I liked it anyway, it’s all about the proliferation of Regency architecture across London as the first mass produced architecture, or something. I’m not really sure to be honest but who doesn’t love a bit of Regency architecture??? I mean living in London you kind of have to otherwise you would go crazy but at the same time I think the monotonous dusty dryness of Bloomsbury is totally suffocating and a generally unpleasant place. I guess thinking about it it is indeed exactly the same experience you have walking through a Barrett style housing estate, everything is unreal and dead feeling – which I think is what the artists is going on about at some point, possibly. Anyway I would definitely chose a bit of late Georgian stucco in central London over horrendous faux-mullioned windows in Yate! No doubt I will never get the choice though alas. They were very pretty drawings anyway.
After recovering from too much free wine on Saturday I arose at a very civilised hour on Sunday morning and made it over to the Royal Albert Hall to take part in a recording!! Ok that sounds slightly more exciting than it in fact was as I didn’t get to actually hear any music but I did get to have my makeup professionally done which involved having it SPRAYED ON!!! (I had forgotten to bring any with me, or in fact wash my hair which is pretty damn scabby and not sure I quite fitted in with the surroundings, was particularly shaming when the make up artist asked what I had bought with me to wear!) Also more importantly I got to go into the RAH and sit in a box which embarrassingly I haven’t done the whole time I have been in London. Really must go and see a Prom or something at least at some point, everyone I know keeps graduating there. It looked smaller than it does on TV, but what doesn’t?
After we were filmed pretending to listen to music me and the delightful Andrew went to see the Serpentine Pavilion and show. Now for readers of my blog, and people who know me in general (I imagine these are one in the same frankly) you will know I am not the worlds biggest fan of the architectural version of wanking in a bucket that is the creation of temporary ‘pavilions’. What the hell does that word even mean? I am going to campaign to have them all reclassified as gazeboes, that would bring those architectural egos down a notch or two. To be honest I’m not a big fan or architects either, the vast majority of them are as dull as powder and although finding it near impossible to talk about anything other than architecture can still somehow not manage to hold an interesting conversation about architecture either. Or in fact design a building that will stand up. An odd situation. Anyway, as if this wasn’t proven over and over again as it is, Andrew gave me an interesting insight into the trouble caused by the various architects they get to do design these each year; their one specification is that they build a space that be used for performances and talks etc – and the vast majority of these architects can’t even bend their massive, useless egos to do that. They therefore cause huge problems every year for the poor curators. Seriously, the one practical requirement they have to meet and they can’t even do that. Says A LOT.Anyway, the design of this years pavilion by Peter Zumthor, works around the concept of “hortus conclusus, a contemplative room, a garden within a garden. One enters the building from the lawn and begins the transition into the central garden, a place abstracted from the world of noise and traffic and the smells of London – an interior space within which to sit, to walk, to observe the flowers.” Well this is all very well and good if the space in question isn’t rammed with tourists who are barely able to get into the baking hot sun trapped space of the central garden courtyard. The “contemplative spaces that evoke the spiritual dimension of our physical environment” would be a lot more contemplative if they weren’t deeply crowded, claustrophobic and unpleasant. I certainly didn’t feel tranquil and at peace away from the noise and traffic of London, it was like being on Oxford Street on a Saturday in the sales and I wanted to leave as soon as physically possible.
Now, you could argue that that’s not the architects fault – but I do. These spaces are always, always busy in the summer, full of people with push chairs and kids running about, and that should be a good thing. The last Pavilion, although not to my taste, was an incredibly effective space and worked well for its requirements – it was a really lovely place to sit and watch the world of middle class London go by. To design a space which only works when empty, where you can’t push a push chair, where you feel trapped and hemmed in and over crowded, is to design the space incorrectly without taking into account its use or its intention. So I say BAD JOB My Zumthor, next time try sticking your head out of your no doubt enormous arse for a second and realise the space is more important that your egotistical vision.
After that unpleasant experience we went to the gallery proper to see Michelangelo Pistoletto’s The Mirror of Justice. Which was in some ways like stepping out of the frying pan and into the fire in terms of wanting to get the hell away from this horrendous crowd of annoying people. Claustrophobia was really the theme of the day:
“Pistoletto’s exhibition will draw visitors through the galleries, leading them via a winding maze to hidden installations and sculptures. Responding to the architecture of the Serpentine galleries and using an economy of materials, the exhibition will manipulate visitors’ perceptions of space, making them an integral part of the work itself.”
So there we go, a confusing labyrinth; great. The gallery space was united (which I liked, more effective than some sort of retrospective I thought) by a mass of curved corrugated cardboard, which wound around and around everywhere forming narrow passages for the viewer to navigate and occasionally opening into spaces containing mirrors, rugs and in a couple of cases (a tad inexplicably to me) very very large metal funnel type objects. The work (I assume) drew upon various religious metaphors, the journey of the viewer around the gallery in some way mirroring the journey of some sort of self discovery or personal journey. The mirrors were effective, apart from reminding me that I had actually been filmed with hair that skanky, they opened up the space and gave unexpected new perspectives on the work and you as a viewer and contributor within it. It was a nice, if slightly “high art lite” show.
So there is me done for another week. Very much enjoying Sarah Waters Fingersmith at the moment by the way, bit like The Scarlet Petal and the White, although I think some hard core lesbionic action is soon to occur. See you next week kids xx
