Walking in my mind

vampyresheep and I went to the see "Walking in my mind" at the Hayward Gallery this evening just on time before the closure this weekend. The blurb said that the exhibition is "an expedition into the mysterious mental processes of creativity" and we were certainly not disappointed!

"Walking in my mind" is a series of walk-through mindscape drawn from Freud's structural model of the psyche, id, ego and super-ego.

The ten artists in the show are creative about their own creating, each having made a psychic self-portrait in the form of a stroll-through installation.

"The Creation Myth" by Jason Rhoades

Jason Rhoades's sprawling, rambunctious installation in which a huge, red inflatable tube represents the alimentary system, leads to the engine room of the brain, a control centre flickering with computers and televisions. Rhoades uncovers the process of the mental handling of images, impressions and impulses asking himself why one thing is being stored in the brains and the other not as well as what role do moral principles play in this. Yet Rhoades's "Creation Myth" could represent any mind were it not for the hardcore porn scattered all around the room and scatological humour.
The art-historical roots of Jason Rhoades can be found in the work of Marcel Duchamp, the most obvious reference springing to my mind being his "Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors" but also in the Fluxus movement and in the radical statements of Minimal Art from the sixties.

"The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even" (The Large Glass), 1915-23.
Oil, varnish, lead foil, lead wire, and dust on two glass panels.

Charles Avery takes the walking bit of the show's title literally as one part of his installation is downstairs, another upstairs and a third one is out on a terrace.

Untitled, (Bejewelled Hare), by Charles Avery, 2009

Untitled (Eternity Chamber), by Charles Avery, 2007

Untitled (Distance at a Distance) by Charles Avery - 2009

Swiss artist Thomas Hirschhorn created a walk-through cranium, constructed from packing tape and cardboard, silted with used Coke cans and outsize philosophy texts. The slippery passageways are flyposted with Marxist tracts, there are shadowy silver figures - Plato's cave - and the caves of Lascaux are shown on shadowy monitors.

Cavemanman by Thomas Hirschhorn

In this exhibition it is not the ponderously thought-through works that stays with you, but the uncanny simplicity of three artists, all Japanese.
In Yoshimoto Nara's case, looking through the windows of his comic-filled Wendy house, My Drawing Room, is to feel a common mourning of childhood.

My Drawing Room by Yoshimoto Nara

My Drawing Room by Yoshimoto Nara

Yayoi Kusama now 80, has lived for years as a voluntary in-patient at a Tokyo mental hospital. Her famously polka-dotted soft sculptures are drawn from hallucinations she suffered as a child when she would see dots both inside and outside her head. In this show Kusama's room filled with spotty inflatables, co-opts you as a character in a fairy tale, or perhaps as a fifth Teletubby or as Tintin in "L'Étoile mystérieuse".

Yayoi Kusama, “Dots Obsession"

"Les Aventures de Tintin: L'Étoile mystérieuse"

Kusama's dots spread contagiously over every inch of an entire room before spilling out on the balcony and even on a few the trees on the South Bank.

It is the least known of the three Japanese artists who really impresses. Chiharu Shiota has filled a section of the Hayward's top floor with a tunnel of stretched black threads, imprisoning white spectral shapes.

After the Dream by Chiharu Shiota

After the Dream by Chiharu Shiota (detail)

I guess I can only strongly encourage you to visit the exhibition and will conclude this review by quoting Chiharu Shiota, "When I dream... I feel the dream as reality. I can't distinguish between dream and reality. When I wake up, I have the feeling I'm still dreaming."

Exquisite Bodies

I had such a tough day at work on Thursday having to look at all those models coming in the office for our new advertisement campaign... Very luckily this happens once a year only! ^-^’


After all those emotions I had lunch with morbidfrog and had aprivate tour of her library!

Our new lunchtime picnic spot ^^'

After work, morbidfrog, vampyresheep, sallypointzero , Teresa, demondaz,rosenkavalier and myself met up at the Wellcome Collection to see “Exquisite Bodies”. A solid heart was definitely required as some of the exhibits were quite gruesome and so realistic it was sometimes hard to tell if there were real or wax models.

