Public Art in The City of London – Sara Barker at Angel Court

Angel Court echoes an ancient path that today links Throgmorton Street to Copthall Avenue between high-rise glass office buildings. During Lockdown, whilst wandering the City of London's quiet streets on a hunt for works made by women (working title: Formed by Females*) I tracked down two metalwork sculptures created by Sara Barker in 2017. 

Earlier this month I revisited these works and took these photos. First, 'Selvedge With Dark' at the Throgmorton Street end. I really like the subtle interplay of the overlaid flat mesh panels. I am a sucker for a grid pattern.

At the other end of Angel Court, high of the wall is this piece called 'Last of Light (Three Needles)' which references the old name of nearby Three Needle Street (Threadneedle St):

*The whole point of this had been to highlight how few pieces of pubic art have been created by women. Well, it turns out there are lots!  For instance, across the metropolis, we also have excellent works by Frick, Hambling, Jonzen and Hepworth to name just four and, also in the City, between Cannon Street and Queen Victoria Street, is one of my favourite pieces (actually three large pieces) 'Forgotten Streams' by Cristina Iglesias here – you might recall her similarly excellent installation in Burlington House courtyard as part of the RA Summer Show 2022.

Reframed: The Woman In The Window at Dulwich Picture Gallery

Ooh this is a good idea, and something I hadn’t noticed or thought about until I heard about this show – the repeated motif that can be seen throughout centuries of art of a female framed in a window, whether from the perspective of her looking out, or us looking in.

Last week I joined a preview tour of the show led by its curator, Dr Jennifer Sliwka, looking fab in a grey two-piece double-breasted suit, btw. She first showed us the inspiration for the show, Dulwich Picture Gallery’s ‘Girl at a Window’ by Rembrandt, and then picked out and explained some thought-provoking works, from ancient carved pieces, through Hockney, Bell, Rossetti and Blake, to end with Sherman and Abramovitch, two female artists whose photographic self-portraits literally puts themself in the frame. 

I suppose the question(s) being asked here is, are we and the artists voyeurs, or are we being provoked/invited to look at these women? 

There’s a very clever multi-purpose piece in the mausoleum by Isa Genken, shown bottom left in my montage, that allows you to put yourself in the picture. Inspired by this, I put myself in the picture and took a 'selfie' reflected onto the Howard Hodgkin exhibut (bottom right) which also shows elements of the large photgraphic artwork on the wall opposite.

It's a really interesting and diverse collection. On until 4th September. Find out more here. 

Reminder to self: finish research for my walk/talk “Female Forms: sculptors and sculptures" 

Funny Shaped Jugs – a fund-rasing exhibition to highlight Breast Cancer Awareness at Coexistence, Islington, Dec 2nd and 3rd

Jugs.
Ceramic jugs, all size 36C, handmade by Vicky Thornton,
Sales from this unusual two day exhibition at 288 Upper Street will go to Maggie's Centre's for cancer support.
Read more here.

Some bare-breasted ladies on London buildings – can you identify them?

Accentuate the positive – three more nice things along the No.19 bus route

Big and beautiful x3:

 Clocked at Highbury

 Inspired in Upper Street

 Feeling perky in Shaftesbury Avenue

Three nice things – a series by Jane's London

International Women's Day Fair at Spitalfields

March 8th marks International Women's Day.
On Saturday there will be a market and activities at Spitalfields Traders Market with music and live events. I will be there (of course).
Last year's event was good, so let's make this one even better.

What a boob! Breasts are go go go!

News this week is that thousands of women are to get their fake boobs de-commissioned by the NHS because the private clinics who installed them (yes, installed) in the first place say it isn't it's their responsibility. Our money is about to be spent on (in the most part) self-obsessed vain women who wanted quick fixes.
I agree with the clinics; after all no one forced these women to have operations they didn't want to have. The women made free choices to spend their own money on something they thought was going to make them feel better.

I can't be the only one who isn't surprised that the breasty bags of seepy goo are starting to break down and infect these women's bodies.   

