London is in the throes of Hadrien mania.
The exhibit arrived at the British museum about a month ago and you'd have to live in a parallel universe not to have heard about it. The reviews were unanimously flattering. The Sunday Times called the show "an exemplary piece of storytelling, achieved with exactly the right mix of telling objects and great art." Now, I do place quite a bit of faith in the Sunday Times, which Alessandro often teases me about, so it was my intention to drag us there this weekend, until good friends and ardent museum lovers discouraged us during dinner at their home on Friday. To their mind, the show was a huge disappointment, little more than a long series of busts -- the sight of which left them unmoved and unimpressed. Their lack of excitement, one of them ventured, could perhaps be traced to their nationality -- as Italians they were used to being surrounded by such wonders in piazzas, churches and inside every town hall or public building in the country. Seeing them lined up inside a museum, deprived of their environment, seemed to have stripped them of their extraordinary beauty.
Their comments brought me back to a conclusion I have often drawn at the end of an exhibit for which I decided to skimp and not rent the audio guide. Yes, the bulky walkie-talkie look-alike makes you look silly. Yes, it means you grind to a halt in front of exactly the same 20 paintings or sculptures as your fellow audio-guide zombies. And yes they are expensive (about 3.50 pounds in London on top of 8 to 10 pounds for access to a show). But when they are well conceived, as was the case for instance for the Tate Modern's Louise Bourgeois show six months ago, they are truly enlightening, adding historical context, linking the art work to events in the life of the artist at the time, stressing its preoccupations, delving on technique etc...In some cases these bijoux even include excerpts from a conversation with the artist himself or herself.
Which brings me to the National Gallery's Radical Light show that Alessandro and I attended at the weekend, on the recommendation of the Hadrien critics. It only runs until the first week of September and occupies a mere five room at the museum but is well worth a visit, if only to learn of the political turmoil that haunted the north of Italy at the turn of the century. Italy, which only became a nation in 1861, was behind neighbors like France, Germany and the U.K. in terms of industrialization at the time. Even the north of the country, where industrial wealth is concentrated today, was still deeply agrarian. The work and life conditions of its poor left much to be desired.
One the most moving paintings of the exhibit showed young Italian women bent over as they picked rice, ankle-deep in stagnant water contaminated with a wealth of diseases, including malaria. Their life expectancy, the audio guide helpfully noted, was no more than 25 years old.
Many of the painters whose work was shown (including Plinio Nomellini and Emilio Longoni) devoted much of their career to the depiction of the growing social injustices gripping the country. To bring about change, they employed new, modern artistic techniques, focused mainly on the use of light. The result: some works of fascinating beauty and airiness, reminiscent in some ways of the impressionists. How do I know-- and more surprisingly --remember all this? Ask the audio guide.
The show is at the National Gallery until September 7
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/exhibitions/radicallight/default.htm
Upon leaving the National Gallery in search of a hasty Sunday lunch, we stumbled upon the Olympics handover celebrations in Trafalgar Square. The crowds weren't huge yet and we easily
made our way back to our faithful No. 15 bus, but not before briefly considering joining the celebrations (something unheard of given Alessandro's hatred of crowds), perhaps being handed a ridiculously small flag ornate with the horrendous, fit-inducing logo London selected for the 2012 Olympics...Despite the throngs, despite the logo and despite artificiality of the celebration, we were oddly moved, and proud too, that the Olympics should come to our adoptive home in four years. And to our part of town too!
Back home, eating a plate of steaming gnocchi and home-made pesto, we watched our new mayor Boris Johnson, clumsily taking hold of, and later waving the enormous Olympic flag. It was uncomfortable television as Boris looked oddly out of place, his shapeless suit flapping in sync with his blond hair as Chinese officials watched in disarray...But you know what, we beamed anyway.
