The exhibition explores the creative relationship between Piet Mondrian and Ben Nicholson, allowing us to continue London’s exploration of Modern British, charting the parallel paths explored by the two artists during the 1930s when their works were often presented side-by-side.  The exhibition presents the two artists in parallel – in conversation – with the works leading us through their story.  When Nicholson first visited Mondrian’s studio in 1934 he had to rest in a café afterwards to try to take in what he had just seen – the elegant serenity of the works, the ambience of the studio and the energy of Mondrian himself.  This visit marked the beginning of a fascinating friendship that lasted until Mondrian’s death.

Ben Nicholson, 1936 (white relief). Image  via www.courtauld.ac.uk. 

At Nicholson’s invitation, Mondrian moved from Paris to London where the two worked in neighbouring studios in Hampstead.  They were separated by the outbreak of war when Mondrian moved to New York and Nicholson to Cornwall but there are over 60 letters from Mondrian to Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth (Nicholson’s then wife) covering the ten years of their friendship.

As they often do, The Courtauld has cleverly conceived a show around one of their own works – this time a Nicholson canvas, 1937 (painting).  It is part of a group of related works with powerful colour combinations of white, black, yellow and red, moderated by a cool blue.  Nicholson stretched his canvas over board, ensuring a flat and solid surface on which to work.  As ever, the painting is precise and disciplined; the colour planes are carefully ruled and there is no chance that colours will bleed into each other.  The painter’s mark is suppressed. The composition is actually very unlike Mondrian but these two artists are united by their use of forms.

Ben Nicholson, 1937 (painting). Image  via www.courtauld.ac.uk. 

Nicholson explores lines, shapes and spatial effects in a subtle way whereas Mondrian’s works radiate energy.  It is so easy to go around this exhibition comparing them but this should not be the point.  Yes, their lives are placed in comparison but Nicholson was never trying to imitate Mondrian and their works must be viewed as a relationship of influence.  Their art offers an alternative modern vision using a restrained vocabulary of colour and line.  Although, at times, the compositions may be strikingly similar and their vocabulary is harmoniously shared, they are very different.  They do work well as conversational pairs but there can be no denying their extreme differences. Mondrian’s works have a calming effect yet their vibrancy is uncontainable.

Before this show, I don’t think many people were aware of the depth of the mutually reinforcing friendship of Mondrian and Nicholson.  Like the exhibition, the catalogue is small and focused, a perfect reflection of a joyously academic and calming show.  It mentions the ‘opposites attract’ theory stating that Nicholson was a networker while Mondrian was a loner, Nicholson demanding and provocative while Mondrian was courteous and quiet and that Nicholson was intolerant while Mondrian was patient.  Further research into their lives has shown that this is probably a myth but a rather nice one as there is an interesting parallel in their works – they are similar but different.

Piet Mondrian, Composition C (no. III), with Red, Yellow and Blue, 1935. Image courtesy of Mondrian/Holtzman Trust and via www.courtauld.ac.uk. 

Mondrian painted using very specific rules where geometric figures were only ever to be the result of linear intersections and never to be separate forms.  Colour was reduced to the three most saturated primaries creating a stark contrast of black lines with bright colours.  His works have a forceful impact.

No spotlights are used to illuminate the paintings; instead, the white walls are floodlit bathing the works in light rather than starkly presenting them.  The show is beautifully and thoughtfully curated.   The exhibition space isn’t large and, therefore, the curators needed to be disciplined in their selection, presenting juxtaposing works that reveal the similarities and differences between these two artists.  Comments that the show is too small are unfair as this is what The Courtauld has to work with and they have done so brilliantly and in an astute fashion.

Mondrian and Nicholson present two strains of modernism that art history has often separated.  Now, thanks to this smartly masterminded exhibition, the two are no longer disjointed and are shown to be very much related.  Although Mondrian was Nicholson’s senior by 22 years, this only aided their reciprocal inspiration and willingness to develop.  The exhibition concludes with Nicholson’s 1936 (two forms) and Mondrian’s Composition No. III White-Yellow from 1935-42.  Nicholson’s painting, of which he produced nine variations over a period of great upheaval, is a transitional work that concludes his abstract paintings of the 1930s.  A small but intense rectangle sits proudly among three shades of grey; the work illustrates Nicholson’s highly refined use of colour relationships and the precise combinations he engineered.  The vertical format of the Mondrian is relatively unusual giving emphasis to the shape due to the obvious length of the lines.  No horizontals cross the full width of the composition.  Although the artists were apart when these works were conceived and painted, the paintings speak of the profound affinity that had developed between the two men as they worked in parallel.

Ben Nicholson, 1940-43 (two forms). Image via www.courtauld.ac.uk. 

The PV was so busy that I must return to this show another time, to view the works in a calmer atmosphere than amidst the bustling crowds of last Wednesday.  Not that there’s ever anything wrong with a bit of chatter and a glass of wine!  Dinner at Cigalon beckoned and I made my way a tad more cautiously back down the stairs.

Mondrian||Nicholson: In Parallel is at The Courtauld Gallery until 20^th May 2012, www.courtauld.ac.uk.

Due to restrictions by the Mondrian estate, I have only been able to reproduce one image here without charge.

This is the first major show for over 25 years of Burra’s works and he is finally getting a smidgeon of the recognition he deserves.  As well as his work being included in Tate Britain’s watercolour show, Zoot Suits fetched a record £1.8 million at Sotheby’s sale of the Evill/Frost Collection.  But, the art world elite have always been aware of his work.  It’s to everyone else that he has remained a mystery.

Edward Burra, Zoot Suits, 1948.  Image via www.voltcafe.com. 

The Edward Burra exhibition provides an opportunity to study Burra’s extraordinary creativity.  Burra was remarkable; suffering from severe arthritis and rheumatism, he was barely able to move his claw-like hands at the end of his life and grasped a paintbrush with his swollen fist.  Serious anaemia also left him debilitated and subject to collapse with no energy but, notwithstanding his constant ill health, he never wanted to be defined by this as it was something that he abhorred.  Burra was fortunate to be born to a wealthy family and to have humour and an indomitable spirit, qualities that allowed him to rise above his many illnesses.  For Burra, art was his drug and his escape; the only time that he didn’t feel any pain was when he was painting.

Edward Burra, The Snack Bar, 1930. Image via www.tate.org.uk. 

Burra lived in Rye, Sussex but he travelled far and wide drawing inspiration from diverse sources, creating complex artworks often redolent of the time in which he lived.  His sharp eye combined with a love and knowledge of art history that is often evident in his works.  He was fascinated by modern urban life – the cheap glamour of tarts and prostitutes who congregated in the Mediterranean seaports and the boulevards of Montparnasse and by the black culture he saw in Harlem where he was intoxicated by the violent colour, noise and heat.

Edward Burra, Harlem, 1934. Image via www.tate.org.uk. 

Apart from his collages, almost all of Burra’s incredible works are executed in watercolour and he was one of the most skilled exponents of the medium.  Initially, it’s hard to believe that they are not painted in tempera as the handling of the medium is so tight and the works lack the fluidity and tonal quality one would normally associate with watercolour.  It’s probable that he worked so heavily with this medium as it allowed him to paint at a table rather than being forced to stand at an easel.

Edward Burra, The Straw Man, 1963. Image via www.guardian.co.uk.  

Burra is an eccentric artist who resists categorisation.  The characters in his paintings jump out at you from their frames.  His compositions are often playful, provocative and powerful – nowhere else will you find such dynamism and life.   The Danse Macabre works look at Burra’s experimentation with collage; his strange composite beings are almost Surrealist and further heighten the confusion as to what movement Burra should be ‘shoved’ into.

