Two trips to The Tate

I have never had to queue to get into Tate Modern before, but yesterday was a very special day.  I was one of the lucky few (or should that read "lucky many") who were allowed in to the Members' Preview event before the public opening of the new Switch House.  The sun was shining, the queue moved quickly and there seemed to be a feeling of excitement as we waited our turn to get through the doors.

The building is very industrial in design but there are plenty of seats and space, particularly on the first level up where I found the new "Between Object and Architecture" gallery.  I was especially pleased to see a large number of works by women artists, and work I had not seen on display at the gallery before.  Throughout the Switch House there were also a lot of textile pieces.  On Level 3 I found the "Performer and Participant" gallery, the first piece of which was a display of Suzanne Lacey's The Crystal Quilt (1985-7), which includes a traditional patchwork quilt alongside images (still and film) of the performance work itself.  This floor also included a whole room of work by Rebecca Horn's body sculptures - exploring ideas of contact between individuals and their environment.  On Level 4, as well as the "Living Cities" gallery, there was an Artist Room dedicated to the later works of Louise Bourgeois, many of which are textile pieces.

Trying to take in the new building, the new art works, the new type of spaces for art (such as The Tanks) - it definitely needs more than one visit.  It was quite refreshing to go to the very top of the Switch House and its viewing gallery.  Not only was it a chance to get some fresh air, I was able to enjoy a new view over London.

I was in fact very pleased that only a couple of weeks ago I had visited the "old" Tate Modern for the Mona Hatoum retrospective - it too has many elements of embroidery and weaving (though often using unusual materials such as hair or pasta).  Hatoum's work can be political but also very thought provoking and I had planned a second visit.  However I thought after walking from Liverpool Street Station, all the walking in the Switch House, all the up and down of the stairs, it would be better to return another day.  Particularly as when I last visited I also discovered that the Boiler House (what used to be the whole Tate Modern building) had been completely re-organised, so that too seems like a new set of galleries.

If there was a drawback to the day, it was the fact that due to the popularity of the event, I never got to try out the lifts - they were always full and there were always queues.  Oh my poor knees!

Childhood, Consciousness, Collage and Collectives

Yesterday was a real mix of a day - nostalgia, creativity, and plenty to think about.  It started with a visit to the V&A Museum of Childhood.  On entering the museum I came across an exhibition on Indian Warli painting in The Tales We Tell - Warli Painting.  An ancient technique, traditionally applied to walls (usually by women), the exhibition showed work by contemporary artists, who are keeping the tradition alive. Additionally a project with local school children introducing them to the technique was also on show.  From a distance these works (on paper and canvas) had a lace like quality, and warranted careful viewing as they are full of details about everyday life (see below).

(Below) - part of the collaborative project by local school children.

Also at the museum at the moment is a small exhibition that was really an excuse for nostalgia, Clangers, Bagpuss & Co.  All the clangers are there with the soup dragon and the iron chickens, Bagpuss and friends and the Pogles. Some original art work for Ivor the Engine and Noggin the Nog is on display too.

The last exhibition I visited at this museum was very different.  It told the story of children sent abroad in the 18th-20th centuries usually to Canada or Australia, and something I had a personal interest in through my family history - On Their Own: Britain's Child Migrants, was a sad but important story.

From Bethnal Green, I travelled to Euston Square, to see an exhibition at the Wellcome Collection - States of Mind: Tracing the Edges of Consciousness. Although not a textile related exhibition, it does relate to creativity.  The exhibition combines scientific and cultural explorations on what consciousness is, how it has been understood in the past and how some of our understanding can be explored artistically.  I was particularly interested in the section on synaesthesia and discovered that letter-colour training can be learnt.  Part way through my visit an announcement came across of a free collage workshop in the Reading Room, and I decided that would be the next thing I would explore.

I had never visited the Reading Room of the Wellcome Collection before and that in itself was a worthwhile discovery - a cross between a library, a gallery, a place to relax and to learn.  The tutor for the workshop (Elaine Duigenan) gave us a brief introduction to some simple collage techniques, provided all the materials and then let us play.  I could have stayed longer if I did not have an appointment to meet a friend elsewhere.

(Below and at top of page - my work from the drop in session.)

My last port of call was the Foundling Museum.  My friend and I had a whirlwind trip around Found, but our real reason for visiting was an evening event.  United We Stand: Artists and Collective Action was a discussion on why artists collaborate, who they might collaborate with and what collective working can achieve.  The panel consisted of Iwona Blazwich, Director of the Whitechapel Gallery, Dr Tanya Harrod, an independent design historian, Louise Jury from the Creative Industries Federation and artist Bob and Roberta Smith.  All spoke very eloquently on the importance of art, not just as something that enhances life, but as an essential that is good for society in general. The importance of craft skills and manual dexterity was highlighted - not just for craftsmen and women, but for surgeons and dentists.  I was reminded of the exhibition at the Wellcome exploring the connections between body and mind.  I was also interested to learn of the dental surgeon who sends her students to drawing classes - to teach them to look.  

