23.6.09

WIRES by Ines Querido





Was searching the world wide web - what a marvelous thing it is - and found a project that I really liked by Ines Querido. I love photographers who still shoot in B&W and these photos are so still and meditative. All photos are copyright Ines Querido. She has other projects on her website www.inesquerido.com

22.6.09

Thomas's New Website




Thomas's New Website






My boyfriend Thomas has launched his new website several months after our beloved Red Bulletin F1 magazine ended. I hope he's going to get plenty of work from it and I'll put a couple of my favorite pics of his here in the blog as a taster. Or check out his online folio at www.thomasbutlerphotographer.com
All photos are copyright Thomas Butler and you can contact him through the website for usage.

Picasso 'Challenging the Past' Exhibition at the NG London





My Dad visited me in London for the first time at the beginning of June and he had one request, to go to the Picasso exhibition. I've been to several Picasso exhibitions mainly in his various studios along the French Riviera and in Barcelona. This collection for the 'Challenging the Past' exhibition focused on Picasso's fascination with the Old Masters. It was a really interesting side of Picasso I hadn't thought about before and it just shows you that even he worked in the styles of others and directly painted his own versions of famous portraits and self portraits.

It wasn't my favorite Picasso exhibition ever but it made for a fascinating two hours. My dad and I desperately trying to get to grips with our audio guides which we treat ourselves to so we could sound all knowledgeable and cultured when we left the exhibit!

Picasso's paintings in the Fondation Maeght in St Paul de Vence are my favorites. Also the Picasso museum in Antibes part of which shows photos of Picasso working on the canvases in the studio itself.

Photos I like


Photographs I like





Annette Messager Exhibition at The Hayward, London Southbank.





Got some of my girls together for a wander round this exhibition one Sunday at the end of May. I'd never heard of Annette Messager before this exhibition. She is described as '...one of Europe's most important contemporary artists...' so it shows how little I've been researching or reading sice I left Univeristy. I could see there were going to be drawings and installations and photos which really drew me to it as I love artists work that feels autobiographical even if it's conceptual. It started off fairly tame in terms of content but as we made our way around the installations and sculputres became bigger and more surreal almost like you were wandering deeper and deeper into Messager's pysche. The ground floor ended with a large space that almost looked like a pale and pastel soft-toy area but was infact a collection of human organs made from parachute-like material. They were inflating and deflating, the sound of the air pumping in and out eerily accompanying the visual display.

Up the stairs we entered a room with an opening on the back wall from which swathes of deep scarlet silk billowed out into the room, spreading out and across almost nipping at our toes.
The room was unlit apart from alternating glowing lamps underneath the fabric. I may have stayed in here a little too long and was feeling pretty disturbed by the time we entered the rooms with all the dismembered soft toys and teddy bears hanging from ropes and being pulled around on pulleys and levers.

The work was amazingingly powerful and really took you through several emotional states. I was greatful for the fresh air and the normality of the south bank when we left The Hayward.

Here's a photo gallery of the Messager Retrospective on the Guardian website: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/gallery/2009/mar/05/annette-messager-hayward-retrospective?picture=344185263

Gerhard Richter at the NPG




Just adding a few of the black and white Gehard Richter paintings. These give a better idea of the blurriness then the first ones I put up.

Gehard Richter at The NPG





It's a month ago since I went to this show but I've been lame about writing it up on my blog. It featured some of Richter's portrait paintings from the 60's 70's and 80's. I really liked the paintings which appear to be giant versions of photographs except the focus is skewed. The eye never quite settles and the distance you stand away from the paintings can totally change your viewing experience. I thought the exhibition was a little too small and was disappointed to come to the end after only three small rooms. My favourite pieces in the show were the three nudes of his second wife (top and second from top pic). This is what it says on his website related to the type of work you could see in this show:

'These blurred paintings of photographs are close to reality but also contain a nostalgic distance, because the eye can never precisely capture the image being viewed, rather like trying to remember the features of a person whom one hasn't seen for a while. Only the outline is remembered, and the rest blurred. With his photo-based paintings of regular images, Richter has tried to subvert the hierarchy of art and the everyday. "I believe in nothing", he has said.' The exhibition is on tour.