Gormley at the White Cube, plus a little Cock and Bull

As a fan of contemporary art, Antony Gormley rates as one of my top three living artists; his incredible Blind Light at the Hayward in 2007 is still my favourite exhibition of all time. I also love the White Cube gallery in Hoxton Square; as it says on the tin, it's a very manageable 2000 square feet of pure, clean white space which has hosted the very best of modern British art since opening in April 2000.
http://whitecube.com/

Imagine then, dear reader, my joy at discovering Still Standing, an Antony Gormley exhibition in that very gallery until mid-September. Still Standing features Gormley's familiar body forms, but this time constructed from small rectangular cast-iron blocks. In the White Cube they can be viewed from different perspectives as you walk amongst them, with nothing to interrupt or impose upon your experience. Entry is free- check the website for opening hours.

Friends who may not be that into art and would moan and groan at the prospect of a trip to the Tate or the National can usually be cajoled into ten or fifteen minutes at the White Cube - particularly as there are some fabulous eateries dotted around the area. On this occasion I had a particular venue in mind; the latest venture from top British chef and Midas-touch restaurateur, Mark Hix.
http://www.chickenandsteak.co.uk/

The Tramshed (so-called because it is housed in an utterly gorgeous high-ceilinged building that was once a tramway generating station) is a three-minute stroll away and has been hitting the headlines because of its main course menu. Not because it is too confusing, or esoteric, or self- congratulatory, but because you basically have two options: steak and chips, or chicken and chips. End of. My companion looked quizzically at the menu and said, 'What do you do if you're a vegetarian?' The answer? Eat somewhere else.

Hix's pal Damien Hirst has supplied two specially-commissioned pieces; a vitrine of a cow and a cockerel (entitled, appropriately, Cock and Bull) dominating the main floor, and a huge Cow and Chicken cartoon on the upper section - are you getting the common theme yet?
Hix haters have been rubbing their hands together in schadenfreude-fuelled glee, predicting that Hix has overstepped himself and will come a cropper over Tramshed. I'm not so sure.

On my visit we opted for the chicken, deciding to skip the three-dish starter sharing plate as we had been warned that the chicken could easily feed three people; they were right, it could.  It arrived upright, claws intact and legs theatrically to the sky, topped with a ball of stuffing and surrounded by a mound of chips finished in chicken fat and rosemary. The staff were delightful and happily carved for us (returning at regular intervals rather than carving it all at once so that it didn't get cold) and the chicken itself was delicious; juicy, flavoursome meat under a seasoned crispy skin. We shared a bottle of the Tramshed red, a light lunchtimey red designed to complement both main course options, and didn't have room for dessert. 

Tramshed also has a gallery called Cock 'n' Bull in the basement which I didn't get a chance to visit, but really want to: as well as traditional viewing space they are building a unique library based on the recommendations of experts in given fields - say, Alice Temperley and Jacquetta Wheeler on fashion. This is a really exciting idea and I'm looking forward to following it as it grows.

So, am I coming back to the Tramshed? You betcha. Anywhere that serves food this good, showcases British art, and puts the soap and hand cream in the ladies' loo in squeezy udders instead of boring plastic bottles has my vote. And anyway, I haven't tried the steak.

You can have anything you want, as long as it's cow or chicken. Hix, we salute you.

Yours carnivorously,

Girl About Town xx

But is it art? Damien Hirst at the Tate Modern

I give myself the same Christmas present every year; an annual membership (myself plus guest) to the Tate. As a fan of contemporary art this enables me to swan around all four Tates as I choose, taking friends willy-nilly into exhibitions that are otherwise £10-15 per ticket, as often as I like throughout the whole year. And I can then retire to the Members' Room and people-watch until my feet recover. Bargain.

The Damien Hirst exhibition (until 9th September) at the Tate Modern covers over twenty years of the no-longer-quite-so Young British Artist's work, so off I went to take a look.
http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/damien-hirst

The exhibition opens with the forerunners of his famous Spot paintings; cheerfully-coloured boxes and pans from Hirst's student days. It's like looking at pictures of a celebrity when they were a baby - then in the next room you're straight into the flip side of the Hirst fame coin, mortality and death. A severed cow's head surrounded by flies - themselves living and dying in the (thankfully) enclosed space - dominates the room; not only visually, but get too close and you can smell it. Hirst himself called it 'a nasty piece' that simultaneously pulls you in and pushes you away; somehow it made me think of the people who slow down on the motorway to gawp at an accident on the other side.

Butterflies are major players in the exhibition too: trapped in the paint of limpidly coloured canvases, in circles like the kaleidoscopes of childhood or living out their brief span in In and Out of Love. I feel bad that they will never see a meadow, but I guess I'm supposed to. Butterflies are perfect memento mori I think because they are so extravagantly fragile and beautiful, yet their lives are so brief. I particularly liked Doorways to the Kingdom of Heaven where they are used to make stained glass windows, a backdrop to a statue of an angel half-flayed like an anatomy model.

Those looking for Hirst's famed shark in formaldehyde will be happy - there are two in this exhibition, along with bisected cows and a black sheep. The one that I found most affecting was the Incomplete Truth; a single dove, captured as if in flight, a kind of simple hope and hopelessness mixed together.

For the merely idly curious and/or the seriously skint, For the Love of God (the iconic £50 million diamond-encrusted skull) could be viewed together with a brief explanatory background video, for free in the Turbine Hall. Sadly, this display has since been closed. There was a bit of a queue, but it was worth it; death has never been more beautifully dressed. 
Hirst is frequently attacked as a purveyor of 'con art' - art which is both conceptual and cons people. I don't pretend to be any kind of expert on art; when I go to an exhibition I just wander around and see what happens, and on the whole I enjoyed this one. For those who sneer at his iconic spot paintings and say 'I could have done that', I just smile and say 'But you didn't, did you?' (Of course some would say actually neither did Hirst - but that's another story!)

Try it - you might like it.






Yours thoughtfully,

Girl About Town xx