The New Photographer's Gallery and Other Exhibitions

I've been meaning to post for a while now, but I've just been so busy lately; buying a house, wedding planning, seeing family etc.

I've recently (and by recently I mean in the past month or so) visited The Photographer's Gallery to see the Burtynsky:Oil exhibtion and The Turner Gallery (which luckily for me is right on my doorstep) to see the new Tracey Emin exhibition - She Lay Down Deep Beneath The Sea. 

As always, I was impressed by The Photographer's Gallery and it looks great after it's make over. The work by Burtynsky - all large format, was awe inspiring. It really makes you question our dependence on oil, and what will happen when it runs out. The images of the Californian oil fields are amazing. I think work like this really brings out the ignorance people have about where we get our day to day resources from. 

"In 1997 I had what I refer to as my oil epiphany. It occurred to me that the vast, human-altered landscapes that I pursued and photographed for over twenty years were only made possible by the discovery of oil…”

   - Edward Burtynsky

 

 A lot of the time I spend longer in the bookshop than I do looking at the work. I could spend hours looking at all of the different publications, this time I came away with the latest issue of Hotshoe magazine and a book 'Tom Hunter - Living in Hell and Other Stories'. He has got to be in my top 5 Uk photographers. I his Vermeer influenced photographs. 

Tracey Emin's She Lay Deep Beneath The Sea was (in my opinion) fairly disappointing. I was talking to a friend last night about how she is an artist that you seem to love or hate. Which of course is good that she has that effect on people, rather than people just having an opinion of indifference about her work.  Some of the pieces were beautiful like her emborideries on calico, but others were predictable and much of the same. Overall, I would definitely say it is worth a visit, if not just to see Margate and where she spent much of her life. 

Last night I went to my best friend's degree show 'seen UNseen' at The Pie Factory in Margate. Some of the work was great. Ellie's work 'Home' was particularly beautiful and is also part of a book 'Milieu' alongside four other artists. There are still copies left to buy, which you can get here (it's only £5). The exhibition is open until 26th June and is just a two minute walk from The Turner Gallery. It's definitely worth a look!

I haven't posted on here for a while, so I'm just going to update with some (fairly) recent photographs.

Margate Gym Factory Part 2

Margate Gym Factory - Part 1

Nothing In The World But Youth

I spend a fair amount of my spare time in the Turner Gallery, it's so nice to see Margate come alive since it has been open. I suppose it will be even more popular now that the Queen has made a visit. The current exhibition could not be any more perfect for me. If only the Turner had been around when I was doing my dissertation. Nothing In The World But Youth features 94 artists and is named from a quote in one of my favourite books, Oscar Wilde's - The Picture of Dorian Gray - "Youth! Youth! There is absolutely nothing in the world but youth."

Sarah Lucas, Hannah Starkey, Rineke Dijkstra, Francesca Woodman, Jurgen Teller, Lisa Linvay, Phil Collins, Michelle Sank and so many more of my favourite photographers have work in the exhibition. I recommend it to anyone that lives nearby, it's definitely worth a couple of hours out of your afternoon.

View from outside the gallery and Rodin's The Kiss

One of the installations is a short movie by Salla Tykka, I'm sure I was shown this when I was at uni and I loved it then.

It's Been A While

It's been a good few months since I last posted on here, I'm not entirely sure why.

I've been living in Margate for the past 6 months now, and was living in Broadstairs previously. This means I have been witness to the Turner Gallery being built.

Many people are unhappy with the amount of money that has been spent on it. £17.5 million I think? They think it's a waste of money and that it could have been spent in, what has been described, as "the most deprived area in the South East".

It's definitely not a waste of money, it's going to bring in a lot of money to the local community, particularly Old Town, which was once full of unoccupied shops, and now not a single one is vacant.

I went down to the gallery on the opening day only to find a very long queue waiting to get it. I came back later on in the evening and went on in. My only criticism is that they could have done a bit more with the space. However, the exhibits were all impressive, particularly those of Ellen Harvey and Conrad Shawcross. I won't talk about the art works/exhibits because I think everybody should go and see for themselves rather than reading about it. On the opening night there was also a lighting rig which was just fantastic. I don't need to explain anything. You can just see from my photos below.