Edward Burra, Dancing Skeletons, 1934. Image via www.tate.org.uk. 

The Pallant House exhibition is ordered by theme – High Art/Low Culture, Danse Macabre, A Sense of Unease, The Sussex Landscape, Late Landscapes and Painting The Stage – which works quite well because it is hung in relatively small rooms off the main gallery space.   It’s a difficult exhibition space to work and although a thematic display is successful sometimes the rooms feel too isolated and self-contained.

Most of the works here are on loan from private collections and are rarely seen.  The exhibition includes some very unusual Burra works, particularly the Sussex landscapes with which I wasn’t really familiar; these are rare as the majority of Burra’s work did not deal with Britain.  The room of Late Landscapes includes Burra’s painting materials and colour tests from the ’70s. Amidst these is an envelope that had become a testing page and a shopping list; in his distinctive writing Burra has scrawled ‘anchovies, paste, sardines, coffee, BRD, 4 batterys, savlon’.   This is a really lovely human detail.  In fact, as I write there is an envelope next to me that I have commandeered as a to-do list.

Edward Burra, Landscape near Rye, 1934-5. Image via www.pallant.org.uk. 

Burra was able to create an incredible atmosphere of suspense with heightened drama.  Although his subject altered radically over the years, there is always a sense that something isn’t quite right as he imbues even happy scenes with a sinister quality.  His works are humorous but disquieting, both comic but tragic; we are always left with questions and never quite know what Burra wanted us to think.  But that is the point.  After all, he famously said that he never ‘never tell[s] anybody anything’ so he wanted us to work it out for ourselves – or maybe not.

I was pleased to see how busy the exhibition was.  It is Burra’s seedy depictions of social scenes that grab us, opening windows into the underbelly of a world we have not visited.  John Rothenstein suggested that they may ‘constitute the most grand and the most vivid interpretation of the least reputable seams of society by any painter of our time’.  Although I’d have liked to see a few more of his idiosyncratic bustling urban scenes, the exhibition is great to allow an overview of the Burra that few people know.

Edward Burra, Three Sailors at a Bar, 1930. Image via www.hh-h.com. 

I’m not sure you’d leave Chichester loving Burra if you don’t already but if you have the Burra bug, like me, then it’s definitely worth rushing down to this.  I hope that before too long there will be another opportunity to talk more about Burra but, right now with only two days left, I urge you to jump on the train or head over via The Stoop and see his work for yourself.

Edward Burra is at Pallant House Gallery until 19^th February 2012.  Also, in room four is a small David Dawson exhibition which includes his wonderfully intimate photos of Freud – some of which are at the NPG – and his own lesser known paintings.  David Dawson: Working with Lucian Freud is on until 20^th May 2012, www.pallant.org.uk.

I got to Dulwich without any real mishaps and managed to park outside the Picture Gallery.  What a relaxing way to travel – well, apart from the traffic, speed cameras and red lights but that’s all par for the course.  At least I had heating the whole way!

Anyway, the reason for my visit to the other side of London was the opening of Dulwich’s new Van Dyck exhibition which focuses on the year and a half he spent in Sicily.  The exhibition brings together all 16 of the works believed to have been executed during his stay in Palermo.  Normally, when we think of Van Dyck we think of Charles I or the Swagger portraits and, until now, very little study has been devoted to this earlier period.

Van Dyck exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery. Own photograph.

The key point to be aware of here is that Van Dyck only spent a short amount of time in Sicily and his paintings were quite time-consuming enterprises.  I warn you of this because I was initially surprised by the size of the show – half the normal amount of rooms used for Dulwich’s temporary exhibitions.  Admittedly, the three rooms used here are beautifully curated with deep purple and dark grey walls.  Although compact, it’s full of personality –the exuberance of Van Dyck, Dulwich and the curator, Xavier Salomon.  It’s a dramatic exhibition.

Sir Anthony Van Dyck, Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy, Prince of Oneglia, 1624.  Courtesy of the Trustees of Dulwich Picture Gallery and via www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk. 

Hearing Xavier give his exhibition tour took me back to my days at The Courtauld when he taught a survey course in my 1^st year.  Until 1999 it had been thought that Van Dyck only spent four months in Palermo but recent discoveries, made possible by the Sicilian state archives, have been able to prove the full time frame using legal documents, invoices and papers regarding commissions.

Sir Anthony Van Dyck, St Rosalie in Glory, 1624. Courtesy of The Menil Collection, Houston and via www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk. 

Here, we are told the story of how Van Dyck arrived in Palermo in 1624 expecting to complete a commission to paint Viceroy Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy and head home.  But, things didn’t go quite to plan.  In May 1624, a ship from Tunis arrived at the busy port of Palermo carrying with it bubonic plague which, by December that year, had killed off most of the population.  Surrounded by death, catastrophe and disaster, Van Dyck had little choice but to prolong his stay and, amidst this panic, he set up studio, establishing a practice and producing a variety of works for local clients – many of which are thought to remain undiscovered.  Towards the end of summer, the bones of Saint Rosalia were discovered in a nearby cave and carried in procession through the city; after which the plague ceased and Saint Rosalia was declared Palermo’s protector.  In the final room, the exhibition brings together Van Dyck’s images of the patron saint.

The painting loaned from the Prado is the smallest of all his images of her and is particularly moving.  Although this is compositionally similar to the others, Van Dyck painted Rosalia in many different guises.  In this devotional image, she looks up to heaven while an angel offers her a crown of roses.  In her left hand she holds a skull, referencing the recent mortalities of the plague and the iconography of hermit saints, while her right clutches her breast and heart.  These paintings were made as forms of prayer and to give thanks to God and Rosalia for their benevolence which ended the city’s suffering (better late than never – Van Dyck himself must have been grateful for his survival).

Sir Anthony Van Dyck, Saint Rosalia, c. 1625. Courtesy of Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid and via www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk. 

The painting of the Viceroy is one of the highlights of the permanent collection here.  It is incredibly rare for the armour seen in the painting to have survived in such good condition and it is an interesting juxtaposition and point of comparison to see them side-by-side.  Armour was a very valuable possession (described by Xavier as the Porsche or Ferrari of the day) and, ironically, at the time, would have been worth more than any of the paintings now on show here.  But this image is a definitive one showing the viceroy majestically armoured and prepared against his enemies.  Sadly, shortly after the painting was finished and by July of that year, he too had been lost to the plague after leaving the confines of his palace to access the situation and inspect the city.

Maestro del Castello de Tre Torri, Armour of Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy, c. 1606. Courtesy of Patrimonio Nacional, Madrid and via www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk. 

Room two focuses on two large devotional works, that were most probably painted for the aristocracy of the island, as well as two highly emotive portraits of Sofonisba Anguissola.  A fragment of a larger portrait that has been cut down on all sides, Sofonisba Anguissola (1624) is touching evidence of the young artist’s encounter with an aged celebrity painter.

Sir Anthony Van Dyck, Sofonisba Anguissola, 1624.  Courtesy of the Sackville Collection, Knole and Matthew Hollow Photography and via www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk. 

This is a historical exhibition, using a limited number of paintings to elucidate a period of history.  The self-portrait of Van Dyck seen at the start is not actually from the period in Palermo (but through x-rays we actually know that he did paint a self-portrait under one of the paintings of Rosalia).  He’s dressed as an aristocrat – a young Flemish dandy arriving in Palermo.  He was dressed in rich attire and used to the company of noblemen.  He knew he was something special – a point that we see emphatically by looking at this exhibition.

Sir Anthony Van Dyck, Self-Portrait, 1620-21. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource/Scala, Florence and via www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk. 

