Photo Exhibiting (90)

A lesson in layout  

I've recently developed a real fondness for Cheese and Pickle baguette as  prepared by a slightly philanthropic sandwich chain (I think they may pay their taxes too).

As you'd expect a course on Exhibiting Photographs (City Lit) has tuned my senses to seeing layouts (and I've got a couple of showings to do as well) - really thought this arrangement at Pret a Manger  works well  (or was it just the baguette that made it look good).

And we've got £117 04

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Busy Pole

I don't know if that metallic  '9' looks like an upside down '6'

ICA (89)

As well as visiting the National Portrait Gallery I took a look at the ICA -It's some time since I've been there and perhaps not the best time to visit.


 It was though great to see other media on show here Helen Johnson who has a thoughtful dialogue on colonialism via weaving /

Dramatic and large

All quite at the Video-techque 

£115.91

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Seemed like a territorial issue

Nice to have a personality in front of the door but what a little
Purr-seur!

A nice old Road Sign (it's in W13)

At the National Portrait Gallery (88)

As I was in 'Town' yesterday and taking a class around Photography Exhibiting (more about this soon) seemed a good time to look at some - with this in mind made my way down to The National Gallery.

A well thought out Exhibition

Two lots of photo's took quite a bit of digestion one was in the general show and was called 'Before We were Men' by Photographer David Gwinnutt who was active as part of the London  'Blitz' scene of the 1980s.


The pictures, un-staged portraits of some of the key figures (Like Derek Jarman for example)  on show were exhibited in a simple grid of 2 rows with 5 per row.



After looking at these pictures I went to the 'temporary'/ticketed  exhibition Gillian Wearing & Claude Cahun Behind the mask, another mask.

Spring - Trees bare but budding 

This was a complex exhibition showing work by 2 artists who were not alive during each others lifetime but have some common themes.

The two artists  were presented in a fairly even way

If we consider the time that Claude Cahun was active with her  androgynous dress and behaviour she was something of a pioneer with her female partner Suzanne Malherbe aka Marcel Moore .

A lot of the pictures that she features in showed her with extremely short hair and it is easy to picture  her as part of the lively European surrealist scene between the wars.

Claude Cahun and her use of masks has inspired former YBA Gillian Wearing (she's also a Turner Prize winner), Gillian plays with ageing and reflects on her genes and inheritance  in the exhibition.

Weraring's work here  is largely photographic but includes  some 3 dimensional work along with painting - there's also something like 200 Polaroid selfies of Wearing dating mainly from the 1980s.

The exhibition as a whole was a challenging way of re-visiting Cahun's work - she sadly died at the age of 60 having faced  a difficult period in the Channel Islands during WW II.

£114.81

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Back on the home turf and surprised I've not used this road before..

Definitely not Scotland 

I like the colour but not too sure that we need three keyholes!

Ibis Hotel nearly ready (87)

All that glitters in West Ealing 

There was a time when West London (excluding Heathrow) was seriously short of affordable hotels now there are half a dozen at least within 3 miles of home.
Some of them are very boring to look at but some less so (I didn't use to like the West Ealing Holiday Inn Extra but now quite like it).


I've been watching the Ibis Hotel as this building develops and it does look a little different.

Before the facade

Starting to add the finishing touches

Almost finished 

£112 60p

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Some roads change into other ones and Ealing High Street does  some twists and turns into South Ealing Road

And the home of No 87 too

At the top above the knocker we can see it's 87

Spring has sprung (86)

The view from Plot 202

Lovely weather yesterday and today - spent sometime planting onions and chatting on Northfields Allotments (London's Oldest) .


Such a pleasure to get some - fresh-ish air Onions and Garlic now planted and a few seeds in trays too.

Blossom looks lovely

and Buds

 Even picked some Rhubarb.

Good for breakfast 

Quite a lot of '1's'-  now £111.51

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More of that Tree vibe

Too much white perhaps?

Exhibiting and borrowing (85)

So last week was the second part of the More of the exhibiting stuff class at CityLit (Exhibiting photography: a practical guide) - it's a really nice group of people and a lot of the learning takes place as a result of this - during the session we spoke a fair amount about selecting images and giving feedback.

And the same car this week

Funnily enough from about 18 months ago

Shirley Read who is our course leader has a vast amount of experience in the field and a great number of anecdotes that relate to the endeavour.


Having been to quite a number of exhibitions of late and got a fair amount of feedback from 'Design Museum' visitors I'm  looking forward to getting the full story on labelling and the like which I'm sure will be coming soon.

Covent Garden improvements offer some odd reflections

Local Library

What the library gives us

On Friday arriving back in Ealing after 'duty' at Design Museum'  I had some time before a meeting and decided to visit the local library.


The Agenda for council run libraries is not a good one - funds can be reduced without too much resistance and this seems to be happening subtlety - We used to have a great selection of up to date publications and on trying to read Private Eye (which used to be on show for reading) I was told this was no longer held and to read the most recent magazine I should 'lodge' my ticket this acts to make the reading less straightforward and the conclusion by the 'funders'  is then (of course) well it's not being used - we can stop it.


Shame.

£109 33

[Consider how we can keep libraries going]

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A country sounding name - but less relevant now 

Seems that Harewood relates to a type of Sycamore and its use (stained sycamore wood used for making furniture).

You can just about see the 85 on the right - could be an 'Everest' job for the porch.

Planting and Hopper (84)

When things are not good or could be improved we should (perhaps) try and make them better by one means or another - with this in mind I put some fresh plants in the front border near our front door Blue Pansies and Some Sweet William 'Indian Carpet' - hoping for a nice bit of colour there.

Nice in the hall

But better in the border

Hopper

And to be able to have something to look forward to in May I have now booked a 'Focus on Hopper' day -  the course will be led by Rachel Sanders  (with who I focused before on Duchamp about 18 months ago).

Western Motel  (1957) 

Fantastic -£108.20p

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 So Fetter seems to go well with an olde worlde view of things -Shackles and horses are brought to mind and area (EC4) undoubtedly historic too .

Fetter sounds historic (and Greek!)

Could be good if you're moving large items in and out

Brick walls (83)

You know sometimes you're hitting a brick wall - well sometimes the  thing to do is see what others do - and a great place to do this can be the TV or Youtube.

Sometimes feels like we've hit a brick wall 

And on that subject a really nice BBC TV programme (What do Artists do all Day?) about Glaswegian photographer Dougie Wallace (you can see it here if you've access to BBC iPlayer).

Now £107 10p

[He's like Martin Parr's naughty younger brother].

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Wigmore Street another W1 location

And a commercial property using  Glass again