Monday, July 13th, 2009

For this last post of the epic london journey, i've decided to go about the day with a selection of high resolution photographs from the day. here are some of the interesting highlights of the day revealed in pure photo-realism:

Van Gogh's portrait with his ear cut off at the somerset house in london

Martine chillin in front of the entrance of said Somerset House.

Riding the DLR, National Express' most clever catastrophe.

here's gerard at his day job. 

Floating bridge! a bridge designed to support the walking pedestrians from pontoons. 

us walking across the bridge - it's sturdier than it may look.

can you guess which one of these is a Foster Building??                    

             i'm just glad it's not all of them, frankly.

this was a glass waveform piece in the Canadian Building. We were told to stop taking pictures at this point, which is OK, because the rest of the building kinda sucked with it's stuffy nature-loving pink marble and the scent of staunch conservatism, met with a style as empty as the open canadian, prairie air. 

sorry, got carried away...

Walking under the River Tames...not as exciting as Driving-Disco under the river tames.

meeting at the grenich observatory/court hill for a hallmark look over london. 

Saturday, july 11th, 2009

Today would be our final day of  Critiques within the Tate Britain. Me, Ellen and Maria totally owned a large sailboat piece, created in conjuction with a poem. I think we did pretty good on it.

After this, we headed to Waiting For Godoh, a play starring Patrick Stewart and Ian Mckellen . It’s supposedly one of the best plays of the 21st century thus far. The show largely revolves around a dialogoue between Stewart’s Character and Mckellan’s Character. 

After this, we went to the Futurism Show at the Tate Modern. This would be our final show from the tate and what a show it was! the exhibit featured key works from the futurist movement, like work by Kandinsky, Papova, Boccioni and Delaney. I really enjoyed this show, so much so that i had to get a copy of Taschen press’ book on Futurism.

After that, Gerard gave Jill a unique view of london on one of the top floors, to share a drink for the work she did as a MUCEP for the campus. He also treated gwen to a drink, but that was a separate instance. After, the majority of us decided to head back, with most of us just making the 7:58 train to Harlow Mill. 

Thursday, July 9th, 2009

Castle, Trip to Brighton

Today, we started off with the Vans (yep, the return of Tiddles and Randall) to go see Brighton, a coastal city that’s about a 2 and a half hour drive away from harlow.  We went to visit Bodiam Castle, a heritage site maintained by the National Trust here in England. The castle was quite impressive and all encompassing; with the drawbridge, the moat and the corner towers to complete our expectations of the picture-esque castle. I went with Sarahdactyl on this visit and she had a wonderful time getting in all the rooms and nooks and crannies of the old place.

afterwards came time for tea in the gift shop area. appropriate for Britain, yes?

Delaware Pavillion was next, a stop gerard usually doesn't make for most trips. we were sure happy to be there, as a temporary exhibition of Joseph Beuy’s work was on display there. even the Fat chair was in this show! it was quite the comprehensive and even interactive show, once you factor in the playful message activity made for the show in the above floors. 

After that, we then were off to Brighton! Brighton is a small seaside town on the east coast of britian. It’s known to be, not only a former touristy seaside town, but the gay capital of Britian. in fact, UK producer-djing team Fremasons hails from Brighton (intereting thing to learn after the fact of me buying their latest album Shakedown 2 from an independent record store there). 

Our main stop within brighton was for the Royal Pavilion, owned and designed by prince of wales, George IV. Here, the prince was completely outlandish to the usual style meant for royalty and went for the exoticism of Chinese and indian-inspired motifs and themes throughout the entire palace. the palace didn’t meet very many royal standards, but this did not stop the prince from reaching a rather glorious vision. also, it was interesting to learn that the palace was only meant to last a few decades, but is slowly getting to it’s 200th year as a palace to be bewildered by.

after this, we met down by the brighton peir, which had a fun on it’s own sorts. not to mention it’s underlying beach, upon which some of the other students took advantage (despite the cold) and went swimming to their heart’s content. here's jill and kyle being a convincing Jack and Kylie.

