Birmingham Art Galleries 26th August 2008.

The Ikon gallery was our first target, I'd never been before. My friend Boochild said when she's been before somedays there can be something really good on and other days it can be a bit shit to say the least. But we went with high hopes of hopefully seeing something remotely interesting. First floor (Martin Boyce- Out Of This Sun, Into This Shadow): Well this was rather odd, and going with shit to say the least was about right! The sculptures were super strange and really pointless to be honest. With deck chairs missing their fabric panels and bright yellow hose pipes, bright lights attached to wallls in odd angles. Didn't take long to get round the first floor!

Second floor (Shahzia Sikander - Intimate Ambivalence): As soon as I walked in, my words were, 'This is more like it!' Pretty graphic illustrations on the walls of Western & Eastern traditions. This whole exhibition had a very japanese feel to it.

































Above is a few examples of Shahzia Sikander's work.


Then onto Birmingham's City Art Gallery. Ok, this one is REALLY boring, unless there's a fun feature exhibition on! And guess what.. we found, an exhibition on HAIR! haha, it was pretty fun. All old hair products and imagery. And a choice of 3 wigs to try on.. this made it a bit more fun!



















Arr, that was fun! Then to top the day off we went to Habitat for a bit of a mooch, I bought this gorgeous tin, it's really pretty :) and looked at all the pretty mugs and trays. I'm going back there when I get paid! And a bit of H&M :) I'll go back there too when I get paid :) ha.

Vivienne Westwood Photos!

Sheffield – Saturday 2nd August 2008

Went off to Sheffield this week, as recommended, to see as many exhibitions as possible, I wanted to make sure one of them was the Vivienne Westwood one at Millennium Gallery. I went with my uncle’s girlfriend Jill, offered to drive (saving me my train fare, ha). There were two rooms full of Westwood’s clothing, shoes and accessories. Also some great fashion photography. I loved it! There were also catwalk videos, and a video of Bondage wear, from the shop ‘Sex’ that Vivienne designed for. That was quite strange. One of my favourite things in this exhibition was the famous blue mock-croc platform shoes Naomi Campbell wore when she fell on the catwalk in 1993. I wanted them. They reminded me of the good old girl power days of the Spice Girls, and Geri’s famous platforms, though I doubt that hers were as high as Westwood’s. There were also two more pairs of shoes that particularly took my interest (See photos).

As for Westwood’s jewellery, there was some knitted, but what really took my fancy was the Paper Mache flat Tiara, Earrings and Necklace with Screen-print detail (See photo). I also loved the other necklace and single earring in this photograph which looked like it would be quite heavy on your neck and ear.

I love the large bows on the big yellow dress, with the white netting underneath. The large amounts of netting made the dress really puffy and really quite elegant. (See photo)

(See other photos for glitzy glam dresses and jackets, simple dresses with snails and ladybirds attached, outfits that have been layered up and ruffles.)

I picked up a few postcards from the shop featuring Naomi Campbell in the Mock-croc platforms falling, Vivienne Westwood in a printed t-shirt and the Booze Suit, made from fine grey wool. I also got a badge, which said ‘I (heart) Crap’ which is pretty cool and a key ring which has the words of Westwood – ‘Fashion’s just life, and I do believe that appearances are everything.’

‘The only reason I’m in fashion is to destroy the word ‘conformity.’ Nothing’s interesting to me unless it’s got element.’ – Vivienne Westwood.
Westwood’s career stretches from anarchic beginnings in the punk era of the 1970’s to her present day iconic status within the world of high fashion.
‘I still adore what remains of the British tradition in clothes.’ – Vivienne Westwood.

Wolverhampton – Saturday 26th July 2008

Went to the Art Gallery in Wolves to check out the Open West Midlands 2008 exhibition as one of my friends had entered his work into it and got picked to be exhibited. Was really quite interesting to see what kind of works had been entered, mainly fine art and graphic subjects. There were a lot of mixed media’s including; video art, Indian inks, fabrics, teapots imbedded into fabrics creating what looked like little feet (the spouts), MDF, canvas, plastic, acrylic, oil, the list could go on. My Nan and Mom came with me and my Nan just didn’t understand some of the pieces. She kept saying kids in the village (where she’s from) primary school could do a better job! I don’t think she understood the term contemporary. My friend’s (Luke Harkus-Jefferies) piece was pretty cool, he’d made a dolls house and decorated the inside beautifully, inside and out, but the basement windows were bordered up with MDF. To see the insides of each room there were peep holes on the sides of the house, and the bottom was like a kind of slaughter house. With dead bodies and limbs about the place, this was pretty cool.
Also whilst walking round, we noticed there was a Pop Art Exhibition on, also fairly interesting. A lot of the work was very Andy Warhol inspired, such as the Campbell soup poster. Also old retro toys such as the Furby, vinyl’s by The Beetles, CDs by Oasis and Paul Weller. Sixties style clothes which you could try on, there was a well cool printed dress in there, which I tried on and my Nan told me to walk out in it, I think they would of noticed though! The work that I particularly liked was screen printed and collages, by artists Joe Tilson and Eduardo Paolozzi.