London, Day #8

I didn't have class today, so instead I decided to be as adventurous as humanly possible.
I will write an exhibition review of the Miró exhibit at the Tate Modern in a following post, but I will just leave you with this list of places I visited, walked by, etc.


St. Paul's Cathedral
Millennium Bridge
Tate Modern
Globe Theatre
The Clink Prison Museum
Burroughs Market
The Remains of Winchester Palace
The Golden Hinde Galleon Ship
Southwark Cathedral
London Dungeon
Tower Bridge
British War Museum
Big Ben and the Houses of Parliment
Parliment Square
The Supreme Court Building
Westminster Abbey
New Scotland Yard
St. James's Park
Buckingham Palace
Trafalgar Square
The National Gallery/Portrait Gallery
Covent Garden
The Royal Opera House
Chinatown

Photos:

Here

and/or

Here

London, Day #7

Today was a bit more laid back. On Thursdays the class is split into two groups, so that it is easier to talk about writing about art. One group meets in the morning (10-11) and the other group meets in the afternoon (2:30-3:30). I am in the second group. In the middle of all of the seminar shindigs, we had two lectures by a professor from Goldsmith's College in London. She is from Germany originally, and she is extremely passionate about art.

Our lectures were on British art, which means either art that was made by people who were born in Britain, or art that was made by people who came to Britain (especially artists).

Some of the highlights included...

Stephen Willats who does some really cool chart/map-based pieces.


Julien Opie, who is most famous for doing the album art for the band Blur. Here is an earlier work by him.


Grayson Perry, quite the character, and also maker of these incredibly deep vases. The content deals a lot with feminism, domesticism, and also themes dealing with childhood trauma and rape.


Ian Davenport


Anya Gallacio

and Damien Hirst (of course)

After that we had our seminar. The seminar consisted of reading art exhibit reviews in magazines and then breaking them apart in a way in which we understood how they were written, and what are some things to consider when writing an exhibition review. We were then given a list of four galleries, one of which we should attend, and I think our next seminar will be about putting those writing tips into practice (Whether or not, I will most likely still write reviews for exhibitions I go to on the Mills Art History Society Blog).

In the evening I met up with an acquaintance of my parents. She is very kind and we had a wonderful time just sitting and talking. I had a couple of drinks and then went home! C'est fin!

If you want to see some of my own personal photos, you can check them out on facebook here. I think you can see the album even if we are not facebook friends. Also, I am doing an art project while I am here (or the start of one) in which I take photographs of my teddy bear (that I've had since I was born) in front of famous buildings, works of art, etc. and posting them online (but they will also be turned into another form of art). You can see those photos (later tomorrow as we are starting tomorrow) at her blog which is here.

Thanks for reading!