Exhibition Review: 'Great British Faces' at Sunderland Museum and Winter Garden

I'm back....again! 

After another lengthy absence I've decided that the New Year is the perfect time to get back into blogging! More importantly, I think its time to get back to blogging about what really inspires me! I started Here We Go Louby Lou as a place that I could give voice to my passionate ramblings about art, but somewhere along the way I was distracted by other things...mainly clothes and make up! So as of now, while there might still be the occasional musing on my latest MAC lipstick or Topshop purchase, Here We Go Louby Lou is definitely going to be more about art!

To kick things off I thought I'd start the New Year and new look Here We Go Louby Lou with a review of the most recent exhibition I visited, 'Great British Faces' at the Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens.

Sir Ian McKellen (1939-) by Clive Smith (1967-) National Portrait Gallery, London

Comprised of works loaned from the National Portrait Gallery, 'Great British Faces' features portraits of some of the country's "cultural and humanitarian icons" including thespians Dame Helen Mirren and Sir Ian McKellen, fashion designer Sir Paul Smith and humanitarian Camila Batmanghelidjh. 

Dame Helen Mirren (1945-) by Ishbel Myerscough (1968-) National Portrait Gallery, London

This a very small exhibition, only nine works in total, all tucked away along one side of a gallery also displaying the city's collection of works by L.S. Lowry, as well as couple of lovely studies by Pre-Raphaelite hero Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Its so well hidden that despite a poster pointing me to the second floor, it took me a minute to find 'Great British Faces' and I have to admit to being a bit disappointed when I did! Only nine works?     

Sir Paul Brierley Smith (1946-) by James Lloyd (1971-) National Portrait Gallery, London

However my disappointment was short-lived. This exhibition might be small but its perfectly formed! The works on display were all commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery as part of the BP Portrait Award and were created by BP Portrait Award winning artists. As such, they're all (with perhaps one exception, in my opinion) wonderful examples of contemporary portraiture.

Camilla Batmanghelidjh (1963-) by Dean Marsh (1968-) National Portrait Gallery, London

The exhibition offers the viewer a fantastic cross-section of portraiture practice over the last twenty years, from the Hyper-Realism of Paul Emsley to the paintely daubings of Catherine Goodman. My personal favourite was Dean Marsh's glorious depiction of Psychotherapist and humanitarian Camila Batmanghelidjh (above). I love the folds of her elaborate silk gown and the delicate depiction of her hands and fingernails. Who said painting was dead?!  

Sunderland Museum and Winter Garden say that "Great British Faces is a snapshot of modern Britain, and represents the diversity, creativity and vision of those people who have shaped the cultural and civil landscape of the world in which we live." I say that while that may be true (it's a very small snapshot) 'Great British Faces' is a gorgeous introduction to contemporary British portraiture and we're lucky to have it here in the North East...even if it does take a while to find it!

'Great British Faces' is showing at Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens until 9th March 2013. Admission free!

On a side note - on Monday 21st January 2013, Sunderland Museums withdrew from Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums (TWAM) and from April this year will be managed by the new Sunderland Museum and Heritage Service. While I don't know the details of the loans agreement between TWAM and the National Portrait Gallery, lets hope that a similar arrangement can be brokered with the new management or 'Great British Faces' could be the last NPG exhibition we see in Sunderland!

New shoes, baking, art and general waffle

A VERY belated Happy New Year!

So I know I've been an unbelievably lazy blogger of late...actually since December! An evil dissertation proposal and the general hectic-ness of the festive season are my only excuse...I started 2012 with the best of blogging intentions...

I intended to post about Sherlock and the general amazingness of Benedict Cumberbatch (His name for a start!)

...the gorgeous new Jo Malone Blue Agava & Cacao Cologne (A Christmas present from my very generous Mama)


...the beautiful BBC adaptation of Sebastian Faulks Birdsong (loving Eddie Redmayne and Clemence Posey)

 my bargain January sales mini haul (courtesy of Urban Outfitters and Topshop) ...and Lorraine Pascal's yummy White Chocolate Fudge Cookies and Nigella's scrumptious Carrot and Walnut Cupcakes (just some of the goodies I've been baking!) I'm afraid they were demolished before photographic evidence could be taken! 

