have no memory of what this little dude was, but all I know is that he’s very cool.

The bead work on this apron made up of some sort of skin (reindeer? caribou?) was mind-blowing. I wonder how many months it would’ve taken to make.

This jacket made out of caribou fur was also pretty amazing. Love the design. All hand sewn.

There were prints made by artists scattered through the exhibition.

And sculptures out of soap stone.

As well as engravings done on walrus tusks.

I went through the exhibition slower than Oomoo and Mr Famapa, so they were finishing up as I was half-way through. They asked me to guess what Oomoo’s choice was if he could take one thing home with him, and as soon as I saw these masks I knew straight away that these were it.

My take-home would’ve been this soapstone printing block, such a beautiful object, don’t you think? Even with the cracks.

And this is how the print looked from the above block. So cool! If you want find out a bit more you can read more about the Artic here on the British Museum blog. Once a year the World Eskimo-Indian Olympics takes place, where people from the circumpolar areas in the world compete in sporting categories that are designed to preserve cultural practices and traditional survival skills. I found a little clip on youTube from one of them here. Some categories look really painful, others really fun, and some seriously impressive. It was such an interesting exhibition and I’m so grateful we got the chance to go before everything closed up again.

The return

On the day that I was feeling at my lowest a couple of weeks ago, I read that the National Gallery would be opening on the 8th of July, and I didn’t hesitate for one moment in booking a time slot. I texted my friend D to see if she wanted to come along, which she more than did. Gone are the days of just rocking up on the fly when you fancy it; now it’s all about keeping numbers restricted in public places which in turn means nothing is spontaneous anymore. But better something than nothing. So, me and D where there on the first day, donning masks like the majority of all the visitors. The gallery had been shut for 111 days, a record; during WW2 it only closed for TWO DAYS.

There were reminders that things are not what they used to be.

One of the things I’ve enjoyed most about lockdown is that you get to see/do the things you never bothered with BC (before Covid), whether it be walking in a new to you part of the local woods, or down a street you’ve never been down before, or reading that book you’ve been meaning to for years, and finally sitting down with it and turning the first page. There’s now a one-way system in the National Gallery, and only three designated routes (A, B, C) that you can take. We had originally planned to just walk the B route thinking you were allowed only one, but when we were told that you could do all three, as long as you started with A ( you couldn’t walk back on yourself) we decided to start at the beginning. I have ALWAYS ignored the Renaissance galleries in the past. The era just never spoke to me. But now, stuck in a one way system, I had to look at the paintings and they were fascinating and a nice change to the kind of art that I’m into. As always we played the “Which one piece of art would you take home with you?” and this painting from the 1330’s was D’s. We agreed that it would look awesome in her flat.

We then turned around to look at this picture and got the worst giggles. As in tears streaming down our faces, stifling our laughter as it was so quiet (whilst wearing masks - a very very surreal moment that I will always remember). And feeling so bad because of the subject matter. But look at Mary’s face. She is not convinced. We reckon the artist was trying to paint her looking upset, but instead it looks like she thinks Jesus is pulling her leg with a fake wound. That and the fact the she looks a hell of a lot like Putin. Oh boy.

I’m not mad on religious iconography, but the carving, gold paint and the details of this guy’s beard were so great.

This small painting of a bird was my take home piece. I thought it quite symbolic of my lockdown; becoming a bird watcher whilst stuck at home.

Everyone was making sure they were not too close to each other, and the whole experience felt a bit unreal. No one talked loudly, and it almost felt like we were all looking for comfort or answers from the cultural past.

This painting had masked figures in it, referring to the Plague. These guys were the ones collecting the dead, and this is what they looked like back then. Pretty sinister, huh?

And this painting of these two kissing made us feel slightly uncomfortable from a social distancing point of view.

But not as uncomfortable as looking at this beast. I mean… Apparently he was a cross between a bat and snake? Any which way, he’s looks pretty pissed off with whoever that is trampling on him with their fancy shoes.

This room is usually full of tourists and school classes, but alas, they were not there. I hope they can be one day soon, especially school kids, as their worlds have narrowed so much this year.

Once out of the Renaissance rooms and on to route B, we walked through the Dutch and Belgian rooms. Those dudes could paint.

I really liked this lady’s contrasting outfit to what else was going on in this room.

A lucky discovery that day was the Nicolaes Maes exhibition, who was a Dutch former student of Rembrandt’s. His paintings were out of this world. Sadly we had kind of peaked by this point, so I might return one day with fresher eyes, so I can take it all in more.

Moving closer towards the Impressionist room we spotted this tiny painting. I love love love paintings of the mundane everyday. I think I’ve mentioned it here before, but I love the fact that someone took the time to slowly capture something that we all know, and give no attention to whatsoever.

This painting by Claude Monet made me have all the summer feels. It looks so inviting - for that last cool dip on a hot evening before the sun sets. You know what I mean, right?

Ahh, hallo Vincent. Hoe gaat het? Always a treat to look closely at his brush strokes. Kusjes.

