worth a watch

Richard Serra

I have been enjoying the Alan Yentob series Imagine (since I discovered it a few weeks ago). This week's offering was about American artist Richard Serra who is renown for his massive steel sculptures. I enjoyed how he described his childhood and seemed to imply that because a primary school teacher displayed lots of his pictures around the classroom and encouraged his mother that he was talented and to make sure she took him to lots of museums, that that made him become an artist. It would be great to base an educational establishment on that kind of principle. Anyway, in the meatime this is an example of Serra's work and you can see more in London's Gagosian Gallery in King's Cross until 20th December.

Being a proud mum

Benvolio's comment below highlighted how proud I am of Lauren having her art work on display at the Forum. She has worked really hard for all her exams but I think she has a real talent for art and some of it is currently on display at the forum for the whole world to see. Great that Ben took the time to have a mooch round to look and read.
I was invited to the launch event, with wine and nibbles (tortilla chips!) and it gave me a good opportunity to have a look around and I was amazed at the quality of the work. There were some amazing pieces. Apparantly someone has left their details because they would like to buy one of Lauren's pieces. I was thinking that I would very happily buy and display a lot of the work there. It was a good evening and a good idea.

I'm also proud because both Lauren and Imogen have managed to get through their first week of exams

For the Love of God

Damien Hirst has unveiled his new masterpiece called For the Love of God. It's a human skull encrusted with 8,601 diamonds. To take a look, follow this link and then click on Launch Viewing Room. £50 million is a lot of money...

Event Horizon

The artist Antony Gormley, creator of The Angel of the North has created 31 life size sculptures of himself that will be positioned on buildings in London. Here are some questions:
What does it mean that he's only used male statues: anything?
What will it be like having 31 statues in a mile radius of one another?
Is there any reason why he has named it after a horror film?
Is it art?
Have you seen it yet?
And something else: are they a permanent fixture in London?

BBC news story here

Chocolate Jesus

Some of you may know of my love of art- I believe the production and appreciation of art elevates us above all other living creatures and shows how we mimic God in creation.
I was interested to read about the furore in New York surrounding the exhibiting of a sculpture called My Sweet Lord. It is a 6ft naked depiction of Jesus made out of chocolate. The artist Cosimo Cavallaro is known for using food in his art used 90kg of chocolate to make the sculpture. Unfortunately due to large Catholic/Christian protest the exhibition has been cancelled. I want to know why? Because the sculpture was naked or because it was made from chocolate and that is disrespectful? How is chocolate more disrespectful than bronze or clay?

What are your thoughts?