anniversary

The V&A
Friday night I celebrated exactly one year as a UK resident. I marked the occasion by meeting up with Leo and Francesco, as well as Joe, at the Victoria and Albert museum, which is open until 10:00p on Fridays.

Leo works in the development office at the V&A and made an excellent guide through the key exhibits. We started with a glass of wine in the cafe, which was the first cafe ever built in a museum. The architecture of the Morris, Gamble and Poynter rooms that make up the dining spaces in the cafe are pieces of art in and of themselves.

The first exhibit we went to was China Design Now, a great look at graphic design, fashion and architecture in contemporary China. The last piece of the exhibit is a digital "immersion fly through" of Beijing post Olympic construction...don't miss it, it's really cool.

We then went to see the new jewelery gallery. While jewelry isn't usually something I have a keen interest in, this collection and its presentation is really worth some time. It's arranged chronologically so you get an excellent sense of the progress of jewelry making throughout history, right through the present day. There was also the most incredible collection of pocket watches I have ever seen.

Blood on Paper: The Art of the Book, was nothing short of amazing contemporary art. 20th and 21st century artists, known primarily for their work in other mediums, had their "books" presented. Some artists, most notably for me Anselm Kiefer, were invited to complete works specifically for the exhibit.

On the lighter side...sort of...was The Story of the Supremes from the Mary Wilson Collection. It was very much about the fashions and the music, but it also drew strong parallels between the history of the Supremes and the African-American civil rights movement. The dresses, shoes, wigs, jewelry and video clips were great. They also had a pile of album covers from the 60s and 70s, some of which I had owned, which in it's own way made me feel a bit on the old side.

Finally, Leo took us to see the Raphael Cartoons. The cartoons are paintings for the tapestries that hung at eye level in the Sistine Chapel. Having just been there and seen where they would've hung, it was great to see these. The room they are installed in matches the proportion, size and base architecture of the Sistine Chapel so that you get a real sense of how they fit in the chapel. Joe and I were both struck by the way the general form of this architectural copy drew you up even though the ceiling was just plain paint.

Dinner and a Drink
After the V&A, Joe and I went to dinner at Beirut Express, the first place we ate last March when we came to London on what was supposed to be a vacation in advance of maybe moving to London. It turned into the intense apartment hunting trip. Afterwards we went to the bar at Skylon for a night cap. A great way to wrap up a year of amazing changes and experiences.