Anatomical Venus Undated (late 19th century).
Unlike some of her idealised counterparts, this anatomical Venus appears decidedly cadaverous...

Section of the thorax at the level of the heart Joseph Towne, London, c.1827-79.

This particular wax work was so realistic it had dry blood stains all over his body including on his tongue and inside his ears. His teeth, well the one he had left, were all rotten and the expression on his face was just indredible! Chilling...

Early stage of syphilis in a jar...

Pretty self explanatory and the label in Spanish says it all but if you really can't figure it out and was looking for a very good reason not to have children, this is the removal of the placenta just after giving birth. Lovely!

Model of a pregnant woman by Jules Talrich Paris, undated (late 19th century), Roca Collection

The Roca Collection includes a number of waxes made by Jules Talrich (1826-1904), the son of a French physician who became a celebrated anatomical model maker.

P.S.: Apologies to anyone was having their lunch when they read, I spent the last hour trying to put those under a cut but it does not bloody work!!! In fact I have not maaged to put antyhting under a cut for the past few weeks! >-<'

Mon chateau...

I was thinking that since Kasteel van Poecke goes so well with my dress it could officially be mine?

Kasteel van Poecke, Aalter, Belgium

LVG Picnic & Rob's Birthday!

Just coming back from the annual LVG picnic as well as Rob's birthday in Highgate park. The weather was perfect, maybe too much Sun for some people as this year the group has moved down to the closest tree!

It was so good to lazily lay in grass with wine in one hand and biscuits in the other all in good company :D

Not enough shade for everyone!

The birthday boy and his new friend!

vampyresheep 's pretty picnic basket

Mrs and Mr vampyresheep

miss_mordred


Robbie Junior's toys ^^'


Martin, Jim and Mick, talking wine


Yummi cookies baked byvampyresheep


Lovely karis_uk


veilofvisions and her ever so beautiful creations!


Boys and their toys...

Victorian Romance

The Royal Red Barrette has been selected for the Victorian Romance Treasury on Etsy Dark Side! :D

Shoot with David Bailey!!

Just coming back home from a photoshoot with David Bailey for the launch of the new Nokia camera phone!!

misseh_vaniteh , Seth and I got spotted last week at the LVMG down the Hobgoblin and asked if we were free for a shoot the following week. I did not get my hopes too high and totally forgot about it since I had not heard anything back until today. It was a bit of last minute organisation as I received a call this afternoon asking me to be in Hackney at 11pm the very same evening.
For a moment I really got worried it was a scam as the alleyway we were supposed to meet really looked dodgy. I am really glad I askeddemondaz to chaperone me and I also knew there would be a very good chance to get him in the shoot as well. Mr Bailey seemed almost more interested in him than Vanity and myself!

We went to this extraordinary and surreal designer set that would have been perfect for Alice in Wonderlandt! It is also opens as a restaurant twice a month, I will try to get a link to this truly amazing place. I could have lived there and be the Rabbit in the Hole! ^-^'

The shoot was very relaxed as David Bailey is a very straightforward and open minded person. Maybe too open minded for some, I suspect he offended more than one person in his long career with his comments! He called me "Froggy" (surprisingly!),demondaz was "Toothy", Vanity was "Model #1" and Seth "Charlie Chaplin"!

He seemed to be loving us lot so I am quite impatient to see the results. It basically went like this: "Great! Fantastic! Toothy give me more fangs, Froggy give me big eyes. Model #1 look at me! That's it, I love it! Do you fuck? Did you bring a whip? Lovely evening tonight isn'it? Don't move!" It was hard work to stay still!

It was also quite hilarious to see him using that camera phone -supposedly very good in low light- trying to figure out how to use it and shoving it to his assistant to deactivate that bloody flash! Apparently we all get the new Nokia phone too. Yeah! :D

We have been invited to see the shots in two weeks time for the premier opening of the exhibition "Alive at Night" in Bloomsbury. Will try to get some pictures of the event :)

That’s it for now, I need a good night sleep after all the excitement of the this evening so I hope I do not wake up before the Sun again as I did three mornings in a row! >-<'