superstar art influencer Kate West AKA @londonartfile
newsletter 10: September 2019
don't be sad August is over, as at least it means the art and museum world kicks back into life to bombard you with news and exhibitions after its summertime slumber. catch up with what you might have missed below, and enjoy my brand new 'listen up' feature where i chat to fellow museum-lovers. this time it's London's superstar art influencer Kate West aka @londonartfile. if you're not following her, then you bloomin' should be. rectify it after reading the interview below. ENJOY!
catch up: news
a “violent” Rossetti painting which was lost for much of the 20th century, has been acquired by the British Museum. The Guardian
the Imperial War Museum London reveal it’s major £30.5 million plans for a series of new Second World War galleries. The Times (£)
merde. a Banksy artwork has been stolen from outside the Pompidou Centre in Paris. Metro
people adore Dior as the V&A’s blockbuster exhibition on the designer smashes the museum’s most visited record. Harper’s Bazaar
Marina Abramovic's first major exhibition in Britain will see visitors squeeze past a nude man and woman. Mirror
Manchester Art Gallery acquires two new works to tackle their collection's gender gap. The Guardian
eat your heart out Foxtons. a London property developer is holding one of London's biggest ever Salvador Dali exhibitions to help flog some flats. Evening Standard
the British Library has the best new billboard. Design Week
Kate Moss has edited a new coffee table book about the world-class fashion museum Museo de la Moda in Chile. Yes really. Harper’s Bazaar
Record breaker! V&A's Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams exhibition © ADRIEN DIRAND
weigh up: review roundup
WILLIAM BLAKE at Tate Britain, London. Website
"In this exhibition you will see images that look death and suffering in the eye and still believe in a redeemed humanity...He blows away Constable and Turner". The Guardian
"The opening, which presents academic studies from his time at the RA, is especially dull...Blake’s visions of the underworld, teeming with wraiths and satanic legions, like poorly paid extras, are hokey as, well, hell." The Telegraph
listen up: this week's chat
Kate West is @londonartfile, an Instagram account celebrating London’s visual arts scene. Using her iPhone, she captures images of exhibitions across the capital. Kate has been a freelance arts writer for over 15 years and is a proud Londoner.
you see so many exhibitions, but what person or subject is long overdue a blockbuster?
Inspired by repeat visits to the Barbican’s Lee Krasner show, I’ve been reading Mary Gabriel’s excellent book Ninth Street Women, about five women artists living in the macho world of the postwar New York art scene; Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Helen Frankenthaler, Grace Hartigan and Joan Mitchell. I’ve been gripped by the interlinking stories of their lives and work and would love to see a major group exhibition based around these five fascinating but much-overlooked painters.
what's been your favourite London exhibition to take photos in?
For me the perfect instagrammable exhibition is one that combines great visual impact with some fun photographic challenges. Right now that exhibition is unquestionably Tate Modern’s Olafur Eliasson: In Real Life. There’s a good reason why everyone’s feeds have been full of it.
most unusual place you’ve seen an exhibition?
I’ve seen exhibitions in lots of unusual places - in telephone boxes, on rooftops and even in a multi-storey car park. Earlier this year I enjoyed seeing Selfridges’ State of the Arts Trail with works from the likes of Yayoi Kusama, Eduardo Paolozzi, Conrad Shawcross and Chantal Joffe displayed around the store. I like the idea that great art doesn’t have to be seen in the hallowed halls of galleries and museums and can be part of our everyday lives. Free, public art is always my favourite.
what are your tips for getting that stellar insta photo?
Take LOTS of photos - I take between 50 and 100 photos in a single exhibition - remember the more photos you take, the more chance you have of taking a good one. And gallery lighting is the bane of the art instagrammer’s life - glaring off glazed works, reflecting off oil paintings and polished surfaces. My top hack is to take however many steps back necessary to lose the glare or reflection and then use the zoom function on your phone to make up the distance you reversed.
what are you most looking forward to seeing before the end of 2019?
So many things! The RA’s Antony Gormley exhibition is opening soon and promises to be fab. And a new Turbine Hall commission at Tate Modern is always an exciting London art event - the latest is from Kara Walker and will be unveiled in October. Can’t wait.
Sea Things by Sam Jacob, coming to this year's London Design Festival
get up: what's new
it's back-to-school for the art and museum world and things are getting BUSY! here's what you should be rushing out to see in the next couple of weeks
Antony Gormley at the Royal Academy of Arts - this is going to be amazing by one of Britain's most popular sculptors
London Design Festival - the annual design jamboree kicks off with V&A museum at it's heart
On Edge: Living in an age of Anxiety at Science Gallery - artists explore their own anxieties
Albrecht Dürer at the Albertina Museum, Vienna - the great polymath has one of his biggest shows in decades
Gossamer at Carl Freedman Gallery, Margate - 22 artists including Sarah Lucas and Man Ray who work with the medium of stockings
Mark Leckey: O’ Magic Power of Bleakness at Tate Britain - a life-size replica of a motorway bridge on the M53 comes to Tate
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