The Sneaky Magpie

So this is my last sum-up of the year…

As usual, London delivered some amazing exhibitions this year  however not as many as the couple of previous years, here is a brief list of my favorite ones:

Funny and smart works of John Baldessari at Tate Modern.

Amazing paintings by Elizabeth Payton at Whitechapel Gallery.

A great introduction to Futurism at Tate Modern.

My favorite photography exhibition – André Kertész On Reading at The Photographer’s Gallery.

Sunning works at Turner and the Masters at Tate Britain.

And I still must catch Ed Ruscha at Hayward, Norman Parkinson at Somerset House and RA’s Jacob Epstein, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and Eric Gill. Let alone all the upcoming shows, my new year’s resolutions should be: don’t leave too many shows till the last minute!

Today I really felt like I had to go out of the office and air my head. I spend way too many lunch breaks at my desk which makes me feel tired so my new resolution is to make myself go out. I know when a new project starts I will be stuck at the office from mornings to late evenings so I might as well take advantage of the quiet time.

As I walked out of our building it started to rain, I made my way towards Soho and decided to see the André Kertész exhibition at The Photographers’ Gallery. I don’t like the new gallery building in Ramillies Street and I have not seen any good exhibitions there yet so I was very happy to see one of my favorite photographers being shown there.

The show is called On Reading and it displays a collection of book related photographs from 1915 to the 1980s. The pictures show people on a beach, in a park, on a roof terrace, homeless guy with papers from a bin somewhere in Manila, poor boy with a comic at a paper dump, nun sitting in a street – all caught in the act of reading. Even though they are in public places the act of reading is very personal, they are in a little world of their own.

The photographs are amazing, I might go back to take another look. I never understood why Kertész never got the same acclaim as Cartier-Bresson or Evans, his work is wonderful.

You can see the picture selection here, my particular favorite is Dog Walker from 1927.

Refreshed I went back to the office and am having a very productive afternoon.

All pictures by André Kertész.