Mar

London trip 2011

For this trip to London I had plans to see the Tate Modern and the Gerhard Richter retrospective. I did this as well as visited the Saatchi gallery’s New Art from Germany, the Gagosian gallery in Kings Cross, the National Gallery, the Courtault and the British Museum.

Each morning I started my day by walking along Bermondsey street to Borough Market, where I had fabulous hot soups followed by grilled gourmet sandwiches that fortified me until late in the evening. There were large crowds at the market and even greater ones at the London Tower Bridge Underground station. Hundreds of people were walking to work in the area. This was completely unlike in Los Angeles, where most everyone who can would have driven to work alone or with friends or lovers.

Tate Modern

A London bridge overpass on the way to the Tate Modern

A Barclays Bank rental bicycle stand - one of many in London

An office tower in South East London. I was surprised by the sheer level of commercial development in the area, given its history. Stil on my way by foot to the Tate Modern

The approach to the Tate Modern from the North of London across the Thames. I was coming from South East London, from the Bermondsey Square Hotel. I would later cross this bridge into City of London after my visit to the museum. As my first visit to the Tate was in the evening, I experienced this sense of there being something tremendous and timeless in my midst as I approached the behemoth former power station, walking up the vast graded concourse downward and into the base level of the museum.

Paul Deveraux painting at the Tate Modern

The Joseph Beuys Artist Room at the Tate Modern. It is part of a large collection of Artist Rooms (collections of works by a single artist) that are being exhibited throughout Great Britain.

The Beuys Artist's Room installation

Another section of the Beuys Artist Room installation

A painting by Barkley Hendricks in the Tate Modern.

A Christian Schad painting at the Tate Modern

Jose

A Do Ho Suh sculpture of a staircase at the Tate Modern

A sculpture made of reeds of wood at the Tate Modern

Guessing this is a sculpture by Robert Morris

The ramp exit of the Tate with the bookstore in the background

I walked up to this memorial to the London Blitz after crossing the Tower bridge into City of London after my visit to the Tate Modern.

Magistrates Court, City of London

The London "Gherkin building"

The venerable world class Lloyd's of London. I was expecting a much older structure. Of course I also imagined that London was much less contemporary than it actually is, which is amazing to witness.

A London cathedral and a red double decker bus

This is the most spectacular open air dining and pubs collection I've ever seen. Hundreds of people were out celebrating being in London that night.

A gargoyle ornamental sculpture is part of the open air City of London dining and bars mall. When I walked through lots of celebrating was happening. Must have been a good day in City of London financial markets. One of the bars I passed along the way had an elevated floor. It was joyful and full of cheer and people enjoying a day of success. Its' called The Counting Room.

The infamous Tower of London

The Harley bar, South East London, a few blocks away from where I stayed at the Bermondsey Hotel.

A pub in South East London.

South East London, where I walked after midnight every night and took photographs.

The Pricecut market, just a block away from the Bermonsey Sguare Hotel.

Apartment block that curves at the elbow of the street near the Saatchi Gallery in London.

National Gallery

Rembrandt-Belshazzars Feast. This was one of the most astounding pictures that I was able to take in over several minutes of viewing it at the National Gallery London. It is a startling work - larger than I expected, full of mythical mystical and hypnotic power.

Rembrant's Ecce Homo. I spoke to an Englishman who was also looking at this work. Both of us agreed that we had never seen anything like it. In the gallery it looked like a sculptural work on paper!

Leonardo da Vinci, The Virgin and Child with St. Anne and the Young St. John the Baptist (The Burlington House cartoon) (London, National Gallery of Art)

According to some information I read in the museum, Edgar Degas’ private art collection forms the core of the National Gallery.

1656
SAMUEL VAN HOOGSTRAATEN (1627 – 1678)
Hoogstraaten successfully attempted a three-dimensional exhibit in London. The show was the interior of the great church at Haarlem. Hoogstraaten was a Dutch maker of perspective boxes and other optical toys.

A superb Hoogstraaten perspective box (left) c. 1660. Two individual views from individual peepholes provided this 3-dimensional view of a contemporary Dutch home. Five walls of the interior ‘box’ are painted with interior scenes of perspective while the front wall is left open for light.

Light once again comes into our story as it is this very light from the open side that plays against the perspective artwork of Hoogstraaten. He traveled all over Europe exhibiting his trompe l’oeil-based peepshow boxes.

Samuel Van Hoogstraaten was a student of Rembrandt and studied the writings of Da Vinci. He attended a Dutch school of Trompe l’Oeil which is also a term that means ‘deceptive trickery’, to ‘fool one’s eye’ and to ‘deceive the sight’.

The Courtault

The Courtault galleries

Manet's Bar at the Folie Bergere, the Courtault, London. I was overwhelmed with anticipation in getting to finally personally inspect this picture. In it were so many layers of meaning, and at least three historical forms of painting, from Impressionism, Realism, and what I perceived to be a form of proto-Cubism in the background. It is a severe and brilliant painting.

The British Museum