Favourite art exhibitions?

  • Thread starter HerSereneHighnessAnniFrid
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HerSereneHighnessAnniFrid

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This might get absolutely no responses but just thought I would share a nice experience and I’m very curious to hear if anyone else enjoys art exhibitions and for what reasons?

Having just taken @Suomi to the beautiful Lynette Yiadom-Boakye exhibition at TATE Britain, I wondered if anyone else has had any standout art gallery moments recently? One of the things I don’t do as much as I used to is find new art exhibitions and randomly pop into things - and it gives me so much pleasure.

Has anyone else been to see this exhibition? Suomi asked me why I loved it so much and I think it’s because it’s in the same mood, palette and tempo as albums like Butterfly and Velvet Rope. It’s subdued in tone, very internal yet very expressive and quite singular in the artist’s explorations of identity, hints of queerness or otherness, and full of soft, warm and and sombre notes that are very enveloping and a bit like you’ve taken a lot of codeine.

Today I was also reminded very much of my very, very favourite artist, Paul Klee, because they both use the same hues of colour to communicate something like nostalgia - everything from pinks to blues and greens and browns share a grey or charcoal undertone, and the reds and yellows are very ochre. Again very Velvet Rope/Butterfly and it was nice to make those connections though this exhibition to find a golden line through some of my aesthetic and cultural preferences - including her ‘reading list’ of books that include some of my own favourites by James Baldwin and Oscar Wilde.

What are your favourite art gallery moments? X
 
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Love Is What You Want, the Tracey Emin retrospective at the Southbank. I’d loved her for years so to be able to see some of the really rare stuff was great. Walking through the corridor of neons for example was amazing.
 
I used to go to more than I do now - feel like i'm better at suggesting galleries that consistently have stuff on that I like. I tend to be a bit of a slag for anything that has a link to social and cultural history, which is why I especially lean towards photography. If anyone is ever in Soho, has an hour to kill and isn't in the mood for Sweatbox across the road then I fully recommend popping into the Photographer's Gallery. Their entry price is always really affordable and it gets you into all of their current exhibitions. My favourite one I was been to there is Helen Levitt's 'In The Street' - she's a New York photographer who shot the city and its people from the 1930s all the way up to the 1990s.

It has sadly closed and won't be reopened under a new name until 2024 but I also find that the House of Illustration had many great exhibitions. They had one on design culture and everyday objects in North Korea, another looking at Cuban art during the Cold War and another showcasing W.E.B. DuBois's work charting the lives of black people in the US. The new name is the Quentin Blake House of Illustration, so I hope the place makes the effort to retain the diversity in terms of their exhibitions.

Of the big galleries, my favourite is probably the Barbican. Looking through the catalogue for the past few years, I thought the exhibitions focusing on masculinities,and on subcultures, were especially stellar. Both featured loads of photography which probably helped.

I probably go less now than I did due to the death of the amazing Creative Calendar Instagram account which brought together everything that was on, opening or closing through their stories. Sadly they stopped during the pandemic but I find GalleriesNow and London The Inside to be decent alternatives (the former is very comprehensive but lacking descriptions of exhibs as you scroll)
 
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Tetris-Rock said:
I used to go to more than I do now - feel like i'm better at suggesting galleries that consistently have stuff on that I like. I tend to be a bit of a slag for anything that has a link to social and cultural history, which is why I especially lean towards photography. If anyone is ever in Soho, has an hour to kill and isn't in the mood for Sweatbox across the road then I fully recommend popping into the Photographer's Gallery. Their entry price is always really affordable and it gets you into all of their current exhibitions. My favourite one I was been to there is Helen Levitt's 'In The Street' - she's a New York photographer who shot the city and its people from the 1930s all the way up to the 1990s.

It has sadly closed and won't be reopened under a new name until 2024 but I also find that the House of Illustration had many great exhibitions. They had one on design culture and everyday objects in North Korea, another looking at Cuban art during the Cold War and another showcasing W.E.B. DuBois's work charting the lives of black people in the US. The new name is the Quentin Blake House of Illustration, so I hope the place makes the effort to retain the diversity in terms of their exhibitions.

Of the big galleries, my favourite is probably the Barbican. Looking through the catalogue for the past few years, I thought the exhibitions focusing on masculinities,and on subcultures, were especially stellar. Both featured loads of photography which probably helped.

I probably go less now than I did due to the death of the amazing Creative Calendar Instagram account which brought together everything that was on, opening or closing through their stories. Sadly they stopped during the pandemic but I find GalleriesNow and London The Inside to be decent alternatives (the former is very comprehensive but lacking descriptions of exhibs as you scroll)
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Ooooh thanks for those tips! Xx
 
Anish Kapoor at the RA, particularly the wax cannon.

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