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V&A: Blood on Paper Exhibition:
This free exhibition on from the 15th April to the 29th June 2008 showcases contemporary work by modern day artists who are trying to challenger the concept of what exactly is a book.
The area is split into four different sections. Section one has works by artists including Matisse, Picasso, Miro and a giant "book" by Anselm Keifer titled "The Secret Life Of Plants", which looks to be constructed out of giant sheets of lead. In section two works by Damien Hurst and Ed Ruscha look at Christian iconography and artistic creation according to the leaflet anyway. Personally I think the book of "Stains", 1969 by Ed Ruscha is just plain weird! Who else makes a book of stains that contains apple juice, their own blood, urine and sperm and can class it as being art?? If this is a book and it is art then I think I will be making my next book from a roll of used toilet paper.Only in the world of art can people get away with so many things, by using complete dribble to explain something that generally has no explanation and I should know. When doing art we were constantly told to give everything an explanation. Even though most of the things we created were because they came from the heart, a moment of inspiration or just out of the plain love of it.
Anyway! In the room there was one quite nicely bound book Isamu Noguchi titled "18 drawings, 18 photographs" (above). It was in a concertina design, nicely bound with fabric and used some nice thick paper/ card and just looked nice and neat. This could also be said about Eduardo Chillida's "Reflections" (below), which can all be stored in to a nice compartment.
Another piece of work in this section was by Francis Bacon, that wasn't exactly a book but his suitcase with various things he had collected from his travels over the years, but it was all quite nice to look at.
In the third section were works by Lichtenstein, Jeff Koons etc... That specialise in poetry and use modern and ancient materials and techniques, including papyrus, paper, plastic and photography. Cai Guo-Quaing's "Danger Book: Suicide Fireworks" is an exploding book filmed on a projection.
In the 4th section are works by Keifer, Vital, Caro and Anish Kapoor that look at the contemporary development of the idea of the book at an art form. Where Kapoor has carefully carved through paper to make something interesting, which resembles the crack in the Tate Modern. Work by Caro titled "Open Secret" (below) doesn't represent a book at all and are forms created from metal.
All in all I thought this exhibition might inspire me a little to give my current projects some form of identity, but they did nothing and I wish that the ticket person would have sold me a ticket for the China Design Now exhibition in the same place, which I still wish to see :) But I am not big on books so if you like books then you may enjoy this exhibit! In fact i'm going to go back on myself and say really it wasn't that bad at all :P
All images are from the V&A's website, as you are not allowed to take photos in the exhibition.
Des Res Exhibition:
In the building centre off of Tottenham Court Road is the new exhibition by the NLA called Des Res, which looks at the pressures the capital is under going to cope with the construction of buildings to cope with an estimated population increase of over 700,000 in the next 15 years. The mayor's housing strategy proposes almost a quarter of a million new homes by 2016, which is represented in the model pictured below.
The exhibition relates to my extended essay I am currently doing on new developments in the Thames Gateway area of Kent Thameside.
The exhibition looks at areas including sustainability, affordability, design, the public realm, communities, mixed use developments and previous post-war housing examples. Like with all NLA exhibitions it comes with a great supporting booklet, lots of lovely new architect models and many large print outs of photographs, models, CGI and photoshop representations of the new developments.
Each development profile includes architect, client, project manager and landscape architect! It also includes a break down of the developments density, mix of units (per no. bedrooms), retail, commercial and residential percentages, amount of public space included and the percentage of homes in that are socially rented in each development. This makes it all very clear and easy to compare different developments across the capital and see which are the most effective. Developments I particularly liked were the narrow Monmouth Road building designed by Pitman Tozer Architects and Landscaped by Nurture Nature, which has been nominated for the Grand Design building of the year award. I also like Donnybrook Quarter (pictured above) designed by Peter Barber Architects, which has a very Spanish or Greek feel about the style of the housing. Another development I particularly like for it's strong use of colour is St. Thomas' School (pictured below) and Flats in Kensington and Chelsea, designed by Pollard Thomas Edwards architects and the landscape architect is Jenkins and Clarke.
The Cans Festival, Waterloo:
Following on from my previous post about street art I was so excited when I heard there was a festival on the subject in London. The Cans festival organised by Banksy is situated in Leake Street, a half mile long tunnel that runs the width of Waterloo Station. The installation was given permission by Eurostar who own the site and Banksy invited around 29 other street artists from all over the world to take part and create their own pieces in the tunnel. In Banksy's words he has turned a "dark forgotten filth pit into an oasis of beautiful art".
I was too late to see the props and see members of the public create their own pieces of work over the bank holiday weekend, but I did manage to see the remaining works. It was so refreshing to see so many different styles in one place and each was witty, creative imaginative and colourful.
I think in the end I probably ended up taking a photo of every piece, as it was so fun and interesting and if you like street art then I recommend you see it. If you don't like street art, then go see it anyway, as it might change your mind :)
Artists include Banksy, James Dodd, Kaagman, John Grider, Logan Hicks, Bandit, Dotmasters and my favourite artist of the festival C215, where I like his style and the lines running through the images mixed with a wallpaper pattern background, but you have to look at it closely to appreciate it most.
I also liked Banksy's graffiti cleaner who's removal prehistoric styled art work, the painting gorilla and more a less everything else!!!
Another piece of work in this section was by Francis Bacon, that wasn't exactly a book but his suitcase with various things he had collected from his travels over the years, but it was all quite nice to look at.
In the 4th section are works by Keifer, Vital, Caro and Anish Kapoor that look at the contemporary development of the idea of the book at an art form. Where Kapoor has carefully carved through paper to make something interesting, which resembles the crack in the Tate Modern. Work by Caro titled "Open Secret" (below) doesn't represent a book at all and are forms created from metal.
The exhibition relates to my extended essay I am currently doing on new developments in the Thames Gateway area of Kent Thameside.
Artists include Banksy, James Dodd, Kaagman, John Grider, Logan Hicks, Bandit, Dotmasters and my favourite artist of the festival C215, where I like his style and the lines running through the images mixed with a wallpaper pattern background, but you have to look at it closely to appreciate it most.
