Dead Parrot

To mark the very last Monty Python live show on UKTV Gold this Sunday, a 15 metre high sculpture of a Norwegian Blue parrot hanging upside down from a crane has been unveiled on Southbank. The painted fibre glass sculpture, designed by Dave Crosswell, Iain Prendergast and Toby Crowther, captures the comedy value of the dead parrot, “the hero of Monty Python’s most celebrated sketch,” says Croswell. Commissioned to commemorate the 45^th anniversary of the first screening of the comedy group’s Pet Shop scene in which John Cleese plays an infuriated customer trying to get his money back from Michael Palin, a tenacious pet salesman, having been voted their best sketch by 45% of TV channel Gold’s viewers. On Sunday the sculpture is being taken to the O2 for fans to see it at the final broadcast of Monty Python Live (Mostly): One down, five to go.

Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs

The Horse, the Rider and the Clown, 1943-4

I am very excited to say that Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs is opening its doors at the Tate Modern tomorrow, revealing the most comprehensive exhibition of the artist's paper cut-outs created between 1943-1954. Henri-Émile-Benoît Matisse (1869-1954) was a master of expressive drawing, leading colourist and one of the forerunners of modern art. After being diagnosed with cancer in 1941 he found it increasingly difficult to paint and turned his hand to cutting shapes out of painted paper using scissors. “Painting with scissors” was what he called it, painstakingly arranging and rearranging the cut shapes until the desired balance of form and colour was achieved, after which the finished composition was glued to paper, canvas or board. The resultant maquettes were created for commissions, books, stained glass windows and ceramics that resulted in some of the most influential works of his entire career that spanned over half a century.

Large Composition with Masks, 1953

The new medium gave him a new lease of life, illustrated through their expressive bold colours and vast scale, simultaneously imbued with an engaging simplicity and creative sophistication. Of the 120 works on show highlights include his very first cut-outs created between 1943-1947 which comprise Jazz, 1947, a book of 20 plates, alongside an album which contains copies of the 20 plates with hand written text, only 100 copies of which were printed. This will be the first time both the book and album have been on display outside of France.

Off great significance is the fact that The Snail, 1953, Memory of Oceania, 1953 and Large Composition with Masks, 1953, initially conceived as a unified whole, are being reunited for the first time since their creation in the artists studio. The exhibition also includes the largest number of his Blue Nudes ever to be on public display together, most notable is Blue Nude I, 1952.

The Snail, 1953

Blue Nude (I) 1952

Icarus, 1946

London is the first to host this landmark exhibition, closing on September 7th, before it travels to the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Sensing Spaces

Alvaro Siza's courtyard installation

Having been to the Sensing Spaces: Architecture Reimagined exhibition at the Royal Academy a while ago I've been meaning to write a blog it as its like no other exhibition I have ever been to (basically a giant adventure playground), and what with it closing this Sunday, I would urge you to get down there.

Seven of the world's most unique architects have taken over the main galleries of the RA to convey the power of architecture. All seven were commissioned by the RA to create site-specific installations having been given the same brief: to explore the essential elements of architecture. It re-defines the traditional architectural exhibition by immersing the visitor in a multi-sensory experience, considering architecture from our point of view.

The architects range from prestigious architectural awards winners to emerging practices and include Grafton Architects (Ireland), Diebedo Francis Kere (Germany/Burkina Faso), Kengo Kuma (Japan), Li Xiaodong (China), Pezo von Ellrichshausen (Chile), Alvaro Siza and Eduardo Souto de Moura (Portugal). 

The constructions actively encourage visitors to engage with the structures, textures, sounds, spaces and scents. Having been during half term the many children there were most certainly making the most of doing just that... 

Structure you can climb to the top of my
Pezo von Ellrichshausen

Diebo Francis Kere's tunnel invited you to
take straws and add to the structure

Kengo Kuma's bamboo installation which
emphasises the importance of smell

Li Xiadong's labyrinth

The Art Book Prize

Lissant Bolton, contributor to the winning book

Last week I attended the annual Art Book Prize, supported by The Art Newspaper and administered by The Authors club, which was awarded to Art in Oceana: A New History by Peter Brunt and Nicholas Thomas at London's National Liberal Club. Contributor Lissant Bolton, the Keeper of the Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas at the British Museum, collected by £1000 prize from the former TV presenter turned cooking sauce entrepreneur and arts patron, Loyd Grossman. 

Selected from a diverse shortlist of seven books on art and architecture, the editors enlisted a huge team of anthropologists, art historians and curators from across the globe to compile the ambitious survey of Oceanic art from the prehistoric period to the present day. Bursting with lavish illustrations of statues, fabrics, weapons and ritual objects, Bolton told me it took the picture researcher an incredible three years to bring together all the images.

Breese Little

Douglas Perez Castro, Competitive Market, 2011

A friend of mine co-owns Breese Little, a lovely little commercial contemporary gallery in Farringdon, now located in new premises pretty much next door to where they originally were on Great Sutton street. The gallery represents various contemporary artists from the UK and abroad, regularly hosting exhibitions of their work, as well as non-gallery artists, and often holding talks and lectures.

I had been meaning to visit the gallery since it opened over two years and finally went along to the private view of 'Old tin cutlery before the invention of the fork,' the title of which comes from the response surrealist Marcelle Ferry gave to Andre Breton's question 'What is Surrealism?' The show is composed of a selection of artists whose work is loosely linked by the oblique way in which they look at subjects and situations. Hierarchy, convention, expectation and reality are set aside and taboo's are addressed, consequently many pieces having a rather unsettling undertone. This is clearly illustrated in Douglas Perez Castro's, Competitive Market, 2011 (above), in which a line of farm workers walk in single file on their way to work but on the wall their shadows show a pack of sharp toothed wolves carrying rakes and machetes.

Works by Armen Eloyan, Rose Wylie, Paa Joe, Mino Maccari are to name just a few other artists works on show.

Liftoff of the last lunar mission, Apollo 17, 1972

In the room upstairs there is another exhibition composed of 100 vintage NASA photographs entitled 'For all mankind: Vintage NASA Photographs 1964-1983.' It provides an overview of a 20 year space exploration with some digital footage as well. Many of the photos on display have original NASA catalogue stamps on the reverse and includes the worlds first picture of the earth taken from the vicinity of the moon in 1966 and the first ever full earth view in 1972.

If you get a chance make sure to pay a visit before it closes on February 22nd.