Bianca's creative corner

Hervorgehoben

Bianca’s Creative Corner – What is it good for?

Hey there! No matter whether you were looking for this page or you came across it by mistake – welcome!

Who am I and what am I doing here:
My name is Bianca and I study English linguistics at the LMU. As I have to do a stay abroad for at least eight weeks I decided to create my own project. And here I am writing a blog about the Arts in London.
But why did I choose Art as the topic of my blog? The answer is pretty simple: I have been interested in art (does not matter whether painting, architecture and many more) since I was a little girl. I loved drawing and painting – what I still do! Having a look at the work of different artists from different places and times is an inspiration and very pleasing for the eye.
Long story short: Because I decided not to study something creative, I tried to include it somehow in my studies as I do now: An English blog about a creative topic.

The plan:
I will explore the artistic side of London during the next eight weeks. There will be two blog posts per week (at least, I hope so). My aim is not to provide professional art criticism, but I will try to give you my personal impression of the value and representation of the Arts here. Just consider it as Bianca – the art-lover – shares her impressions and her adventure in London with the public. From general consumer of the Arts to general consumer.
HAVE FUN!

Galleries, Galleries, Galleries part1

It’s been more than seven weeks now in London and I have seen a lot. Within the last two weeks I have visited some galleries and I will introtduce them to you within the next days. Some of the galleries were so small that it only took me one hour to go through the whole building which will leed to a quickguide through London’s galleries. But enough talking… Let’s start with the reason you are here: Further galleries in London!

Camden Arts Centre
The Camden Arts Centre is a very small gallery which is located in the London Borough of Camden. The day I vistited this area, it was raining cats and dogs, so I was looking for a place where it was cozy and dry. This led me to the gallery and it was worth the visit. It is a contemporary gallery which is exhibiting changing artists.

One artist whose works can be currently found in the gallery is Wong Ping. It is hard to describe his style because he kinda created an artistic style by himself which is working with digital and sculptural elements. His works include deeper levels which criticise society, repression and morality. Sometimes he includes sexually explicit content which might appear weird for some viewers… Just have a look by yourself:

One artist I admire from now on is Elisabeth Murray. Her works are abstract and refuse the two-dimensional restrictions. She is a „Out-of-the-box-thinker“ and uses a lot of techniques when creating her works. When I was looking at her works I was trying to refer each work to a realistic object. Sometimes it was pretty easy but for some of them I still cannot find a reference.

TO BE CONTINUED 😉

Street Art 2

Change of plans: As many of you were interested in the topic of last week’s post, I will go on and write a little more about street art.

If you have a closer look at the pictures from last week, you can see that all of them were painted on huge walls. This is the case because the scene has clear rules. One of them is: The better the artist the bigger his/her canvas in the public. This shows that a clear hierarchy exists… But who decides? The judges are the viewers themselves – you, me, everybody! Social Media plays an important role here. If an artist gets reposted a lot and gets linked in man posts he/she rises in the “food chain”.

This does not mean that only well-known artists can paint in the public. Everybody can become a street artist but they must start with small scales and work themselves to the top. It is important to keep in mind that noone can just pick a wall and paint there. An artist must get the allowance from the owner of a building. If someone does it without permission, it is an illegal action.

Speaking of illegal: It is often the case that finished and approved works get vandalised by illegal painters or sprayers. Even though it does not look nice, the artists are aware of the fact that their works do not last forever. The exposure to the general public leads to such destructions and changings of the original piece.
Yesterday I revisited the area and found a fitting example for this case:

Street Art – The street is your canvas

Colourful, creative and multifaceted – that is what the streets of East End are like. This particular area is full of street art which enables you to go on street art safari there.

But… before telling you what I found, I want to quickly explain to you what street art is: It is important to draw a sharp line between graffiti and street art. Graffitis are all those stylised letters we know from old brick walls. It is somehow the root of street art, which is a artform to express ideas in pictures. The goal of all these works are to „talk“ to everybody in the street and to make us think about certain topics. The artists want us to open up our minds and ask questions.

Most artists and also those, that I will show you now, have an artistic background. No matter whether as graphic designer, tattoo artist or illustrator. What attracted my attention was that if you look closely at the artworks, you can extract a typical style from every artists. This enables you to detect other works from the artist. One example are two pictures by akajimmyc. If you have a closer look at those two works, you can see that both consist of dots or little spalshes.

akajimmyc
akajimmyc

Another conspicuous style got created by an artist known as MrSense. He is known for his futuristic portraits of woman. The templates he uses are photos from magazine covers.

MrSense

FRIEZE SCULPTURE

The exhibition FRIEZE SCULPTURE is a temporary exhibition in the English Gardens of the Regent’s Park. I did not know about this and came across it by mistake but I am glad I did so.

To be more precise: The exhibition takes place from July 3^rd to October 6^th. It presents works from well-known artists around the world. From England to Japan – from Germany to the USA. All artists expressed their own message through their work which leads to a colourful mixture of messages shapes and styles. If you want to know more about the work, you can scan a QR code that opens a free audio guide.

This project by Clare Lilley, who selected the works, shows again that people try to make art available for everybody. No matter where you are, you can experience art from all over the world, even if you are only going on a walk in the park.

