The Sneaky Magpie

Yesterday was a very exciting day, I got to meet Miranda from Skirmishofwit. We met in Hamspstead and headed to Ginger and White cafe for a blissful afternoon of tea, cakes and wonderful conversation. It was great to meet you Miranda and I am really looking forward to see you again soon!

Ginger and White serve everything on Poole two tone crockery which I absolutely adore.

Later on I met hubby in China Town and went to see A Single Man. I didn’t love it so I will try to dissect it a little. The acting was very good, especially Julianne Moore and Nicholas Hoult, Colin Firth was not bad either. The story is very interesting, exploring a day in life of George Falconer who decides to kill himself after loosing his partner in a car accident. I thought Tom Ford didn’t show enough of George’s pain, the film is edited with way too much focus on beauty shots which make it look like a perfume commercial, and not much on George’s feelings, there are nice touches where the colors change as Falconer is happy or sad but I could not see his real suffering. It is definitely worth seeing but it left me a bit disappointed.  What didn’t disappoint is the set designing which was absolutely amazing as well as Hoult’s mohair jumper. I’d like to read the book as I really believe the story is too good to be judged by Ford’s film.

Time for dinner, we found a real gem in Lisle Street, a cottage – like Taiwanese place which had steaming dumplings in the window and a queue outside, always a good sign, it is called Leong’s Legend. After waiting for 5 minutes we were lead up a very narrow staircase to our table. The atmosphere was lovely with dim lights and wooden interior.

The food was delicious: steamed bao with pork, crab and ginger with a tiny bit of roe on the top, Beijing dumplings, duck pancakes with plum sauce and squid with ginger, chillies and garlic. A real feast for very little and they serve beer in bowls!

I have finished Gaskell’s North and South which I enjoyed enormously. She is so good with describing characters and places. The South was all warm, sunny and described with yellows and reds while the North had depressing grey and blue-ish feel to it. The story is beautifully written with a lot of detail making a precise picture of a Victorian industrial town. There is a bit of humor in the novel as well, the author calls the northern county Darkshire. I cannot wait to reach for Wives and Daughters next.

Today we cycled to Tate Britain, mainly to see Henry Moore exhibition. We meandered through the main gallery rooms and discovered a Francis Bacon room. I really believe if you get lost you can always learn something interesting. What we learned today was that in the 1920s and 30s Francis Bacon was a very talented interior decorator, inspired by the Cubists he designed a screen and few very attractive rugs.

The Henry Moore show was truly amazing, from early sculptures of primitive masks and bodies through reclining women, mother and child series to war time sketches of miners and people in underground shelters. By walking around the works you can discover the real angle and see the shapes of human bodies. He was very respectful of his materials, he carefully carved shapes out of stones till the real shape got revealed. This is a must see show, the curators did an excellent job by bringing all those wonderful works together.

As we were at Tate we decided to see Chris Ofili’s show too but this turned to be so underwhelming after seeing Moore’s and Bacon’s works that we left promptly.

When in Dublin I went to visit the Hugh Lane Gallery. My main reason for a visit was the fact that the gallery is a house to Francis Bacon’s studio. Amazingly the studio was moved from London’s Reece Mews to Dublin and painstakingly recreated.

The area is divided in three rooms, first one shows a few minutes interview with Bacon is his studio, second room is the studio itself and the third room has got few Bacon pictures on display.

It is important to see the film as it shows you that the space was recreated perfectly with its clutter, unfinished paintings, bits of newspapers and general mess.

You are not meant to photograph it but we didn’t know. We only found out when one of the guards came to tell us off. We did manage to get few good shots though.

I haven’t blogged for a while, I’ve been totally swamped at work and had to sort out my house a little. Have a few things to catch up on: holidays in Naples and Dublin, Christmas and few exhibitions.

I’ve been rushing recently to see all the autumn shows before they finish and was left slightly underwhelmed. The only one that I really really liked was Francis Bacon at Tate Britain, went to see it three times. Very dark, aggressive, sad but beautiful pictures. Lots of emotions, lots of drama. In addition to this while in Dublin I went to the Hugh Lane Gallery where Bacon’s studio is recreated, more about it soon.

Tate Modern’s Rothko and Cildo Meireles exhibitions were ok, nothing to rave about though (to be perfectly honest I cannot get too excited about Rothko’s paintings so take no notice). Meireles’ show included two rooms with limited amount of visitors allowed and the queues were up to 1h for both, I lost interest. I did like the Babel tower and the crazy clock/measuring tape room but didn’t quite get what did the artist mean by the latter one. Conceptual art doesn’t do it for me.

The Turner Prize show was very disappointing, I went twice to see if any of the work will grow on me – it did not.

The Cold War of Design at V&A had a lot of different media on display but lacked strong pieces, I thought it was a little bit confused and missed the point.

V&A runs two more exhibitions – Fashion v Sport (which is probably finished now) and Magnificence of Tsars. The latter one is worth the visit. It shows some amazing pieces from 1720 to 1917: coronation clothes, casual wear and army uniforms. All stunningly made, fantastic craftsmanship.

Royal Academy tempted me with Byzantium – unfortunately another disappointment. There were few interesting objects like the amazing micro-mosaics and pretty little boxes but overall the show lacked something, it was really hard to compare the works, see how art developed over the period of over thousand years. Besides I had a feeling of being ripped off – the tickets were £12 per person and lots of the works came from British Museum and the V&A.

I just wonder, are we so spoiled by the choice in London and become too picky?

It’s only the 2nd of September but it feels like autumn has been with us for a while. Rainy days, cold wind, Wellington boots and umbrellas are the daily reality.

I love autumn, in fact it is my favorite season, but I feel I didn’t have enough sunny days this year.

So what’s out there to look forward to? Well, there is great fashion, few good movies coming out, stodgy food, golden leaves and open fire, there are also few very exciting exhibitions coming out.

Victoria and Albert Museum presents Cold War Modern: Design 1945-1970. This exhibition will focus of post war design from around the world, it will show how design was shaped by history and the difference between the West and the Iron Curtain. It will cover design, architecture, film and art of that period. Opens September 25th.

The Hayward Gallery will be showing Andy Warhol Other Voices, Other Rooms from October the 7th. It will be a major retrospective of the artist’s films, TV programmes, painting and illustrations. I wonder what the connection with Capote will be?

Francis Bacon exhibition starts on 11th September at Tate Britain. It will include the triptych Thee Studies for the Crucifixion and portraits of Pope Innocent X. This is something I am really looking forward to see. Furthermore the Turner Prize is back.

Tate Modern – Rothko exhibition opens on 26th September, perfect for everyone who likes big canvases with soft squares.

Royal Academy will show two big exhibitions: objects from collection of the Fondation Maeght by Miró, Calder, Giacometti, Braque from October 4th, and Byzantium 330-1453 from October 25th.

From 15th October National Gallery will treat us with great masters in Renaissance Faces – Van Eyck to Titian.

Apart from the current blockbuster Hadrian at the British Museum look out for Babylon exhibition starting on 13th November.

National Portrait Gallery will have few shows, one of them is a must see – Annie Leibovitz A Photographer’s Life 1990-2005. Starts October 16th.

Additional treats are the opening of the new Saatchi Gallery in October and ICA scrapping their entry fee.

This autumn will be exciting!