This is one of my favourites of all the paintings at the National Gallery. It’s called ‘The Little Country Maid’ and was painted by Camille Pissarro in 1882. Such a beautifully captured little moment. I loves it.

And finally, D, next to some Bridget Riley dots on the way out. It was such a well needed treat to go and feast the eyes on beautiful things made by humans for a change. What an amazing species we are; both so clever and so stupid, so strong and so delicate, such creators and destroyers. Waaaah. Went a bit deep there! Enough already. Have a great weekend and may the sun shine on you wherever you are <3

In Real Life

Hey. How you doing? I’ve been having a few blue days recently, but feel much better now. I felt that I’d lost my footing a bit, and have had a little existential wobble; I think I’m having a delayed reaction to all the crazy shit we as a world have gone through in the past few months. But I’m working on it, and as always, it’s how one reacts to things that matters - you can make it either easier or harder for yourself. I’m missing the things that feed my soul; the cold swimming (which of course is over anyway as it’s SUMMER), taking pictures and looking at art. I also miss having something more concrete to look forward to, and the whole “everything is up in the air” reality is taking it’s toll. So, let’s time travel, and look at some art, yes?

Almost a year ago now, we went to see the Olafur Eliasson’s In Real Life exhibition at Tate Modern. It was one that I knew I could bring Mr Famapa and Oomoo to, knowing that they would enjoy it as well. My friend Z came over from Amsterdam too, and we all enjoyed it immensely. Now you’ll have to forgive me as I don’t remember everything about the exhibition, so I’ll try and explain what’s what the best that I can. This black room had a stream of mist falling to the floor, and with the spotlights shining through it there was a faint rainbow effect. So beautiful.

Aaaahhhhh, this was so cool. There were a couple of these Turner Colour Experiments in the exhibition, where Eliasson had taken out the colours used from certain paintings by J M W Turner, and made digital colour wheels of them. You can read more about them here.

This room had a mirrored ceiling, and half of a black plastic tube circle, which of course became a whole circle with the reflection in the ceiling. Post-lockdown this picture highlights something we took for granted just four months ago - walking around indoors with strangers, and not fearing them and an invisible illness.

Anyway, enough of that crap. It’s getting boring now. SO. This big glass sphere was in the second room as you walked into the exhibition (where they showed Eliasson’s earliest works). It was stuck to the wall, and you could just about make something out by looking into it.

Turns out the sphere was placed in a hole through a wall between two rooms, and that while you were standing on one side trying to figure out what it was all about, everyone on the other side of the wall got to see you looking funny and distorted, and slightly confused.

Genius.

This room was where all cameras and camera phones got whipped out as not only are shadows in general cool, but multiple multicoloured ones even more so.

One huge wall (Moss Wall) in one room was covered in living reindeer lichen which filled the room with a really strong smell. It reminded me of dark December days in Sweden when I was growing up, as we’d count down the advent Sundays leading up to Christmas Eve with an advent candle holder, with the then obligatory white moss and mini mushrooms decorations around the candles.

This kaleidoscopic mirror thingie (I’m pretty sure that’s it’s official name) was lined up in a window with two other shapes. There was a little queue of people taking pictures through it, of course.

Back in the mist room. I came back a second time a few weeks later, and they’d sectioned the “mistfall” off so you couldn’t walk through it anymore, so I’m glad we got to experience it as intended. Or maybe we weren’t even be able to walk through it in the first place?!

Hey Z! You’re taking a picture of me taking a picture of you! Because that’s what we do. This was in a mist room, or more like a fog tunnel, where the fog was so dense that you’d lose each other if you didn’t stick together.

The fog changed colour as you walked through it.

Eliasson made some paintings using glacial ice blocks melting on top of washes of pigment colour, and this is one of the results. A lot of his art highlights the melting of the ice caps, in various ways. It’s kind of weird how we’re all on hyper alert against a virus, when the climate crisis heading our way in just a couple of decades is the real effing deal. You can’t self-isolate or vaccinate your way out of that one. Arghh, there I go again… Sorry!

Now where was I? Oh yes… there was a huge glass box full of Eliasson’s models in the first room of the exhibition. It’s so interesting to see the process through which artists work and feel their way to their finished art works.

In the lifts, and the stairs and corridor of the floor that the exhibition was on, there were lights that referenced back to Eliasson’s huge Turbine Hall installation The Weather Project back in 2003, which still is one of my favourite art experiences ever. The orange light cancels out all other colours, and I remember that I wore a bright red winter coat back then, but that you couldn’t see the red at all. I’m so glad these lights were here so Oomoo could experience being colour blind for a little while too.

And finally, my pal and other other half (the original other half being Mr Famapa of course) Z taking pictures inside a kaleidoscope of sorts that you could walk through. I don’t know how long it will be until there is an exhibition of this scale and type again, but I really look forward to when there will be one to go to. See, something to look forward to after all! One day, y’all, one day.