No one is here, she said. I can zip around the city, do all my errands in no time.

I couldn’t agree more- no line at my local coffee shop, pilates class is now just me and the teacher. It’s a bit like being on holiday without the jet lag. A staycation is so under-rated. If you  happen to be in London this summer, even for just a few days, here are my tips on what to see while luxuriating in the rare quiet.

Pack a picnic and head to Regent’s Park where Frieze is hosting its first-ever summer Sculpture Park in the very pretty English Gardens. The display includes 25 new and important works by top 20^th century and contemporary artists, including, Urs Fischer, Miquel Barceló, Michael Craig-Martin, Ugo Rondinone, Tony Cragg, and John Chamberlain.

Yorkshire Sculpture Park’s Clare Lilley talks about each work for a few minutes on the downloadable audio tour.  Lilley is full of interesting  and fun facts about the sculptors.

Ugo Rondinone’s Summer Moon below is a white enamelled bronze cast of a 1,000 year-old olive tree from where Rondinone’s family came from in Italy. He currently lives in a converted chapel in Harlem.

I loved the plaster Gran Elefeandret by Miguel Barceló. And I thought headstands were hard! Born in Mallorca he now spends a lot of his time in Mali without electricity or running water.

Below is American artist John Chamberlain’s Fiddlers Fortune. Best known for his crushed automobile scrap metal sculptures, this is a finger-sized sculpture made big. Imagine a tiny tinfoil chewing gum wrapper rolled into skinny tubes and twisted into a knot. Then enlarge it.

Next stop is White Cube Gallery in Mason’s Yard in St James. Harland Miller is a British writer and artist who just can’t get his thoughts out of the gutter…

For something a bit more serious, go see Fahrelnissa Zeid (1901-1991) at Tate Modern, a forgotten female artist from outside the conventional American European norm. The Turkish-born painter and princess had been left behind until Tate’s Frances Morris and Jessica Morgan (now at NYC’s DIA) “rediscovered her” at the Istanbul Biennale a few years ago.

I interviewed the show’s curator Kerryn Greenberg about Zeid. She led a fascinating and troubled life including a family murder, death of her first child, a narrow escape from political assassination and two world wars, not to mention tea with Hitler and writing to Donald Trump. Through it all, she kept painting. Here’s my blog in The Women’s Room Blog about the unappreciated artist.

The Victoria & Albert’s long-awaited new entrance and porcelain-paved courtyard has finally opened its doors. The £48 million project by Amanda Levete Architects beautifully connects the museum to Exhibition Road. And come September, the 1,100 square meter, column-free Sainsbury Gallery will open, one of the largest temporary exhibition spaces in the U.K. A new Member’s Room opens in the autumn with glorious vistas of the entrance and London beyond. Worth joining for the view.

Just up the street from the V&A is the Serpentine’s Summer Pavilion designed by Francis Kére, an award-winning Berlin- based architect originally from Gando, Burkina Faso.

The main canopy mimics a tree, the central meeting point in Kéré’s hometown. While you’re there check out cross-dressing artist Grayson Perry’s show, The Most Popular Art Exhibition Ever.

And lastly, Matisse in the Studio opens August 5th at the Royal Academy, an exhibition about  the props from which the French painter drew inspiration and the specific paintings they inspired. African masks, Chinese calligraphy, Islamic odalisques and more. Wish I was here for that.

But alas I will be hopping around and reporting back. Stay tuned for more urban centric stories – a blog on a terrific Milanese designer and his gem of a shop, a lovely, contemplative show  in New York and a story on when your friend becomes your stylist. It did not end in tears.

July, 2017

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I want my paintings to look like what’s going on outside my window rather than what’s going on inside my studio.

A picture is more like the real world when it’s made out of the real world.

Where I find other artists often get too conceptual for me, Rauschenberg never fails on the simple aesthetics.

What’s more Rauschenberg was constantly challenging himself, collaborating with other artists, experimenting with other media, trying new things and never letting success get to his head. When he won the Venice Biennale in 1964 – the first American to do so – he immediately called his assistant in Manhattan and asked him to destroy any silkscreens left in his studio so that Rauschenberg wouldn’t be tempted to continue on that theme.

From 1984-1990 Rauschenberg decided to start an artistic dialogue with repressive regimes, visiting countries like China, Venezuela, Tibet, Cuba, East Germany and several others. He donated works to museums in these host countries, culminating  with a final show at the National Gallery in Washington DC. Seen by over two million people across the world, Rauschenberg’s project is a testament to how art can communicate across any political or cultural divide. If I could choose an artist that I’d like to have dinner with, Rauschenberg would be the one.

November, 2016

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Last night at the opening dinner Tate Director Nick Serota got a well-deserved standing ovation,

 and I got a selfie and  some chocolates.