Collaboration has in the past been used by artists to explore the possibility of Utopian societies or change art in radical ways.  Nowadays it is more often about challenging government and society in general about the importance of art and creativity, not least of which for improved health and economy.  It is something we should all think about.

On Their Own: Britain's Child Migrants continues until 12 June 2016

Clangers, Bagpuss & Co continues until 9 October 2016

The Tales We Tell: Indian Warli Painting continues until 6 November 2016

All the above, at the V&A Museum of Childhood, Bethnal Green are free.

States of Mind: Tracing the Edges of Consciousness continues until 16 October 2016

The Wellcome Collection is also free - there are two permenant galleries, and another temporary exhibition that are also free.  Drop in sessions in the Reading Room are not always advertised in advance, but the room itself is free to visit when the galleries are open.

Found at the Foundling Museum continues until 4 September 2016 - admission charge applies; see website for details.

What I Found at The Foundling

Having found the Foundling Museum several years ago as a source of inspiration for my own textile work (as above*), and now a place of work, I am probably more than a bit biased when recommending their temporary exhibitions. However, their exhibition Found, curated by Cornelia Parker is, I think, one of their best.  

Over 60 artists have contributed with either found objects or work that relates to the subject of things found (and lost).  Many of the pieces on display are quite ordinary things, (some are literally rubbish), but each one has a remarkable story.  Several pieces are textiles or look like textiles, so as this is a textile themed blog I will highlight these first:

In the entrance hall is Yinke Shonibare's Trumpet Boy, beautifully dressed in bright African style fabrics and a found trumpet, almost heralding the visitors' arrival.  In the introductory gallery, Sue Pritchard has contributed fragments of her grandfather's old sailor suit alongside a photo and spade - telling a story of how they have become a symbol of love and hardship.  Laura Ford found items on her daily school run, which she used to create Glove Boy - who is now exploring the first floor landing (and I'm sure comes alive at night).  In the main exhibition area, Tacita Dean says she found an embroidery - although it is actually a woven fabric, (or perhaps this is a case of post-modern irony?)  Gavin Turk's Nomad looks like a fabric sleeping bag hiding its occupant, but is in fact made of bronze.

But there are also several other (non-textile) works that I feel I should mention - Anthony Gormley's Iron Baby, alone in an empty room has been picked out as the favourite of many visitors as is Dad's Stick a video work (and paint stick) by John Smith, which I found very moving. Ron Arad's 1951 is, like the paper note tokens, a collection of people's lives barely known.  Probably the tiniest exhibit is a piece of Hans Christian Anderson's blotting paper.

This is an exhibition to make you sad, to make you laugh, to make you think.  As was said on a recent review of the exhibition (BBC Radio 4's Saturday Review), it is also an exhibition to make you look and make you read - to make you explore.  It is worth taking time to read the labels; perhaps have a cup of coffee/tea halfway through.  It is not an exhibition you can appreciate with a quick view. Personally, I think this is one exhibition not to be missed.  

The Found exhibition continues until 4 September 2016.  The Foundling Museum is open Tuesday-Sundays and can be found at Brunswick Square, London, WC1N.  Full adult admission fee - £10.25 (check website for concessions) - children free.  

Lovely cafe too.

*my work displayed at The Crypt Gallery, St Pancras Church in 2013, and relating to research into the life of Margaret Larney, a story I found of a mother who left two children at the Foundling Hospital in the 1750s, whilst she was in Newgate Jail.  (Photo by Andrew Willis.)

This is not an orange.

It may look, taste, feel, smell like an orange - but it is in fact a piece of art, and previously on display at Tate Britain.  It is not often that galleries suggest you take a piece of art they have on display home, and when I visited I have to say I did not have the nerve to do so, but my friend did and gave the "art" to me. The exhibition is Conceptual Art in Britain 1964-1979.  For many people conceptual art is quite baffling but really it is about questioning what art is - a question famously asked by Marcel Duchamp when he tried to exhibit Fountain (which everyone thought was just a urinal) - a so called "found object".

So what has this to do with textiles?  Well it reminds me that despite all the decades of discussion, with many now agreeing that something is art if an artist says it is, there are still many who do not include embroidery and textile art as fine art.  Despite this there are plenty of textile pieces, even embroidered ones, in the major modern art galleries.

It did not help that in the 18th century the Royal Academy banned "fancy work" from their exhibitions - but even though there was at least one embroidered piece in last year's Summer Exhibition, most embroiderers are still nervous of submitting their work to this open show.  Now they must love textile art as the Royal Academy has wrapped their building in a fabric installation by artist Yinke Shonibare - a work titled Family Album.  (It is called a tapestry but I think it is more likely to be a printed art work, but I have yet to see it in real life).

