Category: Exhibitions

In talking to my wife yesterday I realised I have an identification with some art galleries and museums. They are ones I have visited more than once and when I think of them I see a corridor here or a room there. I have become integrated in them.

It’s a nice feeling and it’s thanks to Tamara because I don’t think I would have visited so many galleries and museums nor so often otherwise.

And I need exposure to art.

Now we live in London I can just ‘pop down’ to the National Gallery.

And the subject for today is Claude Monet’s Bathers at La Grenouillère, which he painted in 1869.

Monet and Renoir spent that summer painting together at La Grenouillère (The Frog Pond) on the Seine. It is. or was, a resort with a floating restaurant, a dance hall and riverside tables.

I took this photo of the painting.

What I see is that the woman on the right, facing us, has a face fixed a million miles away. Or is she looking at something in the distance? Or is she recalling a memory? Is it a good memory, a bad memory?

She doesn’t seem to have any relationship with the other woman, nor with anyone at all. She could be catatonic for all we can see. From her passive body language she doesn’t seem to be interested in the scene around her, unlike the other woman. Perhaps she is hyper-aware and drinking in the sights and sounds as in a dream. Perhaps she is listening to the sounds that carry over the water.

Perhaps it is her first visit out into the world since some terrible tragedy, and she cannot bear to take off her lace gloves for fear of being to exposed to the world.

Perhaps the woman on the left is calming her, having taken on the task of accompanying her friend on her first foray out of the house.

Are the two women of the same social status? Is the woman on the left in the employ of the other woman?

And the title ‘Bathers at La Grenouillère’ – what bathers, where are they? Do these women fit the description of bathers?

I read that Monet deliberately downplayed emotions because he wanted the women to function as elements in a composition about light and reflection, not as characters in a narrative.

I can’t trace whether he said that or others said that is what he wanted.

Strange.

But do I like it? Yes, it is satisfying – all the colours and the arrangement – satisfying except for the woman. For me the whole painting pivots around her face and her expression. That is why I like it more than if it were just a scene of light and reflection.

These are from the exhibition ‘Naomi’ about the model Naomi Campbell that is running at the V&A in London until 6 April.

The top image is from a video of Naomi – in costume, on film sets, on the street – that I shot through a gap in the people in the exhibition watching the video.

The second shot is a photo of a contact sheet photographed bý Rico Puhlmann in the late 1980s. I’ve linked to the image file so you can click it and see it much bigger. Notice the shot with the red chinagraph marks that was chosen.

What made it the one to choose? Opinions in the comments.

“BECOMING NAOMI

‘I never thought I was going to be a model?

Naomi Campbell was approached, age 15, by model agent Beth Boldt while out with school friends in London’s Covent Garden. Just two years later, she graced the pages of British Elle and the front cover of British Vogue and was walking for acclaimed designers in London, Paris, Milan and New York. Foundational to her meteoric rise were dedication, training and a love of theatre and dance.

Born in 1970 in London, Campbell aspired to a theatre career and, as a child, performed in music videos for artists including Bob Marley and Culture Club. Initial modelling assignments included editorials, clothing catalogues and advertisements. Photographers drew upon her dance background to direct her poses. Describing her early forays into fashion, Campbell recalls that it was ‘a new world that I was not familiar with, I felt that I had to be apprehensive and aloof and cautious, just until I could get my footing and feel comfortable.”

These photos are from the exhibition of the life and work of Gabrielle (Coco) Chanel that we went to at the V&A in London a couple of days ago.

Click any image to bring up the gallery with larger size photos.

I went to the exhibition to accompany Tamara, who wanted to see it. Fashion is not top of my list of interests so I didn’t expect to be that involved. But when I looked at some of Chanel’s creations close up, I really was interested.

So again I have to thank Tamara for taking me to exhibitions I would not otherwise go to, and broadening my horizons.

Chanel made her clothes interesting, with folds and pleats and panels, and she knew what she was doing. I know that might seem a little (or a lot) coming from me who is not a couturier – but I can only speak from what I admire in design, and she was really good. She just knew what worked and why.

That’s one side of her. The other is that she grew up poor and she set her sights on making clothes for the rich. She made a name for herself through her designs and she cultivated the people who could spread her brand on her behalf. And as we know, she became a world famous name – for clothes, for perfume, for handbags, for shoes.

There were some flapper dresses in the exhibition, Chanel was born in 1883 so it was possible that it was she who made the design famous. Google says though that it was French designer Jean Patou who is
credited to be one of the first to create “flapper silhouette’.

Finally – a shout out for the curation of the exhibition. The exhibits were sourced from all over the place, from museums and private collections. So chances are the collection will not be assembled again or not for many years. So if you are near enough to go to the exhibition,, it runs at the V&A in London until Sunday, 25 February 2024