teamLab: Transcending Boundaries at the Pace Gallery

Formed in 2001, teamLab is a Japanese collaborative group of digital experts from a number of different disciplines including art, programming, animation, mathematics and design. Preferring the term 'ultratechnologists' they aim to transcend the traditional boundaries between these fields, with influences ranging from pre-modern art and ancient calligraphy to contemporary anime.

In this exhibition at the Pace Gallery in Mayfair the worlds of art, technology and nature blur around you and blend into a fascinating new landscape.

We were first shown into a small side-room where we were able to leave our coats and were swathed in white shawls. Our guide then led us into Flowers Bloom on People, a completely dark room, and instructed us to keep as still as possible (FYI, sitting down with your legs outstretched gives you the best balance between comfort, effect and viewing options).

What happened next was captivating. Slowly, gradually, on us (hence the shawls) and on the floor beneath us, flowers started to bud, blossom and - if you moved, or touched them - disappear in a flurry of scattered petals. My companion and I changed positions at one point and the flowers gradually regrew and, rather wonderfully, formed a bridge between us.

I can see why there are strictly controlled time slots for visitors; it was so absorbing that not only did the time fly by ridiculously quickly but we could both have stayed in there for hours, enthralled. Courteously, firmly, we were ushered out and into the main room.

This was equally magical. Universe of Water Particles, Transcending Boundaries is basically a virtual waterfall that streams down the entire far wall and then along the floor, flowing around the feet and hands of the viewers as it comes into 'contact' with them. What is particularly cool is that, like the flower room, this is not a pre-recorded or looped video; the installations react to you, to the other people in the room and even to each other, meaning that what you are looking at has never been seen before - and will never be seen again.

In Flutter of Butterflies Beyond Borders, Ephemeral Life, a cloud of butterflies appears from wherever you are standing and flutters around, heading off into the other artworks and interacting with them; for example the butterflies will gravitate towards the flowers generated by Flowers and People, Transcending Boundaries - A Whole Year per Hour which sees a seasonal year of different flowers bloom and die over one hour.

Enso is a work in progress for teamLab, who have been working on 'spatial calligraphy' since the collective first formed. Enso is the Zen discipline of drawing a circle with a single stroke, either as a written brushstroke or drawn in mid-air using a stick or cane, representing enlightenment, truth and unity. This three-dimensional version encompasses the speed, direction and pressure of the brush stroke as well as the visual aspects of the ink mark, so you are caught up in the process of creation as well as the finished result.

We left, reluctantly, feeling as refreshed and uplifted as if we had just finished a yoga class or spent half the day in a spa. When I grow up I want this in a dedicated relaxation room in my house (I read somewhere that the Spellings had three separate gift-wrapping rooms in their Los Angeles mansion, so hey, why not?). The only way it could potentially be any better would be the addition of some kind of subtle fragrance to make it even more immersively sensory — a series of different florals for the flower room? Something fresh and ozone-y for the waterfall? (Oh, and perhaps an ice bucket tucked away in the corner for some fizz . . .)

This exhibition transcends boundaries of many kinds: those between art and technology, technology and nature, between art and the gallery space and between art and the viewer. It achieved all you can ask of art; it provoked an immediate emotional reaction and raised questions we were still debating for days afterwards. Come on, teamLab; this needs to be a permanent installation somewhere in London. I'd go back in a heartbeat.

Yours, creating flowers from darkness,

London Girl About Town xx

Abstract Expressionism at the RA

 When I have mentioned to friends and colleagues that I went to this exhibition, I have generally been met with a kind of rabbit-in-the-headlights look somewhere between fear and bafflement. If you're not familiar with contemporary art it might sound a bit highbrow but please, PLEASE don't let that put you off; you absolutely do not need to be any kind of expert to go and to enjoy it (exhibit A, my good self). Perhaps more than any other kind of art, it is all about feeling, not knowing. However, if some kind of definition helps . . .

