Rev Stan's other stuff

Art on the South Bank - diversity is important

The South Bank is about art and culture which is this:

 

AND this:

The graffiti is the back drop to the skate park which is threatened by redevelopment plans for the South Bank Centre. The skaters are part of the South Bank, the graffiti is part of the South Bank and to remove either would be detrimental to the area. It would miss the point.

Urban cool: Leake Street, London

I like Leake Street's contradictory appearance. On the one hand it looks threatening and gritty. It runs underneath the railway lines behind Waterloo Station and you can hear the trains rumbling overhead. It's exactly the sort of street your mum told you never to walk down.

But when you do it is something quite different, a gallery of graffiti, a showcase of urban artistic talent. It has its own page on Wikipedia and is known as 'Banksy Tunnel' having hosted the artist's 'Cans Festival' five years ago.

It's a place where graffiti artists are encouraged and unlike the graffiti gallery underneath the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the nearby South Bank, you can get up close without fear of getting in the way of skateboarders.

One day, I'm going to go back with my big camera. One day.

2012 V&A project: Doors and adornments

At the beginning of the year I set myself some blog projects one of which was to explore different rooms at the V&A and record them on camera.

This is a curious and often over looked collection or a least it doesn't attract the numbers some of the other rooms do. It's loosely labelled ironwork but aside from some nice metal work there is also an impressive wooden staircase which is about 400 years old (if memory serves), some very old doors and lots of carved stone heads that presumably adorned the outside of buildings.

Here's a selection of what you can find together with some snaps I took of the shadows the windows were making on the marble staircase leading to the room.

 

Art and artists on the South Bank, London

Stan does Sheffield

It's been busy, busy, busy what with the London Film Festival keeping me busy but I've still managed to squeeze in the odd theatre trip or three and this week saw me venture forth from London to Sheffield to see Life on Mars/24 Hour Party People star John Simm play Hamlet.

Now Sheffield is one of the few cities in the UK I've left to visit. My job has taken me to most, so it is nice to tick somewhere off for pleasure reasons rather than work. Lots of people had told me nice things about the South Yorkshire city. Built on the steel industry, it's wealthy past is written all over its grand old architecture.

But what makes Sheffield a particularly nice city is that the centre has seen some tasteful modern development. Not only new buildings but there are some great open spaces that showcase its beautiful old civic buildings alongside some wonderful steel inspired modern public art and fountains. There are a lot of fountains.

The weather was great too so naturally I took my camera for a wander. I played around with shutter speeds on a lot of the water shots. Spot the difference. Oh and Hamlet, well thoughts on that are over on theatre if you are interested.

 

A great artist discovery

Antony Gormley has to be my favourite artist (who else would have me seriously planning a trip to Bexhill on Sea to see some of his work?).

But now I think I have found his competition: Claire Morgan. Claire is another British artist that specialises in sculpture. I've only seen pictures so far but that is enough to wet my appetite. I really want to see her work in the flesh, so to speak, to get a sense of its scale, impact and effect. I will certainly be going to see her next exhibition in London, when it arrives.

She uses a lot of natural materials in her work as you can see below (those are strawberries). Do visit her website to see more images.

Claire-morgan

 

 

Happy (belated) Birthday Bill

It's a day late but I was out of Vox contact yesterday so here's a little reminder of the wonderful Bard's poetry on the day after his birthday and who better to perform than lovely sexy spy no 1, aka Matthew MacFadyen