I have been to most of the Barbican exhibitions over the last ten years and I have to say that I found the works by Beatriz González now on display have been some of the most affecting …
The Guardian reviewer wrote as follows: The art of Beatriz González is drenched in light, strong colour and blood. Her sprawling, uneven retrospective reflects the turbulent politics and violence of her native Colombia, and the breadth of a body of work that addressed art history and popular culture, provincialism and universality. At times she is as biting as a cartoonist, depicting generals as a row of anonymous blank-faced parrots. “I did not want to be a lady who paints,” she once said. Born in the provincial town of Bucaramanga in 1932, González died this January in Bogotá, shortly before the current exhibition travelled to the Barbican from the Pinacoteca in São Paolo. She was 93.
I am going to post some of my images from the exhibition here. The Guardian reviewer describes González’s work as compelling and that is certainly the case.
Los Papagayos (The Parrots) 1987 …
The exhibition closes on Sunday 10 May 2026.
Some recent images of mine.
I’ve been out and about at dusk again …
A blue sky for a change …
The Hi-Viz jacket team meet up at the end of the day at 2 Aldermanbury …
Silhouettes …
Brake light reflections …
‘It’s pouring rain so we’re having a lie-in’ …
St Paul’s Cathedral on a sunny day – what could be more beautiful?
Combination – spire, dome, plane and golden pineapple …
This time with a bird in flight …
The Phoenix and Resurgam – ‘I shall rise again’ …
At Bunhill Burial Ground …
The Silk Street flower bed cheers me up every day. Planting in October last year …
Yesterday …
Final reminder …
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I can’t understand why I hadn’t come across the Post Building before, but I have now and could hardly wait to share my experience with you.
Located in Holborn, it definitely comes under the heading of ‘hidden gems’ but one’s first challenge is finding the entrance – I walked past it twice. The address is 29–31 New Oxford Street WC1A 1BA but the signage, to say the least, does not exactly stand out. Here’s a very helpful image about location from Katie Wignall’s excellent blog …
It’s free to go up to the building’s roof garden any time Monday to Friday between 10am and 4pm. You can’t prebook — just stroll in and speak to the receptionist. You’ll need to sign in, read a set of rules, go through a security screen and show a form of ID, but it’s quick and painless, and worth the reward. The weather was really poor when I visited so occasionally I will be using images from other blogs which I shall credit at the end of this edition.
As you exit the lift on the ninth floor, the view over to Bloomsbury and Fitzrovia opens up in front of you …
Directly ahead is the very odd steeple of St George’s Bloomsbury, made famous in Hogarth’s etching of Gin Lane. It’s based on one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World — the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus — and is topped by a statue of George I …
Gin Lane, 1751, with the steeple in the background …
Behind it is the green dome of the British Museum …
It’s surrounded by the glass cushion of its Great Court, which looks like this from the inside …
The London Eye, the Houses of Parliament and a glimpse of Big Ben …
The Shell Centre and the facade of the Royal Opera House. The Crystal Palace Transmitting Station antenna is in the distance to the left of the London Eye …
Looking east – such a shame it was a miserable cloudy day …
You can see all the way to Canary Wharf – St Paul’s just about holds its own against the 21st century City. Say a prayer of thanks to the enlightened planners who insisted on protected views …
Barbican towers line up …
Typical Victorian mansion flats …
Incidentally, walking down Bloomsbury Way and heading for the Post Building, I had to admire the fact that the Victorians took the trouble to create a decorative brick pattern for the side of this building …
The number of chimneys speak of a coal fire in every room.
The BT Tower has been bought by an American hotel group. I hope they reopen the revolving restaurant …
You can find the Tower’s story along with some great images here.
Parts of the Post Building roof garden …
The deveolpment has been described as ‘a radical transformation of a 1960s Royal Mail sorting office into a modern, mixed-use commercial space, completed by AHMM architects. Originally, the site served as a major, partly derelict, postal hub, also connected to the underground Mail Rail network. The redevelopment now houses offices, retail, and public spaces’.
Built in 1911 and covering over 6 miles under London, the Mail Rail worked 22 hours a day shuttling letters and parcels 70ft below the city. You can read more about it here and walk through the former tunnels here.
In the entrance for the rooftop there’s a map of the Mail Rail with the former station circled …
But there’s an even cooler addition in the entrance lobby. A surviving spiral chute which eased the heavy lifting on staff and made the process more efficient!
I loved the colour …
On the wall is an infographic explaining the process of sorting letters and parcels …
The Barbican is now presenting Encounters: Giacometti x Lynda Benglis, the third and final in a series of three exhibitions organised in collaboration with the Fondation Giacometti, Paris. Subtitled Back at Ya, the exhibition features a never before exhibited body of works by Lynda Benglis (b. 1941, Lake Charles, Louisiana) and historic works by Alberto Giacometti (b.1901-1966, Borgonovo, Switzerland), and will be a highlight of the Barbican’s Spring 2026 season.
I visited last Friday and was absolutely entranced by Benglis’s work, which I had never encountered before, so I enthusiastically recommend you come to see the exhibition too. You can find more detail here.
There follows some of the images I took but I suggest you first read a couple of reviews in order to give them context. Here’s a piece from the Pace Galleries and here’s one from East End Review.
There is a useful free guide to all the exhibits …
Here are some if the images I took. The first two are Giacometti’s Woman with Chariot, 1943-45 …
The Broadgate area near Liverpool Street has been substantially redeveloped so I popped in again for the first time in years to see if one of my favourite sculptures was still there. And hooray, it still is, and much more sympathetically sited than the last time I visited. Here it is, Leaping Hare on Crescent and Bell by Barry Flanagan (1941-2009) …
Barry tragically died from motor neurone disease at the age of 68. You can find a nice obituary from The Guardian newspaper here.
I came across the This Grief Thing pop up shop in the Barbican Centre last Saturday …
It’s in the Centre again this Saturday, 21st, and Sunday 22nd. You can read more on their website here.
Tower 42 went romantic on St Valentine’s Day …
Finally, little yellow flowers always cheer me up when the weather is miserable …
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