In contrast to the Picasso exhibition, I wish this show had been bigger.  But, no more works remain so that is hardly the fault of Dulwich or the curators and, in a way, it is refreshing to see such dedicated focus and concentration.  They haven’t tried to pad it out. This is a tight-knit, story-board exhibition.

Alongside this, the Picture Gallery are showing Ragamala Painting from India to highlight the work of Tilly Kettle, a relatively unknown artist from their permanent collections.  This is not so much a curated exhibition but a collection of 24 rarely seen objects.  A ragmala is a set of miniature paintings depicting various musical modes of Indian music.  Each painting is accompanied by a brief caption or poem, most frequently focused around love.  These were tactile objects for private consumption and were never intended to be seen on display.  Magnifying glasses have been provided to allow you to get up close and personal with the miniatures.  I didn’t really have the time to inspect these properly as I had spent a considerable time in the Van Dyck exhibition and I needed to head back to meetings, over Waterloo Bridge of course – where else?

Bhairava Raga, Pahari, Nurpur, c.1690. Courtesy of the Claudio Moscatelli Collection and Matthew Hollow Photography and via www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk. 

Ragmala Paintings from India: Poetry, Passion, Song and Van Dyck in Sicily: Painting and the Plague are both at the Dulwich Picture Gallery until 27^th May 2012, www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk.

Picasso & Modern British Art at Tate Britain explores Picasso’s lifelong connections with Britain through a series of dialogues with the heroes of Modern British Art, examining his critical reputation and acclaim as both a figure of controversy and celebrity.

Pablo Picasso, Nude Woman in a Red Armchair, 1932. Image via www.tate.org.uk. 

The exhibition can be split into two – one strand that documents the exhibition and collecting of Picasso’s art in Britain which is interleaved with ‘conversation’ rooms showcasing the British Greats responding to Picasso’s work – Duncan Grant, Wyndham Lewis, Ben Nicholson, Henry Moore, Francis Bacon, Graham Sutherland and David Hockney.  This is a veritable treasure trove for any Modern British lover like me.  Picasso’s own versatility, in part, explains the range of these responses but the exhibition also seeks to show how these artists were responding to Picasso well before he had been embraced by the British public.

Picasso first exhibited in Britain in 1910 in an exhibition organised by Roger Fry.  After explaining this, the exhibition moves straight into a room looking at his influence on Duncan Grant who adopted African inspired figures and decorative patterns and later began to respond to Cubist collages.  Grant’s work does little for me; Tate don’t even dedicate a whole room to him and he shares wall space with Wyndham Lewis.  Although Lewis was a harsh critic of Picasso throughout his life, it’s not actually known if they ever met but his work suggests that he saw Les Demoiselles.

Wyndham Lewis room at the exhibition. Own photograph.

Throughout, the exhibition looks at Picasso’s trips to London with a stunning section on the scenery and costume designs he produced for Diaghilev and Ballet Russes in 1919 when he resided at the Savoy.  During the first few weeks of this stay, Picasso sat in the corner of the Ballet Russes rehearsal rooms, drawing away while they danced.  The Three Cornered Hat was the largest ballet that Picasso worked on and his designs were not just limited to costume and set – they even extended to the accessories and make-up, which, when possible, he applied himself.

Pablo Picasso, The Three Cornered Hat, 1919-20. Own photograph.

This is not an exhibition to be taken lightly; it includes some extraordinary works many of which are loaned from private collections.  Most works have hefty wall labels – I’m not saying this is a bad thing, but this is not a show to flit through during your ten minute lunch break.  It is altogether a more serious exhibition.

Obviously, there have been more responses to Picasso than the seven studied here but those included here illustrate variety and quality over a period of more than seventy years.  It is rare to have the opportunity to view these alongside the original Picasso’s that may have influenced them.

Inside the exhibition. Own photograph.

Ben Nicholson first encountered Picasso in Paris in the 1920s and recalled a specific Picasso of 1915 which he saw as the benchmark for the qualities in his own work.  In the following decade, he developed his own distinctive version of the Cubist composition where he adopted decorative patterning, intersecting forms and made use of materials such as sand to create a more physical presence.

Ben Nicholson, 1933 (coin and musical instruments), 1933. Own photograph.

Moving on, Sutherland acknowledges his debt to Guernica; he made several works where natural objects metamorphose into figurative presences – tortured anxious works reflecting the state of England at the time.  Sketchbooks throughout the exhibition allow us to see some real gems and we are teased here with some fabulous Sutherland studies.  I only wish Tate made more use of their technological ability, offering turning pages on a screen as they did in the Vorticism show last year.

Graham Sutherland, Thorn Head, 1946. Own photograph.

The exhibition includes some fabulous and intriguing early works by Bacon and Moore.   The Bacon’s are particularly remarkable and, if you are a fan, this room if worth a visit in its own right, bringing together seven of only nine works that are known to have survived Bacon’s attempts to destroy all his pre-1944 works.  Bacon said that ‘[Picasso’s work is closer] to what I feel about the psyche of our time [than any other artist]’; it was after he saw an exhibition of Picasso’s in the late 1920s that he abandoned interior design and began painting.  It was seeing Picasso’s representations of the body as a biomorphic structure that inspired him with the possibilities this medium could offer.  It would be a pleasure to write a whole piece on this one room looking at how Bacon’s works on the theme of crucifixion echo Picasso’s The Three Dancers (which Bacon may have seen a reproduction of in 1930 in Documents) or looking at his triptych, Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion.  As Bacon’s style developed and became more distinct, the debt to Picasso became more embedded.  The two artists shared an approach that would forever tie them together.

Francis Bacon, Crucifixion/Figure, 1933 and Composition (Figure), 1933. Own photograph.

The curators decided to stop at Hockney, feeling that after this point Picasso’s influence just becomes too universal and never-ending.  The exhibition finishes with Picasso’s The Three Dancers of 1925, taking us back to the Picasso we know and love and, in turn, slightly losing the dialogue which has been so excellently explored throughout.

Peering through to Pablo Picasso, The Three Dancers, 1925. Own photograph.

The sooner Tate finish their job-lot of grey paint the better; it’s a brilliant show often dulled by the monotonous, gloomy wall colour.  The works are all so sensational that the exhibition comes together despite the somewhat tenuous nature of some of the links and comparisons.

Picasso’s climb to fame in the UK was not easy and he received much criticism along the way – in 1949, Churchill even said he would like to kick the artist up the backside.  Yet when in 1960 Tate finally mounted its first Picasso retrospective, it attracted more than 460,000 visitors in two months.  The exhibition made a profit and received positive reviews.  It appeared we had at last embraced Picasso’s Cubist ways and we’ve never really let go.

Pablo Picasso, Head of a Woman, 1924. Own photograph.

This exhibition is extensive but the works here are something to behold.  Tate really shows off some Modern British masterpieces; somewhat ironically, it is these that stay with me most and they are what I recommend you go to see.  Don’t get me wrong, the Picasso’s are brilliant but the Modern British story has an intoxicating edge aided by the influence of the Spaniard.

Walking through… Own photograph.

It’s easy to get lost in the academia of the exhibition.  I wouldn’t advise reading all the wall text or you may never get out.  Instead, admire the paintings and let the excellent catalogue tell the story in depth at a later date when you’re able to sit in the warm by a fire and not having to stand up.

This is an exhibition to allow time for; an hour and a half felt like I’d only scratched the surface.  It doesn’t have the gloss or jazz of the RA’s Hockney or the NPG’s Freud (although Hockney is, of course included here).  Instead, it is quietly brilliant.

Picasso & Modern British Art will be at Tate Britain from Wednesday until 15^th July 2012, www.tate.org.uk.

The 4^th floor at Tate Modern. Own photograph.

