More London Museums and Galleries re-open

In addition to the museums and galleries mentioned in my last post, more venues are re-opening and announcing their plans for the coming weeks. All of the safety measures mentioned in my last blog are applicable to these venues, and all require pre-booking online in advance of any visit (including for members and corporate supporters), helping to ensure safe access to the arts across the city.

The Wallace Collection is now open to again, welcoming visitors seven days per week with revised opening hours from 11am to 3pm. There is a one way route through the historic rooms and collection, and their temporary exhibition ‘Forgotten Masters: Indian Painting for the East India Company’ will re-open on 29 July. The cloakroom and café remain closed, but there is a coffee cart outside the main entrance and the shop is open but taking payment by contactless/card only.

Dulwich Picture Gallery re-opened its gardens alongside the café for takeaway and a pop-up shop from Saturday 4 July, allowing the public to safely enjoy their three acres of outdoor space and the exterior of the building designed by Sir John Soane.

Historic Royal Palaces who look after six sites are also re-opening their indoor and outdoor spaces. From Friday 10 July The Tower of London started welcoming visitors again and will be open on Wednesday to Sunday from 11am until 6pm, with last admission at 5pm. Hampton Court Palace will re-open with the exception of the Magic Garden and Maze from Friday 17 July, on Wednesday to Sunday from 10.30am until 5pm. Kensington Palace will welcome visitors again from Thursday 30 July and will be open to the public on Wednesday to Sunday from 10.30am until 5pm. Banqueting House and Kew Palace however will remain closed until March 2021.

Charles Dickens Museum will be re-opening on Saturday 25 July, with revised opening hours of Friday to Sunday from 10am until 5pm (with last admission at 4pm). All rooms will be open as well as the shop, toilets and walled garden, however the café will remain closed in order to follow social distancing requirements.

The Design Museum will partially open to the public again from Friday 31 July, allowing visitors to see their temporary exhibition ‘Electronic: From Kraftwerk to The Chemical Brothers’. In addition to tickets being booked in advance of visiting, they will also be timed with a maximum of 1 hour 30 minutes. Face coverings are also compulsory and they advise bringing your own headphones to enjoy the multi-media elements.

The Natural History Museum will be welcoming visitors again from Wednesday 5 August. They will be closed every Monday and Tuesday, and open on Wednesday to Sunday from 11am to 6pm with last entry at 5pm.

The V&A will be re-opening the following day, on Thursday 6 August. They will operating with reduced opening hours and open on Thursday to Sunday from 11am until 3pm, and then increasing opening hours from 27 August when they will be open Thursday to Sunday from 11am until 7pm.

The Science Museum will also be open again from Wednesday 19 August, daily from 10am until 6pm, offering access to Wonderlab: The Equinor Gallery exploring how science and maths shape our everyday lives and Medicine: The Wellcome Galleries showcasing 3,000 medical objects and related commissioned artworks.

Image: The Great Gallery © The Trustees of the Wallace Collection

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Spotlight on… Peter Liversidge

Spotlight on… Peter Liversidge’s outdoor installation ‘Currently and tomorrow’. A couple of weeks into April some cardboard placards appeared on the corner of Wennington Green, a small park in east London at the junction of Roman Road and Grove Road, with “Thank You NHS”, “NHS Heroes”, “Stay Safe – Isolate”, and “Thank You Bin Men” written on them, and over the last couple of months it has grown and grown. Literally hundreds of placards have sprung up on the corner of the street and now run the length of the railings down the road, and have recently begun appearing on the railings on the opposite side of the street as there is no more space! In addition to the original signs, there are now placards in support of and thanking teachers, post men and women, key workers, shop staff, care home workers, social workers, lorry and delivery drivers, and essential cleaners. There are also calls for “More PPE”, “More Tests”, “Do Not Privatise the NHS. Support It” and for social distancing, encouraging people to “Stay 2 Metres Apart”. This is intermingled with official banners from the local council (Tower Hamlets) echoing similar sentiments with official messaging to “Stay at Home. Protect the NHS. Save Lives” and “Social Distancing Saves Lives. Stay two metres apart”. These text based signs are interspersed with few image led placards of rainbows; now synonymous with NHS support during Covid-19 and hearts for the NHS. Whilst these initially look like the work of rogue – well actually quite well intentioned – local residents, these placards are all down to British contemporary artist, Peter Liversidge. He has been based in London since 1996 and is known for his use of proposals and experimental projects where objects, performances or happenings occur over the course of an exhibition. Each day the artist adds another placard, and a few people have asked to donate a placard here and there (and no doubt some covert ones have been added to the mass by members of the public over the last couple of months). It follows on nicely from his earlier projects including ‘Notes on Protesting’ in collaboration with a local primary school displayed at Whitechapel Gallery in 2015 featuring placards and a video work, and his 2013 collection of ‘Free Signs’ also at Whitechapel Gallery. Though the pandemic is currently keeping the doors to museums and galleries closed, keep your eyes open as artists are now taking to the streets to brighten up and bring meaning to these strange and surreal times.

