LDN 05/09 part 2 (Thursday)

Come Thursday morning and we thought we’d give breakfast a go, which turned out not to be the best of ideas. It’s the first time I’ve had both soggy and chewy toast. If I had the time, I could have fashioned a piece into a pretty respectable bouncy ball. I shouldn’t complain too much though as this place wasn’t the Ritz. In fact, it had more the look of a Soviet era prison camp about it, even it’s central courtyard resembled some kind of dingy exercise yard. But it was a warm, safe bed for a few nights and that’s all we really needed.

Fed and watered, we had the rough idea of heading to the Tate Modern, so off we headed in the general direction of Victoria Embankment.

(probably the best picture of the week)

(we look especially badass in this one)

(I’m incapable of smiling like a normal person I’m afraid)

(not resembling tourists in anyway)

(one of my favourites)

(various heads)

(zombie)

(Wilfred, the party boat)

Waving as we crossed the Thames makes us look like a gang of poncey neo-Nazis. Oh well :p. We decided to check out the Annette Messager exhibition at the Hayward Gallery since we found ourselves on the Southbank. Wow, what can I say? We all loved it and were pretty much blown away by what we saw. I’d never heard of her or her work before, which is very dark and autobiographical and mainly large installation pieces, but I came away feeling really inspired. Here’s a little about the show from the Hayward Gallery website:

Annette Messager (born in 1943, lives and works in Paris) is widely regarded as one of Europe’s most important contemporary artists. The retrospective Annette Messager: The Messengers, presents an overview of the artist’s career and reveals her use of an astonishing and affecting repertoire of forms and materials (among them soft toys, stuffed animals, fabrics, wool, photographs and drawings). Mixing aesthetic registers and playing with remarkable virtuosity on our senses and feelings, this exhibition presents a panoramic survey from the intimate and conceptually driven pieces Messager made in the early 1970s to the very large sculptural installations of the past 15 years, in which movement plays an increasingly important role.

Two pieces really stood out for me, the first being an huge installation of over-sized, fabric human organs whch had an almost cartoonish, cutesy feel to them. They wer eall connected to a computer controlled air supply and would inflate and deflate at random, and it really became quite unsettling. Watching these things ‘breathe’ and come to life, added with the droning noise of the air really hypnotized me and I was stood there for a good 5 minutes. The second was probably my favourite and was a huge sheet of fabric laid out on the floor in a large, darkened room. Under the fabric were various handmade objects that I couldn’t really make out, but they were illuminated and glowed through the red fabric as it ebbed and flowed from another air supply. Towards the rear of the room there was a small opening like a door were the fabric spread out from and where the air supply was at it’s strongest, making the fabric move more violently. Because it was so dark, shapes through this door became obscured and again made for quite an unsettling experience. You could see movement but you couldn’t quite make it out. The gentle flow of the giant fabric sheet began to lull me into this weird kind of state. I was just sat there not really aware of the paasage of time. It was brilliant.

Back out into the gorgeous London sunshine, we walked along the Southbank towards the Tate Modern, grabbing something to eat along the way.

(another favourite )

(I think my legs are what makes this picture)