The Value of Art

It’s been a few days since I have posted my last update… Sorry for that! But let’s come to a more postive topic! Today I want to tell something about the value of art in London:

Now, after more than 3 weeks I have visited a lot of artistic institutions and also talked to some artists who sell their work on the street. But few days ago I talked to one person that really gave me a great insight into the value of art in England. He was a young man who put up a small stand on the street. There was also a sign which contained the text: „Free Art Social Experiment!“. Next to it he displayed beautiful prints of his work and a small bowl for voluntary donations.
So – Generally you could take a piece for free but you had the possibility to suporrt him with a small donation. I went to him and asked him what his goal is and why he is doing that and his answer was beautiful.

The goal of his project is to make art accessible for everyone and especially children. They often do not have a lot of money to spend on art so he decided to create this project. People can give an amount of money that they think it is worth and how much they can afford to spend on art. The reason he started this project was that art influenced him in his life in a positive way and he wants to share this with other people.

Generally, I have the feeling that art has a higher value in England than it has in Germany. Art is much easier to access because museums are most times for free and also such people as the artist I met contribute to stronger presence of art in everyday life.

In the end I also took one piece of his but how much I donated will stay a secret 😉

Built Art – Modern Architecture in London

London is a city that will never be finished. It tells a story from the past present and future because it combines many different architectural styles . What impressed me the most are the modern buildings which were mostly constructed after 2000. Especially two districts represent these the best, which I will show you now:

Canary Wharf
Canary Wharf, or also known as the business district, is characterised by huuuuge skyscrapers. Those are the home of an incredible number of well-known banks like HSBC, J.P. Morgan and many, many more. Around 105,000 people work here and most of them in finances. It seems to me as if the architects battled each other by trying to build the most impressive building. True to the motto „THE BIGGER THE BETTER“! Even though it cannot be found in the city centre but in the very east of London, it still is an important part of the city and highly representative.

The Gherkin (the building on the left hand side)

City Centre
The district that might be better known, is the city centre. Here you can find the typical skyscrapers that are often on wallpapers, skyline drawings and so on. What surprised my was the fact that there is no clean/clear cut between the modern buildings and the historical ones. All buildings are embedded and somehow interconnected which leaves you with a very harmonic view.
The building I liked most was the famous Gherkin. I stood there like 15 minutes and took pictures of it from different angles. The highest of them all is the Shard which was build in 2014. It is 306 meters high and therefore the tallest building in europe (but soon not the tallest in the EU ;))! I could talk about every single one of them but that would take a lot of my and your time. So just have a look at the gallery because pictures say more than words! See you!

Modern Museums: TATE in London

As it was raining cats and dogs today in London, I visited the Tate Modern. It is a humongous Modern Art museum right next to the river Thames.
The first thing that strikes the eye when visiting a English museum is that there are no cash points in most museums. I do not know how this is handled in your country but in Germany we do not know something like „FREE entry“. In the Tate you can leave a donation but it is up to you how much you can afford and what it is worth for you.

But let’s come to the main topic:
I really loved spending time in this museum. It is full of international art pieces and it covers a huge range. From the small artists whose names noone knows to the big great artists which even „anti-art-people“ know about. If you do not like contemporary art you are wrong here but I can only recomend you visiting this place. I will not try to summarize the content of the gallery in a professional and sophisticated way but rather show you my highlights and give you an overall impression of the place.

Installations: Haegue Yang
She created a huge installation made of aluminium venetian blinds. It somehow is a litte bit interactive because you can have a look at it from various angles and take fancy pictures ;). What I liked most about this piece is that she worked with a simple and everyday-item and created something such an extraordinary piece.

Sol LeWitt Upside Down – Structure with Three Towers, Expanded 23 Times, Split in Three 2015

Litographs: Ed Ruscha
I haven’t heared from this artist before but now I am a huge fan of his work. He is playing with different techniques such as prints, new shapes of the canvas and much more. Many of his pieces connected a picture and text which do not have anything semantically in common but still it is harmonic.

Bliss Bucket 2010, Sponge Puddle 2015, Jet Baby 2011, Wall Rocket 2013
Litographs printed in colour

3. Popular Artists
Last but not least I would like to come to the famous artists. I was smiling like a child that has foud a jar of Nutella when I recognised some pieces I studied at school (feeeeeeeeew years ago). Long story short: You can find art works from one of the most known Pop Art artists on the whole planet and no it is not Warhol but Roy Lichtenstein. Another piece I was starring at was a piece by Duchamp. It is THE representative piece for ready-mades.

What is ART?

This title might sound very theoretical and yes, somehow it is the case. But I think it is important to explain you my understanding of art so that we work on a common basis. In other words this post depicts what I consider art and what will follow during the next weeks.

After spending some time here in London I have seen a lot what could be considered as art. I think we agree on the fact that classical art like paintings and sculptures created by artists are without a doubt art. But is that it? I do not think so. I prefer putting this whole topic into a more abstract context. Art is about representantation and it does not matter whether it is the representation of the artists themselves, of a social circumstance or a certain place.
This leads to the fact that architecture, installations, photography or even spraypainted trafficlights can be considered as art. I think as long as there is an intention from the artist and a reaction from the viewer, things can or should be considered art.

I would like to end this post with a very fitting quote by a well-known painter from the USA:

Filling a space in a beautiful way. That’s what art means to me.
– Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986)

P.S.: The good thing about this quote is that beauty is a very subjective thing which makes the topic even more exciting. How would you define art? Can you relate to this quote?