Tomilola Adefioye: Exhibition visits: 4/9/13

I visited the Victoria & Albert Museum to see the Memory Palace exhibition as well as the Illustration Awards 2013, The Art of Remembering and Making it up: Photographic Fictions. Afterwards I went to see the 2013 Pavillion in Hyde park.

Memory Palace

'Memory Palace brings together a new work of fiction by the author Hari Kunzru with 20 original commissions from leading graphic designers, illustrators and typographers to create a multidimensional story'.

http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/exhibitions/exhibition-sky-arts-ignition-memory-palace/about-the-exhibition/

(The brief notes I made during the exhibition)

Overall, I thought the Memory Palace was a great experience. It wasn't what I was anticipating which is good as it exceeded my expectations. I liked the way the story line blurred the boundaries between real life and fantasy. It felt like a merge of modern day and pre-industrialisation. On the one hand the diversity of the work made it stronger aesthetically but on the other hand because there were so many different styles at times it was confusing and didn't flow. I think that was the aim nevertheless- not to confuse but to express the same ideas in different formats. I definitely had to be very observant in order to pick up on things that weren't immediately obvious.

Illustration Awards

George Butler
'Syria: the point of no return'

These pieces were the strongest illustrations in my opinion because they are real. They feature real people. The artist didn't control the variables in these images. He managed to bring something beautiful out of Syria in the midst of chaos. His drawing style is very simplistic yet detailed at the same time, he is selective. The power these illustrations hold are that they give an honest insight. The media outlets show what they want and are arguably biased but the artist seems to have no ulterior motives behind his work.

The Art of Remembering

Making it up: Photographic Fictions

Xing Danwen (born 1967)

Urban fiction, No.23, 2005

'The building in the photograph is a sales model for a new development. The artist digitally inserts herself into the image, adopting different personae and creating an unsettling narrative. The series Urban Fiction expresses the artist's feelings about urban life in China today, which she feels can be lonely, psychologically isolating and unreal'

This was my favourite piece of photography in this exhibition simply because it shows that things are not always as perfect as they seem. Anyone looking at the image would immediately think "Wow I wish I lived there" (or something to that effect) but this goes to show that all that glitters isn't gold and you can't have it all.

Serpentine Gallery

Pavillion 2013: Sou Fujimoto

"It is a really fundamental question how architecture is different from nature, or how architecture could be part of nature, or how they could be merged...what are the boundaries between nature and artificial things." Sou Fujimoto

http://www.serpentinegallery.org/2013/02/sou_fujimoto_to_design_serpentine_gallery_pavilion_2013.html

In order to gather a greater understanding I decided to look at previous Pavillions. I think Fujimoto's approach is very original/ different in comparison to the previous designs. The feature of an open roof gives it an edge as it blends more with its settings. However if i'm honest my favourite out of the 3 i've looked at has to be the 2012 Pavillion designed by Herzog & De Meuron because of the roof which has a mirror and reflects the sky.