BARBICAN LIFE

INSIGHTExhibition Review Kate West quarterly review of the local Art Scene

The Curve already had over Céleste Boursier-Mougenot 400,000 hits at Until 23rd May the time of writing. Go online and see the birds Sir John Soane's rench contemporary artist doing their thing like Museum Céleste Boursier-Mougenot ornithological Nigel Portrait of Mrs Delany Ftakes on the latest Tufnels by all means, but (1700 - 1788) commission in this always exciting don’t forget to get down by John Opie series of installations in The Curve to The Curve and see Picture courtesy space in the . them play live. National Portrait Gallery Trained as a musician and working formerly as a composer, Boursier- The Curve Mougenot has been creating gallery Level G installations since the early 90s. He Barbican Centre works in a variety of media and likes Daily 11am - 8pm to use everyday objects combining Every Thurs LATE until 10pm the audible and the visual to create Admission: Free random soundscapes. For his first UK exhibition Sir John Soane’s Boursier-Mougenot has transformed Museum The Curve The Curve space into a Mrs Delany and Her CÉLESTE BOURSIER- walkthrough aviary inhabited by 40 Circle MOUGENOT zebra finches. These enchanting Until 1st May Photograph: from here birds find themselves in an unusual to ear (detail), 2007 landscape - bass guitars and Gibson ary Delany may not be a interest in botany and in so doing Photograph : Les Paul electric guitars stand in as well-remembered name invented a new art form - the Céleste Boursier- perches and cymbals act as feeders Mtoday but in the 18th botanical paper collage. Ever Mougenot holding water and seeds. As the century she was at the heart of fashionable, Mrs Delany’s work © Céleste Boursier- finches go about their routine cultural and political life in occupied the juncture where the Mougenot. activities, alighting on the strings of and Ireland and numbered Handel, emerging field of the natural Courtesy Galerie a guitar or pecking a cymbal, they Swift, Pope and Walpole among her sciences met the Georgian Xippas unwittingly friends. In this gorgeous exhibition fascination with handicrafts. Her we learn why Mrs collages, which she called “paper Delany was one of mosaicks”, were not only much the most admired by George III, who famous instructed to send her women floral specimens, but also had the create a musical of her support of eminent botanists who composition of day and see praised their scientific accuracy. chance notes the remarkable creative output of This new exhibition brings that are amplified this multitalented Georgian lady. many examples of those paper to resonate Born into an aristocratic family collages together with embroidery, through the in 1700, she married first a Cornish textiles, drawings and manuscripts gallery. MP and then an Anglican to illustrate the varied nature of This surely will clergyman and was twice widowed. Mrs Delany’s accomplishments and be another hit Initially she was famed for her justifiably bring this extraordinary for The Curve exquisitely embroidered garments, woman to our attention once more. series if the embellished by her own hand, and success of the her picturesque garden designs Sir John Soane’s Museum Youtube clip which featured rare flowers grown 13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields WC2 promoting the from seeds sent by travelling friends. Tuesday - Saturday 10am - 5pm show is anything On the death of her second First Tuesday of the month 6pm - 9m to go by - it has husband, Mrs Delany pursued her Admission: Free

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British Museum encourage people to fill up on Kingdom of Ife plentiful root vegetables. Lawns and Sculptures from West Africa window boxes were transformed Until 6th June into vegetable plots and the nutritionist Marguerite Patten ringing together nearly 100 broadcasted cooking tips to help the outstanding pieces of West housewives of Britain make the BAfrican sculpture, this most of the rations. The exhibition exhibition tells the story of the also highlights how agricultural legendary city of Ife in what is now production was dramatically modern Nigeria. This wealthy and increased to feed the nation, the cosmopolitan city-state flourished contribution of the Women’s Land between the 12th and 15th centuries Army and the perilous role of the and is still regarded by the Yoruba Merchant Navy. people to be their spiritual This fascinating and heartland. The sculptures on show comprehensive exhibition follows here are drawn from the the fourteen year long story of magnificent collections in Nigeria rationing beyond 1945, through the and represent some of the highest hardships of post-war austerity to achievement in African art both in the day the ration books could be terms of their technical finally torn up on the 4th July 1954. accomplishment and their powerful aesthetic appeal. Lambeth Road SE1 Daily 10am - 6pm Gt. Russell Street WC2 Admission: £4.95/ Children £2.50/ Sun - Wed 10am - 5.30pm Concessions £3.95 Thurs and Fri 10am - 8.30 pm Admission : £8 and a range of concessions We Want Your Kitchen Waste, John M Gilroy, IWM PST14742 Over 1 million householders were feeding hens with kitchen waste to Imperial War Museum provide their own eggs in 1943. The Ministry of Food Copyright Owner: © Imperial War Museum Until 3rd January 2011 What’s On March – June utting down waste and cooking with local seasonal Barbican Art Gallery Guildhall Art Gallery Cingredients sound like very Ron Arad Paintings modern culinary preoccupations but Restless from the City’s Permanent Collection they were a government enforced Until 16th May Until 11th April way of life for everyone in wartime Britain. In this new major The Hunterian Museum exhibition the Imperial War Michelangelo’s Dream Lincoln’s Inn Fields Museum marks the 70 year Until 16th May Curious: The Craft of Microscopy anniversary of the introduction of Until 3rd July food rationing by showing how the British public adapted to a life Shad Thames SE1 dictated by food shortages. Urban Africa Painting History Visitors will be able to see a a photographic journey by David Adjaye Delaroche and Lady Jane Grey wartime greenhouse, a grocer’s Opens 31st March Until 23rd May shop and a typical 1940s kitchen along with economical, if not Estorick Collection particularly appetizing, recipes such Canonbury Square N1 The Real Van Gogh as Woolton Pie which were On the Move: Visualising Movement The Artist and his Letters necessarily long on vegetables and Until 18th April Until 18th April short on meat. Along with the familiar posters that exhorted the Geffrye Museum Modern public to Dig for Victory and Eat A Garden Within Doors Van Doesburg and the More Greens, The Ministry of Food Plants and Flowers in the Home International Avant-Garde: introduced cartoon characters like Opens 30th March Constructing a New World Doctor Carrot and Potato Pete to Until 16th May

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