Now aged 82, Kusama, whose work spans six decades, is one of Japan’s best-known living artists.  Outside art circles, her work is not widely known but Tate is rightly propelling her into everyone’s consciousness.  This grand old lady of the visual arts travelled to the UK for the first time in 12 years to see her Tate show; she arrived at the exhibition, glowing in a polka-dot dress and red wig (matching the balls outside), laughing with a bright red lipstick smile.

Yayoi Kusama visiting her exhibition. Own photograph.

Even today, she is still innovative and ground-breaking and this broadly chronological unfolds with each sequence of rooms studying the emergence of a new artistic stance, showing off Kusama’s extensive and diverse body of work.  It allows us to learn about the artist; Kusama’s creative career can be divided into sections – beginning and ending in Japan, it includes a substantial period in New York where she was one of the forerunners on the alternative scene.  There is a natural dialogue between East and West in all of her work – sometimes subtle, sometimes more obvious.

The first two rooms show her rarely-seen early work as she moves away from her Japanese origins into a heavily-influenced Western style.  Her works on paper from the 1950s use abstracted forms that suggest natural phenomena with carefully worked, highly-detailed surfaces encompassing her own unique vocabulary.

Yayoi Kusama, early works on paper. Own photograph.

Kusama’s Infinity Paintings are breathtaking.  Seemingly endless scalloped brushstrokes of a single colour on a contrasting background have a calming effect on us yet are emotionally loaded with themes of obsession and compulsion.  They have a hypnotic quality with the same use of textured surface seen in her Accumulations.  This leads us into the middle part of the exhibition where Kusama’s obsession with sex comes to the surface.

Yayoi Kusama, detail of No. White A.Z., 1958-9. Own photograph.

While in New York, she appointed herself ‘High Priestess’ of the emerging hippie scene beginning a series of provocative performance pieces.  Chameleon like, she has always adapted to her surroundings.  Her Sex Obsession series includes phallus-covered chairs, tables and other day-to-day objects, mocking the macho nature of the US art scene.  This is complemented by her food obsession works that use macaroni to show her revulsion at the overabundance of food in the US.

Yayoi Kusama’s Sex Obsession works. Own photograph.

Her decision to return full-time to Japan from the US took a number of years as she see-sawed between the two countries; this was a difficult period of time in which her early hallucinations returned with a vengeance.  She admitted herself to a psychiatric hospital where, since 1977, she has voluntarily lived on an open ward.  This confined living gave her a sense of safety and ease and, once again, her approach to her art changed; she began creating small objects that were part of large, multi-faceted installations such as The Clouds (1984) which consists of one hundred sewn and stuffed cushions.  Although these are white for purity, they create a constellation and installation that is far from pure.  The phallic and sperm-like forms of her early years began to return.  Once again, her work is in dialogue with itself as Kusama uses her illness to make her art, channelling her warped energies to create her pieces.

Yayoi Kusama at Tate Modern with The Clouds, 1984. Own photograph.

Much of her art has a near-hallucinatory effect, triggered by her early use of polka dots that show her unique vision and outlook on the world.  This disorientation is closely intertwined with all Kusama’s work where nothing is straightforward and nothing is at it seems.  The polka dot, a seemingly pretty and decorative motif, actually relates to the troubling hallucinations of her childhood.  Her immersive installations illustrate this with particular intensity as dark, mirrored walls discombobulate, throwing the viewer off balance, causing confusion and disorientation.

Yayoi Kusama, I’m Here, but Nothing, 2000. Own photograph.

Kusama has always been ahead of her time.  Her art varies so much across her career that often you wouldn’t know it was by the same artist.  She was there before everyone else with performance art, wallpaper and installations.  The sheer diversity of her art is overwhelming; it’s easy to lose track of who Kusama is and her lack of a signature style is evident in the catalogue (which is, by the way, excellent).  She has never stayed in one place, in one genre, for long enough to make a mark on the public awareness.  Maybe now it’s time that she does.

Yayoi Kusama, detail of Flame, 1992. Own photograph.

One of the final works is stunning – Infinity Mirrored Room – filled with the Brilliance of Life which has been made specifically for this exhibition.  Lights flicker on and off, illuminating and hiding the room in a repetitive cycle.  The walls are clad with mirrored panels and a pool of water covers the floor.  Hundreds of lights, with endlessly changing colour sequences, are suspended from the ceiling.  It is not as disorientating as we expect and we quickly adapt to the coloured environment.  Maybe that is the point.  I think Kusama intends us to share her path as she has always adapted to her way of living and her confusion is now part of her life.  This work is pretty.  No doubt people will queue to walk through the glittering, mirrored maze.  It seems fun but there’s a deeper message; as we enter these installations we lose ourselves, joining Kusama on her journey of self-obliteration.

Yayoi Kusama, Infinity Mirrored Room – filled with the Brilliance of Life, 2011. Own photograph.

Kusama is a brand as the new merchandise in the shop shows.  But what a brand!  If any artist could achieve half of what this incredible woman has I imagine they’d be ‘well chuffed’.

I’m spending a lot of my time in Waterloo at the moment, working on Heritage Arts’ VAULT – an incredible festival in a new section of the Old Vic Tunnels.  This means that rather than being in Mayfair all day, I can often be found at Scooterworks on Lower Marsh – my new temporary ‘office’ where the lovely Stanley keeps me company.

Stanley the cat at Scooterworks. Own photograph.

I can’t, however, keep away from Mayfair for too long, and that evening I popped to the opening of yet another David Shrigley exhibition at Stephen Friedman – Arms Fayre.  A bucket of beers was waiting for guests outside the gallery.  They needn’t have bothered with the ice though.  Even in gloves, my fingers could have chilled a bottle quite adequately.

David Shrigley, new works on paper at Stephen Friedman.  Own photograph.

Bringing together three strands of Shrigley’s work, the exhibition is essentially an extension of the current show at the Hayward.  Bombs captures the archetypal image of a missile commonly found in cartoons.  This element of destruction and hurt is transformed in ceramic by Shrigley into something simple, fragile and alluring.

David Shrigley, Bombs, 2011. Own photograph.

The sculpture here had a stronger impact than the drawings.  All in all, it’s a small but good exhibition and one that they had to put on to complement the exhibition across the river.  It works well and helps to further illustrate the endlessness of Shrigley’s work.

Yayoi Kusama is at Tate Modern until 5^th June 2012, www.tate.org.uk.  David Shrigley: Arms Fayre is at the Stephen Friedman Gallery until 10^th March 2012, www.stephenfriedman.com.

Instead, it is a show spanning seven decades of Freud’s portraiture and it does this beautifully.  Paintings of people were central to Freud and, indeed, he felt that all of his works were portraits.

Lucain Freud, Girl with a White Dog, 1950-1. Image via www.guardian.co.uk. 

The exhibition comprises 130 works from which it is possible to trace Freud’s stylistic development and his movement towards a denser application of paint.  It starts with the early works – head and shoulders portraits where an often alarming tension permeates the canvas as though Freud had not quite become comfortable with his own hand.  In the mid-1950s, when he began using stiffer hogshair brushes and loosening his style, he also started to work standing up – a drastic change for an artist who had always painted while sitting down, in a confined space.  From here on, you can feel his work become more alive and energetic as he moves around the canvas and uses his whole body to paint.  After Freud stood up, he said he never sat down again.  This is the start of the Freud that we truly know.  The canvases then increase in size from the 1980s when he seems to offer himself and his sitters breathing space.

Lucian Freud at the National Portrait Gallery. Own photograph.

