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A Trip to Kew

Yesterday I took a trip out to Kew Gardens. It was mostly for pleasure although there was lots of Victorian fun to be had. First we visited the newly reopened and restored Kew Palace, home to King George III and Queen Charlotte. The paneled rooms, with their high ceilings, were relatively empty of grand furniture; this was a palace that felt like a home. You can also see Queen Charlotte's beautiful dolls' house.

A climb up to the Tree Top walk allows you to see the glasshouses in all their glory.
















This was followed by exploring the Temperate Houses, which are full of beautiful palms and yellow and orange blooms. We also discovered this late nineteenth-century version of Donatello's David looking camp among the palm fronds. We rounded off our afternoon with a visit to the Marianne North Gallery, an incredible testament to one woman's skill and sense of adventure - both important qualities in a botanical artist.

Sculpture in London: A Walking Tour

One of the best parts about studying art history is getting to talk to other interested people about it. So I am so excited about leading a walking tour of the sculpture in Hyde Park on August 11th with my friend and colleague Ayla Lepine for Love Art London.

We'll be looking at Watts' Physical Energy, Frampton's Peter Pan, Epstein's Pan (hopefully, if it is reinstalled in time!) and of course the Albert Memorial. We took a walk through the park this afternoon to plan our route and do a bit of geeking out. Come and join us on the 11th, but if you can't make it I'll report back here on how it went.

Exposed Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera

Tonight Sandra Phillips, Curator of Photographs at the San Fransisco Museum of Modern Art, gave a talk on the newly opened photography exhibition at Tate Modern: Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera.

The exhibition is a culmination of ten years of Phillips' research, originating and developed from her previous work on Police photography, in collaboration with the new curator of photography at Tate Modern, Simon Baker.

As Phillips talked, she introduced some of the photographs and photographers included in the show, some iconic and instantly recongisable - Weegee's photograph of Marilyn Monroe for example, and other lesser known, more historic examples. Street Photography figured prominently in Phillips' address, especially the subway photographs of Walker Evans.

I am so excited about this exhibition and I can't wait to go. I'll try and write more once I have seen the show, which runs until 3 October 2010.





















Photo: Walker Evans, New York [Subway Passengers, New York], 1938
Gelatin silver print; 12.2 x 18.4 cm (4 13/16 x 7 1/4 in.)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Alfred Gilbert in Winchester

On Wednesday I made a flying visit to Winchester to study Alfred Gilbert's Monument to Queen Victoria, started in 1887. The monument was originally sited at the end of the High Street but suffered vandalism and was dwarfed by Hamo Thornycroft's huge statue of King Alfred, so was moved to Winchester Great Hall (also the home of a round table, reportedly belonging to King Arthur).

Queen Victoria unobtrusively occupies a corner of the Great Hall, no mean feat for an over life-size monument on an enormous pedestal. Visitors, here to see the famous Round Table, seem surprised and intrigued to encounter one of our best known monarchs, but there is little explanation or interpretation of this very fine example of Gilbert's work.

The monument was considered to have set a new standard for sculptural images of the Queen. There are several other casts (in Newcastle and Australia) and the format and general look of the monument were very influential. The complex iconography aroused much debate in the periodical press and can clearly be connected to other works throughout Gilbert's career.

Of course I was particularly interested in Victoria's dress. Although the clothing she wears is fairly conventional, a silk dress with full skirt, the garter sash and then an ermine cloak, the way it tightly pulls across and folds and unfolds around the body seems unstable and dynamic. I'm still trying to think what this might mean and why it is important. Hopefully it will become clearer when I start to compare it to Gilbert's other works such as the Clarence Memorial.

I took one hundred and seven photos of the sculpture so I thought I'd share a few more of them with you.

The Concise History of Dress - Essential

Last week I went to see The Concise History of Dress, an exhibition jointly curated by the dress curator Judith Clark and the psychoanalyst Adam Phillips. The exhibition mobilizes and utilizes the architecture of the fortress-like Blythe House in Olympia, a vast store house for the V&A and the British Museum collections, with suprising and unnerving installations. Each of the eleven installations explore and challenge notions of how costume and dress inform our perceptions of self/other, dress/body and subjectivity and sexuality. There was a real sense of going 'behind-the-scenes' of Blythe House, from the roof to the basement, and this theatricality continued in carefully choreographed guided tour. There were sudden moments of revelation as rooms were flooded with light and installations were revealed round corners or between rolling stacks.

Each installation came with a definition, written by Clark and Phillips, which took the place of a traditional gallery label (see above for the definition of Essential). These broad and often ambiguous terms were: Armoured; brash; comfortable; conformist; creased; diaphanous; essential; fashionable; loose; measured; plain; pretentious; provocative; revealing; sharp and tight.

When the exhibition guide opened the heavy metal door and flicked on the lights in the room containing Essential, I was met with some familiar images, including a photograph of Hamo Thornycroft's marble sculpture Lot's Wife (1877-78). Perhaps I should have expected it but I was still surprised to find an installation pertaining so closely to my own research on sculpture, dress and drapery, even containing one of the sculptures I've studied.

The photograph of Lot's Wife was hung from a metal grid, the sort used in painting stores, and surrounded by other photographic prints and plaster casts. The collection of images was formed of a mix of classical and neo-classical sculpture and painting with new pieces commissioned specifically for Essential by Judith Clark. For example, Clark commissioned a postage stamp showing a Vionnet dress and a stone carving of a Sofia Kokosalaki dress from 2006, the year Kokosalaki became creative director at Vionnet, this connection shows the enduring importance of classical drapery to our essential ideas of beauty and form.

Horace Walpole and Strawberry Hill

You can read my review of the Horace Walpole and Strawberry Hill exhibition at the V&A here. All the other reviews have been written by Courtauld Institute students. Contact Celia White via courtauldreviews@gmail.com to find out more.

I went to see the Concise History of Dress at Blythe House tonight. I will write more about it soon but for now all I'm going to say is GO GO GO and see it.

See a video trailer here.