Come hither City boys

The Museum of London invites us to "Discover the city of London and its people."  It does not deliver. Should you actually find your way to the vile seventies building on a roundabout in the City you won't see an entrance. That requires another hunting expedition. Hidden inside other buildings on the "mainland" are stairs and escalators to take visitors up to walkways which are open to the wind and rain. When you finally make it to the museum's actual entrance you sense immediately that everything has been done on the cheap. Even its logo is cringe- inducing. It looks like the winner of the booby prize in a first year, design school competition. Far more serious is the shocking fact that entire museum has a whopping total of four curators. They are heroic women and men, dedicated and hard working, but they are attempting to do an impossible job. The place is a disgrace to the city and the City both. Come on city boys and you women in finance, too. Use your expertise--and your dough--to create a museum we can all be proud of. It can be done. They've done it in Antwerp. 

 Visit the MAS (above). This exciting example of contemporary architecture is set in the old port's red-light district. The history and life of Antwerp is imaginatively displayed--its procession of elaborate model ships is thrilling-- something I had not imaged possible. The success of the MAS has led to regeneration of the entire neighbourhood.
    The Museum of London's collections include the 500 pieces of the Cheapside Hoard, the world's largest collection of Tudor and Jacobean jewellery.  Exceptionally all of it is on view for the first time in almost a century but most of it will go back into store in the spring when the current exhibition devoted to it closes. There it will rejoin  a million other objects--A million! Among these treasures are finds from Roman and Saxon London; artifacts of London's life as a major international port --and that means full-size boats. There are 24,000 examples of of  historic and contemporary clothing; impressive collections of tools, toys, paintings and photographs. There is street furniture and shop fronts and the entire archive of the Port Authority. Almost all of this is an all too well kept secret.
   There is no way to fiddle with the current museum. It is an architectural and geographic mistake. Yet, wouldn't you know that this is precisely what is being planned. The only approach that makes sense it to tear down the monstrosity and start again. Raze it and raise the dough to do it right next time around.

 Happy New Year to All

Catch up and go! 1.

There is nose to tail cooking and then, in my case, nose to concrete bashing. Not long ago, I tripped on my way into the Victoria&Albert Museum and I fell on my face, full force. Look no hands. This is one explanation for the gap in my posts. Fearing that the pavement would rise up and smash against me I nevertheless took my bruises and frog swollen mouth and nose to shows in London and, why stop there, in Florence and Amsterdam. At least the kind of art I go to see can't see whose looking. So this is my first catch up post. There's lots of time left to see them all.

Opal, ruby and opalescent quartz scent bottle

The Cheapside Hoard at the Museum of London. (read what I wrote in The Economist published October 12 ).  Here I will just say that this is the first time since the hoard was found in 1912 that all of is on view. There are  500 jewels, gems and luxury objects --among them a little enamelled gold watch set in a pretty big and very beautiful bluey green emerald.

This is the largest collection of Elizabethan  and Jacobean jewellery anywhere and it is extremely well displayed. The story of the discovery and of the sometimes dodgy practices of goldsmiths in 16th and 17th centuries --ignoring the law among them-- is vividly told by curator Hazel Forsyth in "London's Lost Jewels" which complements the show. (There should be but there is not a catalogue with images and descriptions of all the objects.)  One of the prettiest pieces is the enamelled gold, opal and ruby scent bottle at the top. One of the most fascinating is the what remains of a watch made in Geneva probably between 1610 and 1620 signed by Gaultier Ferlite. The makers of all the other objects in the horde remain unknown. Forsyth has dated to the burial of these treasures to sometimes after 1640 and before the Fire of London in 1666  

Old China; New Japan: Two stars of Asian Art in London

Auspicious Cranes about 1112

Auctions, museum exhibition, lectures, gallery selling shows some by dealers who temporarily take over premises in the center of London offer more Indian, Chinese, Japanese and Southeast Asian art each November than anyone, except maybe the most determined collector, can see and certainly more than I know enough about to appreciate. I did not see everything, not nearly. But the outings that meant a lot to me were "Masterpiece's of Chinese Paintings," at the Victoria &Albert Museum and  "Reflecting Nature," a selling exhibition in Cork Street (Mayfair), staged by private dealer Simon Pilling
   The 80 Chinese paintings at the V&A  date from 700 to 1900.  In addition to the pleasure of gazing on their works there is the amazement, yet again, of the sophistication; the vision and accomplishment of Chinese Artists in the 12th and 13th centuries when, by comparison, Europeans were illuminating manuscripts with sometimes vivid and beautiful but comparatively primitive works. Then as the great Italian artists of the Renaissance emerge--Titian, Raphael, Veronese--the Chinese decline and continue to decline until we arrive at the free for all that is 21st art everywhere.  This evidence of such cycles of genius, like those of prosperity and power, is bracing--reassuring and unnerving.

The objects made by 30 year-old SASAKI Gakuto on view in "Reflecting Nature," are 21st century alright but seem outside the free for all that is global contemporary art. The artist, who teaches and works in Tokyo, is on a journey of his own==surreal, humorous and technically prodigious. His pieces-boxes, like those below-- look like the sort of luxury goods you might find at places like Dunhill --if they strayed from the conventional. But pick one up, open the box and the surprise is electric. These are not snakeskin covered leather objects that zip open; they are fabulous lacquer objects. He has applied layer upon layer of lacquer using exquisite control and technique to create in superb detail the look and texture of both reptile skin and metal zips. It is a honey of show...Prices from 3,000 to 5,000 pounds sterling. Covetable.