back in the vans we were, sooner rather than later. Harlow was 2 and a half hours away and we all needed to get home. But there was still and sense that brighton might just be  great place to stay for a few nights. (hint, gerard: i’m sure you could mutter something significant to talk about for a few days :P)

haha

Tuesday, July 7th, 2009

Trip to Wallace Collection, Selfridges, Jeff Koons + Insanerain09

Today, we got off the subway at Bond Street station to get to the Wallace collection. Here, the place started much in the same way as the Sir John Soane house, whereby a fellow collects so much work and pieces from a time or era that it becomes almost beneficial to open up a house-based museum. here, alot of baroque and rococo-era artworks have been collected for the museum’s displays (not to mention “The Swing”, a famous painting made by Jean-Honore Fragonard). Our tour guide, though quite imformative, made the experience a little dry with her talk. Not to mention half of the group was restless to try and jump from gerard’s plans in order to make it to a Harry Potter Premere at leicester square. 

After the visit, we then headed down the street to check out Selfridges, the major, multi-level department store. Selfridges established itself in much the same way as other major corps, like Wal-Mart, by establishing itself with a close connection to a particular group of people. in the case of selfridge’s, it’s women. Selfridges created such standardized store layouts, like having perfume in front of the store, to attract the female buyers. The strore has quite a tight support for the women’s Suffagette movement, despite an attack of vandalism on the store in one incident. 

After this, we headed to the Serpentine Gallery to see Jeff Koon’s Show, which was dedicated to Popeye, the Sailorman (yeah, you know who i mean). The show featured alot of work that made direct references to popular culture, with sculpture, installation and articulate painting being to three culprits for Koons work. The most astonishing thing (besides learning the Kanye West was in the gallery the morning of) would be Koons amazing attention to detail and the use of aluminum on objects that appeared to be just inflatable works.  

The pieces, even with the direct popeye references, had a very Snarky, nearly masongenistic quality to them. His dedication to popeye comes from his appreciation of popeye’s overall atitude, summated by his phrase “I am what i y’am”, a bold and noble statement from an artist that is clearly not self-conscious in the art world and not afraid to raise eyebrows.

After this, we did intend on going to see the princess diana memorial, not oo far away from the Sepentine galllery. Unfortunately, for us, mother nature said a whomping “NO” and it downpoured on the whole class in a way that i’ve never seen rain fall before. We had hail,, some wind and a TON of rain, enough to even close down one of the rail lines we were depending upon to get back to Liverpool St. Station.

 Me and jill made a prety epic journey down to Trafalgar square to catch the appropiate bus, only to wind up in the same Harry Potter premiere that part of the class hoped to attend. Nooo!

All in all, it was an event end to a very decent day into london.

Monday, July 6th, 2009

Class Trip to the New Harlow Town with tour of sculptures.

Today, we headed to a morning class and discovered that we’d be heading into Harlow Town, the larger, more urbanized counterpart that Old Harlow seems to reflect from. We took the town bus services to get to the main part of harlow, a town mostly known for it’s concrete feel and appeal of modernist structures. 

We met with jackie, our tour guide and a great advocate for the development of Harlow Town. She was very informative of all the sculptures, as well as the layout and design of harlow’s body in terms of structures and buildings. Harlow’s Civic centre is the newest of the buildings there, which had a sort-of post modernist style to it (if you want to be faithful, i guess you could call it that).

 We also checked out this group show of student artwork at the Civic Centre in Harlow.

 can anyone else recall 1st year VA?? i can...

After that, we were just told to be back in time for the Nick suppers (our daily feast of cafeteria food whenever we stay in old harlow for the day). 

Saturday, July 4th, 2009

Imperial War Museum + Gay Pride 2009 (alongside Basement Jaxx!)

Today was a particularly exciting day for me. Not only would the class be engaging in one of the most anticipated cultural events in london in going to the Gay Pride Parade, but myself and Andy would be heading to the Barclaycard Wireless Festival of 2009, which features great acts like The Streets, Dizzee Rascal and the headliners BASEMENT JAXX!!!

but, to start off on a somber note, gerard took us to the Imperial War Museum. This Museum was created in commemorating, not only the tragedy of war, but of it’s glory and of the advancements we’ve made in war and military technology. Amongst the displays are interactive sections, simulator stations and even a life-sized trench made in a room, complete with the smell of corpses and sounds of machine gun fire  and explosions. It’s something i certainly won’t forget visiting and experiencing.

