Weaving Magic and Sky-High Dining

On Monday morning, we went to the TKTS booth to get tickets for The Mentor (which was recommended to be by a Canadian I met in our first TKTS line last week) before visiting Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery. These are both return visits for us, so we walked into Trafalgar Square very smugly indeed as we were already so familiar with it...and the first thing we saw was this:

Really Good
David Shrigley
"Shrigley's ambition is that this simple gesture will become a self-fulfilling prophecy; that things considered 'bad' such as the economy, the weather, and society, will benefit from a change of consensus towards positivity.
Really Good is the 11th commission of the Mayor of London's Fourth Plinth.

It is 23 feet tall, and it was definitely new. Apparently there are frequently commissioned sculptures in the square.

 There was another new installation that we found quite compelling:

The Mud Soldier
"The Third Battle of Ypres, commonly referred to as the Battle of Passchendaele, was infamous for the scale of its casualties and muddy battlefields...in just over three months, almost 500,000 soldiers fell or were wounded as incessant rain turned craters and trenches into a sea of mud, leaving them and horses to drown, and tanks stuck in the quagmire.
This soldier, made of sand and mud taken from Flanders Fields, commemorates the bravery, struggle, and sacrifice of all the men who fought in the Battle of Passchendaele. Don't let their memory fade."

The sculpture sits under a water rig, and as the water falls on it, the soldier gradually dissolves.

Our main reason for visiting the National Gallery was to see the temporary exhibit on Chris Ofili's The Caged Bird's Song. Ofili created the painting in three sections using watercolors, and then weavers recreated the piece as a tapestry. The exhibit is aptly called "Weaving Magic."

The exhibit features a video explaining the process, and it's absolutely fascinating. Watercolor is, as the name implies, a very fluid medium, and it was an enormous challenge to interpret Ofili's work using wool. The major color changes were mapped out and then enlarged 877%; the weavers recreated the watercolor pigments by utilizing multiple similar colors to give the image depth (kind of like pixel art! 🙂)

Ofili explains: "The Caged Bird's Song is a marriage of watercolour and weaving. I set out to do something free-flowing in making a watercolour, encouraging the liquid pigment to form the image, a contrast to the weaving process. With their response, which is an interpretation rather than a reproduction, the weavers have paid a type of homage to the watercolour that I gave them as well as to the process of weaving."

The beginning of the exhibit features Ofili's completed watercolor:

"On either side of the central panel, a man and a woman draw back curtains to reveal an Arcadian scene. Beneath a waterfall, beside lapping waters with the sea behind, a couple recline, their bodies intertwined. As the guitar-playing man serenades his companion, she drinks a sparkling liquid which is poured into her glass by a figure hidden above. Oblivious to our gaze, the couple appear absorbed in their actions, but the thunderous sky to the left suggests that there is a darkening to come."

The exhibit also includes several sketches and early work that revealed Ofili's process:

"This series of studies explores the figure of footballer Mario Balotelli, the source for the magical cocktail waiter in the tapestry. Appearing in the sky, he pours down a liquid which is imbibed by the woman below. Beginning with sketches that incorporate a cut-out photo of Balotelli's head, turned sideways and adorned with a large bow tie, Ofili gradually abstracts this image and then experiments in colour. The footballer has long intrigued the artist, both for his prodigious skill and for the struggles he has encountered as a black footballer with Italian nationality."

Finally, there is a large room dedicated to the display of the completed tapestry, and it is absolutely breathtaking:

Here are some close-ups of the weaving:

Olifi also painted the room that displays the tapestry:

"The tapestry is hung against a painted mural, designed by the artist especially for its installation in the National Gallery. A sequence of swaying, monumental temple dancers entices the visitor towards the richly coloured, hand-woven wall-hanging."

"Weaving Magic" was probably one of my favorite art museum exhibits ever. After the exhibit ends, the tapestry's permanent home will be Clothworkers' Hall. We'll have to visit next time we come to London! :)

Before leaving the museum, we passed through the impressionists and Turner's section. Below are the paintings that caught our eye this time around:

Berthe Morisot
Girl on a Divan, about 1885
"The sitter was probably a paid model, but her frank and direct gaze suggests a friendship between sitter and artist."

Edouard Manet
Corner of a Cafe-Concert, probably 1878-80
"This work was originally the right half of a painting of the Brasserie de Reichshoffen in Paris, begun in about 1878 and cut in two by Manet before he completed it. A join where a new piece of canvas was added can be seen here in the man's blue smock. Manet subsequently repainted the background, adding the dancer, musicians and, on the left, a conductor's baton."

Arthur Streeton
Blue Pacific, 1890
"One of the most important Australian Impressionist painters, Streeton was admired for his ability to capture the unique character of the Australian landscape. He was a precious twenty-three and on his first visit to Sydney when he painted this vivid scene of a windy day on clifftops along the coast at Coogee."