What is Abstract Expressionism (or Ab Ex to its friends)? Well, if we agree that abstract art is generally art that is not 'representative' - i.e. is not a 'representation', or copy, of something in the outside world - and that expressionism is about expressing your thoughts, feelings and ideas - then I guess a reasonable working definition would be that Abstract Expressionists aim to communicate something from the artist's inner world without necessarily using anything in the external world to do this. (Apologies to all the art historians out there who are currently doing a very good impression of Munch's Scream, but hey, it works for me.)

Actually, there are those who would argue that Abstract Expressionism is not a movement or group at all - primarily, most of the artists within it. Rothko famously stated, 'I am not an abstractionist. I'm not interested in relationships of colour or form or anything else. I'm interested only in expressing basic human emotions: tragedy, ecstasy, doom and so on'. The paintings don't really share a particular style; in fact, the canvasses are so full of spontaneity and individuality that apparently the CIA covertly funded Abstract Expressionist exhibitions during the Cold War as an act of propaganda, to lure intellectuals and artists away from Communism by comparing the freedom of these deeply subjective works with the the rigid confines limiting creativity under Soviet rules.

However, the term has stuck as a useful way of referring to a group of artists working in New York in the 1940s and 50s. This period just after the Second World War was, as you might expect, a time of freedom and release, of great explosive energy and creativity, of jazz and Jack Kerouac. One of the comments I found most interesting on the audio guide was about Jackson Pollock and the physical act of creating the works, sometimes called 'gesture' or 'action' painting; it did not just involve the wrist and hand, like traditional painting, but the whole arm - even the whole body; expansive, sweeping movements, requiring a completely different energy and control. Also, suddenly the artist was not standing still in front of a vertical canvas but moving around above a horizontal one; in Blue Poles, paint was dropped from up to two feet above the canvas.

Another common factor you will notice is the scale of the canvasses. Pollock was commissioned to paint Mural for the entrance hall of Peggy Guggenheim's Manhattan townhouse; this was his largest canvas to date and was followed by both Rothko and Gorky producing their largest works the following year. The temptation when viewing it is to stand back and look at the whole painting from a distance, but it was always meant to be seen up close, in a relatively confined space compared to a gallery. Viewing it like this you both appreciate the detail and feel almost engulfed by it, drawn into the energy.

At the heart of the exhibition, in the Central room, are the Rothkos. I will always have a special place in my heart for Rothko and these gorgeous, hypnotic, melancholy paintings; years ago, being taken to the Seagram Murals room in the Tate Modern was a revelatory experience for me and sparked my love of contemporary art. For me, in this exhibition, it was No 15 (Dark Greens on Blue with Green Band) 1957 that drew me in and kept me standing there; somehow, once you stop trying to rationalise them, they connect with you in a way I can't explain but which fascinates me. Luminous, intense and captivating, no print or photograph will ever be able to do them justice.

One of the unexpected gifts of this exhibition was the work of Clyfford Still, an artist I wasn't familiar with before this. In my defence, Still rejected the commercialism of the art world (a pet hate of Rothko's too) and moved to a farm in Maryland, selling hardly any of his paintings; 95% of his work is in a museum dedicated to him in Denver, Colorado and this is one of the few times they have loaned it out. I'm very glad they did, as they are powerful and striking pieces, again designed to actively involve the viewer.

So, even if you think you're not into abstract art, go to this exhibition. Go on your own so you don't have to react in any particular way, and go with an open mind. Don't worry about understanding them, don't try to define what they are about, or of; just stand, look and wait.

Yours, enthralled all over again,

London Girl About Town xx

Ai Weiwei at the Royal Academy

Like many people, my first introduction to Ai Weiwei was his sunflower seeds installation at the Tate Modern; I remember looking out over the huge space of the Turbine Hall and thinking that the combination of painstaking detail and sheer scale produced a perspective shift that was almost meditative, like looking out over the sea. In his new exhibition at the Royal Academy, Ai Weiwei again delivers work that masters its impressive surroundings and grabs your attention - even before you enter the building, in the case of his courtyard installation 'Trees'. (photo courtesy of the Royal Academy) 

Ai Weiwei is a Chinese artist and political activist, son of a dissident poet and sent along with his family into exile in labour camps as a result of his father's work, not returning to Beijing until Mao's death. I usually like to go round an exhibition once without any form of guide just so that I can come to it without any preconceptions but in this case the historical and political background is so intrinsic that I did take advantage of the audio guide included in the ticket price and I recommend that you do the same.