Broadly chronological, the exhibition begins in 1940 with a portrait of Cedric Morris, Freud’s tutor at the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing; it ends with the unfinished work that was on his easel when he died.  For many, this final piece will be the highlight – a huge unfinished portrait of David Dawson – Freud’s studio assistant and closest friend – with his whippet, Eli.  Portrait of the Hound is a deeply affectionate work, showing the intimacy between artist and sitter, their mutual understanding and respect.  Both the dog and Dawson are completely relaxed in Freud’s presence.

Lucian Freud, Portrait of the Hound, 2011. Image via www.artknowledgenews.com. 

Enough has been written about Freud’s many lovers and children that I do not feel the need to discuss Freud himself in depth – I don’t want to detract from what an amazing exhibition this is.  This is Freud’s life in paint showing the cast of fascinating characters he met along the way.  With sittings often taking several months (some even years), the works are a result of Freud’s intimate study and concentration.  His relationship with the sitters is often attributable to the success and fame of his portraits.

Lucian Freud, Nude with Leg Up, 1992. Own photograph.

The show includes many of Freud’s well-known works such as portraits of Francis Bacon, Leigh Bowery and Sue Tilley.  Benefits Supervisor Sleeping, one of his many paintings of Big Sue, set a world record of £22m when it sold in 2008.  I was lucky enough to see Sue, posing in front of the three portraits of her including in the exhibition.  Her vivacity and larger than life personality was infectious and seeing one of Freud’s sitters up close brought new meaning to the work.  His truthfulness is inescapable.  Freud’s expert depiction of flesh (acres of which can be seen on show here) was in part attributable to his use of Cremnitz white – a dry pigment with a stiff consistency (it has so much lead content that the tube weighs twice as much as normal) that he began to use the mid-1970s.

Sue Tilley posing in front of one of her portraits. Own photograph.

Usually when I go round an exhibition, I make copious notes but this art is so incredible that it speaks for itself.  I’m not trying to discredit the critics who find that a biographical approach is inevitable when discussing Freud or the many excellent monographs on his life which have told me so much about Freud over the years but, here, you must just look and revel in the opportunity that is being afforded you and give his work the close attention it deserves.  It is an intimate exhibition and the scale of some of the smaller rooms is intended to mimic the scale of his studio.

Lucian Freud, Interior with Plant, Reflection Listening (Self-Portrait), 1967-8. Own photograph.

My only criticism, and this is really a sign of the exhibition’s greatness. is that it will be too busy.  It was even a scrum at the preview this morning.  The works deserve quiet solitude but the small rooms here are going to be unbearable at peak times.  This criticism, however, just shows how incredible Freud is.  He deserves the heaving throngs that will fill the NPG from tomorrow.

Lucian Freud, detail of Reflection (Self-portrait), 1985. Image via www.dawn.com.

This is a living exhibition; Freud’s paintings allow us to see the real people behind the paint with human frailty at its most magnified.  There’s no hiding in a Freud, no distractions – the works are compositionally simple and successful.  He scrutinises every detail and the intensity of some of his paintings still has the power to shock us 40 years on.

There are many works here that we know but far more that we don’t.  This show is a triumph.  Most people can recognise a Freud but, until this exhibition, I don’t think many could understand the evolution of his painting.

Lucian Freud Portraits is at the National Portrait Gallery from tomorrow until 27^th May 2012, www.npg.org.uk.

The Hayward Gallery. Own photograph.

The Hayward has deviated from their norm for this exhibition.  Firstly, after showing your ticket at the main door, you enter via the lift (the attendant and I shared a baffled glance while I waited for it to arrive) which is filled with Monkeys – Shrigley’s spoken word installation.  It’s slightly claustrophobic but effective and dramatic.  Shrigley is that bit different; people are forced to do as he wishes and he is very much guiding our viewing.  And so I arrived at the upper galleries ready to be led wherever the artist wanted to take me.

Installation view of David Shrigley: Brain Activity at the Hayward Gallery.  Image courtesy of the Hayward Gallery and via www.southbankcentre.co.uk. 

Shrigley is known for his sense of humour, which is often rather warped, but there is no denying that his witty comments on everyday life are funny.  Brain Activity, which includes 68 new works made especially for the show, is the first major survey of Shrigley’s work to span the full range of his varied media – drawings, sculpture, taxidermy, animations, films, paintings…

David Shrigley, Very Large Cup of Tea, 2012. Image courtesy of the artist and via www.southbankcentre.co.uk. 

At the Glasgow School of Art, he wasn’t considered a serious artist and he left with a 2:2.  He was already antagonised by the establishment because they felt his artwork was inappropriate and more cartoonish than fine art.  So, on leaving the GSA, he became a cartoonist – not to take heed of them but to escape the environment and the people who kept degrading and undermining his work.  Eventually, he reconsidered and in 1995 his work was featured on the front cover of Frieze magazine.  Shrigley had made it, he was somebody.

Given this background, it is natural that Shrigley has little respect for the art world and he has never sought to fit in.  A Glaswegian, his sense of humour is often coarse and he has no issue in ‘sticking two fingers up’ at the art institutions that have made him famous. He has a dark humour that comes from a deep sense of frustration and drawing, for him, is a cathartic process.  Shrigley isn’t as you’d expect him to be – he’s quiet and polite, clean-shaven and wears socks with his sandals.  He works calmly for eight hours a day; he is not the madman that some of his works would suggest.

David Shrigley with his work. Image via www.mydaily.co.uk.    

Shrigley appeals to people who aren’t typical art lovers.  He produced a weekly cartoon for the Guardian for many years and has also been the political cartoonist for the New Statesman.  He doesn’t try to shy away from this and very much has a foot in both camps (cartoon and fine art) – he is overtly commercial and his work is found on t-shirts, badges, cards, duvet covers and tattooed onto the bodies of numerous fans.  Cartoons, however, are normally tidy and highly finished whereas Shrigley’s works are usually messy with crossed-out sections and scribbles.  His drawings and animations, which play on a range of familiar social subjects and everyday situations, are often awkward and crude while remaining immediate and accessible.  He is not a skilled draughtsman nor does he aim to be.  For him, drawing is just a method of communicating, writing a message to convey his thoughts.

David Shrigley, Untitled, 2011.  Image courtesy of David Shrigley and Yvon Lambert and via www.southbankcentre.co.uk. 

Shrigley is known for producing thousands and thousands of drawings, a corpus currently thought to include more than 7,000 works on paper.  There were around 25,000 but he discards a lot.  We don’t, however, feel the impact of his relentless scribblings here.  There’s not enough on show; the exhibition features around 240 works which may seem like a lot but I wanted more.

Shrigley is absurd: there’s a bell with a card saying ‘not to be rung again until Jesus returns’, a childish painting of a door marked ‘door’, a sign that says ‘hanging sign’ as he plays on the obvious in a comic way, a taxidermied rat placed under a fake wall and ominously visible as you pass by (ick!), and his, now-famous, taxidermied dog holding a placard that says ‘I’m dead’.

David Shrigley, I’m Dead, 2010. Image courtesy of the artist and via www.southbankcentre.co.uk. 

Death and the macabre are frequent themes in Shrigley’s work.  A gravestone with the words ‘Bread, Milk, Cornflakes, Baked beans, Tomatoes, Aspirin, Biscuits’ is an ironic take on our day-to-day consumption.  Shrigley commented that he prefers to see the humorous side of death as it isn’t something we can avoid.  Like me, he’s always been interested in lists and enjoys placing seemingly random information together in a way that forces it to become coherent.  His message may often be pessimistic but, notwithstanding this, he’s often able to induce a smile.  In the darkest of subjects, there is always some light to be found.

David Shrigley, Gravestone, 2008. Image courtesy of the artist and Stephen Friedman Gallery and via www.southbankcentre.co.uk. 

