Weekly Roundup #1

Here's the potted version of what I've been up to this past week: I saw a lot of art and photography, went to theatre, heard a talk on London Victorian bricks, looked into some lovely churches, went to a couple museums, saw a man trapped inside a clock and aliens in tin foil, and walked a lot. Read on if you want the details.

Monday saw me headed to Pimlico to meet up with my friend Judy at Tate Britain. After three years, we are both covid weary (and still wary), our hair is different -- hers longer and mine magenta -- and we still thoroughly enjoy contemporary art, particularly if it's a bit on the edgy side. I was really excited to see the Cornelia Parker exhibition. I'd not heard of her or seen her work before. She's a Brit, about the same age as me, who takes ordinary objects -- silverware, guns, cracks in pavement -- and puts them through a transformative process that makes you see them, and our relationship to them, in a totally different way. Among my favourite works was Thirty Pieces of Silver -- lots and lots of silver bowls, teapots, platters, cutlery, that she ran over with a steam roller and then arranges in groups, suspended from the ceiling, with shadows playing on the wooden floor underneath. It reminded me of the bin full of silver that we have at the charity shop at home where I volunteer.

 

Other works included a garden shed that she blew up (i.e. used explosives) and then suspended the bits and pieces from the ceiling, several chalk boards on which she had school kids of various ages copy headlines from the tabloids, the Magna Carta painstakingly embroidered by a host of volunteers onto a long linen sheet, and an iron grid made by first pouring liquid rubber into cracks in the pavement, then prising it up and casting the shape in metal.

After lunch in the members' dining room, we spent time walking all around Hew Locke's The Procession, the current commission in the Duveen Galleries. The installation is comprised of over 100 figures in a parade of sorts, like Carnival. After you are drawn in by the colourful costumes and the pageantry, you start to look closer and realize that much of the fabric is printed with images of stock shares in sugar companies and plantations. There are all sorts of other images in the clothing and banners that point to the violence of colonialism in the Caribbean. What was initially a joyful-looking scene becomes one depicting exploitation, militarism, death, and ultimately survival. 

We then ambled up Whitehall to Westminster, where Judy caught the tube while I headed on to Trafalgar Square to see the newly installed sculpture on the 4th plinth. This one is called Antelope and is by Samson Kambalu. It depicts two real men for a change (past plinth sculptures have been a ship in a bottle, an ice cream sundae, and a blue rooster), and a poignant moment in the history of the British Empire in Africa. Read more about it here and see photos that are much better than my snap below. 

Tuesday was another gorgeous autumn day, and I set out on what turned out to be a very long walk, from my gaff in Belsize Park, up and over Primrose Hill, down the Broad Walk in Regent's Park, through the streets of Marylebone, to Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens (with a stop to eat my packed lunch at the Italian Gardens, a place I love) and to see the exhibitions at the Serpentine Galleries and the temporary Pavilion. This year's pavilion is Black Chapel by Theaster Gates. Some years, the pavilion is light and airy. This one is dark and enclosed, with an oculus in the roof to let the sky be seen and light come in. It's supposed to be a place of "reflection, refuge and conviviality" and I reckon it fits the bill. 

Inside the galleries I saw works by Kamala Ibrahim Ishag, a Sudanese woman 

and by Barbara Chase-Riboud, an African American woman working in Paris. 

Later, I wandered around Bayswater a bit, saw girls on horses at the riding stables tucked away in Bathurst Mews, and made my way up to Paddington to see a man stuck in a clock. 

The bus ride home took me through Maida Vale and into St John's Wood, so I hopped off in order to dash into Panzer's Deli to buy a loaf of their wonderful rye, raisin and walnut bread. I so wish I could find a bakery at home that makes this bread. The deli has changed enormously since I was last there about 10 years ago. It's rearranged and remodeled and is now a temple of imported food. My eyes were definitely bigger than my stomach or my wallet. 

I spent Wednesday in Piccadilly and Fitzrovia, again soaking up a lot of art plus visiting two churches to see their ornate Victorian interiors. I started the day with a tube journey to Green Park and a walk to the Royal Academy of Arts to see the Milton Avery exhibition. He's another artist I previously knew nothing about and I thought I should as I had taken a course on contemporary American art at some point. I liked his use of colour and form. 

My next stop was the Photographers' Gallery just off Oxford Street to see a large retrospective exhibition of black and white photos by Chris Killip, all taken in the north of England during the 1970s and 80s, showing the impact that the economic decline during those decades had on the people who lived in the towns and countryside. I thought the photos were incredibly powerful, opening my eyes to a slice of British life I'd never seen, and I thoroughly enjoyed the show.

Before pushing northward to see the two churches on my list, I took a southerly detour to Poland Street to check out a now-restored ghost signs in an indoor carpark there. The last time I'd seen the signs, they were covered in a discoloured varnish and had been tagged with graffiti. I'm generally not a huge fan of restoring ghost signs, but this has been done really well. They've given it a new coating that will make any subsequent tagging easier to remove without causing further damage to the signs. My friend Sam Roberts has written about the restoration process in his Ghostsigns blog. Here's what the restored signs look like:

Onward to the north again, my next destinations were All Saints Margaret Street and the Fitzrovia Chapel. (Sorry, no pix, as the lighting was just too dark for my rubbish phone camera. I'll have some better shots from my proper camera to post eventually on ipernity.) All Saints Margaret Street is a Grade I listed Victorian Gothic revival church, with elaborate tile friezes covering most of the interior surfaces. The Fitzrovia Chapel, also Victorian, is a tiny structure, surrounded by modern buildings that dwarf it. The chapel was originally within the complex of the Middlesex Hospital, which was torn down about 10 years ago with only the chapel surviving. This one is Grade II listed. The gold-tiled interior is absolutely dazzling and feels like stepping into a jewel box or the inside of a Faberge egg.  

