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No wanderings in London’s South Kensington would be complete without a visit to the Natural History Museum… if only (when time is tight) to have a(nother) look at the dizzying array of plants and animals sculpted in buff and cobalt-blue terracotta that adorn many of the building’s surfaces.
From the Natural History Museum’s website:
Terracotta tiles provide decoration inside and outside the building. Many feature relief carvings of plants and animals. The buff and cobalt-blue terracotta is both attractive and practical, as a hardy material that could resist the acid smogs of Victorian London.
In his design, Alfred Waterhouse included elaborate sculptures of plants and animals on the interior and exterior of the building, to represent biological diversity. Those on the western wing are of living forms, while those on the eastern side show extinct creatures.
Natural History Museum, South Kensington, London – designed by Alfred Waterhouse 1865 – 1881 (when it opened)
Like this:
Anthony Gormley (UK, 1950), ‘Firmament III’ 2009 [1]
I don’t always ‘get’ sculpture – in the visual arts I respond much more readily and intensely to two dimensional works (painting, drawing, printmaking, photography) – but I’m always open to confronting, and being confronted by, any artwork.
On Saturday we took a leisurely bike ride along the biennial Artzuid: International Sculpture Route in Amsterdam’s leafy Old South. Here are some of the works along the route, some of the weird, and some of the wonderful…
Atta Kwami (Ghana, 1956), ‘Amsterdam Archways 2011′ 2011 [44]
Thomas Houseago (UK, 1972), ‘Red Man’ 2008 [7]
Dhiradj Ramsamoedj (Suriname, 1986), ‘Mighty Man’ 2011 [20]
Koen Vanmechelen (Belgium, 1965), ‘Coming World’ 2011 [14]
Salvador Dali (Spain, 1904-1989), ‘Space Elephant’ [6]
Ugo Rondinone (Switzerland 1963), ‘Sunrise East’ 2007 [28]
Riyas Komu (India, 1971), ‘My Father’s Balcony’ 2006 [40]
Subodh Gupta (India, 1964), ‘Et tu, Duchamp’ 2009 [23]
Yayoi Kusama (Japan, 1929), ‘Flowers that bloom tomorrow’ 2010 [10]
Yubi Kirindongo (Curaçao, 1946), ‘Equus’ 2010 [11]
Jan Fabre (Belgium, 1958), ‘Searching for Utopia’ 2003 [4]
Frederic Beaufils (France 1969), ‘Terroir’ 2009 [48]
Flowers along the route, made by nature (always the great sculptor :)
If you’re in Amsterdam and have a couple of hours to spare, the sculptures will be in place until 28 August 2011. A route map (they’re positioned along the Apollolaan, Minervalaan and in the Zuidas area) can be found here (numbers in [square brackets] in the picture captions above correspond to the numbers on the map).
Saturday’s train journey took us to Rotterdam’s Kunsthal to catch the Edvard Munch exhibition (ends 20 Feb 2011). Last time I was in Rotterdam (just over a year ago) it was a dark-and-gloomy-depths-of-winter-kind-of-day. Not so on Saturday – although it was admittedly ICY cold (minus temps with added wind-chill! Brrrr…) it was a dazzlingly sunny day and the sky was a crisp and cloud-free blue. In a word, beautiful!
So, after viewing the Munch exhibition, we took a long, meandering walk through the city and encountered art and artistry, of one kind or another, at every turn…
left: It’s the year of the rabbit! Here’s a nice tubby one, from a group of three that frolic on the lawn outside the Kunsthal (‘Rabbits’, 2003, by Tom Claassen)
right: Dante Horoiwa‘s mural, painted as part of the ‘Reflexo on Urban Art‘ festival in 2009 (and would ya look at the colour of that sky!!)
Kunsthal colours & angles
(Kunsthal building designed by Rem Koolhaas, 1992)
‘Danny de Cactus’ window display… for all your succulent needs |
Beautifully subtle roosting chicken detail in the Horoiwa mural
Optical…
Raising the Euromast Tower above one’s head (or, in this case, one of one’s five heads) appears to be heavy, grimace-inducing work (graf by Ox-Alien)
Bovine brickwork |
Wonderfully tactile felted & woven wall-covering in the Kunsthal’s café (where, incidentally, they serve a very fine fresh mint tea and lemon cake!)
Also meandering…
Kröller-Müller sculpture garden, Otterlo, Netherlands
[looking out from Pjotr Müller's 'House of Dr. Jung' (2004-2006)]