In one of the outside courtyards stands a stick figure.  Try to get closer though and you can’t.  Shrigley has stuck the door, teasing us.  Again, we go where Shrigley tells us to.  One room has a fake wall with 12 eggs on top – suggestive of Humpty Dumpty as a small Alice in Wonderland-styled doorway in the wall allows you to see the feet of those passing by (the perfect place to check out the footwear).  Again, we want to go there but it’s not that easy.  The other courtyard is exhibiting Look at This but we can’t get out there either.  Visitors were smearing away condensation from the windows to try to look.  The joke is on us.

Some of the works are a bit bland but I think, like a comedy act, this level of humour is impossible to maintain all the time.  Brain Activity is actually the best-curated exhibition I’ve seen here in a long while.  It has been skilfully planned and lit and really transformed the gallery space.  Shrigley has made the Hayward his own.

David Shrigley, Hanging Sign. Image via www.whosjack.org. 

While walking round I overheard someone uttering the predictable ‘is it art?’.  Although this is something that people often ask of Shrigley, this is now an old and boring question.  He thought to do it.  They didn’t!

I don’t think Shrigley’s art is funny all the time but I caught myself smiling when I least expected to and, it was nice to see that the exhibition was having the same effect on other people.  Like a Mexican wave, a shared joke was moving across the galleries.  Shrigley’s aim is not to make people actually laugh – this is just a by-product of his art; using simple mechanisms and objects he seeks to engage people through humour.

David Shrigley, Nutless, 2002.  Image via www.thedrawbridge.org.uk. 

But (and it’s a big but), the exhibition only takes place upstairs.  The ground floors will be given over to the Jeremy Deller exhibition which opens on 22^nd February.   Fortunately, there’ll be a £10 joint ticket so visitors aren’t expected to pay twice for what is normally one exhibition space but I still felt let down.  I was enjoying the exhibition and it finished far too soon.

David Shrigley, Untitled, 2012. Image courtesy of the artist and via www.southbankcentre.co.uk. 

You don’t need to know anything about Shrigley or his practice to enjoy these works.  There will be no added pleasure from doing your homework before going to this exhibition.  Shrigley’s ‘stuff’ is eclectic to say the least.  It shouldn’t be funny but it is.  I just wish I’d been given the opportunity to laugh at more.  It was good but it wasn’t great as I know that Shrigley could have filled the whole of the Hayward and I’d have come away more satisfied.

David Shrigley: Brain Activity is at the Hayward Gallery until 13^th May 2012, www.southbankcentre.co.uk/shrigley.

David Spiller at Beaux Arts. Own photograph.

Indeed, the paintings have become a bit darker in tone and lost some of their dynamism and energy but it’s not as if Spiller has broken free from the mould.  They are fairly good works (if you like Spiller) but what’s great about Spiller is the fun factor and it would be sad if he decides to move away from this.

David Spiller, No Words, 2011. Own photograph.

The Beaux Arts’ dog was napping quietly in the gallery which is always a nice reward.

Still the only Dog in the Blog. Own photograph.

Just down the road from Cork Street, White Cube has mounted another double exhibition – that uses both Mason’s Yard and Hoxton Square – a stunt which seems to be all the range at the moment.  One of the original YBAs, Gary Hume’s career took off straight after finishing at Goldmsiths when Saatchi bought two of his paintings and commissioned a further four.  He’s always been famous but he’s never had the celebrity profile of some of his peers.  But, then again, he’s never been quite as radical.  There is the feeling that Hume was in the right place at the right time and benefitted from the go-get-it attitude of some of the others.

The ground floor gallery presents a range of paintings of flowers and plants, suggesting innocence and newness.  They’re nice, but not exciting.

Gary Hume, Ground Floor at Mason’s Yard. Image via www.whitecube.com. 

Hume’s works are all about the painted surface as the shimmering quality of his paint takes on a lacquered appearance.  His favourite medium, as reflected by this show, is gloss paint on aluminium and he has no plans to change his working style.  Although they look like painting-by-numbers canvases, the process is complicated with a system of tracing the image from acetate, transferring it to aluminium when he is finally happy and then building up the lines with draught excluder.  Then they are painted and the lines cut away to create sharp edges.  He enjoys the reflective nature of this type of paint and how it imposes multiple levels on his work.

Gary Hume. Leaves in grey, 2011. Image via www.whitecube.com. 

His paintings are decorative, making use of pretty colours; they’d be well-suited to an interior designer working with a colour chart.  The downstairs works are more interesting but this is partly due to the brighter, better space and the interplay of sculpture and painting.

You’d be easily forgiven for not really knowing what these paintings depict.  They look like blobs, brightly coloured masses that didn’t demand my time or my attention.  A large problem with these works is that they deserve more explanation than we’re given in the gallery.  A one-sided press release is on offer to give us some background about the work but, when you skim the surplus, there are only three paragraphs with any substance and they seem to miss the points about which Hume labours when interviewed.

Gary Hume, Paradise Painting Two, 2010. Image via www.whitecube.com. 

The sculptures downstairs at Mason’s Yard look like giant worms, waiting to be eaten by the birds in the paintings on the walls.  But, Hume describes the ‘birds’ as ‘pubescent girls’ shown in some strange sexual paradise.  Seen in this context, the sweet worms take on a phallic presence with a more dominating tone.  But, this sort of idea doesn’t shock anymore.  I don’t think Hume is trying to shock us either.  He’s just doing what he knows with a slightly warped sense of humour.

Installation shot of downstairs at Mason’s Yard. Image via www.whitecube.com. 

The Indifferent Owl just isn’t exciting.  It’s an in-out exhibition that didn’t really merit the time I had allocated for it.  I wasn’t looking forward to heading to Hoxton but felt maybe this would complete the picture for me; I far preferred browsing stock in other Mayfair galleries that I passed.

Anyway, off I went on the tube to White Cube part two.  The works in Hoxton Square are a bit grittier. The Playground, a large-scale black canvas, really sums up what Hume is trying to achieve through the use of his reflective medium.

Visitors to White Cube with The Playground in the background. Image via www.facebook.com/whitecubegalleries. 

Upstairs, Hume has installed a rainbow into the small gallery, aluminium fragments placed high up on the walls.  The colours aren’t displayed in the conventional order and the work feels a bit lacklustre.  A rainbow is meant to invoke happiness and joy – this just felt a bit bland.  I could take it or leave it.  There is one great drawing here, though, that seems at odds with the rest of the exhibition and is definitely worth climbing up the stairs to see.

Hume’s rainbow. Image via www.whitecube.com. 

The show’s title, The Indifferent Owl, refers to an epiphany Hume experienced in New York when, one evening, he heard an owl hooting.  The next day he found a silver party balloon semi-deflated in the mud and reflected that the owl must have seen it with total indifference.  For me, this bears no relation to what’s on show here and is somewhat ridiculous.

Hume himself is described as being remarkably dishevelled and generally a bit of a mess which is surprising when looking at the clinical neatness of his paintings.

As is so often the case, Hume is another artist whose work doesn’t reproduce well.  The paintings are not that much better in the flesh but the boldness and brightness of the colours is, at least, given the opportunity to radiate from the walls.  The works are elegant but they don’t take long to admire.  Hume himself says he’s only ‘creative for half an hour a day’ using the rest of the time ‘to make that creativity visible.’  Maybe he should try to spend a little longer being creative and then I’d want to spend a little longer in the exhibition.

David Spiller is at Beaux Arts until 18^th February 2012, www.beauxartslondon.co.uk.  Gary Hume: The Indifferent Owl is at White Cube Hoxton Square and Mason’s Yard until 25^th February 2012, www.whitecube.com.

David Hepher at Flowers. Own photograph.