The last stop of the day was in Regent's Park to see this year's Frieze Sculpture. This is an event I always enjoy, as it's the only part of Frieze that's free and accessible to everyone. Some years I walk around scratching my head, not knowing what to make of the sculptures. This year's pieces often had me chuckling, especially when I saw two "aliens" in tin foil suits who were also looking around at the various works.

I'd really been pushing myself to the max, so I was happy to make an easier day of it on Thursday. In the morning, I joined the Primrose Hill Community Association walking group for their weekly ramble, this one a social walk down to Regent's Park, past the herbaceous borders and several fountains, then back to Primrose Hill. I enjoyed chatting with the other walkers as we ambled through the park. I had a leisurely lunch back at my gaff, and then walked the ten minute distance to the Hampstead Theatre to see the matinee performance of The Snail House. I hadn't read any reviews beforehand so that I could form my own opinion, which was that the staging was very good, acting generally good, but the play itself wasn't all that well written and had too many themes running through it. Apparently, the Guardian's reviewer agrees. 

Since I was essentially on the Finchley Road, after the play I had plenty of time to case more of the charity shops. I was in search of a sweatshirt or something else warm to wear for lounging around the flat. I finally found one that fit the bill -- an olive drab sweatshirt, never worn. The original tag was still on it -- it sold for £10 at Top Shop; charity shop price was £7. I also got some more groceries -- the flat has a tiny fridge, so food shopping is almost a daily activity for me. 

This brings me to Friday and to Clerkenwell and Bloomsbury. First up was a book launch talk at the London Metropolitan Archives by a man who has written about Victorian London Bricks. This probably sounds really niche -- and it is -- but I thoroughly enjoyed it and learned a lot about digging clay, forming bricks, firing and transporting them, as well as the people who did all those things. The LMA is currently running an exhibition on maps of London, something else that's right up my alley. It was a lot to take in, so I might pop in for another look at it if I'm in the area again. 

I discovered that Waitrose sells what they call "Forgotten Ends" -- end bits of sushi rolls that were cut off to make the rolls neat, the bits then put into pint-sized containers and sold for £2. This made for a great lunch, which I ate in a lovely cloister garden that I stumbled upon at the Museum of the Order of St John. There's a way into the garden from St John's Square, so you don't even need to go inside the museum proper. There were several other people sitting at tables or on benches, eating their lunches, so I figured this was a fine spot for my lunch break.

Westward I walked, across Clerkenwell, through the Italian enclave with a Vespa shop and some trattorias, to reach Bloomsbury and the Charles Dickens Museum. I'd been there before, but probably over 10 years ago, and I'd heard that the museum had been expanded and enhanced so I wanted to go back. And it's free entry with my Art Pass. The museum now covers five floors of the house in Doughty Street (the shop and admin offices have moved into the house next door). I enjoyed looking at all the various artifacts from Dickens life that are on display, including a grille from the Marshalsea Prison, where Dickens father was confined as a debtor, and two small but significant windows.

It's amazing that I had the stamina for one more stop, but I took some ibuprofen and pushed on to the Foundling Museum to see the exhibition Tiny Traces: African & Asian Children at London's Foundling Hospital. I've always liked this small museum and the stories it tells of the children taken into care there. (It's another freebie for Art Pass holders.) When I was very young, one of my favourite books was Dickens' Stories about Children, nearly all of whom are orphans. I know that we have romanticized the stories of orphans in literature for eons, but I do find them compelling. The exhibitions at the Foundling Museum cut through that romanticism and tell the real stories of very real children. In this current exhibition, the museum examines the fragmentary evidence they have found of children of colour who came into care at the Foundling Hospital. 

That concludes my first full week. I'm exhausted from doing it and from writing it up. What do you think, readers? Do you like the weekly roundup format? Or should I do shorter but more frequent posts? Let me know in the comments below. 

Stats:

Monday, Oct 10

£73 Art Pass (for free or 50% off entry to museums, etc.)

£4.20 pastry

54p bananas

15,239 steps

6.25 miles

Tuesday, Oct 11

£1.20 rolls

£6 loaf of bread from Panzer's

20p toilet (plus ? international credit card fee)

22,571 steps

9.22 miles

Wednesday, Oct 12

£16.25 groceries & wine

£5 Photographers' Gallery

£14 Milton Avery at the RA

18,772 steps

7.66 miles

Thursday, Oct 13

£20 ticket for Hampstead Theatre

£3 toiletries from Boots

£7 sweatshirt from charity shop

£5.25 groceries

18,987 steps

7.76 miles

Friday, Oct 14

£2 lunch from Waitrose

£2 cookie

15,100 steps

6.20 miles