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.

Luciano Bonacini's Photography Exhibition

I came across this small art exhibition whilst on wandering round a local town on holiday. It was held in what would otherwise been a small shop in Malcesine, Italy, this itself was at first something that really surprised me. I have been to quite a few photography exhibitions in the past, this one appeared to be held in quite unassuming place and with only little publication that I am aware of. The thing that surprised me was not that an art exhibition would be held here, but more that the quality of the artist’s photographs that were there.

Luciano Bonacini’s photographs were fascinating to look at both technically and yet also in a way that made you realise that the artist had real talent. I spent ages just looking at the composition and trying to guess what settings the photographer would have used to capture the mood he did.


Unfortunately its quite hard to see the detail in the small prints that I was able to bring back with me, however hopefully they give some kind of indication to the original images. The majority of his subjects were naked women, shot in various positions and situations, (I overheard one visitor saying “one man’s art is another’s pornography). Having said that, apart from a handful of shots that I didn’t want to spend to long studying, most of these didn’t look out of place amongst the other still life shots.

Luciano Bonacini’s decision to photograph in black and white is one that I found particularly interesting. I am sure that I have said before when commenting on someone’s blog that the decision to put a photo into colour or Black and White can either detract from, or make the photo, this largely depends on the individual image itself. Although it doesn’t surprise me that the artist decided to shoot the entire 50 photos of “A Retrospective” in black and white, it has left me wondering if individually these some photos would not have had more impact in colour. Having said that the photos as a collective work do have a great impact and therefore I suppose that this was the right choice to make.

Since coming back from Italy I have tried to find out a bit more about this artist and how successful he has been. Sadly as my Italian is very poor I haven’t been able to work out much more than I could when at the exhibition itself, apart from the fact that the majority of the books around about this artist appear to be self published.

Personally I think that the work of this photographer is very different to that of the artist Mavis Roper that I mentioned previously in my blog. Mavis Roper’s work shows you so much about the subject and you feel that you are almost witnessing the scene itself through her lens. Luciano Bonacini’s work on the other hand somehow feels more detached and you are aware that you are seeing the scene through another person’s eyes. This is largely due to the staged shots of one in comparison to the more spontaneous photography of the other.

I don’t prefer one style over another by any means, but it has made me more aware that the viewer can tell the difference. i.e if you are creating a campaign where part of it’s appeal is to be seeing ‘real life’ situations then these should be as close to spontaneous as possible as staged photos have the tendency to look exactly that.

National Gallery Grand Tour

(Photo from the Guardian by David Levene)

I heard about this today and thought what a great idea it was. The national Gallery are going on a 'tour' of London in which they take 30 framed reproductions of masterpieces with them. The plan is that they display the artwork in places that it would never normally be seen for example on the outside walls of pubs in Soho or Covent Garden. It’s a really different way of attracting people to their Gallery that would not otherwise have thought to visit.
As I don't live in London I haven't actually seen any of these or the publicity behind this. If anyone has any images or information on how successful it has been I would be really interested to hear about it.

Rotating Wall, Liverpool

I saw this on the news this morning; I still have mixed views on this as both a piece of art and a gimmick as it is being called.

Firstly, I like the fact that they have taken one of the most run down and derelict buildings in the area to make into something that intrigues passers by. It would really create something new and this concept does fit in with 2008 regeneration. When you are the capital of culture, in my opinion it should be as much about the art being part of everyday life, as well as impressive one off exhibitions etc. For this reason I really like what the artist Richard Wilson has done here with his inside out idea.

On the other hand, I can't help thinking that they could have done something more with exposing the inside of the building, as the current office block is empty it simply is used to expose the space left inside. This part of the concept for me is underdeveloped as I am sure they could have found a way of displaying or revealing things behind it.

The other thing that I think is a shame is that the whole building is due to be destroyed later next year, it would have been nice to think that the money that went into this moving sculpture was a more permanent exhibit.

The various news stories regarding 'Turning the place over', seams to be on one main theme; "is this art?" Having not actually seen it in person I don't really think I am able to comment on this area, however I am visiting Liverpool in a few weeks so I will hopefully be able to discuss this further then.