Troy: The British Museum

Troy: myth and reality is not just the title of The British Museums’ current blockbuster, but also a perfect summary of the exhibition. The show focusses on the epic tale of Helen (the most beautiful woman in the world) who was abducted by Prince Paris of Troy after the goddess Aphrodite promised her to him which sparked a ten year war – and has fascinated archaeologists, writers, artists, film-makers and the public for centuries. It is visually impressive; blue silk screens with white text replace traditional vinyl on walls or panel information, key English and Greek phrases suspend from the ceiling, and archaeological finds, sculpture, paintings, original manuscripts, photography and a poster of the 2004 film starring Brad Pitt all vye for attention. The show explores the archaeological evidence from a hill site excavated in the 19th century and from the 1870’s excavations by German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann, which geographically pinpoint Troy in what is now north-west Turkey and believed to be a real rather than mythical place. Depictions on classical pottery dating back to 400 BC, descriptions in Homer and Ovid’s poetry, a stunning marble sculpture of the wounded Achilles by Filippo Albacini in 1825, and re-tellings of the story in medieval paintings all show the heroes in battle, sorrow and downtime, making them multidimensional and real. There is a focus on the Greek hero Odysseus and his adventures trying to get home at the end of the war, made famous in Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey. It also examines the frequently overlooked women, from Helen (who sparked the war), to Hecuba (Queen of Troy), Aphrodite (goddess of love whose meddling led to the war), Penelope (wife of Odysseus), the Sirens (nymphs who tried to lure sailors to shipwreck through their singing) and many others, who like their male counterparts have captivated audiences. The show closes with modern takes on Troy, with a photograph by Eleanor Antin inspired by Rubens’ Judgement of Paris, and a light installation based on Achilles’ shield by Spencer Finch.

For more information visit their website

Antony Gormley: Royal Academy of Arts

The traditional Georgian architecture of Burlington House isn’t an immediately obvious setting for Antony Gormley’s large-scale robust metal sculptures and installations, but it certainly works. The dark wood flooring, panelling and high ceilings act as the perfect backdrop to the works on display throughout the main galleries. It is an exhibition that builds momentum, has pace and conversely moments of calm. The first space you enter contains fourteen horizontal and vertical cubic sculptures – “slabworks” – very typical of Gormley and his abstract exploration of the human form and its relationship with the space around it, but dare I say it… nothing spectacular. As you turn the next corner a lower-ceilinged room is filled with arguably the worlds biggest doodle, a sculpture which dominates the space and is almost bursting its way through the floors, ceilings and connecting doorways. It is quite an experience walking around the 8 kilometres of coiled aluminium tube, taking it all in. Another oversized gallery space houses “Matrix III” created from steel mesh ordinarily used to reinforce concrete, but this time formed into a three dimensional structure which suspends from the ceiling. Despite its weight, it somehow looks light as it floats above visitors who are able to walk below and around it. The adjoining gallery spaces contain sketches and preliminary drawings of these two monumental works alongside other works on paper, and having just viewed them I welcomed understanding the process and mechanics behind them. A room filled with metal human forms either standing, floating horizontally from various walls or hanging upside down from the ceiling, oversized metal fruits suspended from a vaulted ceiling in another space, a monolithic sculpture fills another, and finally a reflective space where the gallery floor is filled with seawater make up the rest of the show. The exhibition is as ambitious as you would hope for from Gormley, and certainly put a spring in my autumnal step!

