BALTIC autumn/winter 2012

Autumn 2012 at the BALTIC featured Zoe Walker & Neil Bromwichs' The Engagement of eternal hope.

" a post apocalyptic, utopian dream in the form of an evolving social sculpture, part-tent, part-plant, part-garden." As you can see from the images below the installation creates a rather telly tubby like enchanted garden of tent like inflatable plant shaped objects! Unusually colourful for a post apocolyptic scene and quite appealing in a very abstract way....as is usual for my trips to the Baltic it is unusual and interesting but I leave feeling rather bemused...

The childrens area on level 2 (Quay) has a really lovely light and open feel to it due to the huge glass wall with amazing views at the end. I could happily sit and waste alot of time just gazing out at the view!  It features lovely work by local schools as below:

tree with glass bottles hanging

man made of drift wood

individually made silver fishes make up a shoal of beautiful  fish.

Cafe by the theatre royal

The 9BAR next to the theatre royal is a small cafe with a very urban feel to the interior.  Although seating is fairly limited inside there is extensive seating externally with small cafe tables and tolix chairs.

Internally there is tan leather banquette seating with distressed signage, and a concrete ceiling. the overall scheme is not dissimilar to that of urban outfitters where the internal walls and ceiling appear to have been stripped out to expose the structure of the building. The look is that of urban decay with a distinctly Parisian cafe society feel. 

exposed structure of cafe and industrial lighting

urban cafe style with battered signage.

.

de la warr pavilion

At the end of last summer we visited the De la Warr Pavilion in Bexhill upon Sea, East Sussex.

"...its form remains iconic, simple, and bold. Inside there is a feeling of glamour and spaciousness despite the building's modest footprint." (Architecture Week's review of the refurbishment, 1999) 


The De La Warr Pavilion is a Grade I listed Modernist icon and an international centre for contemporary arts on the seafront in Bexhill On Sea.

The UK's first public building built in the Modernist style, the pavilion was commissioned in 1935 by the 9th Earl De La Warr. Its original purpose was to provide accessible culture and leisure for the people of Bexhill and beyond, and to regenerate the economy of the town and surrounding area. 

As pioneering in structure as it was in spirit, this magnificent steel and concrete Pavilion was designed by renowned architects, Erich Mendelsohn and Serge Chermayeff. The pavilion does not house a permanent collection, instead the flexible space lends itself perfectly to a changing calendar of exhibitions.

Over the last ten years the pavilion has presented landmark exhbitions from some of the biggest names in modern and contemporary art,  twentieth century artists including Antony Gormley, Susan Collins, Jeremy Deller, Joseph Beuys, Andy Warhol, John Cage, Grayson Perry and Tomoko Takahashi. 

We specifically visited last summer, not just to see the pavilion which I have been interested in seeing since the refurbishment and renovation work in the nineties but also to view the "Hang on a minute lads, I've got a great idea..." rooftop exhibition by sculptor Richard Wilson sponsored by Eddie Izzard and inspired by the classic movie the Italian Job.

We visited on a very windy and rainy day and felt rather vulnerable standing in the car park below!  The artist has created a full sized replica coach balanced precariously on the edge of the pavilion roof!

rear view of the western end of the pavilion from the beach

heart shaped back of performance podium in front of the pavilion

East Beach Cafe, Littlehampton East sussex

Inspired by the beauty of the olympic torch both in terms of its aesthetics and the way it so intelligently operated to represent all the countries unifying for the olympics, I decided to visit another of Thomas Heatherwicks projects.  Somewhat less ambitious in scale and perhaps exposure the East Beach Cafe resembles a cross between an amonite and a snail! 

     

Heatherwick studios and the owners have created a cafe/ restaurant that can operate whatever the weather from what was originally an exposed seaside kisok.  Outside the cafe looks like a huge mollusc but inside it functions like a normal cafe where you can opt for just a cup of tea or push the boat out and go for a bottle of dom perignon!

