Klimt at the Tate

Went to the Gustav Klimt exhibition at the Tate today.

Enjoyed the exhibition - although at times we felt that it should have been titled "Klimt and a bunch of other stuff by his best mates".

Although I'm familiar with some of his work, I didn't know much about the artist.

He appeared to live most of his life wearing a large, comfy blue smock. We could see that he had several of these, as the designs on the shoulders varied. There was even one on display at the exhibition.

There were a few photos of him in a suit - he looked extremely uncomfortable - probably couldn't wait to get the smock back on.

Artist at Work

I love this picture. It's an artist friend of mine at work in his "studio". If ever a photo summed up what his work is all about, then this is the one.



More about him and his work here

Another Place (Again)

Brother, his family and Sister paid us a visit yesterday - prior to Samwise' Birthday. We went for a trip to Crosby beach for another viewing of Antony Gormley's Another Place (we've seen it before, but they hadn't".

Despite the day starting with a couple of showers of hail, the sun came out by the time we got to the beach in the afternoon.

Took a couple of snaps of Brother, Sister and an Iron Man (plus an artistically placed branch, that someone else had planted earlier). Brother and Sister are the one's who look like they're dressed for an expedition to the Gobi Desert.



They insisted on posing for the second snap, but I think I prefer the first one.



The kids enjoyed the beach - despite the big windmills in the sea that were making the wind blow - at least that's what I told them ;-)



Samwise' cousins gave him a remote controlled crane for his Birthday present.



It has a working winch which can be moved back and forth along the gantry, it also rotates. You also need to add counterweight ballast, as with a real crane, to stop it from toppling over with a heavy load.

Samwise, Frodo and his cousins quickly got the hang of it, but they must have been giving it some abuse because today the winch stopped moving back and forth along the gantry. Frodo initially got the blame for this, since he'd tried to move the winch along the gantry - had to apologise to him later as although he'd done the wrong thing, it wasn't his fault.

I spent about 3.5 hours this afternoon dismantling various pieces, and tracing the fault. I discovered that a weak solder joint on a connector in the rotating base had caused a wire to snap off from the connector.

I took my trusty soldering iron to the rescue, and now it's fully functional again.
I can now add crane repair man to my skill set :)

Bizarre Building

I went for a walk at lunchtime. I was passing Moorfields station when I came across an empty office building with a hole cut in it. The section that had been cut out of the front of the building was rotating in the hole.

I'd heard about this before, but hadn't been to see it for myself. It's very surreal. Pity it's going to be demolished and taken down next year.

Here's some info on the building/artwork from the BBC.

Another Place

It was a brilliant sunny day on Saturday, so we took the kids to Crosby Beach for some fun in the sand and sea. Also this gave us the chance to see Antony Gormley's Another Place.

Standing on the beach amongst 100 iron mannequins made it very difficult to tell just how many other people were on the beach with us.

Samwise correctly spotted that the iron men weren't wearing any clothes. Well they do go for a dip in the sea every high tide.

Took a few photo's, including a couple showing how much entertainment can be derived from 1 sculpture and a sun hat.

Fine Art

A pal of mine who lives in Cornwall and paints pictures for a living has sent me an invitation to a private view of an exhibition in a gallery in Bristol.

Unfortunately it's a bit far away, and on a Thursday night, so I won't be able to make it - however I've now got a nice glossy pamphlet showing the paintings - which is nice.

I've just checked out the Innocent Gallery website and found a few more paintings.

Great to see that his selling price has gone up - looks like he's doing well. I'll have to drop him a line to thank him for the invitation.