Tuesday, November 09, 2010

At The V & A Museum


The main Victoria and Albert Museum is so huge that it's very difficult to finish everything in a day if you wish to linger over each gallery.

I love their permanent exhibits, and also their changing focus of the seasons. The Aunts have said that they would check out the ticketed exhibitions with me. So I'll wait to do that with them.

Today, I had 2 hours before the museum closed. I quickly strolled through the other corridors and again stared at the sculptures and tomb covers and tombstones. There's just too much gold and silver in the galleries that they're blinding. Eeeeps. I can't imagine how complicated and how much of a ritual everything is back in the 16th and 17th centuries, from clothes to dining. Ugh.

There's a current space themed 'Inspired by...' that puts together an annual competition showcase of contemporary works done by arts students who've seen something at V & A Museums and are inspired by them to create their own. I stopped and grinned at an artwork in this 2010 entry made by Andrew Graves-Johnston which enlists "fusing, slumping and casting" to create the glass pieces. It's titled "The Ghosts of Peter Townshend's Guitars".

I like this piece very much. You need to know the showmanship of Peter Townshend to understand the humor behind this piece. Then you need to be able to appreciate the maniacal fury in his music to see the beauty in chaos and destruction, and the push factors defining that era of Britpop. :)

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