Alas...somehow I never quite got around to any of that! But today I'm getting back on the blogging-bandwagon...

Introducing my latest ASOS purchase...gorgeously Spring-like lilac Hi-Tops...I must admit to feeling slightly Fresh Prince when I wear them, but who doesn't love that show anyway! Continuing my Spring wardrobe update, I spent last Sunday hacking up some old Tees...

A few weeks ago I went to a preview party at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art where they're currently staging two shows featuring the work of American artist Andrea Zittel and British artist Elizabeth Price.

Andrea Zittel's Lay of My Land is an exhibition of two half's. The main space focuses on Zittel's work at A-Z West in the Californian desert and the Utopian structures she calls 'Wagon Stations', which explore what humans need for survival in different ways...I'm going to admit that this is the kind of contemporary art that I don't get...however the other part of Zittel's exhibition is more up my artistic-street...

...these crocheted works, which include garments, pictures and streamer-like strands which loop across the room are beautifully and intricately constructed and speak of the baron desert environment in which they were produced!

 Here showcases Elizabeth Price's immersive video installations which use digital moving images, text and music. Again, I have to admit that I really have no clue what these works are about...User Group Disco could be about how we categorise objects and how everyday objects impact our lives...at least I thought so until Ah-Ha's Take On Me started playing and then I was lost again...Choir seems to be about the architectural features of a Church Choir, which I get...how that relates to an fire in a Manchester Woolworth's in the 1950s I don't know but it sort of doesn't matter! These works, shown in a pitch-black room with the volume turned up to the max, are totally immersive, surreal and disorientating...which I suspect is the point!

Lay of My Land runs until 20th May and Here until 27th May 2012 at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art.

And finally...cos I've waffled on enough...I went to see The Woman in Black last week...if, like me, you're sick of horrifically gorey horror movies and fancy less blood and guts and more truly terrifying scares then this is the movie for you...just don't go alone!

L
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Was it the Art...or the free wine?

Last Wednesday I was lucky enough to be invited to the Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art in Sunderland for the preview of this seasons new exhibitions. As I mentioned already, I'm currently trying to broaden my artistic horizons with some contemporary art, with this in mind and with the promise of free wine, I and some friends decided it might be worth a look and headed along.

There were two exhibitions opening, 'CIVIC', an exhibition of billboards art and posters, showing across three galleries and 260 feet of commercial billboards and 'The Wonders of the Visible World', which brings together the work of 21 international artists who use photography and video to explore the relationship between the visible and the invisible worlds and "capture physical phenomena that defy belief, or defy description"...apparently!

John Kippin 'The Poor Are Always With Us',

CIVIC, is showing at the Reg Vardy Gallery and The Place as well as at the NGCA and on billboards around Sunderland. Each exhibition has a different theme - at the NGCA, a sequence of floor-to-ceiling photographic prints "examine the recent resurgence of interest in the romantic landscape in artists' photographs"...my favourite was the close-up of a muddy football! I'm not totally convinced by the over-arching theme but if nothing else this exhibition showcases some interesting and aesthically pleasing images and on this occasion, wine in hand, that was enough!

Ulla von Brandenburg 'Geister (Ghosts)'

The Wonders of the Visible World is a far more complex exhibition! To begin with the white-cube gallery space has been divided and sub-divided into a labyrinth of small brightly lit rooms showcasing a multitude of photographic works and practically pitch-dark spaces where visitors can recline on sofas whilst viewing the film installations. The sheer volume and variety of works on show makes it almost impossible to describe...but I'm going to try! The exhibition opens with Mark Wallinger's video work 'The Magic of Things', showing found footage from the TV series 'Bewitched', in which scenes of witchcraft-inspired magic "create a taxonomy of archetypes", then there's Camillo Paravicini's photographic series 'Somnambulist with Wall' documenting the alarming phenomenon of extreme sleepwalking. Jason Dee's video 'Medium' reveals the strange metamorphoses that can occur when time is slowed down in film and by far my favourite works, Georgina Mascolo's photographic series 'The Phenomenon Treatise' examines the unexplained occurrences at a former Army medical college on Millbank, where strange events from levitation to magnetism have been recorded.     