A thought: if they fall over in their silly high heels and break their legs are they now going to expect the shoe shops to pay up for that too? And, whilst I am on the high shoe subject, what about the osteopaths they are going to need sometime soon too? It's gonna get really expensive...
Yes, there are women whose lives have been radically improved after the loss and then replacement of a breast after cancer treatment, but on the flip side, I have actually heard mothers encouraging their 18 year old daughters to have a boob job; girls that look absolutely lovely as they are and should not have someone, least of all their mother, suggesting that they are sub-standard. That's wrong on so many levels.
The money might be better spent getting these women into therapy to help them understand why they are being duped into thinking they 'need' this invasive surgery in the first place. As I write this I am reminded that when my mother was receiving radiotherapy the nurses told her that women were often coming in to the hospital to ask for the treatment because they had heard that it destroys the hair follicles and was therefore better than waxing.
It's all about quick fixes. Getting the latest look. And it's been going on for centuries – I bet these women with their gravity-defying chests would probably be outraged at the beauty regimes of the past...
To get that perfectly pale look Elizabethan women applied lead directly to their skin to lighten it (a practice that dates back to the Ancient Greeks) and they used mercuric sulphide for those must-have cherry lips. Finally, a dab of belladonna to brighten the eyes. Ooh lovely. But no pain, no gain.
The Egyptians used a variety of metals to keep them looking attractive including lead sulphite and copper. More recently the Victorians used arsenic for so many things its hard to believe they lived as long as they did.
These days the beauty industry is still enticing woman to part with their money in the most macabre of ways. What will future generations think when they look back at all this? When they remember the women who thought it was normal to have their faces injected with poison for that constantly surprised yet dim look. And had bits of cows put in too for the perfect fishy pout?
Is your arse not round or pert enough? Whack in a a few bags of silicon to get that bootylicious behind. Too fat? Eat a few pies and get a man with an oversized dirt devil to vacuum it out for you.
Luckily I don't need all this. I have perfect breasts and a fabulous arse. Yeah.
Fried eggs for breakfast anyone?

Breasts:
Top: Lime Street, Holloway, Dalston, Paddington 
Middle: Isle of Dogs, Leon, Long Acre, Haymarket
Bottom: Bloomsbury, Paddington, Rotherhithe, Shaftesbury Ave

Shoes (for want of a better title)

I was recently commenting how women's shoes these days are so varied and OTT, going higher and higher and sillier and siller by the day that to find a pair that is really different yet interesting is hard. So I gave up ages ago and stick mostly with Clarks... well designed, mostly leather and there's a convenient factory outlet shop here in Holloway.

But then I was just sent a link to this guys work... blimey, now that's art!

Top: Acton, Hackney, Kings Cross, Fulham.

Middle: Leytonstone x2, Harlesden, W2.

Bottom: Stamford Hill, Kensington, Hornsey, WC2.

Burlesque in Brick Lane

I decided on the way home that I wasn't going to bother writing about this. But then I noticed the artist whose work is on show there is called Greg Holloway, and I live in Holloway and one of the lovely PR girls there this eve is doing a course at the Royal Holloway University, and I thought, ooh coincidences, so here goes.

Tom and I got to the Brickhouse in Brick Lane and were told we were gonna get a short preview of the show at 7.30pm. That never happened. So we had a couple of glasses of wine and went to look at the art. A rude waitress asked us to move out of her way. We weren't in her way at all. Then we tried some of the crudites that were offered to us. You should pronounce that 'CRUD-ites' as I have never tasted such dry, tasteless rubbish, even the morning after a bad party. Truly awful. And this was supposed to be a PR exercise!

Some barely-clothed girls came on stage and waved their arms around a bit. Then a tattooed female did a bit of stand up. We left. It wasn't really my kind of thing. Or perhaps it might have been if it all hadn't seemed so half-hearted and mediocre.

Burlesque... hmmm... not getting enough attention at home love? Art? Performance? Really?

