The New (and legacy) Serpentine Gallery and the death of Art amongst others

Reminds me of Gary Hume work

After around a year I decided to visit once again the pleasant and compact Serpentine Gallery in Kensington Gardens, the exhibition I saw that is currently showing  is of works  by the Italian Artist  Marisa Merz who was born in Turin in 1926. Maria is associated with the  Arte Povera (impoverished art) movement and was the sole woman of that group. As well as 2 dimensional work Maria has quite a lot of sculpture in clay and metal.
Frustrations for me with her work were that nearly everything was 'untitled' and many undated.
Maria uses quite a lot of found materials, including wooden beams and a fair amount of copper wire and unfired clay.

I was reminded of Gary Hume particularly when I saw a door that she had embellished.

Rock on top of another rock

Outside the Serpentine gallery is a work of two rocks (Rock on top of another rock) by the artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss who have quite an interesting back story. 

As well as the gallery that was established in 1970 there is now a further gallery the...

Serpentine Sackler Gallery 

What greets you in the new gallery

So I went along to take a look at that too, it's housed in a former Magazine (an 1805 built gunpowder store).

On show for the opening is work by Adrián Villar Rojas and the exhibition is called  Today We Reboot the Planet.
The show is interesting and to me the unfired clay works have a look of looking at archaeological findings from the future (if that makes sense). The floor of the gallery  is at present made up of bricks associated with an earlier project by the artist - I overheard that there is a philosophy behind the lack of glazing that the work will dissipate over time.

When I looked around the Serpentine I did note in the gift shop  a book called Red Summer in Kensington Gardens (2010) which is somewhat along the lines of the idea  I had for my own 365 project.

Deaths

A few deaths to note this week:

Lou Reed (71) After a long illness the Walk on The Wild Side singer who was married to Laurie Anderson died.

The late Caro's work at Tate Britain

A link to Henry Moore and an earlier world of Sculpture was lost with the death of Sir Anthony Caro (89)- I  am only familiar with his metal work at Tate Britain which is bright red and looks (to me) like a piece of farm equipment (it's called Early one morning).



Arthur C Danto (89) was a name I'd not come across until I read an Obit in the London Times yesterday (The link here is of course not to the UK Times)- he was a Philosopher and did a lot to help us arrive at a definition of Art and had a thesis on the 'End of Art'.
As well as caring about Art he cared about hamburgers (quite an epitaph to have on your gravestone).

Danto Book

I also took another look at the Kensington Garden allotment which I had previously been very impressed with.