Mark Wallinger 'The Magic of Things'

Camillo Paravicini 'Somnabulist and Wall'

Jason Dee 'Medium'

Georgina Mascolo's 'Phenomenon Treatise III - Magnetism'

Moscolo's works are memorable, at least in part because there display is so different than that of the other works in the exhibition. To start with they're hung not in your average white-cube space but on walls painted a deep heritage green, there's even an antique table and a vase of fresh flowers. Accompanying the photographic works is an essay describing how the artist found the photographs, along with written reports on the experiments they document, in a former Army Medical Centre. Whether there is any truth in this or whether its all part of the larger work is down to interpretation but for me that's part of what makes this work so fascinating!

My friend Paul enjoying Georgina Mascolo's 'The Phenomenon Treatise'

If you're in the area I would definately recommend this thought-provoking exhibition! 

'The Wonders of the Visible World' is open until the 4th February 2012 and 'CIVIC' is showing until the 13th November, both are free entry. 

How exactly do you start a blog?

I'm Louise and I guess a good place to start is to say that this blog is going to be about lots of things...the things that I love and the things that inspire me - fashion and make up, home-baking, all things retro and art...definitely art! That's not to say that I'm an expert on any of those things or anything else for that matter but I'm interested and I hope other people will be too!

I should probably say now that art is my passion...in ten years time I may no longer worship at the alter of Topshop and will probably have given up my efforts to master the perfect meringue but art will always be part of my life! Now usually I'm a Pre-Raphaelite girl but last Friday I (and about 800 other people) decided to broaden my artistic horizons and attend the preview of the Turner Prize exhibition at The Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Newcastle. I wish I could say that it was amazing but to be honest I spent most of the night queuing! Queuing to get into the building, queuing to get on to the right floor, queuing to get into the exhibition! By the time I got to see the first work I was ready for a drink but couldn't face the queue for the free bar!

                                                                                    

That's not to say I didn't enjoy the exhibition! People who know a lot more about contemporary art than me have reviewed the works on show but this is effort. I'll say now that I didn't 'get' all of the works on show - Hilary Lloyd's video installation, with its pulsing, bouncing cityscapes and clock faces left me totally cold and slightly nauseated and to be honest I was more interested in the amazing view of Newcastle's Quayside from the gallery's picture window! I'm not going to try to describe Karla Back's work except to say that I liked it, I liked the pastel hues and the fact that you could walk through it and under it and behind it...mostly I liked the artist's use of Lush Bath Ballistics! But I didn't understand it...it made me think of Carebears and I'm pretty sure that wasn't what Black was going for! 

Hillary Lloyd

   

Karla Black

 There were however, two works in the exhibition that I loved! When I stepped into Martin Boyce's sculpture/installation I felt liked I'd been transported far from the Baltic...to where exactly I'm not sure but it definitely wasn't Newcastle. The work is difficult to describe and some of its magic will probably be lost in translation but in essence Boyce had transformed the gallery space into a woodland clearing by attaching hundreds of white metal leaves beneath the ceiling lights, filling the gallery with dappled light which filters on to a floor scattered with artificial autumn leaves. The centre piece, a big concrete table with a mobile hanging over it just confuses me...apparently its modernist-inspired but I don't really care...I just like being in this space!

Martin Boyce

George Shaw's works make up for all the queuing! All of the paintings are of one thing - Tile Hill housing estate near Coventry, where the artist grew up. There are no people, no animals, just graffitied-shop fronts, roes of shut up garages, wet tarmac and scruffy woodland. Shaw paints a very specific place, but it’s so generically British it could be anywhere! I love the nostalgia of Shaw's works, I've never been to Tile Hill but when I look at his paintings they make me think of home, like somewhere half-remembered from childhood or somewhere The Smiths would sing about! That's probably horrifically pretentious, funny as Shaw's works are anything but pretentious! Everything from his subject matter to his use of Humbrol enamel paint (usually used for painting model aeroplanes) is accessible! Everyone can take something from these paintings...I just hope those still queuing when the Gallery closed at 10pm will go back and seem them, they're so worth it!

George Shaw, The Resurface, 2010

 

George Shaw, The Age of Bullshit, 2010.

 All in all I would recommend a visit the Baltic if you're in the area, the exhibition runs until the 8th January 2012, if you've already seen it I would love to know what you thought :)

L

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