January 15

The E. End Galleries were somewhat anticlimactic. In the first gallery, the only thing that really caught my attention was the brick wall with the pissing boy on it... It reminded me of home and all the stickers of him I find on the road. But other than that... I really did enjoy "From Here to Eternity" by Oliver Pietsch... At first, anyway. I liked that that section of the movie showed clips dead people and living animals being brought together in some way, bridging the gap between life and death. The music was very amusing and light hearted in contrast to the dark, morbid imagery. Once the film moved onto the hell parts, I felt less drawn to it, but sill wanted to watch it to the end. If anyone finds it online, please let me know! I'll be looking for it once we get back home.

For the most part, our experience in the east end was a frustrating one. Most of the galleries were closed and my back was beginning to flare up at some point and I had forgotten my Motrin at the flat... So we visited a couple more galleries before heading back. The last one we went to was the White Cube featuring Rachel Kneebone's work. I found it interesting that her works looked so fragile and beautiful from afar or at first glance, but once we got up close, we saw clearly the graphic, macabre, sometimes violent content. I've noticed that in a lot of contemporary artists' work, they attempt to bridge the gap between the beautiful or sensuous with the grotesque. I'd like to write my paper about something along those lines..

January 14

I had an overall slow day and sadly have very little to report. I think sleepiness is finally getting the best of me again, along with the overload of all the galleries and museums we've been visiting, all the walking we've been doing, etc [not to sound whiny, of course]. The Thames River Cruise didn't quite excite me as much as it could have. I guess having seen all the sights already had something to do with my lack of enthusiasm. I just enjoyed that we didn't have to walk and that the rocking of the boat was calming. Getting to the National Portrait Gallery afterwards was kind of hectic. Travelling from Greenwich made us all very grumpy especially after the Oyster card machines kept spazzing on us and then finding out that we didn't have to refill our cards after all. The National Portrait Gallery was kind of a drag as well, although I really enjoyed the contemporary artists' work. Julian Opie did a portrait of the band Blur, which came out looking like really cute vector art. Another portrait that really stood out to me was Jason Brooks' portrait of Sir Paul Nurse. From afar, it looked like a photograph, but looking up close, I was able to see the brush strokes. It's so amazing how much detail went into that painting!

January 12

The Tower of London was spectacular! This was definitely another hightlight for me. There were picture opportunities everywhere, even in the corners, crevices, etc. The architecture is absolutely stunning. I couldn't get over it when I first got there. One thing in particular that I found strange and awesome all at once was the man acting as a guard outside one of the buildings. He marched back and forth with his gun, looking all official and powerful. There was another re-enactment that I stepped in on in one of the buildings; two women were sitting having a conversation about whether or not they get bored during their royal duties. I also got to walk through the weapons display, which I thought was really cool... Something my brother would have definitely loved.

January 11

The British Museum was a breath of fresh air after the previous two days. Being able to explore at our own pace was pretty pleasant. The first thing we found was the Rosetta Stone, which was much larger than I had expected it to be. It was such an incredible sight to behold, something I wasn't expecting at all. The lettering and even the stone itself are both just... beautiful. The Elgin marbles weren't quite as impressive nor awe-inspiring, though I did find the information on the blue dye very interesting. I personally prefer the sculptures unpainted.

I really enjoyed the drawing exhibit. There were a lot of black-on-white abstract drawings that I was very aesthetically drawn to, such as Mehretu and Franz Kline's drawings. I also liked Matisse's figure drawings; they were simple but many times depicted a real woman's body as opposed to an idealized body [something that I had a heavy discussion about with the guard that was monitoring the exhibit :)]. One of my favourite drawings was Kentridge's "Arc Procession 9", which was composed primarily of straight lines, colour, and more lines. The text next to the drawing quoted him: "I believe that in the indeterminacy of drawing, the contingent way that images arrive in this work, lies some kind of model of how we live our lives. The activity of drawing is a way of trying to understand who we are or how we operate in the world. It is in the strangeness of the activity itself that can be detected judgement, ethics, and morality."

January 10

So I originally said the National Gallery was overwhelming, but I was obviously lying because the V&A was even more overwhelming. I definitely really enjoyed my experience there, but by the end of our visit, I felt as though my eyes and brain were short-circuiting.

I thought that the tour Adamson took us on was enjoyable. I liked that he was so opinionated about everything, even if we were just talking about certain installations and displays. The question I wanted to ask him, and felt too foolish to, was "What was the first work that provoked such a strong, opinionated response from you?" just because I loved his blunt subjectiveness and was curious as to how it all started.

The V&A trip kind of came and went in a blur, but I definitely remember the Cast Room and how awesome it was. The scale of everything was too much to fathom. At some point I remember just sitting and taking it all in. There was nothing else to really do. I'm really glad they did a cast of David... That made me really happy.