Tomorrow sees the opening of a brand new exhibition at the Foundling Museum - called Found. Curated by Cornelia Parker, the list of other participating artists is impressive and I am looking forward to seeing what they have found - and also hearing about the stories behind their work.  I am particularly interested to find out if there are any textiles - watch this space.

Found - opens at the Foundling Museum in London, on Friday 27 May 2016 and continues until 4 September 2016.

Conceptual Art in Britain 1964-1979 continues at Tate Britain in London until 29 August 2016.

The Royal Academy Summer Show opens 13 June and continues until 21 August 2016.

It's Surreal!

Essay writing is taking over my time at the moment as I am in the last stages of my OU degree.  With no time to think about my blog, I thought instead I would just post some images of one of the pieces I am working on - which perhaps unsurprisingly includes rather a lot of textiles

The Angel of Anarchy (1936-40), is by Eileen Agar (1899-1991), and the second of two versions - the first one very different and going missing in c. 1937.  I have had to read about Surrealism and discovered that it is more interesting than I thought.  I have also learnt a lot about Agar, who knew Dali and Picasso, and had a short affair with the artist Paul Nash.  She led a very colourful life and there are all sorts of anecdotes about her life including the fact that her father sent her to art school in a Rolls Royce - she made the driver drop her off down the road so her fellow students didn't see it.  

The artwork itself is at Tate Britain as part of its permanent collection.  I walked past it many times before I decided to use it in my final work and it reminds me that once you know a little about something you want to know more.  

Mesmerising movements

Visiting Tate Britain's library this week I caught Pablo Bronstein's latest commission Historical Dances in an Antique Setting.  Part installation, part performance, it showed that you do not have to have elaborate costumes to create a work of striking elegance.

The dancers movements are based on the idea of sprezzatura, (it means studied carelessness) - something often found in Renaissance and Baroque art.   The facades at either end of the gallery are images of the main facade at Millbank and the Clore facade.  It is all about fragments and falsifying history.

The dancers move continuously between three spaces - sometimes they follow the lines on the floor and sometimes they don't.  Sometimes they post individually and at other times they mirror or work together as a group.  Occasionally one dancer will move and another will replace them.  All of them wore the same costume - red shirt, black tights and enormous beaded jewellery.  The tights mean that you can really see the positioning of their legs but the thing I found most fascinating was their hands - limp wrists, curled fingers, occasionally fluttering movements.  

It is hard to explain why but the whole effect I found quite fascinating and mesmerising.  

The work will be on display until 9 October 2016.

Bound for the library

If I had to choose a theme for the week, it would be "books and libraries", not just because I am in the middle of reading and researching an essay for my art history studies, but also because by the end of this week I will have visited four different libraries.

At the beginning of the week, visiting friends, we found ourselves amongst the Bodleian Libraries in Oxford (the first library dates from 1320).  Although we could not go inside the Radcliffe Camera (pictured above - built 1749) we did have a conversation as to why it was called a "camera".  I have since discovered there is a scholarly reason as the word means "room" in Latin so appropriate for a reading room for scholars.  We could however visit the newest Weston Library, only opened in 2015.  As many modern libraries do, it has a coffee shop and an exhibition space.  As well as an interesting exhibition on Shakespeare (Shakespeare's Dead - continues until 18 September 2016), there is a selection of Bodleian Treasurers, including a beautifully bound embroidered bible.  Known as The Geneva Bible it was once given as a gift to Elizabeth I as a new year gift in 1583-4.  

My second library this week is my own local library - I think the fact that it is also the local school library means that it is safe from council cuts.  Sadly it is not large enough to allow for much browsing as each section is rather limited.  However I love the fact I can order books on line and then pick them up to borrow.  I have used their free Ancestry access in the past too - a very useful resource.  

Today I visited Chelmsford Library (see below), where my local Embroiderer's Guild branch is holding it's anniversary exhibition Stitch by Stitch.  It was a good chance to catch up with members past and present and we had visitors from Scotland and Prague.  There are some really stunning pieces of work including some amazing stumpwork - but also felting, beading, patchwork. I was a bit late delivering my work so it is up, but missing its label.  I was just happy I was able to support the exhibition.  The exhibition is open at the library until the end of May.

Tomorrow I am booked to my fourth library of the week - the British Library.  A meeting at lunch time in town means I can spend the morning with books already ordered for my OU research.  Although I won't have time to visit tomorrow, it too has a "treasurers" section that is free to visit at any time (and a cafe), as well as its paid exhibition area.  Of course most books involve some stitch  in the binding (apart from modern glued bindings and some rolled books).  Much old paper also comes from rags so might be considered textile too.

So despite a week with my head in books, it could be said that it has been quite a textile related week too.