For more information visit their website

Trio of female artists: White Cube Bermondsey

A trio of female artists have taken over White Cube Bermondsey for the current exhibitions; Palestinian born and London based Mona Hatoum is shown alongside American artist and activist Harmony Hammond, and Hungarian creative Dora Maurer whose work has spanned five decades. All three women work with different materials and use different mediums in their practice, but complement each other in that all of the works are more complex than they initially seem. Hatoum’s sculptures have a sense of fragility and the impression that they might collapse at any moment, echoing the current political sentiments of many countries. Despite several being constructed from robust materials including steel, concrete, bricks and iron filings – they dangle precariously from the ceiling or are positioned to look like pieces could clash into each other and shatter. Others have more obvious weaknesses including the charred remains of a kitchen, barley held together with chicken wire as the brittle ash could fracture at any moment, or are made from her own hair and nails. Hammond’s works mostly comprise large scale warm-white canvases. These have all been recently produced, but there is also a nod to her earlier feminist works evident in the display of ‘Bag IV’ created in 1971 and made from rags donated by female friends whilst living in New York and taking the form of a handbag which Hammond describes as three-dimensional brush strokes. This sculptural element continues in her newer canvases, which far from being flat surfaces include frayed edges, grommets, pin holes, and evidence of straps all thickly covered in paint. Maura’s paintings in contrast are bold and structured, and play with symmetry and graphics. Far from being simple however, this collection of rectangular and square canvases set at angles are cleverly transformed into seemingly three-dimensional floating forms through the simple use of colour.

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Lee Krasner: Barbican Art Gallery

“Living Colour” is an apt title for the Lee Krasner exhibition currently on display at The Barbican Art Gallery – as colour certainly has a live element to it throughout this retrospective as Krasner has periods where she uses simple charcoal in the 1930’s, experiments with colour in the post-war era, returns to muted shades during a period of chronic insomnia in the late 1950’s and embraces bold colour again in 1960’s and ‘70’s. Often overlooked as Jackson Pollack’s wife, Krasner was a pioneering abstract artist in her own right and I really felt I got a sense of the honest New-Yorker via the chronological journey of this show. Whilst some of the early mosaic works and self-portraits didn’t excite me, her charcoal life drawings begin to highlight her interest in abstraction and you can see the influences of other artists like Matisse and Picasso in these works. In the 1950’s this was developing further as she began incorporating newspaper, photographic paper and even some of Pollack’s test drawings into her colourful painted collage works – as well as increasing the scale and size of the canvas she was using. Following the sudden death of Pollack and a period of insomnia, Krasner created a body of works using a muted shade of umber (Night Journeys) as she painted through the night and refused to work with colour under artificial light. As perhaps sleep returned and her depression faded, colour resurfaced in a big way with vibrant pinks, oranges, blues and greens. A particular favourite was ‘Mister Blue’ created in sweeping blue motions, which made me smile even more when I learnt that Krasner was only 5 feet tall and would have struggled with some of these larger canvases! The final works incorporate more rigid shapes and sharper lines, where she revisits something she did earlier in her career cutting up previous bodies of work and including them in new pieces – again highlighting the “living” nature of her artworks.

For more information visit their website

Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago

I was lucky enough to go to Chicago for work last week – for three days – literally a flying visit from the other side of the Atlantic! It was my first visit to the city, and I was struck by how progressive, liberal and balanced it felt with a diverse population of white, black, Hispanic as well as a China Town, Little Italy, Polish Downtown, Greek Town, well dressed professionals, homeless veterans and the buzz and grit of cosmopolitan city life that makes any Londoner feel at home. However, a trip to the Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP) was a powerful reminder of the civil rights and segregation issues which have plagued America, and the Chicago area is no exception. The current exhibitions by Dawoud Bey and Carlos Javier Ortiz & David Schalliol both highlight problems with integration; Bey’s two poignant bodies of work tell the story of three Klu Klux Klan members who bombed the 16^th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963 killing four fourteen year old African American girls, and the ensuing violence that followed as a consequence. This is revisited in a 2012 series of black and white portraits in which Bey captures images of children the same age as those who had died, alongside portraits of adults at the age the children wold have been in 2013 (the 50^th anniversary of the bombs). Bey’s work is coupled with Ortiz and Schalliol’s Chicago Stories, a more contemporary exploration of similar issues via evocative images of isolated buildings and those who live in them which explore the legacy of the Great Migration and the continued demolition and resettlement of African American communities across Chicago’s “black belt” in the south and west of the city where black residents were limited to living, but have since created thriving communities which are now being destroyed. The staff are both helpful and knowledgeable, entrance to both exhibitions is free, and I would highly recommend dropping in before 7 July when the shows close.