I want to go back and explore, just not this weekend. Mob scenes aren’t my thing.  If Switch House and Boiler House (the original Tate Modern next door where the art has been completely rehung) are Britain’s cultural cathedral then I’ll visit Mecca when the path clears.

In the meantime, there are two shows which promise to please and be a tad more relaxing. For the city mouse,  don’t miss terrific Nigerian fashion designer Duro Olowu’s curated “Making & Unmaking” opening this weekend at the Camden Arts Centre.

How, you might ask, do I know Duro’s show will be great when it doesn’t open until tomorrow?

Simple, I answer, his dresses make me feel fabulous.

(My horoscope told me not to overthink things.)

Duro delights in blending bold pallettes of pattern and color into beautifully-cut, flattering dresses. Image below is from Duro’s shoebox size, treasure trove of a shop in Mason’s Yard near Piccadilly.

Similarly, Duro is mixing it all up in Camden – antique West African textiles and Bauhaus tapestries are placed alongside contemporary works and new commissions. He has selected over sixty international artists that inspire him from household names like Fernand Leger and Brice Marden to lesser known talents like Leonce Raphael Agbodjelou’s Untitled (Musclemen series)

and Wangechi Mutu’s Panties in a Bunch.

For the country mouse, we move from edgy Camden to cosy Cotswolds, where On Form, a biennial exhibition of sculpture in stone  at Asthall Manor has just opened.

Once owned by writer Nancy Mitford’s family, Asthall Manor is set in gorgeous  gardens designed by Isabel Bannerman  whose green thumb has worked its magic on Highgrove and Arundel Castle. Her stunning botanical photographs are being exhibited at On Form and can be purchased through her London dealer Jonathan Cooper.

Asthall Manor owner Rosie Pearson explained to me how she hopes On Form will make sculpture accessible.

I want people to touch the works, explore them and not be put off by over intellectualisation.

 About 270 stone sculptures are scattered throughout the property.

as well as is in the Ballroom …

This was my favourite by Tom Stogdon.

The Cotswolds can be very social. Asthall is no exception. My hosts Sebastian and Thomas Gibson (below from the left) seemed to know everyone there. Meanwhile, I bumped into my son Thomas (right), who was there with friends. Thomas has always operated on a needs-to-know basis.

Also at Asthall are the Mad Hatter bookshop with a packed schedule of events and  the Potting Shed Cafe with a guest chef  every  Saturday night until the sculpture show closes July 10th.

June, 2016

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Don’t miss The Human Factor at the Hayward Gallery. It’s weird, entertaining, eye-grabbing, thought-provoking and at times disturbing. Twenty-five big deal artists use the human body to explore issues such as voyeurism, political violence, sexuality and mortality.  Jeff Koons, Paul McCarthy, Katherina Fritsch, and Maurizio Cattelan are just a handful of the talents involved. Below is the headless ‘Girl Ballerina’ by Yinka Shonibare. With her finger on the trigger,  she a far cry from Degas’s demure ballerina.

The shimmering android clubber below is by artist Isa Genzken.

Cattalan shocks with ‘Him’. Is he a little boy?

Or a monster? What is he praying for? Forgiveness or more horror?

Next up scoot over to Tate Modern where several works by Russian painter Kazimir Malevich are bound to dazzle. As early as 1915 he broke with the expressionists and produced bold, colourful, geometric pictures that still look fresh and modern now.

Oh, I know exactly where this could go in my living room…

Brilliant red…

And for some light relief go to the Royal Academy and see the world through Dennis Hopper’s lens. My favourite piece of eye candy –  artist Ed Ruscha looking very Sean Penn-esque.

July, 2014

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Visitors move through the various rooms of the Grand Palais silently-  like the videos themselves-  as if they were at Church. Viola’s work captivates and moves,  without being preachy. Especially noteworthy is “Going Forth By Day” 2002 where a large room is taken up by five seemingly unrelated super-sized video stories, using a cast of about 100 people. Best to get comfy on the floor, relax and watch the scenes unfold. Viola’s work requires the viewer’s time. Below an image from “First Light.”

Below, is an image from another room, the artist’s 2013 “Dreamers.”

I loved the Paris show so much that as soon as I got back to London, I took the tube to St Paul’s Cathedral to see Viola’s latest work. After a decade of thought, Viola has made a four-screen video installation for St Paul’s Cathedral entitled “Martyrs” to be accompanied by “Mary” next year. This must-see seven minute video marks the first time a moving image will feature prominently in a famous Christian cathedral.  Viola’s contemplative works look right at home here.

The various martyrs- three men and a woman – are tested by violent earth, lashing winds, scorching fire and pummelling water. They never relent, even when it looks really tortuous (those poor actors).  Viola has said that he likes to think of his work as spiritual rather than religious.

To coincide with Martyr’s, Tate Modern across the Millennium Bridge is doing a special display of  Viola’s “Tiny Deaths” 1993.

June, 2014

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