At every turn there is something beautiful, thought-provoking and challenging. Ai's signature large-scale work, coupled with wonderful curating which allows you to walk around, through and under the installations, means that you can really immerse yourself in the exhibition. You can find one-metre cube versions of much smaller precious objects made of crystal, tea, or intricately-carved wood, or disparate items such as sex toys and human remains reworked in different materials.

In 'Marble Stroller', the worker-bee-like segments of marble grass evoke his famous sunflower seeds, all similar but individual. The stroller, and the petrified surveillance camera, represent a chilling encounter when Ai Weiwei was out with his young son and challenged a man photographing them. Weiwei took the memory card from the man, who claimed to be a tourist; checking it later at his studio, he found hundreds of images of his child.

'Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn' is here, along with 'Coloured Vases', a group of Neolithic vases (or are they?) destroyed/transformed by industrial paint. This, for me, was perhaps the least engaging part of a magnificent exhibition - possibly because the rest is so raw and visceral, this paled by comparison. The questions of value, authenticity and art are interesting but they are ongoing and I feel if they had been exhibited separately they may not have been immediately identifiable as his work; I didn't feel powerfully drawn to these in the same way as the rest of the rooms.

The opposite is true of 'Straight'. This is my absolute favourite section of the exhibition; by which I mean, it brought me close to tears. 'Straight' is a response to the Sichuan earthquake in 2008 in which over 5,000 children died as a result of shoddily-built schools collapsing; film footage shows distraught parents attempting to resuscitate their lifeless children amid the wreckage.

The names of the dead - originally not released by the Chinese authorities - line the walls in bare chart form along with their dates of birth, while in the centre of the room a huge undulating row of rusted metal rods echoing the seismic activity graph of an earthquake, or the wave itself. These are the cheap rebars used to reinforce the concrete in the schools (there is a suggestion that the money intended for rods of a suitable strength may have been diverted to line official pockets) collected by Ai Weiwei and his volunteers and then hammered straight again. It is incredibly moving.

Ai Weiwei started a blog at the end of 2005, stating 'If to express oneself needs a reason, let me say that to express oneself is the reason.' This was shut down by the Chinese authorities after it started getting 100.000 hits a day and he used it to call for freedom of information so now he spends hours a day on Twitter. For me, one of the most elegantly powerful statements about this came in his 2012 Guardian interview: 'The Internet is uncontrollable. And if the Internet is uncontrollable, freedom will win. It's as simple as that.'

S.A.C.R.E.D is set of six large, rusting industrial tanks containing half life-size dioramas of scenes from his illegal incarceration on the vague grounds of alleged 'financial irregularities'. The works show Ai Weiwei eating, showering, sleeping and using the toilet whilst two impassive uniformed guards stand feet away, watching. Disturbing enough, you have to view the scenes by standing on a step to look in a small gap at the top of the tank, or stooping to peer through a narrow window along the side, forcing you to become part of the intrusive voyeurism of the work.

You leave the exhibition under the twinkling glamour of an extravagantly huge chandelier, constructed using thousands of crystals and the humble Forever bicycle, ubiquitous in China.

The Royal Academy have extended their opening hours for the last few weekends, including an unprecedented 56-hour marathon for the final one. So don't miss this; it has gone straight into my top five exhibitions ever and will stay in your mind long after you leave.

Yours, newly thankful for the ability to write and post this at all,

Girl About Town xx

Sunshine? Head to the Serpentine!

If we're lucky enough to get an Indian summer this year - God knows, we haven't had any other kind - then make the most of it and head to the Serpentine in Hyde Park.

