- Tate Modern. Very good, in fact probably the best of the major modern art collections that I saw this time around. The main action for me was in three of the four major survey exhibitions: (in the order that I went through them, reflecting my own preferences) "Material Gestures: New Painting and Sculptures, 1945-1960", "Poetry and Dream: Surrealism and Beyond", and "States of Flux: Cubism, Futurism, Vorticism" (the fourth, "Energy and Process", focusing on arte povera, was less exciting). "Material Gestures" focuses on abstraction and figuration, and includes the Rothko room, a darkened chamber given over to nine large works from the 1950s Seagram series - all dark reds and blacks...a room that I've literally dreamed about being in before, having seen photos of it in various Rothko monographs. Finally being there was really something - an experience for the heart and the mind. Also illuminating was the large, luminous, and rather beautiful "Water-Lilies" (after 1916), its presentation in this setting providing a compelling argument for the connection between Monet's late period semi-abstraction and the subsequent works of Rothko et al.
- "Jake or Dinos Chapman" @ White Cube Hoxton Square. Deliberately ugly anti-aesthetic art. The bestial childen were striking. (Wei)
- "Alternative London" street art walking tour. Guided East End street art tour, with a bit of history and contemporary street-level politics thrown in - nice. (Wei)
- [Oxford]. A nice interlude, and a very Oxonian experience thanks to Jarrod and Jaani, put up in a fellow's guest room at Magdalen, croquet at night on the college lawns, punting, blackberry picking, etc - and a trip out to the house where my earliest days were spent.
- "Out of This World: Science Fiction But Not As You Know It" & "The Worlds of Mervyn Peake" @ British Library. Enjoyed the sci-fi exhibition, which reminded me of a school project I did in grade 5 (?) on the subject - though not in a bad way - in its thematic-chronological approach. The Peake was smallish - accompanying a broader set of events focusing on the author/illustrator at the time.
- "Nightwatchman" (Prasanna Puwanarajah) / "There Is A War" (Tom Basden) @ The Paintframe, National Theatre. Put on in a pop-up space, a pair of well written, strongly performed and staged plays. The first staged a familiar personal/professional (in this case, sporting)/political narrative of discovery through the dark of the night, and while it may have been just a tiny bit pat in places, it had a basic sturdiness and craft that made it worth the viewing; the second, an a-realistic, blackly funny excursion into the absurdity of war, wouldn't have been out of place at the Malthouse, and hit its points well. (Wei)
- Museum of Childhood. Fun - main collection given over to all sorts of toys, games and sundry paraphenalia of childhood...the doll houses were my favourite, remarkably ornate and coming in all varieties. Miscellaneous other bits and pieces, including "The Stuff of Nightmares", a visual re-telling of The Brothers Grimm's "Fundvogel". (Wei)
- "Takashi Murakami" @ Gagosian, Britannia Street. Hyper-hyper-sexualised commentary on modern Japanese society. Enjoyable in its OTT-ness. (Wei)
