Compare and contrast: Julia Margaret Cameron and Francesca Woodman. I have to say, I was familiar with the first, and not the second, but a new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery has changed that. The two women, working 100 years apart, both concentrated on portraiture and the notion of dreaminess in photography. It’s a whimsical and interesting show.
Jason and the Adventure of 254. You have to come to this joyous exhibition at the Wellcome Collection to understand the title. And once you enter the world of artist Jason Wilsher-Mills you are quickly immersed in a very personal and affectionate history of his extraordinary life.
The annual Collect exhibition at Somerset House opened today, Wednesday 28th February for the VIP and press preview. I was lucky enough to have a wander through the huge space, venturing into rooms filled with fabulous things and artists eager to talk about their work. The show is on until end of Sunday 3rd March. If you love beautiful things made by contemporary artists and crafts people then there’s much to enjoy at this quality show.
Tropical Modernism – a new show at the Victoria and Albert Museum – puts the spotlight on an architectural style which emerged in the late 1940s. British architects Jane Drew and Maxwell Fry were commissioned to design and build developments which were inspired by very different aesthetics from their work in the UK. Creating buildings in hot and humid locations demanded progressive ideas which were enthusiastically adopted by leaders in Ghana and India but have not all stood the test of time.
It’s taken a couple of centuries but Angelica Kauffman has finally been given a solo show at the Royal Academy in London. She was an inaugural member of this illustrious group which was founded in 1768. She was renowned and admired across Europe as one of the most cultured, talented and influential artists of her generation. It’s wonderful to see so much of her work on these walls.
The Time Is Always Now – a really enjoyable and thought-provoking exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery has opened. Curated by Ekow Eshun, this show gathers together the work of contemporary Black artists who depict the Black experience from their perspective. All the work was made in the last 20 years and captures the essence of the time we live in now yet mindful of the Black experience as it has been recorded in history, but from a White perspective.
Sargent and Fashion at Tate Britain – gorgeous girls in glorious clothes, fashionable young men, illustrious grandees in formal attire and charming children in pretty frocks. In the late 1800s and early 1900s John Singer Sargent cut a swathe through European and American high society immortalising the great and the good in luscious oil portraits. He used clothing and costume to convey the spirit and status of his sitters.
“Ideas came to me like I was tuning into some radio from the sky…” says Yoko Ono, and, having seen a press preview of Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind, at Tate Modern, I’d say that the sound in her head was always turned up. The gallery has given this most enigmatic and influential of female artists a well-deserved retrospective.
Paper Places 