Women at Spitalfields Market

This Saturday 12th March I'll be at Spitalfields where I'll have a stall selling my clay pipe jewellery. Please do come down and say hello. There'll be lots of other things going on in addition to the market including live music, workshops, food and entertainment. It's all part of International Women's Fair following up on the centenary of International Women's Day.

And tomorrow, also at Spitalfields, though in the old market is the Women of the World Arts Fair.

Spitalfields, and the area around it, is a fasciniating area of London with a rich and varied history as these images show.

Women! Know your place!

That's a ref to a sketch from the Fast Show that I was reminded of when I saw the wonderful old photo of suffragettes on the cover of a copy of yesterday's free Stylist magazine that I found on the bus home last night.

So I turned to read the article on page 41 and it seems women may have made great leaps and bounds since that photo was taken but apparently we still can't do our sums....

If you look closely at the standfirst it reads,'Thanks to the suffragettes, British women were finally given the vote in 1918. Eighty-two years on, how has this hard-won right shaped politics today?'

It seems we are still living in the past.

And on the loose subject of women, I went to see 'Women Beware Women' at the Olivier Theatre the other night. It's had mixed reviews, and don't be put off by what I think is a misleading title as it's bloody brilliant; the set, the costumes, the choreography. Wonderful. Go go go!

10 years of the Tate Modern – a really good bookshop

The Tate Modern is now 10 years old. According to this great article in The Times recently, it’s the most popular art venue in the world and one of the top three attractions (!) in the country (whatever that might mean), though it doesn’t mention what its rivals are.
I’ve never been a fan of the building myself. I have always felt that it’s an opportunity wasted. Pre 2000, when I heard the building was being converted for use as a gallery I was quite excited at the prospect, but when I went there I was so disappointed. And ten years on I still hold that view.
It’s the conversion of building itself that I have got the problem with, not the contents. Logic says that the main access to the building, and then to the art, should be through the door facing the river, especially if you have just walked across the Millennium Bridge. But no; if you use that door you will end up confused for a while wondering which way to go, trying to find a sign or a map to direct you to the art. On looking down into turbine hall you realise you may have to go down to go up. Hmmm. Once down there you'll realise the bulk of the art is on the floors above, so you then have to take a ride on a very long escalator like an extra in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.
At the top of every escalator on every floor it feels, to me, like being in an institution or a hospital. There are some great works of art up there but the effort involved always seems to me to diminish the enjoyment.
In case you are still wondering, the main entrance is what looks like the delivery/service doors down the ramp on the west side of the building. Access by this route brings you directly into the vast turbine hall that almost everyone else (I am aware that I am so in the minority here) cites as so amazing. It seems to me to be just a big redundant space; the only way of using it being to commission works to fill its cavernous hole. I just don’t agree with a gallery commissioning art in this way. I have seen a few of the commissions and felt either that they were diminished/dwarfed by the building or that they reeked of commerciality.
Could this fantastic space not have been better used with rooms at high levels on the south side connected across the turbine hall by walkways? Something like Musée D’Orsay in Paris? Had they done something like this perhaps the need to spend money on the new extension wouldn’t have been necessary. But, again, I’m no architect, what do I know?!
Call me old fashioned but I like to walk into a gallery and be immediately tempted or distracted by what I can see through a door to the left, or the hall ahead. Tate Britain and the National Gallery, for instance, achieve this with ease and are always a pleasure to visit. You are ‘in the art’ within minutes.
Last year I was discussing all this with a friend on the down escalator at Tate Modern. A fella behind us joined in and said he totally agreed with me as he always liked to refer to the building as “A really good bookshop with an art gallery attached”. I couldn’t have put it better myself.

Top row: Cleveland Square, W2; Barton Street, SW1; Reeves & Sons Ltd, Ashwin St, E8; Camden High Street, NW1.

Middle row: Orford Road, E17; Charterhouse Square, EC1; Westbourne Terrace, W2; Highbury Place, N5.

Bottom Row: Crouch End Broadway, N8; Rivington Street, EC2; Farringdon Road, EC1; St Barts, EC1.