Photography Blog

Light Show at the Hayward Gallery on London's South Bank

Light Show brings about thirty pieces created since the 1960s to London’s Hayward Gallery on the South Bank. This show is fundamentally different from most exhibitions: the exhibits in Light Show emit light whereas most exhibitions are about objects which reflect light. We see red light plus green light as an attractive yellow, whereas red paint added to green paint makes something that looks like brown mud. My reaction to pieces varied from admiring beauty and aesthetic satisfaction to curiosity: “how did the artist do that” or “why do my eyes see it like this?” And a couple of “mmm.. yes” reactions too.

Read more: Light Show - Hayward Gallery

Frescoes, mosaics with plenty of other artefacts at the Pompeii exhibition at the British Museum, including a gladiator graffito that I haven't seen before. The exhibition is laid out like a Roman villa with the finds on show in each room corresponding to the rooms in which the artefacts would have originated. This works really well as a grouping though makes progression through the exhibition a bit strained as this is inevitably a popular show. Three complete frescoes of entire walls are presented in a space similar to the original building in Pompeii, which gives a great sense of the geography and also makes sense of the mirroring of the imagery between the panels.

Read more: Life and death in Pompeii - The British Museum

Three interesting exhibitions at Eastbourne’s Towner gallery, “The contemporary art museum for the South East”: Kelly Richardson: Legion, People and Portraits and the  East Sussex Open 2013

Kelly Richardson’s latest video installations are the headline show: Legion is four video installations of nature settings which the artist has enhanced to give an other-world feel. The most eye-catching are a barren landscape with eerie (light blue) animated trees which move together in the wind before disappearing and regenerating in a seemingly random sequence. Although three of the four pieces aim for an immersive experience with large, projected displays and multi-channel sound, there’s a lack of development of the imagery and, once the shock of the unexpected has worn off, we found no particular emotional involvement or connection with the pieces. They are video but other than that, there’s not much apparent creative development since Roger Dean’s inspirational cover artwork in 1973 for “Tales from Topographic Oceans”, the album by Yes.

Read more: Towner, Eastbourne - Easter 2013

FRAC (Fonds régional d’art contemporain) Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur à Marseille

The Frac (Fonds régional d’art contemporain) are French regional centres of contemporary art. The Frac for the Paca  (Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur) region has just re-opened in a building which has been refurbished under the supervision of the architect Kengo Kuma. Amongst a boulevard of commercial buildings, he has used glass tiles set at non-square angles to establish the difference of the Frac building. From right below it looks like the building has jaws, ready to snaffle up anything offered to its clutches... Inside, lots of white and grey, which colours the visitors echo with most visitors wearing black or cream!

Read more: FRAC Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur

Escher Museum in Den Haag (NL)

M. C. Escher’s ants in an infinite loop, impossible staircases and tricks of perspective are the images that come to mind with the mention of the Dutch graphic artist’s name. A museum is established in his honour in Den Haag in the former Winter Palace of Queen Mother Emma of the Netherlands. Their collection includes prints of his famous images exhibited alongside representative images from throughout his career. The top floor is given over to rooms demonstrating illusions of perspective and vision - a potential kiddie-hell-hole, though me and my big-kid friend Wolf found it fun too.

Read more: Escher Museum in Den Haag (NL)