Henri Rousseau
Surprised! 1891
"A tiger crouches in the foreground, surprised by man's arrival. Rousseau's jungle is imaginary, derived from specimens of tropical plants in Paris's botanical gardens. By placing the trees along a diagonal axis, he has conveyed a sense of the wind, in spite of the painting's static and naive style."

John Russell
Les Terrasses de Monte Casino, about 1889
"This is thought to have been painted during a stay in Cassino, south of Rome...but also recalls the landscape near Antibes, south-east France...He portrays the sun-bleached landscape with a bold use of such colours as pink, yellow, and turquoise."

Vincent van Gogh
Two Crabs, 1889
"After his release from hospital in Arles in January 1889, Van Gogh embarked on a series of still lifes, including crab studies. This painting may show the same crab upright and on its back. Parallel strokes sculpt the creature's form on an exuberant sea-like surface."
The crabs creep Jon out, but I think they're cute.

Vincent van Gogh
A Wheatfield, with Cypresses, 1889
Cypress trees reminded Van Gogh of 'Egyptian obelisks.' These dark trees were in a wheatfield close to the St-Remy mental asylum near Arles where the artist spent a year as a patient."

Andre Derain
Madame Matisse in a Kimono, 1905
"Derain spent the summer of 1905 at Collioure, a French seaside town near the Spanish border, working side-by-side with his friend Henri Matisse. Both artists painted Madame Matisse wearing this brilliant Japanese robe. Derain was a leader among the Fauvre painters, notorious at the time for their experiments in painting with intense, unmixed colours."

My dad's favorite Turner is still doing well!

Joseph Mallord William Turner
The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her Last Berth to be broken up, 1838

 In this visit, I also found this Turner very compelling:

JMW Turner
Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway, 1884
"A steam engine advances across a bridge in the rain. In front of the train, a hare runs for cover. The scene has been identified as the railway bridge over the Thames at Maidenhead. The picture demonstrates Turner's ability to capture atmospheric effects in paint."

We then went to a late lunch at Duck and Waffle. This is the 40th floor restaurant that we dined at in 2015 during a very rainy day. This time, skies were clear, and we were able to fully appreciate the view:

It's funny how flat and sprawling London is; it reminds me a bit of Los Angeles in that regard. During our pub tour we learned that while Manhattan was built on granite, London was built on mud, so it doesn't do so well with very tall buildings.

Our lunch consisted of a few small plates and some excellent homemade bread; I made the mistake of ordering the "Earth" cocktail, which took its name a little too literally and tasted exactly like dirt. But then we had very tasty desserts:

Baked Alaska

Salted Caramel Choux Bun

That night we saw The Mentor, a new play with F. Murray Abraham (heads up, this recap will have plot spoilers, if that matters to you). The Mentor was a quieter, drier comedy, which made it a good companion to The Comedy About a Bank Robbery and Half a Sixpence.

The premise is that an arts foundation has set up a mentorship between one-hit, washed-up playwright Benjamin (F. Murray Abraham) and young, up-and-coming playwright Martin. The mentorship is to take place over a period of five days in the Italian countryside. The program is coordinated by arts administrator Irving, and Martin brings along his wife Gina.

The first section of the play was essentially the two playwrights, both very certain of their own talent and importance, expressing competing ideas on what constitutes good writing and the subjectivity of art. Benjamin wrote traditionally structured, realistic narratives, while Martin is a bit less traditional (references to his first play mention a choir, 35 extras, and a cement mixer). We found this dialogue compelling as well as humorous, and we wish the play would have continued in this vein. However, after Benjamin tells Martin that his new manuscript is garbage and he should consider another profession, it soon became about Martin's relationship with Gina (turns out she also doesn't think Martin is very talented). Then, in a very annoying development, Martin and Gina seem to break up, and Martin storms off while Gina stays in the countryside. Benjamin and Gina have a few drinks, and then it's ambiguous as to whether or not they spend the night together.

I am beyond over the trope of elderly men getting with beautiful young women (this play was, of course, written by a man). Ultimately, Benjamin and Gina let Martin believe that Benjamin only pretended to hate Martin's play to drive him away and have a go at Gina. If this is true, then this play is not really an exploration of the subjectivity of art or the writer's ego--it's just a story about a lecherous old man pursuing a hot young blonde. It's much more interesting if Benjamin (whose last success was at the age of 24) felt threatened by a young writer acclaimed as "the voice of his generation," or if he actually hated Martin's play because of the generational divide between them.

Overall, we enjoyed the play for its dialogue and performances (we especially liked the awkward, skittish Irving). And I always appreciate any play that's 80 minutes, no intermission!

We ended our day at yet another (delicious) tapas restaurant, this one called Condesa. We had solomillo sliders, salmon avocado tartare, and a very tasty oxtail/mashed potato dish.

We are sad that our vacation is only two more days, but we are very glad that we had the opportunity to spend so much time in London!

xo
Hannah