Mapping The City

A quick post as Mapping the City in Somerset House ends this Sunday, 15th Feb.

Work from 50 Graffiti and Street artists.

I love maps, always have.

From the 3D plotting of contour lines in Geography lessons

to recently studying a local map on a friends wall, 1894,

seeing that my road was yet to be built.

Perhaps not looking for his own street, Brad Downey has found hidden faces in these roads.

Don't know what the Street art world would make of this,

but my friend and I have just found the inspiration for our respective valentines cards.

Hearts in maps. You have to get your inspiration from somewhere?

These contours are not roads, nor countries but walks.

The exact route of each walk, cut out in a seperate colour and hung on a pole.

"I wonder if that work will continue to grow?"

People have different relationships with the city.

This woman is said to be intertwined, 'becoming part of the fabric of the city'.

I like the idea of a woman at the top, looking at ease with herself.

The underground city is also represented.

The Paris Metro.

Casts taken from Hector Guimard's metro entrances.

Saggy shapes of something solid that you vaguely recognise.

Mapping the City has an air of a student show about it.

Nothing to do with the work, but because of the space it is in.

From the entrance with its photocopied sign,

to the catalogue numbers on the floor,

to the newly opened up space, mid-restoration. 

As well as the art, the builders have left their mark, many marks.

"Who's Mick?"

It's an amazing space for an exhibition. We enjoyed the space as much as the exhibition.

After our initial response, "New Zealand is in the wrong place",

my friend had lived there, this grew on us.

It was produced from memory and memories don't always serve you well.

Produced from Martin Tibabuzo's memory which he began to loose around ten years ago.

 A poignant map exposing personal vulnerability,

not something you usually associate with the idea of Graffiti and Street art.

Mapping The City is on until February 15th at Somerset House.

Details on their website, here.

Guy Bourdin: Image Maker

Guy Bourdin, fashion photographer, 'Image Maker'.
The same day I went with friends to see this exhibition at Somerset House, London,
The Sun newspaper announced the end of page three*.
So image, particularly images of women, was a hot topic of conversation.
Men taking photos of women.
Women's bodies used to sell things.

During his training, Guy Bourdin spent time with the surrealist, Man-Ray.

Bourdin seems to have had a thing for shoes.
In the 1970s, for a Charles Jourdan advertising campaign,
Bourdin dispensed with the women altogether, well most of the female body,
and took mannequin legs around Britain  on a month long trip to take photos of shoes.

Very playful and still very much the female form.

A bit like one of those optical illusions when all that is drawn are dots,

but you can't help seeing a 3D cube.

"How on earth did he get them to stand up?"

Bourdin made films too.

There was something about that make-up.
Triggering memories of experimenting with cream eye-shadow that came out of tubes.
Blue for my friend and brown for me.
At this point, my friend admitted to still having her first pale pearl lipstick.

Joyfully we reminisced about lip-gloss,
Roll-on, scented, cherry, lip-gloss.

"There's your blue eye-shadow!"

In our teens, where did our ideas of self image, beauty,
make-up and body shape come from?
We conferred and it seems that for us, it was primarily Jackie magazine.
If you were lucky, a lip-gloss was the free-gift.

"But we didn't appreciate our figures when we were younger."

There's so much to say about the shapes of women's bodies.
This furniture is a reminder of yet another body shape.
My Sindy doll had that chest of drawers, the 'Sindy' version.
Sindy's body shape; waist, bust and hips, surely not aspirational anymore.

Aspirational?
Didn't we all want to be a princess (and the pea)?

Incredible shape,

movement,

and legs.

 Playing with shape.

Bourdin's photography is intended, like surrealism, to disturb then delight.
For us it did both.
Delight and consternation.
Questions about body shapes, modelling at what price,
how women's bodies are used for publicity
and although not page three, all the women in this exhibition where the same shape.

So for balance, here are our shapes.

Guy Bourdin: Image Maker is on at Somerset House until 15th March 2015.
Details on the Somerset House website, here.

*The Sun stopping 'page 3', appears to ave been a publicity stunt.
It stopped for all of two days.

Ten Minutes

Heading to Charing Cross station,

we had a little time before the 14.47 to Catford Bridge.

"We've got ten minutes!"

How to fill them?

"Right I'll take you on my tour of the National Gallery."

Not my tour, but a friends, I hadn't been to the National Gallery for ages.

"Are you sure we have time?"

"Yes, I'll show you all the paintings I look at with my family."

"Oh you turn right, I usually go left."

We begin a whistle-stop tour.

"Van Gogh, those are fabulous colours."

"Monet's Water-Lillies, you don't need to go to Paris."

"There's a painting of South East London somewhere around here.

Pissarro did a painting of Sydenham."

"Is this it?"

"No that's France."

"Upper Norwood, near Crystal Palace, getting closer."

We ask. It's not on display at the moment.

"It's all here, Lady Jane Grey."

"Up through here to the Stubbs."

"It's absolutely huge. It's life-size."

"Those eyes."

"I had forgotten how beautiful the National Gallery is."

"My turn,

I usually head left when I come in here, I'll take you to the paintings I usually see."

The Four Elements by Beuckelaer

Earth

Water

Air.

Fire

"I love the way they are hung, in the round, facing each other."

"They remind me of Grayson Perry's work, all those objects, large compositions,

so many things happening."

We had at one time, seen his tapestries together.

"Have you seen the painting with the skull?

You know, the painting where in order to see it properly,

you have to be standing to the side of the picture, looking at it from an angle."

They hadn't.

That's what happens when you always turn right in the National Gallery.

Mind you I couldn't talk as I usually headed left

and didn't know that Monet's Water-Lillies were even in here.

It's through there.

Holbein, The Ambassadors

"There's the skull,

and this is what happens when you look at it from this angle."

"Clever, the kids would like that."

"Right, we'd better get that train."

We did.

Of course I don't generally advocate for ten minute trips to galleries

but once you get to know a place share it with friends, then head off in a new direction.

And next time you see people spending so little time in front of paintings,

seemingly just stopping to take photos,

it may possibly be part of a longer term relationship with that gallery and those paintings.

One flying visit amongst many, taking it all in.

Like popping in to see old friends.

Hope you enjoyed Eva's tour of the National Gallery,

made possible by my camera phone and free admission.

Details on the National Gallery website, click here.