Flowers are currently showing a series of new work by David Hepher which explores the infamous Aylesbury Estate in Walworth, South East London.  Crime, poverty and violence – the Aylesbury Estate is often used to exemplify all these things and frequently crops up in discussions about urban decay.  Commenced in 1963 (and demolished in 2010), it was a vast mass of concrete, originally intended to regenerate the lives of the working classes of South London – another irony.  Spread over a site of 285,000 square metres, Ayelsbury was the largest estate in Europe, intended to house approximately 10,000 people.   Aylesbury remained stuck in time, the perfect showpiece of suffocating post-war planning.

Aylesbury Estate before demolition.  Image via www.skyscrapercity.com. 

Hepher’s interest in images of homes stems from the fact that a house is the first image a child will paint as a symbol of refuge and of safety.  Now, he looks at how people are forced to live in different environments, raising questions about society and living conditions.  He relishes the dirty personality of these council flats with their stained and eroded walls and their constantly changing appearance as people move in and out.  Hepher is able to take something ugly and imbue it with a sense of carefully considered beauty.  The façades may have once been uniform but by focusing on such detail, he refreshes these buildings, concentrating on individual sections.  Using a close-up grid structure, Hepher exploits the angular architecture of the flats, creating a moving portrait of Brutalist architecture with idealistic scenes of escapism used to contrast the grittier surfaces of the buildings.

In an attempt to capture the very essence of the buildings, Hepher mixes building sand with his oil paint to incorporate the fabric of the architecture in the works.  This simple technique helps to bring the paintings to life.

David Hepher, Aylesbury (Homage to Robert Gober), 2008-10.  Own photograph.

These works are an interesting combination of portrait and landscape; they show the immense scale of the Aylesbury tower blocks – one of the works, consisting of five canvases, is ten metres long.  Hepher doesn’t paint Aylesbury because of the political or social connotations nor because the buildings have been branded ‘ugly’ but because he believes they were an impressive part of our landscape.

Detail of a David Hepher work. Own photograph.

Somewhat amazingly (considering my earlier slip up) I know parts of the East End well enough to go on foot and I headed round the corner to the Hoxton Art Gallery whose new exhibition Utopia plays with ideas from the seminal text by Sir Thomas More.  Written in 1516, during the turbulent reign of Henry VIII, More’s narrator Raphael Hythloday describes the island of Utopia, that he believes to be the ideal human society.  It appears that More himself didn’t actually believe Utopia to be the perfect society and its complex meanings are intentional.  The book analyses More’s desire to create a perfect world juxtaposed with his realistic knowledge that perfection in mankind is impossible.  This is not the place for an analysis of More’s humanist philosophy and ultimate religious martyrdom but the exhibition presents an interesting concept which is, here, explored by four artists.  Their work couldn’t be more varied, although all are united by the theme of Utopia with a twist – Utopia filled with ideas of disruption and turmoil.  Because, as More showed, Utopia cannot really exist.

Stephen Dickie, The Mundaneum Debate, 2012. Own photograph.

Stephen Dickie’s work looks at the ideas of intellectual utopia, exploring the different ways in which we pursue knowledge.  His works appropriate structures and systems built to foster and preserve knowledge although the pieces of equipment he uses are adapted so as to become dysfunctional; broken cassettes sit atop a vinyl record emitting phonetic sounds which will, no doubt, drive the gallery staff mad by the end of the show.

Wieland Payer’s drawings also stood out, representing distant and ethereal landscapes with peculiar misplaced figures.  Payer seeks to portray nostalgia for a period of European Romanticism.

Wieland Payer drawings series, 2011. Own photograph.

This is a focused show with a very successful concept.  I cannot say all the artists’ works appealed to me but the ideas behind them are certainly thought-provoking.

And, off I went again, past Shoreditch Magistrates Court (only last week occupied by the Occupy Movement who curated a brilliant sound installation in the dank cells) and Lounge Lover – it seemed as if I was doing a walking tour of the East End…in heels!

Occupy at Shoreditch Magistrate’s Court. Own photograph.

By now I was exhausted and my next stop, Annexe (part of the Brick Lane Gallery but, confusingly, not on Brick Lane) did not reward me for my crazily long walk.  For me, Christopher Oldfield’s paintings were crude and lacked visual immediacy.  They didn’t capture me and I didn’t need to stay.

Christopher Oldfield, Paintings. Own photograph.

Although I was shattered, I knew the rest of my list wouldn’t disappoint.  The cabbie (yes, I did take another cab) didn’t really know where Hewett Street was but between us we worked it out and I was relieved to have a sit down at all those red lights.

For the last 18 months, Daniel Rapley has been writing the King James Bible by hand, on standard notepaper, using a ballpoint pen.  That’s 783,137 words.  Sic is a labour of love.  This exhibition alone made the disappointment of my trip to Brick Lane fade away.  Rapley’s work is amazing – there is nothing else like this around.

Daniel Rapley, Sic. Own photograph.

While the rest of the exhibition is subtly lit, Rapley’s bible glows (a design conceived by curator, Michael Hall).  The work is displayed in a case where only the top page is visible; you see one tiny fraction of this mammoth concept, this huge artistic undertaking.  You have to have the belief that all the words are on all the pages – the same religious belief upheld by those who study the Bible every day is needed to view the work.  This is an idea also played on in Forty where you only see the first of 40 identical drawings stacked against the wall.  Much to the horror of those around him, one gallery-goer decided to flick through – it did allow for the non-believers to have a good look though.  The work is about faith and its integrity is unprecedented.

Daniel Rapley, Forty. Own photograph.

You don’t have to be religious to understand this work.  You certainly don’t have to have read, or know, the Bible.  Sic is the visual manifestation of a private performance that requires the belief of the viewer.  It is a covenant that questions conventions of artistic labour and productivity, of authorship and creativity.

Daniel Rapley, Sic. Image via www.danielrapley.co.uk. 

Alongside Sic, Rapley is showing seven large text drawings which he created during this labour-intensive project.  These hand-drawn manuscripts describe the minutiae of Rapley’s life, brief bursts of inspiration as he painstakingly embarked on Sic.

Daniel Rapley, Exigencies 1-7. Own photograph.

Rapley is impressive and his work is refreshing; he has broken down the whole concept of religion into an intellectually sincere, thought-provoking piece.  The spin-off works about his life are comical yet serious, equally clever and stimulating.  The images don’t do any of these works justice and the pieces must be seen to be believed.  Rapley’s dedication and focus must not be underestimated and this show is a must-see.

Finally, we hailed a cab (yes, another one) and headed to the other end of Old Street to Cabinet (or Curtain as I keep calling it – I guess tiredness has a lot to answer for this week).  Having seen Cabinet at Frieze this year, I wanted to check out their permanent space on the ground floor of a block of flats – so discreet you wouldn’t have any idea that it even existed.  Homo Economicus explores the relationship between art and labour through a study of the political economy.  The term homo economicus posits humans as self-interested actors who have the ability to have make decisions to maximise situations for their own well-being.

Cabinet. Own photograph.

The works present an interesting discussion and breakdown of capitalist philosophies, visualising the role of economics in relation to art.  The exhibition is in two parts, the second of which can be seen at Mehringdamm 72 in Berlin.  Together they explore the political consequences and resistances that this economic model can encounter and endure.

Homo Economicus at Cabinet. Own photograph.

After an evening of such varied and heavy concepts my brain was starting to spin.  We walked and walked and walked, tripping and falling over cobbles along the way and finally collapsed at the wonderful Le Café du Marché to relax and warm up.

