Summer Exhibition

This Week in London – Wren at Work; music moments captured in photographs; and, the RA’s 255th Summer Exhibition…

by exploringlondon
Wren’s monument – St Paul’s Cathedral. PICTURE:
Aaron Gilmore/Unsplash

• A recreation of Sir Christopher Wren’s office while he was working on St Paul’s Cathedral can be seen at the Guildhall Art Gallery from today. The faux 17th century environment, created by Chelsea Construction, will allow visitors to explore the building methods and tools of the age, as well as the daily lives of 17th century diarists including Robert Hooke, John Evelyn and Margaret Cavendish, and a case study of how citizens lost and regained their properties during and after the Great Fire of 1666. A specially commissioned map by artist/cartographer Adam Dant will provide insight’s into Wren’s life and times and will be displayed alongside illustrations by architect George Saumerez-Smith and members of the Worshipful Company of Chartered Architects, a scale model of St Paul’s Dome by students at Kingston University, and stone models from master mason Pierre Bidaud. The Wren at Work exhibition is part of Wren300. Admission is free but booking are recommended. For more, see www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/events/wren-at-work-wren300-exhibition.

• Photographs capturing Pete Townshend’s guitar flying through the air at Madison Square Garden and Noel Gallagher during the making of the video for Wonderwall are just two of the images on show in a new exhibition at the Barbican Music Library. Celebrating the 25th anniversary of music photography collection Rockarchive.com, In The Moment: The Art of Music Photography also features images of everyone from David Bowie to Debbie Harry, Queen, Biggie Smalls, led Zeppelin, Lady Gaga and Amy Winehouse, capturing them in recording sessions at live gigs and at photo shoots. The free exhibition, which opens on Friday, can be seen until 25th September. For more, see www.cityoflondon.gov.au/services/libraries/barbican-music-library. Meanwhile, a bust of Sir Simon Rattle is being unveiled today at the library in tribute to his five decades in classical music. Sir Simon, who has made over 100 recordings. became music director of the Barbican’s resident orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, in 2017 and will conclude his tenure this year.

• The Royal Academy’s 255th annual Summer Exhibition opened this week under the theme of ‘Only Connect’ (inspired by a quote from the novel Howards End by EM Forster). Exhibiting artists include British sculptor Lindsey Mendick, Barbados-born painter Paul Dash, American multi-media artist Ida Applebroog, St Lucia born painter Winston Branch, Colombian sculptor Carlos Zapata and British painters Caragh Thuring and Caroline Walker, and Irish fashion designer Richard Malone, who has created a dramatic mobile installation which hangs in the Central Hall. There are also works by Royal Academicians including Frank Bowling, Michael Craig-Martin, Tracey Emin, Gillian Wearing and the late Paula Rego. Runs until 20th August. Admission charge applies. For more, see royalacademy.org.uk.

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This Week in London – Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition; a Blue Plaque for Mary Poppins’ creator; and, Egypt – past and present…

by exploringlondon

• The Royal Academy of Art’s Summer Exhibition – coordinated by Grayson Perry in this, the institution’s  250th anniversary year – opened this week. The world’s largest open submission contemporary art show, this year’s display features more than 1,300 hand-picked artworks in an array of mediums including a monumental sculpture by Anish Kapoor, large scale works by David Hockney and Joana Vasconcelos as well as others by the likes of Mona Hatoum, Tal R, Wolfgang Tillmans, Mike Nelson, Tracey Emin, Rose Wylie, Ed Ruscha and Bruce Nauman. The display extends across the newly extended campus off Piccadilly and can be seen until 19th August. For more, see www.royalacademy.org.uk. PICTURE: Grayson Perry, Selfie with Political Causes (Woodcut
200 x 300cm The artist and Paragon | Contemporary Editions Ltd.)

• Beloved children’s author, PL Travers – she of Mary Poppins fame – has been commemorated with an English Heritage Blue Plaque. The plaque was installed at 50 Smith Street in Chelsea where the Australian-born Travers lived for 17 years and which is said to have been the inspiration for the Banks’ family home in the Disney film, Mary Poppins. Travers took up residence in the house in 1946, after returning to the UK from the US where she’d lived during World War II. It was here that she raised her adopted son, John Camillus Hone, and it was the property she was living in when she negotiated with Walt Disney for the rights to make a film about her famous book. She left the premises in 1962. For more, see www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/.

• An exploration of how symbols encapsulating Egypt’s ancient past have been appropriated in more modern times has opened at the British Museum. The Past is Present: becoming Egyptian in the 20th Century brings together 31 objects gathered through the museum’s ‘Modern Egypt Project’ as it explores how the nation has branded itself by drawing on the past. The items on show include pasta packaging and cigarette boxes depicting the pyramids, milk bottles with a Cleopatra logo, and the emblem of the Banque Misr (Bank of Egypt), the first bank owned and operated by Egyptians. This Asahi Shimbun Display is free to see and can be viewed in Room 3 until 30th September. For more, see www.britishmuseum.org.

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