Despite the hard critique I read about The shape of thing to come: New Sculpture, written by Brian Sewell, I had a good time seeing it.
Many different contemporary artists are showed, a diversity that is also reflected in the sculptures. I wasn’t appeal by all of them but I found a couple interesting and beautiful.
I think about “The New North” the massive sculpture of David Almejd who can be compare to a “Disco Yeti” and make me think about this beautiful videoclip of Grizzly bear. (see below)
Also, the poesy that came out of the work of Berlinde de Bruyckere as you can see ambiguous shapes made with horse’s skins.
If you haven’t seen it, Richard Wilson’s permanent installation "20:50" is the most effective optical illusion I had seen!
You can see it for free until the 16th October 2011 at Saatchi Gallery.
Knife from Encyclopedia Pictura on Vimeo.
The exhibition that surrounds an incredible variety of categories (architecture, fashion, furniture, graphics, interactive, product, transport) is definitely interesting! Among the 100 projects, you can find the Barclays Cycle Hire, little cousins of the Montreal’s Bixis!
One of the projects I found interesting is the E.Chromi project: A strange gathering between synthetic biology and design by undergraduates of Cambridge University. They created bacteria E. Coli that can secrete colors visible to the naked eye. Potentials uses are explained as colored feces for different types of diseases (If it’s red in the toilet your probably have colorectal cancer, if it’s green aids and etc.).
E. chromi from Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg on Vimeo.
Pentagram Kodak
The exhibit about Kenneth Grange, founder of the famous design studio Pentagram, runs until the 30th October at the Design Museum. It’s presenting a retrospective of the product designer’s work, considerate to have “made Britain modern”.
Born, as he says, in "a bacon and eggs kind of house" of the London’s East End in 1929, he designed over the years a long list of items. Among them, the first Kodak 44A in 1959, the 1997 version of London black cabs, Parker pens, Kenwood fool mixers, the anglepoise spring lamp, the first UK parking meters, Thermos etc. In fact, if you live in England, even for people that Grange’s name still unknown, you definitely already travelled or utilized once his designs in your day-to-day life.
Influenced by his national service and his early jobs as an architects assistant, Kenneth still working. Funny and maybe true, in an interview with The Observer, he said that Mac is overdesigned and some modern furniture might be “absolute icon” but still not comfortable and “designed to make the space look brilliant." Hopefully, according to him, his chairs are “bloody comfortable”. (1)
I enjoyed it but I made it through rapidly. However, British people can find it nostalgic as they recognize objects of their past. The 7£ entry was worth it because of the Brit insurance designs of the year exhibit that you can see at the same time.
(1)Kenneth Grange: half a century at the forefront of british Design, Rachel Cooke, The Observer
As we fight day to day against bacteria, The Wellcome Collection invites all lovers of hand sanitizer to Dirt, its new exhibition where our complex relation with dirt is explained throughout 5 different locations and times (The Streets in Soho 1854, an Hopital in Glasgow 1867, the museum at Dresden 1930 , the community in New Delhi 2011, The biggest landfill site, Fresh Kills, in 2030).
The exhibition also presents contemporary artists like Serena Korda who makes bricks with the dust she collect from donators and Santiago Sierra’s massive modules made with human faeces.
Even if I expected it to be more disgusting, I enjoyed the vintages amputations pictures (I particularly loved to search in the medical dictionary of my granny when I was little). There is so much to say about dirt, it seems that the exhibition focus on the sanitary history of London and its cholera epidemic in the times the Thame’s waters were called “monster soup”. Therefore, I learned that this incredible diarrhea and vomiting attack that we call cholera was killing you after couple of hours only. A sample of this original “rice milk” that came out of infected people was probably the most scary artifact of the exhibit.
But after all, Dirt isn’t too much repellent and even, the earliest sketches of bacteria could be similar to a pattern founded on the new Marc Jacobs ‘s Dress. It’s finishing at the end of august but have a look; it worth it and it’s free!
Also, The Wellcome Collection planned many events surrounding “dirt” for kids and adults. The café can be fun for lunchtime and it’s located in a good-looking open space with excellent healthy food. You can enjoy a hot meal and go shopping in the boutique where you can find interesting books and funny things. (it’s 5 minutes walk from St Lukes)
It’s not rubbish!
Also see:
Dirt car art in london! (Ok...)
and the The Flickr Group ( Where you can upload photos of dirt in your everyday life)
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An exhibition of massive living sculptures in the streets of Shanghai was realized for the Yang Ai foundation. The goal was to raise awareness around the every day struggles of parents with autistic children. It is estimated that the campaign had reached 20 000 000 people.
