Happy Thanksgiving!

The Anish Kapoor sculpture in Kensington Gardens.

To all Canadians near and far... Happy Thanksgiving! I actually forgot it was this weekend until a blogging buddy (thanks, Jemi!) reminded me yesterday. To that end, The Man and I took a wonderful jaunt through Kensington Gardens in the Indian-summer air, then over to the local Tesco's to buy a bird. Despite trying to explain what 'traditional' turkey means (i.e., plain) The Man still insisted on stuffing the fowl with cracked wheat -- but I'm not complaining, at least he's doing the cooking!

Have a great gratitude-filled weekend!

Me and Mr Freud

I got a postcard in the post today. But while the address was correct, the recipient was not: it was addressed to Lucian Freud, the grandson of Sigmund and a famous painter in his own right (according to Wikipedia, in May 2008 one of his paintings was sold for $33.6 million!).

Did Lucian ever reside at my address? Unlikely -- our downstairs neighbours have been here since the 1960s and, as history professors, would be sure to have mentioned it to us. More interesting was the content (and yes, I admit to reading it; I was fascinated to see what someone would write to someone like him!). The front of the card was a sculpture by Rodin, and on the back the sender assured Lucian a current exhibition of Rodin artworks at an undisclosed location would more his taste. And that was it.

Lucian will never get his postcard, unfortunately. But the small peek into the world of a great artist made my day!

I'm off to Paris from tomorrow until next week. But I've scrounged up some of my favourite posts from the past to fill the gap. Hope you enjoy them!

Living Sculpture

If you ever wanted to create your own artwork -- but, like me, are totally useless at drawing -- now is your chance! And all you have to do is stand there.

Artist Antony Gormley is looking for 2,400 volunteers to occupy the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square this summer for his new artwork, 'One and Other'. Twenty-four hours a day, for 100 days, a member of the public will stand on a column at Trafalgar Square for one hour. You can bring anything you can carry up with you. And what you do when you're up there is totally up to you!

"The square has its history as a place of national identity," Gormley said in a recent Telegraph article, recalling the fact that the plinth was built in 1841 to display an equestrian statue for which funds were never raised. "My project is about trying to democratise this space of privilege, idealisation and control. This is about putting one of us in the place of a political or military hero. It's an opportunity to use this old instrument of hierarchical reinforcement for something a little bit more… Fun."

The Man and I registered our interest at http://www.oneandother.co.uk/ and we're awaiting our applications! True, standing in a deserted central London square at 3 a.m. in the rain (in all likelihood -- this is London after all) may not be your idea of a good time, but when else will you have the chance to look across the iconic Trafalgar Square from such a unique position? And to be part of such an interesting artwork?

I have to admit I'd never heard of Antony Gormley until a few years ago when we literally bumped into one of his sculptures. Parking on Waterloo Bridge, as we usually do when we go to the South Bank, we pulled up alongside a human-sized metal object on the pavement. It hadn't been there when we visited the previous week, and it looked as if it had dropped from the sky. There was nothing to identify what it was, even.

Looking around the horizon over the next few hours, we kept spotting more and more of the strange-looking figures perched on roof-tops around the river. The effect was oddly disconcerting, as if you were being observed by something otherworldly.






Jim Dyson/Getty Images

Further investigation revealed that these sculptures were actual casts of Gormley's body, and that 31 of them were dotted on buildings around Westminster for an artwork called Event Horizon.

On his website, Gormley said it was designed to "get under people's skin" and make them "feel slightly uncertain about what's going on in the world that you are living in". Mission accomplished!

This time, I want to be the one watching others from lofty heights!

Art in the Park

Serpentine Gallery, Kensington Gardens

We are so lucky to have the Serpentine Gallery in our back yard (or back garden, as they say over here. When I first moved to London, I told my super-posh flatmate William that I loved our back yard. I'll never forget the look of horror on his face as he made it clear to me that a yard is a concrete apron outside of factories etc., and this was a 'back garden'. But I digress...)

On my first forays into Kensington Gardens, I was more interested in Kensington Palace or the Lido at the Serpentine Lake. I never even realised that the pretty brick-and-white building was an art gallery until The Man took me inside. Small -- with only 5-ish rooms -- and intimate, the gallery often exhibits one artist at a time, allowing you to feel like you've entered into separate compartments of the artist's mind. Recently, we went to see a collection of works by Indian artists and we were blown away by the massive, brightly coloured paintings mounted around the outer walls of the gallery.


'Indian Superhighway' Exhibition, Serpentine Gallery, December 2008






Every summer, an internationally renowned architect is commissioned to design an outdoor pavilion. We watch it rise with curiosity, wondering what unique shape it'll take on this time. Last year, Frank Gehry created a geometric behemoth of glass and wood, complete with different platforms almost at tree-top level. Outdoor parties, concerts and films are shown there all throughout the short British summer.




Pavilion by Frank Gehry, Summer 2008


The Serpentine feels like our own gallery. As we watch tourists peruse its offerings, we always feel a strange proprietorial air, as if this inauspicious gallery among the trees of Kensington Gardens has done us -- and Londoners -- proud.