Barbie exhibit Prague

This exhibition really is amazing for anybody who does or ever has liked Barbie dolls. It takes up a whole floor of Prague’s Toy Museum and showed not only the changing fashion of Barbie’s costumes over the years, but also less common ones that had been designed by famous names in the industry. I love the amount of detail and care that has gone into making these costumes. You can really see someone like Kyle wearing these in a show, they are the ultimate in showgirl glamour.





While I was looking for these photos, I also noticed following one which I took in Capri, (Italy) last year. I liked the way that the dolls had been used to show the creative glamour that the shop's clothes displayed.

Borders as a Museum?

I was looking through my notes other day and came across the bit where Mike Sheedy had listed Tescos as a Packaging exhibition. Using this same principal, for the most recent book cover design, surely there can be no better place than a bookshop. I know this may sound obvious, but its too often the case for me that when I’m struggling to come up with something innovative and new, I tend to forget the most basic and simple things. So just to jog my memory in the future, there is no better place to explore book cover design (except maybe a library)

Peter Blake, A Retrospective

As I went round this exhibition I realised that I had been aware of Peter Blakes work for years. I knew of some of his more obvious works but there were other images here that I recognised. The type of images I liked or disliked when I first saw them, but either way a few years ago I would have been less interested in the artist than their appearance.

His work that’s on display here dates from the 1950’s to the present day. There were some of his most famous pieces displayed alongside ones that I had never seen before. The one that has stuck in my mind was the following image.


It was in the ‘Wrestlers and Pin-up Girls part of the exhibition, I spent ages just looking at it. I guess it’s one of those portraits that although you see the subject’s image itself, I could also a likeness to other people I had seen or knew. I have looked at a couple of portraits so far in my blog, to me this stood out in a different way to those of Mavis Roper, Luciano Bonacini and Henrich Nauen. Nauen’s work all seamed to be about reflecting the person’s character, and Roper’s about capturing the moment. Luciano Bonacini’s work was a display of his ability and opinions, where as this portrait of Peter Blake’s to me shows yet another thing altogether. This seamed to be about the subject’s interaction with the viewer and in a sense it’s seduction of the viewer. The subject is obviously a very beautiful woman, however there is something more captivating than just her looks, this appears to be in the eyes and the way that they hold your attention, it really is a fascinating portrait to look at.

There were various other of Peter Blake’s work which caught my eye, a couple of which I have shown bellow. I particularly liked his use of 3D sculpted objects, combined with 2D painted areas, it served to emphasize certain areas and make everything more exciting to look at.












There were several other pieces within this exhibition I could spend ages commenting on. Although I may not have personally liked them all, they were undoubtedly full of attention and detail. The bit of the whole exhibition that interested me the most was one that I nearly missed. We were about to leave when we noticed a sign saying ‘From this moment on’. This section was far more separated than the rest of the exhibition had been. Peter Blake himself described it as something that is ‘beyond the show and beyond the catalogue... the start of the next bit of my life’. These were paintings that are yet to be completed and are therefore still taking shape.


Apart from the fact that it enabled you to see how he built up and actually constructed his paintings, it lets you imagine what is yet to come. There was obviously a plan for each of these canvases, quite how detailed this will have been I don’t know, but I would love to see these again in a few years time to see what they have become or even if they have progressed at all.

New Walk Museum & Art Gallery, Leicester

The thing that I liked about this museum/art gallery was that it was just that, two normally separate buildings in one. I can understand that this means it can’t dedicate as much space to one exhibit as some customers would like; but on the other hand it does encourage you to explore things you may not otherwise gone to see. Whilst I enjoyed the Liverpool Museum I am very aware that I was only able to see a small amount of what it had to offer due to the size of the place. Here however, I was able to visit the entire thing my lunch break from work.


I had initially gone to see the museum’s current flagship exhibit ‘Picasso Ceramics, The Attenborough Collection’ but as undoubtedly is the intention I found myself wandering through the rest of the building as well. Firstly I aught to mention that whilst I enjoyed walking through the Picasso works, I actually didn’t find them as interesting as the other areas. There were some pieces that you could clearly tell were done by the world famous artist, (one of which is shown in the extract from the guide booklet above) but others were less impressive. There were some there that wouldn’t have been singled out at all if it weren’t for the painter that had created them. I did like looking round but it was probably my lack of total enthusiasm that made me explore the other exhibits.

There were things on view ranging from dinosaurs to ancient Egyptians and also on the local rocks and landscape. It was quite odd to suddenly walk from looking at skeletons and interactive models of dinosaurs to twentieth centaury German art. I think that the result of this as I have said is that visitors, children in particular are given a far more rounded experience than they may otherwise have had.

