Hello long ignored bloggers – apologies for my lengthy absence from blog land I have been rather busy of late doing such exciting things as going to France, coming back, looking for a happy new abode and being ill. Great. I also keep being given work to do – what’s that about?!?! Anyway, I haven’t got time to properly fill in the last 3 weeks of cultural pursuits so will have to do a quick version of each instead. This is actually quite a relief not least because after 3 weeks I have pretty much forgotten everything I have seen/thought about what I’ve seen but also because the last London exhibition I went to (with the fair Georgiana) was one of the more disturbing experiences I have ever had in a gallery space – and I went to the Courtauld…
Is it normal to go round a gallery with an expression of cringing, wincing pain and disgust on ones face? Well if you haven’t experienced that before then get ye selves down to Skin at the Wellcome Collection pronto, if you have a strong stomach that is. I don’t quite know what I expected but jeeze, it wasn’t this!! The exhibition started off well enough with some slightly grizzly although definitely bearable medical style representations of skin from, like, the past, at some point. These presented skin as something that must be peeled away and discarded in order to get to the ‘true’ interior of the body; an irrelevant layer between the outside world and the interior biological functions of the human form. I know skin is meant to be the biggest organ and stuff but frankly I still kind of see it like that too I guess, apparently that’s not good:
Is it normal to go round a gallery with an expression of cringing, wincing pain and disgust on ones face? Well if you haven’t experienced that before then get ye selves down to Skin at the Wellcome Collection pronto, if you have a strong stomach that is. I don’t quite know what I expected but jeeze, it wasn’t this!! The exhibition started off well enough with some slightly grizzly although definitely bearable medical style representations of skin from, like, the past, at some point. These presented skin as something that must be peeled away and discarded in order to get to the ‘true’ interior of the body; an irrelevant layer between the outside world and the interior biological functions of the human form. I know skin is meant to be the biggest organ and stuff but frankly I still kind of see it like that too I guess, apparently that’s not good:
But then the exhibition moved to much more disgusting territory – mostly thanks to the, you’ve guessed it, VICTORIANS!!! Unfortunatly the most vomit inducing stuff, in particular the wax work models of street Urchins in various stages of death because of hideous skin afflictions were really enjoyable (???) - luckily for you I can't find any images of these, or the more distrurbing objects and art works on show, but just look at this stuff:
There was also some more arty more contemporary stuff present, but luckily I don’t really remember most of that, or have managed to block it out more like;
Really really disgusting exhibition, which one can’t help thinking bit off way more than it could chew. How can one exhibition successfully unite all scientific interest in skin across history and geography at the same time as exploring the obvious cultural implications of the word in both contemporary work and throughout time?? However, it was definitely interesting, and most definitely disgusting –and if I remember rightly free!!!