the main reason for our visit was to take in the Holocaust memorial exhibition, a very daunting stretch of an exhibit that accurately documents the horrific events of the holocaust in quite good detail. I’d rather not elaborate too much on the content of the show (i’m sure everyone is aware of what happened there at that time) but i will offer some constructive criticism in the way of the show’s information. it was a class-held notion that the exhibit didn’t go deep into the discrimination of the disabled and those that were homosexual at time of capture and we felt that it would have been great to see them recognized within the show. many of us in the class left feeling very sorrowful, with some even in tears. the show was deep and heart-wrenching, so a peace area was provided within  the museum’s front court, designed and approved by the dali lama, as a space to find tranquility, a personal peace and to contemplate ways of achieving world peace.

on a VERY sharp contrast, we would walk ourselves 20 mins to get to trafalgar square to go see 2009’s gay pride parade in london. we were told of good spots to view the parade from, as well as local shops to pick up drinks and celebrate! the parade lasted a good 2 hours, but it was hours well spent!

 the parade didn’t have as many floats as i thought it would, but the participation of the many people that decided to walk the streets for that long was outstanding, nonetheless. the music, the crowds and atmosphere was enough to blow Canada day celebrations out of the water!

After this, me, Kylo and An-dee somehow missed Jilly and Mar-10 somewhere in the crowds of the event. After some searching, me and andy then decided to head to Hyde park for the Concerts. We may have missed Digitalism (only just stepping in to see them dismantle their set in prep for the next) and missed Paul Oakenfold, but the combination of the acts we saw were just too phenomenal to claim we really missed anything. 

just take a look at this video compilation i made; 9 mins of footage from the Streets, Dizzee and the Jazz. hope you like it, as it’s gotten 2000+ hits on YouTube!

needless to say, my body ached like hell the next day, but i’d do it all over again if i had to and that’s what matters most.

Friday, July 3rd, 2009

Raven Row + Tower Bridge + Design Museum AND...Prince Albert Memorial

Today, i’d like to also include that my friend of DJ-ing awesomeness Andy Bowers has joined in on the Fun of a gerard-led VA trip to london today. Chops to you, Andy, for taking it up on, what should have been, a day off in harlow town for you. Hope you really liked Your First Time in the City of London!

To start things off, we headed to the first-attempt-closed Raven Row Gallery, were a group show was going on. the gallery is well known to bringing in more sound art and video art, even on the line of galleries we’ve visited. the gallery has had it’s foundation from a much older house and this shows as you walk through the spaces.

Some exciting paper constructed works harbored in one main section of the gallery, while other spaces lended to installation + sound art pieces at collaged notes and talks together. One piece even fed a mic to the room, with a connecting speaker outside the gallery. this was also done vice-versa, as the exterior of the gallery could be heard within the gallery. upstairs, there were a series of video and sound pieces, with a few 2D pieces as well.

We then headed across the Tower Bridge, a very monumental part of london, discussing it’s history and variations throughout the years. The other side of the bridge held the Design museum, which kept a very interesting retrospective of design in various media. this space also featured some fantastic work by Javier Mariscal in a retrospective show called “Drawing Life”. 

The Design museum’s main exhibit featured a Timeline along it’s walls, as well as featured designers and artists that are groundbreaking in the Design field (so glad Zaha Hadid was in this). Many different ideas were exhibited here, including the Rabbit-trashcan holder, where it’s ears would light up for entry of trash in the bin and a surveillance room of cameras that took digital stills for a photo-mosaic one complied (think CCTV commentary- sharp, man. sharp). 

Mariscal’s wonders in his exhibit really astounded me. I really admire his versatility in what he did. So many different mediums ruled over the space, those including collage, installation, video, sound, painting, sculpture, just anything you can think of, Mariscal has done it. Characters, like Codi, were fluent throughout the exhibit as they were within Mariscal’s career. It was just such a dynamic exhibit and brilliant introduction to a designer’s collection that I will be looking into for sure!

After the design museum, we took a city bus to try (the second time) to see if we could get into the Graduating show of the Royal College of Art. Unfortunately, the place was just closing as we were approaching it. Gerard had a plan B (usually a surprise) in which going to the Prince Albert Memorial would be a good alternative.