The Shadow Catchers exhibit was one of my favourite out of the exhibits we've been to so far. The images produced by cameraless photography methods are stunning. I especially loved Neususs' work [especially the silhouettes he did, such as his witty Be Right Back] and Derges' work. Both artists had a very dreamlike quality to their work, which I really loved, however they both achieved it in different ways: Neususs' silhouettes felt like shades of memories while Derges' images either told a story or created a fantastical landscape.

I really enjoyed Black Watch. Although it was a bit hard to follow, I was able to get the gist of what was going on. I thought the soundtrack was amazing, as was the acting. I even enjoyed the repetitive physically intensive scenes, such as the river dancing and the choreographed fights between the soldiers. I liked that the loud sounds kept me awake so I was able to watch awake and alert. I think that the simple layout of the stage that cut the audience in half was extremely affective in terms of intimacy with the audience as well as the overall execution of the play. It was overall very enjoyable :)

January 9

Today I found a pigeon missing a toe. I named him Tony.

We went to the National Gallery today and I felt a little overwhelmed; there were SO many people and it got a little difficult to move around and look at each individual work... and breathe... but we made it a point to find The Ambassadors by Holbein. For some reason I had assumed it was bigger than it actually is, but it's still pretty massive. I'm glad I got to see it at an angle so I could see the skull unskewed because I had only seen it in class from the projector, but I was still a little too short to see it perfectly. Another painting I got to see at the gallery that I had seen in class was Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump by Wright. Seeing it in person and up close was pretty amazing until I remembered what my professor said about paintings done during the Enlightenment: females are depicted as extremely emotional and scared whereas the males are depicted as the ones actually being enlightened.

Another painting that I found amazing was Guercino's The Angel appearing to Hagar and Ishmael. I loved how he was able to capture the sorrow on Hagar's face and how the emotion being depicted pulled me into the painting due to the fact that sorrow is a very relatable emotion.

In contrast, I felt very underwhelmed at the ICA. The only thing that really caught my eye was the blaring video in the first room of the gallery: Cut by Kristian de la Riva... Although I liked it for a completely infantile reason: I thought it was funny. I'm not sure exactly why, since masochism is always something I adamantly oppose, but... I can't quite place it, but I was delighted by that video. Maybe it was delirium.

As for the Fourth Plinth and how I feel about the more recent winners for next year and the following year's display: I kind of like the idea of the "giant cock." I think the concept is very clever, supposedly symbolising a mix of male posturing, regeneration, awakening, and strength. Aesthetically, however, I think I prefer the child on the rocking horse.

I'm not exactly sure what else I'd put up there. Perhaps a sculpture depicting the horrors of war. Maybe make it really sappy and overly romantic, depicting a soldier dying in his loved one's arms. Maybe I'd put an Alexander Hoda sculpture on display-- his sculptures are able to merge the grotesque and macabre with the sensual and mesmerising, like war. I'm not saying that war is sensual or mesmerising to me, but it does seem to infatuate a lot of people [like my little brother].

Day 4

I absolutely loved the tour of Westminster Abbey. It's such a beautiful and sad building with so much history. I really loved was the story of The Unknown Soldier and the idea that whoever's buiried in Westminster Abbey represents all the soliders that died in World War 1. I found it very sweet, sad, and romantic in a sense, though I'm not completely sure why.
I really enjoyed seeing the Latin written on the tombs, such as "Veni Domine Iesv veni cito" [Come Lord Jesus come quickly]. I also saw a lot of depictions of animals, my favorite being the porcupine which was the symbol of a sweet family that was not to be messed with. Unfortunately, I don't remember which family it was.
I thought our tour guide was hilarious and told us some of the best stories, like the origin of the hand sign for "fuck you" [French soldiers used to cut off the first two fingers of an English bowman, so the bowmen liked to present their first two fingers to boast to the Frenchmen that they hadn't caught them yet.]
I really enjoyed the Muybridge exhibit. I found it interesting how he's so well known for his motion series' that people forget that he's done extraordinary, beautiful landscapes and that he's slaved over panoramas. I didn't realize that he used elements from photos to manipulate other photos; if I had known, I would have paid more attention to the details in each individual photograph. One photo I really loved was Ruins of a Church, Antigua. It's such a beautiful picture that really demonstrates what darkening an image can do to a photo: in this case, it brought out the building's dark side and gave it a gloomy overtone.
I appreciated Rachel Whiteread's work as well. I found her sketches especially to be very beautiful and just aestetically pleasing. Her Lid and Hole made me stop and stare for a long time. I really liked how she added the black paint to the simple ink sketching to create depth. Water Tower caught my eye as well. At first I thought it was a painting, then I realized that she took a picture and used ink to manipulate it, or something along those lines. I loved her postcard studies, which were simply and playfully manipulated.
Although I really enjoyed Brigitte Jurack's visit [she was so energetic and got very cute whenever she was either delighted or angry], I can't say I remember a lot of what was said. Honestly, I started falling asleep at some point =X I do remember the sculptures she's done of people, however. I liked that she was able to capture the sadder side of the person sitting on the bridge column looking as though he's about to jump.