Having a slow day is nice sometimes on vacation. Having had a crush of a weekend, with our trip up to Manchester and a fabulous visit and dinner with friends in Hemel Hempstead on return, today we took some time to relax before heading out to the nearby Hayward Gallery and the National Theatre gallery.

Martin Creed at Hayward Gallery, London.

What’s The Point Of It All?, is a Martin Creed retrospective at Hayward. Creed is a prolific and witty conceptual artist, and had a fine romp with Hayward on this show, much of which was created in-situ for the exhibition. Someone once said “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” and writing about Creed feels like that, too. It was all quite good, and some of it even made sense!

50% Of The Available Atmosphere

There are several parts of the exhibit out of doors, or otherwise at a remove from the main galleries.  For example, “50% of the available atmosphere”, above, is a room filled with balloons, into which visitors may wade.  Pawn found this great fun, but X panicked and fled at once.

Models on scaffolding, London 1977

In the National Theatre’s Lyttelton Exhibition Space was Photo Noir: The Art of Cornel Lucas. Cornel Lucas was a photographer during the golden years of British theatre and Hollywood film, and was the first photographer to win a BAFTA award for his work. This expansive exhibition features dozens of his finest photographs, beautifully printed in silver-gelatin, and well displayed. We really enjoyed this gem of a free exhibit.

Leslie Caron, 1964

Bridgitte Bardot, 1955