Modern Surprise?

New York

Well, at least the lamp is straight in this one, but I look like a deer caught in the headlights and that shirt just has to go! The one below has a yellowish color cast to it and we’re the wrong size compared to the one above. Nothing yet ready to add to Modern Romance.

Shaping Glass

James Hockey Gallery, UCA, Farnham

As part of October Craft Month (Farnham is a World Craft Town) UCA hosted the Shaping Glass exhibition in the James Hockey Gallery in October, which I was lucky enough to see a little before it opened. Below are some quick snaps I took in the gallery.

La Tour

La Tour, Luma, Arles, France

The heart of Luma is Gehry’s La Tour (the Tower). An interesting structure on the outside, it boasts more entertainments and interest on the inside. It was here that I saw Joel Coen’s curation of Lee Friedlander’s work. The images below are all interior shots (click on them to enlarge).

Warsaw Rising

Warsaw Rising (Museum), Poland

We visited a museum dedicated to the Warsaw Rising of 1944 (not to be confused with the Warsaw Ghetto uprising of 1943, when the segregated Jews revolted). In this case, as the Germans retreated westward and the Russians advanced from the East, the people of Warsaw rose up. As usual, rather than photograph the objects in the museum, I focused my camera on the space and, of course, found a reflection of myself to photograph as well.

Green Room

Whitechapel Gallery, London

Disappointingly, the “free” Whitechapel Gallery wanted £12.50 for the Zineb Sedira exhibit we’d gone to see and there was not too much else (although the Andrew Pierre Hart was interesting). But there are always interesting spaces in galleries and museums. Watch this space for more.

Barbara Kruger

Serpentine Gallery, London

Our next stop was the Serpentine Gallery for the Barbara Kruger show, Thinking of You. I Mean Me. I Mean You, which I had previously seen at the Art Institute of Chicago in 2021 (and here, and here). While this exhibit was necessarily much smaller than in Chicago it had also been greatly updated and made more use of video and LEDs (see a few shots below, click them to enlarge).

Text

Gagosian Gallery, London

Our school trip to London galleries followed the Photographer’s Gallery with a visit to Gagosian to see the exhibition of Douglas Gordon: All I need is a little bit of everything. See additional images below (and click on them to enlarge).

Royal Institute of British Architects, London

Next stop on our gallery tour was the Royal Institute of British Architects in Portland Place. We’d been hoping to see the photography exhibit, Wide Angle View but it was closed and we contented ourselves with an exhibition of student projects and a library project on the difficulties faced by women architects in the largely male world of architecture.

Cryptography

​​Antony Gormley sculpture

This mysterious life-size statue of a man contemplating the water held in his cupped hands is the work of the celebrated British sculptor Antony Gormley. Sound II, fashioned from lead out of a plaster cast of the artist’s own body, is in the Cathedral Crypt.