I am testing a new plugin I’ve installed for photo blog support. Pay no attention to that code behind the curtain…

Yesterday was a really pleasant day. It was brisk cold in the morning, and never did warm up much. I started my day with a trip down to Leicester Square and the Tkts booth. I scored a cheap seat for Tango Por Dos at The Peacock Theatre for 7:30, and then headed down to Green Park to check out the Queen’s gardening prowess and write a post card or two. Here is a view of the park shrouded with fog (freezing fog, as the weather reports had it, but they exaggerate):

From there I went in search of Hamilton’s Gallery, a toni gallery in Mayfair catering in exclusive photography. I had seen that they had an exhibit of 12 new pieces by Albert Watson “Miss Beehayving” that I wanted to see.

Now my friend LJ had warned me about certain neighbourhoods: “a Dodgy part of town. Southwark…but very cool and interesting” she wrote. Well, no one warned me about Mayfair! This is a very scary place indeed. More money is poured into real estate here than just about anywhere else on the planet. The most expensive flat here is a new penthouse going up with a £100Million price tag. I wasn’t really sure where “13 Carlos Place” was, and it didn’t show on my map, so I just kept strolling around, doing a grid, hoping that I would find it. I even asked a helpful cabby, but without luck. Finally gave up and bailed.

Here is one place I came across on my search. Don’t let the name confuse you, its just a bunch of high-priced “Global Consultants”:

The only folk I know consult globes are fortune tellers, and I imagine they cost less, too.

Then it was off to Tate Modern — They have a big new exhibit on Duchamp, Man Ray and Picabia. That’s down by Southwark, sorry LJ! I took the tube to London Bridge and headed for the Thames. Here’s a set of photos taken from one spot, just to show how different a place looks depending upon which way you’re facing:

South:

East:

West:

Here’s Tower Bridge:

And here’s the Tower of London”

I then strolled on along the Queen’s Walk to the Tate. Along the way I found The Clink:

Don’t want to get thrown in there!

Well, in keeping with my fecklessness, I didn’t bother to check the dates on the new show, and it doesn’t open until the 21st. Oops! Oh well. I have seen a lot of DuChamp and Man Ray exhibitions, so if I miss it it’s not the end of the world. I went ahead and checked out the permanent collection and then cross the Millennium Bridge and take a tube back home.

There will be laundry!

Catchup time.

I’ve been discouraged since that Art Appreciation piece went off so poorly. I need to find better examples of Hockney and Doig to make that work. The perfect pieces were those in Tate Britain itself, all within 30 yards of each other, in adjacent galleries. Oh well, I’ll try to update it.

On Tuesday I took some shots on my way back from Tate Britain. Here are a few of those.

The Tate itself, view from Milbank:

Chestnut trees along Milbank:

London: Old and New:

That’s the Houses of Parliament in the distance on the left, Victoria Tower, and The London Eye towards the right.

Houses of Parliament:

Chestnut Trees leaning over Milbank, near Houses of Parliament:

Westminster Abbey in the mist and trees:

Stressed out sculpture by Whitehall:

Big Ben from behind:

A new day dawned with the same cold start that has been the hallmark of this week. Folk here are pretty upset about how bizarre their weather has been of late. There has been a strange system stalled around here which has lead to some very high highs and some very low lows. None of it appreciated.

Nowhere else would people complain about 65 degree weather in February, but when they had a high of 18.2 °C (64.76 °F)in Wales a few days ago there were complaints aplenty! Me, I came dressed for crappy Wisconsin weather, so I just get another layer out of the closet and get on with it.

This morning took me to St. Pancras station to confirm a return ticket on First Capital for Gatwick on 3 Mar. I tried to do this online but it is not possible. They start out by asking your country of residence, so I picked US from the menu. Then they give you a form to fill out and one of the required fields is “Postal Code” and it will only accept UK postal codes. Go figure.

After leaving St. Pan’s I went west to the other St. Pan’s; St. Pancras Church. I went to see an exhibit of cartography called “The Island – London Series” by Stephen Walker. I am not quite sure where to begin with this exhibit. I guess I’ll start with the setting. This is exhibited in the crypt of St. Pancras. Although the current structure dates only from 1819-22, the parish goes back at least 600 years, and is thought to be one of the oldest Christian worships in Great Britian. The current crypt hasn’t been used for burial purposes for quite some time, and the markers are rather unceremoniously been laid up in a pile in one corner.

The work itself is impressive. Mr. Walker has fashioned hand drawn maps of the entire London area, and I don’t mean the kind of cartoon map that Saul Steinberg made iconic in 1976 with his “View of the World from 9th Avenue”:
“

No, these are detailed yet hand drawn maps, well a map, and several sections of it. How to explain…

The original is about 200 cm. x 400 cm. and is so tightly packed with information that you need a magnifying glass to even begin to penetrate the detail. Thankfully you are handed one at the door. Then there are the sections. There are over 40 of these, each overlaps its neighbours and provides the same information as the comprehensive map, but in more readable format.

The conceit of the whole piece is London as an island (hence the title) and it is well executed. Red Groom would blush at what this young artist has done, but has nothing to fear from him in terms of illustration. The whole piece is a triumph of wit and execution, but whether it is a great artistic accomplishment will await the judgement of more critical eyes than mine. I enjoyed it, but I doubt that it is Great. That is my verdict. I will say this: If Mr. Walker does not succeed it will not be for lack of effort on his behalf by TAG; my entire visit was serenaded by the lilting tone of his very efficacious agent on his mobile trying to get various influential collectors in to view this “very important” show.

I bought the catalogue if anyone cares to see it.

Next up was a horse of a different colour, as they say. Down to the Tate British, off of Millbank. The big shows right now are “Peter Doig”:

and “Modern Painters – The Camden Town Group”:

The Camden Town bit was what one would expect. A lot of copy-cat pieces inspired by the work ongoing in France at the time, but with a gritty English tilt. I don’t mean this too sound as dismissive as it does. I really wasn’t aware of the art of these chaps, Spencer Gore, Charles Ginner, Harold Gilman, Walter Richard Sickert, William Ratcliffe and Robert Bevan key among them. But, there is little here to recommend the school as more than an echo of what was happening on the continent. There is one important element, which is Sickert’s work in illustrating a sex and murder scandal of the late 1890s which broke new ground with art as a commentary on news. We still hear reverberations of this today in everything from Blueman and Jenny Holtzer, and before them Weegee and his bretherin.

The Doig exhibit, on the other hand, presented something which we haven’t seen before, at least not in just this form. Though his work seems heavily influenced by the work of Francis Bacon, David Hockney and Ed Paschke, it is both new and descendent. Doig tends to work in large canvases, like those three, and he uses parts of each of their techniques. From Paschke he draws the skill of over-painting the scene in such a way that he obscures almost the enitirety of it yet manages to lose nothing. To see what I mean, consider this piece of Paschke’s, “Blanco” from 1992:

In this piece, as with his others, Paschke has distilled the image down to that which we need to construct a face with which, even if we are not comfortable, we at least associate.

Now consider one by Hockney:

Now a pair of pieces by Bacon:

Lastly a piece by Doig:

Am I the only one who sees a progression here?

Thanks for putting up with my little art appreciation course. Sorry if I went overboard there…

I will follow up tomorrow morn with more photos from the day.

Ta!