Rainy weather, lack of umbrella, winding streets: a recipe for crankiness.
Luckily my attitude was better when I distracted myself with contemporary artwork.
The Serpentine Gallery featured Phillipe Parreno and Anish Kapoor. Parreno works with film, sculpture, performance, and text; film is the most obvious medium in his gallery exhibition, but he also utilizes gallery space and how the audience interacts with the setting as part of his overall presentation. The Invisibleboy video installation plays with the viewer's perception of the snowing scene within the film, in the gallery space, and the snow that suddenly starts falling right outside the gallery window. I loved the moment when I felt as if I were really part of the film, because reality and the imaginary world in the artwork suddenly became the same thing--the snowfall linked them.
After the snow and film ended, a recording of "No more reality," chanted by children, was repeated over the speakers. When I heard it in the gallery, I wasn't sure what was its significance. While typing this entry, and reflecting about the entire gallery experience, I realized it referred to Parreno's blurring of reality and fiction.
Anish Kapoor is a sculptor who, in recent works, uses very simple, curving forms and materials with reflective surfaces to play with the viewer's perception and with concepts of dualities. His four sculptures were located outside in Kensington Gardens. Due to the rainy weather however, the sculptures reflected grey sky and thus wasn't as visually interesting. Sky Mirror for example looked like a large circle of grey stone since it reflected the rain clouds, and if I hadn't read the gallery brochure beforehand, I would've thought his sculpture was just a slab of grey stone. I hope to come back on a clear day--if at all possible in London--to better observe Kapoor's sculptures.
Then we headed over to the Saatchi Gallery; I was so happy to be somewhere warm and dry. After walking through the rain, all the while squeezing under other people's umbrellas but eventually giving up the attempt to stay moderately dry, it was a joy to find the gallery at last. Oh, and I was excited to see the artwork too...
Josefine Guilisasti's The Duel, an installation of 180 oil paintings on stainless steel shelves spanning the entire wall of one gallery room, was one of my favorites. I had spent the past semester researching Dutch still-life paintings for my art history class so seeing something similar was a fun way to apply what I learned to a contemporary work. At first the flowers and vases are hyperrealistic; I thought the artist merely cropped photographs of the subjects. Upon closer inspection, I noticed the clean brush strokes and that the shadows cast by the subjects were totally different--a short cup's shadow looked like it belonged to a pitcher, a bowl's shadow looked more like that of a vase. I spent several minutes looking at each oil painting, the ones that I was tall enough to see. Though I don't know what the message of the artist is, I recognize that she is extremely skilled with oil paints and her technique is beautiful. The brushstrokes are barely noticeable, the colors blending seamlessly between light and shadows.
I poked my head into the Saatchi Gallery shop on the seventh floor, where objects designed for the home were sold. A set of bubble shape lamps by Oki Sato called 'Blown Color' caught my attention. Varying sizes of pastel-colored, round inflated shades, each with a small light bulb inside, clustered on the table and created a gentle atmosphere. The light emitted was soft and happy. The artist stated he wanted to give people the '!' moment when they bought his lamp. These kind of moments, of surprise and slivers of happiness, make people's days better. Since people are usually too busy to notice any '!' moments anymore, Sato wanted to bring an accessible '!' moment into their homes.
I thought that was a great concept. Until I saw the price tag.
Rich people certainly will buy their '!' moments, while people like me will have to settle to seeing these little wonders in art gallerys and museums.
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