"Thomas Heatherwick (born 17 February 1970) is an English designer and the founder of London-based design practice Heatherwick Studio. Since the late 1990’s Heatherwick has emerged as one of Britain’s most gifted and imaginative designers.^[1] His innovative approach to design has earned him a reputation as an ‘ideas engine’.^[2]

Since 2010 Heatherwick has exhibited a knack for projects that are intimately connected to a sense of national or local identity. These include the Olympic Cauldron, the New Bus for London, the first new double decker bus commissioned for London in 50 years, and the UK pavilion at Expo 2010.^[3] Other notable works include The Rolling Bridge, East Beach Cafe, and a plan for a biomass power station in BEI-Teesside. 

Heatherwick works with a team of over 80 architects, designers and makers from a combined studio and workshop in King’s Cross, London"  wikipedia

http://www.eastbeachcafe.co.uk

favourite birthday present

Hurrah my favourite birthday present is this fab funky candle stick, thank you big sister!  I love the colour and the curves and am definitely slightly worried about actually using it incase hot wax damages its glorious shinyness!

It is by a company called superliving that also sell other such fantastic items such as funky crockery, lamps and hooks. Superliving is a Danish company that works extensively with various shapes and colors inspired by the 50 - and 60's, but main products are colorful candleholders and hooks that fit a wide audience. Their design language with wonderfully vibrant colors is a typical Scandinavian design that is accessible and modern.

amanda mugs

dynamo lamps

cosmos candle holders


Lovely, lovely scandinavian stuff!! Find it at

http://www.scandinaviandesigncenter.com/Trademarks/gbp1/superliving

V & A shop!

On a recent trip to London we went to the Victoria & Albert museum on the Cromwell Road near to the Natural History Museum.   It was a quick visit as we had a train to catch but I dragged my reluctant daughters around the jewellery section which was jam packed full of beautiful jewellerydating  from centuries ago up to modern day, then whizzed through the theatre and dance section catching a glimpse of Kylies  gold hot pants before we were ushered out as that area was closing.  But then came the real reason for my dragging the girls here...a visit to the fantabulous V & A shop! Full of all sorts of beautiful, stylish and gorgeous items ranging from furniture to silk scarves to expensive items of jewellery my own tastes are very simple.  I am oh so easily pleased by these very graphic stationary bits and bobs, they give me an instant fix and instantly I feel up to the very long journey home..........

http://www.vandashop.com/

Kings Cross Station

During the Easter holidays I took my three girls for a flying visit to London to visit the Harry Potter studios in Watford.

Off to Hogwarts at Platform 9 and three quarters!

The train journey from Newcastle arrives in London at Kings Cross station which gave me the opportunity to see the spectacular canopy over the western concourse. The renovation was carried out by John McAslan & Partners, it is constructed of steel and glass and was voted 3rd in Elle Decoration's British Design Awards for 2012. It transforms what was a "dingy, overcrowded space into a cathedral of light".

spectacular fanned steel and glass canopy

structure of canopy with walkway to the side

unusual mosaic style covering underside of walkway

under side of curved walkway

traditional glass roof

Next stop the Harry Potter Studios near Watford!  Well worth a visit even if you aren't an avid Harry Potter fan!! These are the actual studios where the films were created and as such have all the sets and props from the films as well as a few opportunities for special effects rides on broomsticks and car rides!

 I particularly loved the intricate digital drawings for planning the set models for filming the scenes at Hogwarts, they are so beautiful and detailed!

detailed sections of Hogwarts Castle

Card model of part of Hogwarts

Part of the huge model of Hogwarts that fills a studio and you can walk around

Lower section of the model

The gang in front of the model to give an idea of its scale!

wooden model of the covered bridge at Hogwarts.

I also loved the detail that went into these three doors that featured in the films:

As I said, really worth a visit, the detail and continuity of all the props and sets is really quite breathtaking!

Laing Art Gallery/ Baltic39

We had a course walk about Newcastle and visited The Laing Gallery art gllery and Baltic39.

The Laing is home to an impressive collection of art and sculpture and its exhibition programme is renowned for bringing the biggest names in historic, modern and contemporary art to the North East.

Here are some of the 20th century abstract paintings on display in the upstairs gallery that we visited;

Paul Feiler

The artist Paul Feiler was a prominent member of the St Ives School of art, has pictures hanging in major art galleries of the world. Paul Feiler was born in 1918 in Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany. He also studied at the Slade School of Art in London 1936-1939. 

