So many things catch my eye when I am walking or googling or reading a blog about what to do in London. My new system is just to enter it all into a day in my calendar and review as they pop up. I have had a bit of a system, red means I paid ( and this came in handy today because I knew I had a paid event, wasn’t sure for what, so I did a deep dive and eventually found tickets for a tour of Design Week Highlights which I missed anyway) or at a minimum have a reservation. Purple is for NY and then there is the miscellaneous orange which is, for now, interesting things I need to look into. And thats what the Frieze Art was. 2 words that I had written down for some reason at some time.
When I got to googling I found it was a temporary sculpture exhibit tied to a large art expo and that the works were on show for just a few weeks. With this information, I moved the event to a weekend day so we wouldn’t miss it. And I am so glad that at the end of what was just a sit at home day Brad dragged me out to see what it was about. And I got a bit of a tour of Regents Park to boot.
There are many things I can say that I love about London. One of them is the gates. There is no sparing in the lavishness. And the parks with there vast open lawns and beautifully tended gardens, well, its just so … pleasant. The Queens Garden was truly lovely and we wandered and took pictures and watched people sitting and playing and enjoying their day.
We actually had been to the area before when we visited on Open Garden Squares Weekend but we hadn’t been in this park that I can remember . It was a bit strange that it seemed in order to go from one section of the park to the next you were sent back onto a roadway instead of garden paths, maybe that was just us.
you can sort of see that there are no pathways from Queen Mary’s Garden to where the Frieze sculptures were.
So what did we see and was it worth it? Well, we saw a lot and enjoyed a few and as with everything, what makes it worthwhile? We enjoyed and we aren’t art critics but I need to say that some of it left me questioning why I am not a world renowned artist? Couldn’t I do some of this if I was motivated by being selected to do it.
Usagi Kannon II, Leiko Ikemura 
Celloswarm, Bill Woodrow
The Hatchling, Joanna Rajkowska 
these seven above really don’t do it for me…
and here, above, Barry Flanigan’s ‘Composition’, 2008 is another that I cannot understand. His work appears all over, and for this installation he set an old piece… I just don’t get it, hopefully one day I will. If only for a personal sense of not feeling this lost confusion that I experience so often when coming into contact with art. The explanation given “…combine wit and gravitas and constructing lightness against weight”… yeah? So?
Bridges (We are Melting), Ivan Argote
From the website ELEPHANT – “Nostalgia and memories of childhood are something many of the sculptures share: Robert Indiana’s numbers are just numbers but they also recall the number of different houses he’d lived in as a child (twenty). Tom Sachs reconstructs storybook character My Melody, at three-metres-high. Vik Muniz has made a full-size reproduction of a 1973 Jaguar E-type Matchbox toy car…”
But yes, it was a fun day. Its always fun to see something new (as long as it’s not awful), its always a good time to look up at the tops of the buildings, to wander a new street and see what you can see.
This day we had one lovely rooftop, one new bit of fun street art, a few beautiful flowers and found The William Harvey House along with a bit more art in our heads.
The William Harvey House? Well, it was right there at the end of the street. They have a medicinal garden that is open to the public though you need to ask for entry around the corner. We didn’t, but one day maybe we will. So much to do and see and never enough time.