London: Nov 11: V&A Museum

On Thursday, November 11, 2010, I returned to the V&A Museum. I'd already been to the museum three times before (one, two, three) and seen the whole permanent collection. This visit was to see the latest special exhibits and new displays.

I took a few pictures on this outing.

I first went to a special exhibit titled Shadow Catchers: Camera-less Photography. These artists create their images directly on light-sensitive paper, either via chemicals, via lasers, by blocking light directly, or by having other materials directly touch or cause a reaction in the paper. They sometimes use positive-color paper. The result is often surreal.

I found a few remarkable pieces:

• Breathing in the Beech Wood, Homeland, Dartmoor, Twenty-four Days of Sunlight, May 2004 by Garry Fabian Miller. In general, dye destruction prints can be neat, and they remind me of sun prints I made as a kid.
• Susan Derges's River Raw. She put a piece of photographic paper underwater in a river at night and exposed it with a flashlight. It's a neat idea, bringing what one thinks of as sensitive darkroom materials out into the real world.
• Pierre Cordier's labyrinthine Chemigram 22/6/87 Dedalogram V (see slide four in this slideshow). In general, I decided chemigrams are cool because they give the most freedom to the artist (he/she can draw on them), especially in rectilinear patterns.
• Hebe, photogram after a sculpture by Floris Neususs "(made in collaboration with Renate Hayene)." It's the only photogram, which is created by blocking light, that I liked; I concluded that most are boring because they usually look like silhouettes.

Overall, however, though there were a few pieces I respect, I still feel this art form is in its infancy.

By the way, there was an additional regular exhibit in the photography section on the history of this technique.

I also visited a variety of new displays in the museum:

• an exhibit of art inspired by things on display in the museum. It's a neat idea, and I like that each artist explains which piece inspired him/her and how.
• an exhibit, Fashion Plates and Fashion Satire, of eighteenth-century printed etchings that show actual fashion at the time or mock the fashion by exaggerating things (women with vegetables in their hair, etc.). They're sometimes pretty funny if you look closely.
• a temporary exhibit in the theater section on Edward Gordon Craig, known for his minimalist set designs. It had a neat interactive exhibit with little squares of columns, walls, and people that you could slide around on a special desk and see instantly projected on a large screen what the set you designed looks like.
• a small exhibit related to the consumption of chocolate, 1600-2000.
• a tiny new exhibit on Walter Crane's nursery picture books.
• an exhibit on Beatrix Potter and her most famous work, Peter Rabbit.
• the illustration awards. (V&A gives awards for the best illustrations in books.)