Anthony Benjamin (1931-2002)

Anthony Benjamin moved to cornwall in 1955 where he lived in a cottage at Crippelsease near St Ives, then a centre for abstract Art, and painted landscape based abstracts.  In 1958 he won a scholarship to study printmaking at SWHayter's Paris studio 'Atelier17'.  Much of his workafter this time shows the influence of American Abstract Expressionaisn, as he became more interested in form and colour rather than representing  physical objects.

 Below is an example of one of his abstract screenprints on paper 1965.

Also upstairs we viewed 'Timecasting', an installation by Nick Kennedy; Timecasting incorporated rows of clocks each with a lead attached to one of the hands each of  differing lengths. Over time the lead creates a spiral drawing, each one being slightly different.  It reminds me of Spirograph an eighties toy that created lots of spiral patterns from various sized circular cogs with holes in for putting the pencil lead ! obviously this was a rather more sophisticated version as the point of the installation was to record the passing of time. I thought it was a well thought out and well executed installation. 

Downstairs we viewed some of Paul Noble's work:

Paul Noble's work represented the gallery at last year’s Venice Biennale which was an initiative led by The National Glass Centre at the University of Sunderland, which brought together the Laing Art Gallery, Locus+ and mima, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, with Caterina Tognon Arte Contemporanea in Venice to present Interloqui, an exhibition coinciding with the 54th Venice Biennale of Art. A selection of his ceramics are also on display

.I really like the organic structure and detail in this piece of Nobles work, this image is just a small section of a huge piece of his work exhibited on one of the walls. It appears to be woven into the cloth like a huge tapestry/ wall hanging. 

After visiting the Laing we walked to BALTIC39.

BALTIC 39 is a cultural hub for contemporary art located in the heart of Newcastle with a gallery programmed by BALTIC. It is also home to thirty-two artist studios, Northumbria University Fine Art students and the BALTIC Professor. BALTIC 39 is a collaboration between Newcastle City Council, Arts Council England, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art and Northumbria University.

Managed and programmed by BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, the top floor gallery, BALTIC project space offers artists and guest curators creative freedom to experiment and innovate, enabling them to stretch the boundaries of contemporary art practice. Managed and programmed by BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, the top floor gallery, BALTIC project space offers artists and guest curators creative freedom to experiment and innovate, enabling them to stretch the boundaries of contemporary art practice.   The building has an urban feel to it but the area to the rear has been extended so what were external walls are now incorporated within the internal space of the building.  There is a huge staircase that gives access to all of the levels with studios on and at the top is the large gallery space.  The staircase is open and you can see the structure of the building and what was the outside prior to the construction of the gallery.

Currently exhibiting in the gallery space is Matt Calderwood, Paper Over the cracks.

Matt Calderwood (born in 1975 in Northern Ireland) is known for his often perilous performances, sculpture and film works. Calderwood's carefully controlled sculptures rely on counterbalance and friction to keep them steady, transforming everyday household items such as buckets, wine glasses, basketballs, shovels, into something extraordinary and seemingly close to collapse. 

For his solo exhibition at BALTIC 39, his first in a public gallery in the UK, Calderwood ll created a series of  sculptures which explore decaying and collapsing systems and the impact of environment and process on simple everyday materials. Made of fragile, degradable materials and interlocking elements, the works will be installed on the gallery’s roof terrace where they will weather and decompose, their delicate surfaces recording their exposure and deterioration. They will then be dismantled and reassembled over the course of the exhibition. Calderwood will also presents a site-specific sculptural video installation showing new and recent films, each documenting a performance in which the artist experiments with balance, tension, instability and risk.

The sculptural geometric shaped blocks displayed on the floor were used to create the prints exhibited on the walls, effectively like potato prints!

These blocks are carefully balanced but could easily tumble, displaying the fragility of the balance of nature.

The roof of the gallery is beautifully designed to use light coming in from above but not direct light which may damage some of the works.

Some of the pieces put on the roof of the gallery to deteriorate and react to the environment;