For more information visit their website

Modern Couples. Art, Intimacy and the Avant-garde: Barbican

After a chilly but beautiful autumnal stroll on Saturday afternoon, I sought warmth at The Barbican and turns out I wasn’t the only one… as the queue for their current exhibition ‘Modern Couples: Art, Intimacy and the Avant-garde’ suggested! Spanning both floors of the gallery, it examines almost fifty artistic couples from Camille Claudel and Auguste Rodin who were in a relationship from 1882 until 1892 through to Unica Zürn and Hans Bellmer whose relationship lasted from 1953 until 1970, and various heterosexual, homosexual, artistic threesomes and friendships in between. It explores “artists” in the broadest sense, including painters, sculptors, photographers, textile makers, musicians, writers, publishers, furniture designers and architects – and more interestingly the impact they had on each other and society by taking a stance on various civil rights issues. Each section comprises a short summary of the couple alongside a portrait of each artist individually or together as a couple, with Virginia Woolf making two appearances – on the lower level with Vita Sackville-West and on the upper level with Leonard Wolfe. The show includes big name artists such as Salvador DalÍ (and Federico GarcÍa Lorca), Pablo Picasso (and Dora Maar), Frida Kahlo (and Diego Rivera) and Wassily Kandinsky (and Gabriele Münter) but also introduced me to artists I was previously unfamiliar with or highlighted relationships where one partner has certainly hogged the limelight – often unfairly – over the other. The exhibition is certainly tinged with sadness and a sprinkling of madness; numerous tales of forbidden love, age-gaps, and mental health issues as well as Oskar Kokoschka who created a life-size doll of the composer Alma Mahler after jealousy brought an end to their relationship, Marcel Duchamp who sculpted miniature casts of Maria Martins genitals after their illicit affair came to an end, and Lavinia Schulz and Walter Holdt whose relationship came to a horrific close when the dancer and costume designer shot Holdt and then herself.

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SCOOP: A Wonderful Ice Cream World

A kitsch pastel coloured “Scoop-scape” decorated in soft pink walls, mint coloured furnishings, a pale lemon check-in desk, and heavy dose of nostalgia welcome you to ‘Scoop: A Wonderful Ice Cream World’ currently installed by Bompas & Parr near Gasholders in Kings Cross. I had pre-booked a date and time slot, and on arrival was given a small newspaper including a map of the exhibition to read whilst waiting for the experience to begin at an archway entitled Lick & Learn… upon entering, a short film is played introducing you to the experience and encouraging each group to open the freezer door and enter the world of ice! After a chilly start, temperatures rise as you explore three centuries of ice cream paraphernalia from glass penny-licks, to original moulds, scoops, makers, postcards and other memorabilia. There is a huge interactive element too; not only can you smell different flavoured aromas from popular vanilla and chocolate to traditional Victorian era classics like Rye-Bread or Daffodil, but you can also make your own ice cream in minutes in a recreation of Mrs Marshall’s (Queen of Ices) Cookery School kitchen. You can also measure your brain waves to detect the neurological effects of eating ice cream, eat glow-in-the-dark ice cream in a neon tunnel, and submerge yourself in a breathable vanilla fog. It is probably a good time to mention that I have a dairy allergy, and it is testament to this installation that I enjoyed learning about the past, present and future of the frozen treat as much as my ice cream licking companion! On until 30^th September, don’t forget to pick up a final desert from ‘”Cone-Henge” on your way out.

For more information visit their website

London Nights: Museum of London

As an insomniac you make a decision, either you embrace the night or resent it, and I have embraced it. I appreciate everything from London’s night skyline, to nights out in different areas of the city, catching rare quiet moments where you are the only person on an ordinarily busy street, spotting a bold urban fox running across the road, and the general sense of calm after 11pm… so a photography exhibition dedicated to ‘London Nights’ easily caught my attention. In a wonderfully contrary way I visited this exhibition at an early morning private view, and had the pleasure of starting my day by viewing these 200 images captured by over 60 photographers. The exhibition is displayed in the museums’ basement gallery, and is dimly lit with grey walls and dark floors, adding to the nocturnal atmosphere. One of the things that struck me most was a feeling of familiarity, and appreciating how little the city has changed over the last century, as so many of the buildings and streets were immediately recognisable and only the fashion or adverts captured within each image gave away the decade they were taken. This was most evident in George Davidson Reid’s 1920’s photographs of Trafalgar Square, images of Liverpool Street station during the Blitz, Bob Collins’ 1960’s shots of Piccadilly Circus, numerous iconic images of St Pauls Cathedral from almost every decade, and contemporary photos of a night out in East London and West London displayed side by side. Broadly split into three categories; ‘London Illuminated’ which focusses on the capital’s landmarks from both familiar and unusual vantage points, ‘Dark Matters’ which explores the more sinister side of the city and how darkness can evoke fear, threat or isolation, and ‘Switch On Switch Off’ which observes Londoners who inhabit the city rather than the city itself. On until mid November the show is certainly worth a visit – incorporating architecture and portraiture, moments of resilience and shared acts of exhilaration, as well as exploring social issues and current threats to London’s night venues.

For more information visit their website