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.

Day 3

In contrast to the previous day, Day 3 was a little bit of a downer, but I think that mostly had to do with the fact that my laptop charger had burned out during the night. Finding that out in addition to the rain outside was an unhappy way to start things, so that affected my overall mood for the rest of the day.

The Serpentine Gallery was interesting, to say the least. I especially loved Philippe Parreno's Invisibleboy. It just seemed so inventive and one-of-a-kind, especially in how he shot and edited the film. The seemingly random footage he took are very beautiful, especially when it comes to the colors and the composition of the footage. Even the scratches he made in the film to create the imaginary creatures were so beautiful and interesting. The soundtrack just topped it off for me; something amazing always happens when an instrumental rock band incorporates authentic [or at least authentic sounding] strings into the mix. It was so dramatic and it really emphasized the narrative a lot, even though the base of the song is the same maybe 4 or 8 bars repeated over and over. The film had a lonely vibe to it, but it also seemed very hopeful and the imaginary creatures were oddly endearing.

Getting to the Saatchi gallery was no easy task, but when we finally got there, I was blown away by a lot of the work. Two that really stood out to me was Pile Up by Alexander Hoda and Richard Wilson's 20:50. I loved how Pile Up was so nightmarish and grotesque and I thought it was a very clever work. It seemed as though the blob that was the foundation of the piece was trying to make sense of what it was, and the figures protruding from it reference to its journey of self-discovery. Or maybe I'm just weird. 20:50 was just phenomenal and at first I didn't even know what I was looking at. When I realized it was motor oil reflecting everything I was taken aback and completely discombobulated.

Getting to the Globe Theatre was a lot more enjoyable than trying to get to the Saatchi because the path that led to it was very scenic and interesting. At first I wasn't too thrilled about the tour, but when the tour guide met up with us I got excited; he seemed like such a pleasant person. I definitely learned a thing or two, though I'm not sure how much I'd be able to repeat to my family. The architecture of the theatre was really unbelievable and the detail kind of blew me away, especially the astrological ceiling and the trap doors.

Altogether, Day 3 was awesome, despite the small unpleasantries that popped up every now and again.

Day 2

Today was pretty amazing; I really enjoyed the London Eye, visiting the Tate Modern, going to see War Horse...

The view of any city tends to be spectacular, but being so high above a city outside of America was a wonderful feeling for me. It gave me a clear idea of exactly how big London is and that in itself was an extraordinary thing to see. Being so close to Parliament was what excited me the most... It's such a beautiful, grand building and to be so high above it and see it in all its glory with the red tour buses driving by made me really happy. It was a very relaxing and, in my opinion, appropriate way to start the day. Even the walk to the Tate Modern afterwards was relaxing and a great way to start things off; I was especially amused by the sad Mickey we found on the way there as well as the word "Jim" that was griffitied onto a bridge we walked under. The tiny skate park we found got me extremely excited, especially since there was so much graffiti on the walls... In fact, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven at that point. It reminded me of Five Points [the building the 7 train passes right before entering into Manhattan or after getting out of the tunnel] and I felt a strange, happy homesickness, oddly enough.

Overall, my Tate Modern experience was probably the best museum experience I've ever had. I normally don't get excited about modern art, but there was something about the overall vibe of the museum that made me feel very happy to be there. We had lunch at the little cafe there, and that in itself was an experience; the food was so good! Pricey, but pretty good.

I think what impacted me the most was Ai Weiwei's "Sunflower Seeds" installation. After reading the story behind the installation, viewing the installation became an extremely overwhelming, emotional experience [of course, the music in the background played a huge part in the whole 'emotional' part.] I love how the work takes on so many different and contradicting themes [such as the brutality of the cultural revolution vs. the compassion of sharing sunflower seeds with friends, a unit vs. a group, etc], and how that in itself becomes a theme and kind of a purpose of the work.

I especially appreciate how each sunflower seed is hand crafted differently and uniquely so that each unit has its own individual essence, yet when they're all piled in together they look like they belong together and that they have a greater purpose than being unique, which is already a pretty great purpose in my opinion. I also loved being able to see the footprints in the sunflower seeds, which I can only guess belong to Ai himself.

Just thinking about the idea of units coming together to make a whole, thinking about how much time and care was put into this work, thinking about the social/political background to this work along with the music playing from the movie made me tear up a little bit.
The Gaugin exhibit didn't quite impress me. For the most part, I have a love-hate relationship with Impressionism and I certainly didn't love Gaugin's work. A few pieces stood out to me though, such as Clovis Asleep, which I thought was very beautiful and surreal. It depicted his daughter dreaming. I wondered if it was more invasive than anything else. Inside the Painter's House also stood out to me because of it's darker, gloomier overtone. I noticed that it was more subdued as well as accurate than his other paintings.

War Horse, being the final thing on the agenda, didn't get me as worked up as I think it could have, had the day been shorter. I was so tired by the time we got there, and by intermission I felt myself already succumbing to sleep, but, suffice to say, I DID enjoy the play. I thought it was so different from every other show I've ever seen; the mechanics were very impressive, and the way the different characters [including the animals] interacted with each other was a breath of fresh air. There was something very natural about the way the animals moved and sounded and how everyone interacted with one another. I did feel that the play dragged on a little towards the end, but happy endings are always nice, so I really shouldn't complain. What I enjoyed the most about the play was the soundtrack. The man that sang most of the songs had such a rich, unique voice and I especially loved it when he played the accordion, sang, and was accompanied by the violinist. The music was so beautiful that I stopped paying attention to the story whenever the duo came out to play.

I couldn't have asked for a better day; Day 2 for the win!

Day 1 blog-- Turner Prize exhibit

I wish I had more interesting things to say about the Turner Prize exhibition, but I was so tired that it was very difficult to get into it at first. I kind of breezed through Dexter Dalewood's room and stood in the Otilith Group room for a little while, but after feeling myself slowly succumb to sleep, I decided the best thing to do was to move on. It wasn't until I got to Angela Dela Cruz's room that I became interested. I found her work to be very human-like in appearance and arrangement and that definitely appealed to me. For example, the black piece on the floor made me think of someone feeling very defeated, very broken, and kind of abused-- something I'm sure everyone has or will feel at some point.

Susan Philipsz work struck me as well, for the same reasons mentioned in the previous post; how she uses sound and lyrics to transform a space and add depth to it.

I'm looking forward to the next trip to the Tate Britain, when I won't be falling asleep every other minute =]

Turner Prize

I honestly feel that the Turner Prize went to the right candidate this past year. In one of the last rooms of the exhibit, the text on the wall stated that the award was not given in order to immortalize an artist but to bring light to new developments in art... And since Susan Philipsz' work is unlike anything I've ever 'heard' before [and since she was the first sound installation artist to be nominated for the award], I believe I would definitely grant her the Turner Prize award. Being a musician most of my life, I like to explore how sound and music affects our world in different ways, and I think that Philipsz succeeds in her own exploration of the same thing. As I stood in the room in which Lowlands Away was playing, I felt a sense of loneliness, heaviness, and wistfulness floating in the room. I realized that the 'heaviness' and 'loneliness' was brought about by Philipsz' low and mellow voice and the echoes of her voice relayed the 'wistfulness'. Although the room felt heavy and full, there was still a sense of emptiness that the content of the lyrics brought about.

The text on the wall says that Philipsz was exploring how sound fills and forms a space, and I think that she is very successful in relaying and achieving exactly what she meant to.