My favourite exhibit in this whole gallery was actually a small section that had been displayed the workshops such as ‘Inspired by Picasso- make a sculpture’ and ‘Screen-printing with a Picasso flavour’ earlier in the month. Here you got to see the work through a child’s eyes, which was a completely new way of viewing it. Some of the work here was done as a detailed study where the child had obviously taken ages to study and imitate what looking at as accurately as possible. Others had been far more imaginative trying instead to use his style to draw something that they wanted. Theses were quite refreshing to see especially when you compared the two styles. I think you often loose your imagination as you get older. Now I have a tendency to worry too much about getting marks and what the final outcome will look like, and forget to enjoy myself in the process; as some of these children had obviously enjoyed doing this artwork.

Animated Adventures Exhibition

Most people will have seen something of Wallace and Gromit over the years. Before I went to this exhibition about all I knew of the way that they were animated was that they were based around plaster sine models that had interchangeable mouths to get the right shape according to the sound that the character was making. The exhibition showed the process from the initial concept drawings through to the animation of these two famous and a few of the studios other characters. The first thing I noticed was how amazing the initial illustrations were, most people will roughly sketch out stick figures of where they want things, but all of these could clearly be linked to scenes in the film.


I loved seeing the different stages of a figure being constructed; the photo I have shown above was one of the Ware Rabbit taking shape. The wire frame is used to build around and in a way restrict the proportions of the character and the way it can move, to prevent this altering too much throughout the film. The time and detail that had gone into each stage was fantastic, I have read somewhere that it can take a whole day to create just two seconds of finished film, it’s amazing to think of the dedication it would take to finish the final 85 minutes.

The exhibition itself had so many different aspects; there were the things you would expect such as the written boards documenting the process from start to finish along with videos of the models being made. But there were also set models, and interactive parts where you could add your own sound effects to a pre done animation or create your own motion sequence with a still set camera and a range of plastic figures and scenes. Another thing I really liked was the fact that they had used the 3D glasses technique but with scenes from the film, these were put inside an interior lit building from the set with the red and blue lenses inlaid. In a way this film showed something of the film, either intentionally or not in that the level of detail is everywhere.


You could really appreciate the time and effort that had gone into both the film and exhibition; I have not actually seen the film myself but think after going to this I will try and look it out. The main thing that this has shown me is how important the little details are, even the newspapers have writing on and the store windows are all constructed. Although I don’t for one minute think that I could produce anything like these results, I think it would be really interesting to explore this and other types of animation in the future.

World Museum Liverpool, (From Wallace and Gromit to Egyptian Mummies)

The first thing I noticed was that it has a real mix of exhibitions being advertised and held here. The building holds thousands of exhibits; the official line the museum uses to describe them is ‘with everything from real life bugs to Egyptian mummies, prehistoric pottery to space exploration, as well as lots of hands-on-fun, there’s something for everyone. But aside from this slightly predictable advertising introduction, I was actually impressed by what they had done.

I am one of those that have bad memories of school days in dull buildings surrounded by old things I didn’t want to look at, but I decided it would be at least worth a try. It may be that I have grown up since I was first dragged round these things but I actually didn’t find this too bad. I had been advised before I went that it’s best to pick what you want to see first and then go to those bits. Although you end up missing things you do avoid most of the people moving from one interactive part to the next.

The main bit we went into was the ‘atrium’ which was one of the parts the bought and rebuilt after the fires and bombing during the war. I had gone to see the Wallace and Gromit ‘Animated Adventures’ exhibition (which I will review separately), where as my boyfriend also wanted to go again to see the Egyptian Mummies that he had seen as a kid.

The actual sections were laid out well and weren’t so huge that you got fed up before you reached the other side, but the main thing we were disappointed in was that it looked like they had forgotten to turn half the lights on. This was a shame as you couldn’t see some of the things let alone read about them.

Aside from that there was quite a good mix of hands on things and more traditional exhibits. In my opinion one of the things that this museum did well was manage to make it accessible for both children and adults. I have read some reviews that say that it re-opened in 2005 with a more dumbed down appeal. I can’t really comment on that as this weekend was the first time I visited, but all I can say is they will never get the hands on technologically orientated younger generation in the doors unless they include things to appeal directly to them. Overall although I normally prefer Art Galleries to Museums, I was quite impressed with the World Museum Liverpool, and I would consider going back, just in a few years and another time except during the school holidays.