The exhibit arrived at the British museum about a month ago and you'd have to live in a parallel universe not to have heard about it. The reviews were unanimously flattering. The Sunday Times called the show "an exemplary piece of storytelling, achieved with exactly the right mix of telling objects and great art." Now, I do place quite a bit of faith in the Sunday Times, which Alessandro often teases me about, so it was my intention to drag us there this weekend, until good friends and ardent museum lovers discouraged us during dinner at their home on Friday. To their mind, the show was a huge disappointment, little more than a long series of busts -- the sight of which left them unmoved and unimpressed. Their lack of excitement, one of them ventured, could perhaps be traced to their nationality -- as Italians they were used to being surrounded by such wonders in piazzas, churches and inside every town hall or public building in the country. Seeing them lined up inside a museum, deprived of their environment, seemed to have stripped them of their extraordinary beauty.
Their comments brought me back to a conclusion I have often drawn at the end of an exhibit for which I decided to skimp and not rent the audio guide. Yes, the bulky walkie-talkie look-alike makes you look silly. Yes, it means you grind to a halt in front of exactly the same 20 paintings or sculptures as your fellow audio-guide zombies. And yes they are expensive (about 3.50 pounds in London on top of 8 to 10 pounds for access to a show). But when they are well conceived, as was the case for instance for the Tate Modern's Louise Bourgeois show six months ago, they are truly enlightening, adding historical context, linking the art work to events in the life of the artist at the time, stressing its preoccupations, delving on technique etc...In some cases these bijoux even include excerpts from a conversation with the artist himself or herself.
Which brings me to the National Gallery's Radical Light show that Alessandro and I attended at the weekend, on the recommendation of the Hadrien critics. It only runs until the first week of September and occupies a mere five room at the museum but is well worth a visit, if only to learn of the political turmoil that haunted the north of Italy at the turn of the century. Italy, which only became a nation in 1861, was behind neighbors like France, Germany and the U.K. in terms of industrialization at the time. Even the north of the country, where industrial wealth is concentrated today, was still deeply agrarian. The work and life conditions of its poor left much to be desired.
One the most moving paintings of the exhibit showed young Italian women bent over as they picked rice, ankle-deep in stagnant water contaminated with a wealth of diseases, including malaria. Their life expectancy, the audio guide helpfully noted, was no more than 25 years old.
Many of the painters whose work was shown (including Plinio Nomellini and Emilio Longoni) devoted much of their career to the depiction of the growing social injustices gripping the country. To bring about change, they employed new, modern artistic techniques, focused mainly on the use of light. The result: some works of fascinating beauty and airiness, reminiscent in some ways of the impressionists. How do I know-- and more surprisingly --remember all this? Ask the audio guide.
The show is at the National Gallery until September 7
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/exhibitions/radicallight/default.htm
Upon leaving the National Gallery in search of a hasty Sunday lunch, we stumbled upon the Olympics handover celebrations in Trafalgar Square. The crowds weren't huge yet and we easily
made our way back to our faithful No. 15 bus, but not before briefly considering joining the celebrations (something unheard of given Alessandro's hatred of crowds), perhaps being handed a ridiculously small flag ornate with the horrendous, fit-inducing logo London selected for the 2012 Olympics...Despite the throngs, despite the logo and despite artificiality of the celebration, we were oddly moved, and proud too, that the Olympics should come to our adoptive home in four years. And to our part of town too!
Back home, eating a plate of steaming gnocchi and home-made pesto, we watched our new mayor Boris Johnson, clumsily taking hold of, and later waving the enormous Olympic flag. It was uncomfortable television as Boris looked oddly out of place, his shapeless suit flapping in sync with his blond hair as Chinese officials watched in disarray...But you know what, we beamed anyway.
1 comment:
I enjoy my visits to the National Gallary. I laughed to read that the Director (or whatever title the big cheese at the gallary has) hates the pedestrianisation that has been done outside.
Basically he is worried that he's not living on a safe little island anymore and is more exposed to the riff raff. Apparently the hoi polloi now sit on the stairs and wander in at will. Some Brits probably feel the same way about their little island and the Channel Tunnel!
Actually exposing the Great Unwashed to a civilising influence was part of the reason the Victorians set up the gallaries up in the first place.
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