David Hepher: Lace, Concrete and Glass – An Elegy for the Aylesbury Estate is at Flowers, 82 Kingsland Road until 25^th February 2012, www.flowersgalleries.com.  Utopia is at the Hoxton Art Gallery until 1^st March 2012, www.hoxtonartgallery.co.uk.  Paintings: An Exhibition by Christopher Oldfield is at Annexe until 20^th January 2012, www.christopheroldfield.co.uk.  Daniel Rapley: Covenant is at PayneShurvell until 3^rd March 2012, www.payneshurvell.com.  Homo Economicus is at Cabinet until 3^rd March 2012, www.cabinet.uk.com.

David Hockney, Woldgate Woods, 21, 23 and 29 November 2006, oil on six canvases. Courtesy of the artist and via www.royalacademy.org.uk. 

David Hockney: A Bigger Picture is the first exhibition in the UK to showcase Hockney’s landscape work, a genre with which, until a few years ago, we would not have readily associated this artist. Hockney has always been innovative – famous for his ‘portraits’ of boys with Californian swimming pools in an idealised gay aesthetic.  His works are recognisable – he shows LA as a landscape of pleasure and sexual freedom with cloudless blue skies and idealistic fantasies.  His raunchiness has long gone and his recent work is far more mainstream and conservative, more acceptable to many audiences; he has returned to the area around his hometown of Bradford and settled down.  But maybe his work hasn’t changed as much as we initially think – yes, the subject matter may be different but the ideas, use of colour and idealism still underlie the canvases.  Hockney has tricked us with his change of aesthetic focus.

David Hockney, The Road across the Woods, 1997, oil on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and via www.royalacademy.org.uk. 

So, here we have a Hockney exhibition that is a display of vivid paintings inspired by the Yorkshire countryside.  This is not simply a show about nature, although the theme may lead us to believe it is.  It is an exhibition about the importance of an artistic tradition and the British landscape.

Walking into the Royal Academy, you are instantly engulfed by Hockney’s work.  So much so, that the use of a room with multiple doorways means visitors don’t actually know where to start from.  My advice is head to the right.  Once you’re in Room Two you’ll find that curatorially the show flows like a dream.  The wall colours change in almost every room, often successfully alternating between deep red and putty grey (which is a surprisingly nice colour).

David Hockney: A Bigger Picture at the Royal Academy. Own photograph.

The second gallery contextualises the exhibition, looking at landscapes from earlier in Hockney’s career, showing how he has always been a landscape artist.  Hockney has a skill with colour and, while landscape may have been present earlier in his career, this is still fairly a dramatic shift in subject.  Many of his works are made up of numerous panels, reflecting the dominance of nature and A Closer Grand Canyon from 1998 comprises 60 stunning canvases.  Due to its vastness, the Grand Canyon is not an easy subject for any artist to tackle but size has never scared Hockney.  This painting extends the boundaries of the conventional landscape genre, focusing on the depiction of space and the experience of being within such a space at one of the most spectacular vantage points.

David Hockney, A Closer Grand Canyon, 1998, oil on 60 canvases. Own photograph.

I adore Hockney’s landscapes so, for me, this exhibition is generally a delight.  They are beautiful works that can’t help but make you smile; Hockney’s exuberant use of colour creates bright, happy, idealistic paintings.  The recurring motifs of idealism and the importance of colour still pervades Hockney’s work.

Moving around the exhibition, the dense hang, in Room Four, of the paintings from 2004-5 reflects the unusual smaller scale of these works  and, here,  it’s possible to really get a sense of Hockney’s passion for his re-discovery of landscape.   Hockney has become extremely well-attuned to the natural world, studying seasonal changes.  Continuing this progression, Room Five is the first of four consecutive galleries devoted to a particular subject or motif, often the same place at different times of day.  It is fascinating to study the scene in its different guises.

David Hockney, A Closer Winter Tunnel, February-March 2006, oil on six canvases.  Courtesy of the artist and via www.royalacademy.org.uk. 

Despite Hockney’s nod to a tradition of British painting, one of the most distinctive elements of the show is his new iPad works where he is able to celebrate the new and enliven the old.  Now I’m not particularly adept on any Apple product but Hockney certainly is.  At 74 years old, Hockney has re-invented a tradition using his iPad as an electronic sketchbook and the stylus as his new paintbrush.  He delights in the immediacy of the medium but retains the hallmarks of his style to very different effect; the painterly skill he has achieved using an App is impressive.  This is apparent when comparing his iPad works to his painting, which reveals a bolder composition and use of mark-making.

David Hockney, The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire in 2011 (twenty eleven) – 2 January,    iPad drawing printed on paper.  Courtesy of the artist and via www.royalacademy.org.uk. 

The iPad works document the changing season, recording the transition from winter to spring along a small Roman road that leads out of Bridlington.  Filling the central room, all these works form The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire in 2011 (twenty eleven)which comprises 51 iPad drawings and one large painting made from 32 canvases.  This gallery is stunning;  light and airy, there is a deliberate sense of theatricality where the viewer is centre stage, surrounded by drama and change, engulfed by the natural landscape.  Hockney has applied his obsessive energy to this new medium and this project, designed with these rooms specifically in mind.  The iPad works all have dates on the walls next to them so that we can follow Hockney’s journey.  He scrutinises the natural world and nothing passes him by.  The works in The Arrival of Spring are strong because they are a group.  Whether the paintings would retain this impact individually cannot be assessed here but, in this configuration, they are gorgeous.

David Hockney, The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire in 2011 (twenty eleven), oil on 32 canvases, Courtesy of the artist and via www.royalacademy.org.uk. 

To leave the exhibition, you have to pass through Hockney’s reflections on Claude.  The less said about these the better.  Inspired, by the spatial effect seen in Claude’s Sermon on the Mount, Hockney has made a life-sized transcript and a number of studies exploring Claude’s geographical compression of space.  These are bad and unforgivable, a sad way to end a beautiful show.  I actually walked round again and exited through the front door so that I could end with a feel-good factor.

David Hockney, The Sermon on the Mount II (After Claude), 2010, oil on canvas.  Courtesy of the artist and via www.royalacademy.org.uk. 

One of the final rooms in the exhibition presents a bank of screens – multi-camera footage of Yorkshire mixed with interior films and motifs from Hockney’s paintings.  The videos have been filmed simultaneously using nine and eighteen cameras, fitted on customised cars, providing a spell-binding, immersive experience.  Once again, Hockney enjoys pushing technology to its limits, playing with a medium with which we think we are familiar.

David Hockney, Nov. 7th, Nov. 26th 2010, Woldgate Woods, 11.30 am and 9.30 am, film still. Courtesy of the artist and via www.royalacademy.org.uk. 

Critics say Hockney wanted to get away from his recognisable signature style but, although now concentrating on a different subject, these works still retain everything that has always been important to the artist.  The exhibition is about the importance of seeing and of observing and studying change.   Hockney’s commitment to the landscape is evident by the close study necessary to produce some of these works.  The exhibition also includes a number of drawings showing Hockney’s dedication to the fundamentals of his art.  Sometimes the colours can be a bit garish and some of the works aren’t quite as good as others but, more often than not, they are beautiful – simple expressions of the joy of the natural landscape.  Hockney transforms what, from any other artist, may be polite works into spectacular visions of England, filled with energy and life.  Hockney’s work is ahead of its time, answering questions that have not yet been asked.

David Hockney, Under the Trees, Bigger 2010–11, oil on twenty canvases.  Courtesy of the artist and via www.royalacademy.org.uk. 

The exhibition is immense with more than 150 works, the majority of which have been created in the last eight years.  It’s a wonderful show; Hockney is now considered the greatest living artist – he’s brilliant, the British public love him and why the hell not!

David Hockney RA: A Bigger Picture is at The Royal Academy until 9^th April 2012, www.royalacademy.org.uk.