Artists and Designers of the Future

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01nx5jv

Dr. Lynn Jones, head of the Bucks National School of Furniture alerted me to this very interesting discussion on the Radio about the value of a mixed-discipline arts education.  Listen to it on BBC IPlayer.On Start the Week, Andrew Marr explores how Britain trains the artists and designers of the future. Christopher Frayling and Sarah Teasley celebrate the 175th anniversary of the Royal College of Art, the world's oldest art and design school. But one of its former teachers, the industrial designer Ron Arad argues for a broader arts education which doesn't split sculpture from painting, architecture from design. And the artist Antony Gormley redefines the limits of sculpture and building.

Design Milk - online magazine

Have you seed this e-zine?  It is particularly good for interior and furniture designers, but also has features on art, jewellery and fashion.

A Bigger Splash - Painting after Performance at Tate Modern

This is the one for me - an exhibition at Tate Modern about the relationship between painting and performance. Sounds brilliant.

See http://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-modern

Here is the blurb from the Tate website:

This exhibition will take a new look at the dynamic relationship between performance and painting since 1950. Contrasting key paintings by Jackson Pollock and David Hockney, the exhibition considers two different approaches to the idea of the canvas as an arena in which to act: one gestural, the other one theatrical. The paintings of the Vienna Actionists or the Shooting Pictures of Niki de St Phalle will be re-presented within the performance context that they were made, and juxtaposed with works by artists such as Cindy Sherman or Jack Smith that used the face and body as a surface, often using make-up in work dealing with gender role-play. The exhibition proposes a new way of looking at the work of a number of younger artists whose approach to painting is energised by these diverse historical sources, drawing upon action painting, drag and the idea of the stage set. (accessed 40.01.13)

David Bowie Exhibition coming up in March at the V & A

The Ballgowns exhibition at the V & A finishes this weekend (wish I had gone to that one instead of the one at the National Gallery) but I am looking forward to a bit of nostalgia when the David Bowie exhibition opens in March.

http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/exhibitions/david-bowie-is/

Happy New Year

Blogging has been on hold for a couple of months but here is some more exhibition information to welcome you to 2013.

I went to the promising-sounding 'Seduced by Art, Photography Past and Present' at the National Gallery in London just before Christmas.  I found it a bit disappointing with many derivative photographs responding to paintings in stereotypical ways, so I wouldn't particularly recommend it.   I was far more excited by a surprise trip to the opera at Covent Garden courtesy of my daughter who had bought the tickets last August.  A real treat. This exhibition finishes on 20th January.

However, there are some good exhibitions coming up - see next posts.

Last night I went to see the new Ang Lee film - Life of Pi.  GO AND SEE IT!  I loved the book, but the film resolved some of the book's problems in the differentiation between fantasy and reality.  The film helped you to see that this didn't matter.  The CGI is the best I have ever seen - it challenges us to suspend our disbelief throughout.

'LightBox': photos from Time Magazine

If you are interested in photography (and who isn't?), you can subscribe to a selection of fabulous photos from Time Magazine, the excellent weekly news magazine from North America.  Sign up on their website to get LightBox's weekly newsletter http://lightbox.time.com/about/ in your inbox.

New Furniture Gallery opening at the V & A in December

For the first time in its history, the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington London is  opening a gallery dedicated to furniture.  The opening will be some time in December, but the exact date hasn't been published yet.  We have always been able to see much of the museum's collection of furniture in other galleries, but this new gallery will focus on the design, decoration, construction and production of furniture since the 16th century.