Created by keen gardener Queen Caroline in 1730, the Serpentine was one of the first artificial lakes in England deliberately designed to look natural with its long, irregular shape. I really think that one of life's simpler and more carefree pleasures is to hire a boat and potter about on the water amongst the wildfowl. Rowboats feel more traditional but don't worry if you don't know your rudder from your rowlocks; simply opt for a pedalo instead and just figure it out as you go. An hour's boat hire costs £10 for an adult - check out times and prices here: http://www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/hyde-park/facilities-in-hyde-park/boating-in-hyde-park

Alternatively let the sun do the work and glide across the lake on the UK's first solar-powered ferry, the Solarshuttle.

If you're in the mood for some posh nosh, the nearby Serpentine Bar and Kitchen serves locally-sourced British food with a modern twist - but isn't cheap. Alternatively, a short saunter around the lake is the slightly less expensive Lido Cafe Bar, just the spot for an equally scenic al fresco lunch and accompanying glass of something chilled (they also have nice loos!) - or most frugal of all, pack a picnic and hire a deck chair to watch the world go by.

Suitably refreshed, mosey on over to the Serpentine Gallery. This compact and buzzy gallery is free and has regular contemporary and modern art exhibitions but is worth checking out for the Pavilion alone. For the last twelve years the Gallery has commissioned a new Pavilion building each year; this year is one of my favourites, designed by Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei - the team responsible for the architectural star of the 2008 Olympics, the Beijing National Stadium. Chill out in the semi-subterranean depths and experience the strangely muted acoustics of the cork-covered interior; the story of the ideas behind the design can be found here: http://www.serpentinegallery.org/2012/02/ai_weiwei_herzog_de_meuron_serpentine_pavilion_2012.html

Fingers crossed, fellow sun-seekers,





Yours,
Girl About Town xx

Saatchi Gallery: Korean Eye 2012

The Saatchi Gallery is in the beautiful and perfectly proportioned Duke of York HQ building on the King's Road in Chelsea, less than five minutes' walk from Sloane Square tube, and entry is free. Membership to the gallery is also free and gets you invites to special events, talks and members' evenings as well as advance notice of exhibitions; get proactive and sign up in the online room on the second floor.

Korean Eye is the largest exhibition of new Korean art to date and the first time these artists have been shown as a group. Thirty-three artists were chosen from around two thousand applicants, providing a huge range of influences and styles in the works on show. Here are some of my snippets, pictures and highlights but I strongly recommend you go and wander round yourself and make your own choices (by the way, the gallery is fiercely air-conditioned - bliss on the muggy day I went, but you might want a warmish top).

I found shapes crafted from the porcelain deliberately broken and discarded by ceramic masters when the finished piece is not up to standard; Yeesookyung has taken these unwanted, destroyed pieces and made them into something new and desirable, covering the joins with gold leaf.

One room shows huge pictures with embedded photographs on acrylic like holograms that change as you walk past; people (and clothes) appear and disappear, details change, your interpretation of the work alters.

I loved the mesmerising portrait of an elderly Mother Theresa by Hyung Koo Kang painted in oils on aluminium, and pictures of braided hair painted using a single-haired brush.

Huge, photo-realistic pictures of cacti by Lee Kwang-Ho flank a delicate latticed sculpture in one room, and a selection of vases atop packing crates in another.

Cho Duck Hyun's apparently traditional portraits force their way into the present and trail fabric over the gallery floor, contrasting with Kim Buyoungho's wall-mounted bursts of twigs or aluminium.

The lower floor houses 20:50, a site-specific installation by British sculptor Richard Wilson and my favourite piece in a very rewarding visit. The viewer looks down on the piece from a gallery on to what appears to be a drop of several feet and white rectangles on the floor. As a fan of - but no expert in - contemporary art, I dutifully kept looking and awaiting enlightenment; it was the distinct smell of oil that dropped the penny for me.

The rectangles on the floor were in fact reflections of the ceiling lights, there was only one row of windows, not two. In one of the moments I love in art, when you suddenly have to reassess everything you thought you were looking at, I realised that there was an almost impossibly smooth reflective surface over the whole room, and that it was one of the least glamorous (Chris Ofili aside) substances possible; used sump oil. Deceptively simple, disorienting, genius.

Really, go. If you like contemporary art, I'm betting at least one thing there will make you catch your breath.





Yours, impressed,
Girl About Town xx

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