{"id":14537,"date":"2017-10-20T16:15:22","date_gmt":"2017-10-20T15:15:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thevoiceoflondon.co.uk\/?p=14537"},"modified":"2017-10-20T16:15:22","modified_gmt":"2017-10-20T15:15:22","slug":"four-quirky-art-galleries-you-can-visit-in-one-morning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/four-quirky-art-galleries-you-can-visit-in-one-morning\/","title":{"rendered":"Four quirky art galleries you can visit in one morning"},"content":{"rendered":"
Words: Delmar Gustav Terblanche | Subbing: Demi Bailey-Paul<\/h6>\n

We\u2019ve put together a quick walk in the shadow of the National Gallery which takes you to four independent art exhibits you can check out in one morning!<\/h3>\n

Everyone in London knows about the Tate Modern and the National Gallery – these enormous buildings, stocked to the brim with art both famous and obscure, get over 20,000 visitors each day. But London is flooded with smaller art galleries you\u2019ve never heard of, with their own styles and traditions.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The first stop is the Alan Cristea Gallery, which is holding an exhibition by Michael Craig-Martin called \u201cQuotidian\u201d. Michael Craig-Martin is best known for his conceptual art (one famous piece displayed an ordinary glass of water and claimed that it had been transformed into an oak tree). But he\u2019s long had an interest in drawing everyday objects, and Quotidian celebrates that, splashing the viewer with stark, stylised drawings of ordinary bits and bobs – sometimes garishly colourful; sometimes strikingly black and white. It\u2019s an invitation to take a closer look it at the unremarkable tiny details that make up our hyperactive modern world.<\/li>\n
  2. From there we move to the L\u00e9vy Gorvy Gallery, where Gilbert Prousch and George Passmore are re-exhibiting some of their oldest artworks. The pair (known simply as Gilbert & George) are two eccentric, impeccably dressed old men, famous for maintaining an approach that art is for the audience first and foremost – a kind of service to the modern world. This installation consists of 23 enormous multi-panel sketches which chronicle the pair\u2019s walks around London in the late 60s. The huge drawings are of walks through London\u2019s leafy parks, and are captioned with warm philosophical musings, always directed to the viewer. One asks \u201cIs not art the only hope for the making way for the modern world to enjoy the sophistication of decadent living expression?\u201d Whatever that means, it\u2019s nice to know these two charming old men are out there somewhere making art they hope will make you happy.<\/li>\n
  3. Next is the Olivier Malingue Gallery, hosting French artist Laurent Grasso\u2019s exhibit \u201cThe Panoptes Project\u201d. The exhibition consists of multiple artworks of vastly different styles – all with one thing in common: they stare at you. Every artwork features eyes very prominently, peering into the viewer\u2019s soul. We could tell you they draw on Orwell\u2019s Big Brother or Foucault’s Surveillance Gaze, but why would we do that when we could simply say that the whole experience is deeply, deeply creepy. Cloaked in dark blue and red walls, a huge neon eye glares at you from one wall, while black and white irises populate a painting of clouds on the other. It\u2019s not an exhibit that relaxes you, but given we live in a city where you literally cannot walk more than 90 yards without being photographed by CCTV, it\u2019s also one which makes you think.<\/li>\n
  4. Finally, we arrive at the Carl Kosty\u00e1l Gallery, where Sara Cwyner is exhibiting a bunch of photographs of her friend Tracy. The photographs are of a woman who has posed for dozens of photo shoots for over a decade. Her image has been taken and used by plenty of artists and marketers, and yet it is still ultimately her own. The exhibit is a commentary on that. The photos are covered with collages of everyday objects – perfume bottles; bracelets; pantyhose – they make the \u201cimage\u201d of Tracy more real and tangible. It seems to ask where a woman\u2019s conception of herself ends and the way others look at her begins – or if there even is a border between the two. And if there was any doubt whether art that poses such questions mattered, the display begins with an exchange between the current President of the United States, and a reporter whose uncle was the 41st Commander in Chief: \u201cShe used to be great. She\u2019s still very beautiful. I moved on her, actually. Sheesh, your girl\u2019s hot as shit. In the purple. No that\u2019s her, in the gold.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    And there it is! Four short exhibits within a mile of one another, walking distance from the National Gallery. So remember, there\u2019s a lot more to London\u2019s art scene than just the big classical buildings with impressive columns out the front!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Words: Delmar Gustav Terblanche | Subbing: Demi Bailey-Paul We\u2019ve put together a quick walk in the shadow of the National Gallery which takes you to four independent art exhibits you can check out in one…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":476,"featured_media":14503,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,10,42],"tags":[291,2564,4244],"class_list":["post-14537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art","category-arts","category-entertainment","tag-abstract-art","tag-galleries","tag-modern-art"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/476"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}