Hooray! Gilbert & George (‘Two people, one artist’) have opened the Gilbert & George Centre just off Brick Lane and I visited last Friday. ‘The vision was for people to see our work [and] have access to our pictures,’ they say. ‘So if someone arrives in London and loves our art, they’ll be somewhere they can see our pictures and won’t have to wait for our next gallery or museum show’ …
The space, a former brewery complex, has been designed by SIRS Architects in collaboration with the artists. Visitors enter via regal gates sinuously outlining the artists’ initials into a secluded cobbled courtyard evocative of Gilbert & George’s restored Georgian home and studio …
The gate is adorned by King Charles III’s gold-encrusted royal cypher, a testament to their affection for the monarchy …
Inside the courtyard, past the reception area, a beautiful Himalayan magnolia tree leads the way to the exhibition space’s entrance …
The centre is spread over galleries providing 280 sq m of exhibition space, alongside an outdoor video space.
This first show in the venue is called ‘The Paradisical Pictures’ displays Gilbert and George’s interpretations of Heaven …
It features vast photographic screens of leaves and organic products, including figs, roses, dates and leafy greens through which the artists peer or can be seen lolling on benches, either resting or in a swoon.
Here are the images I took on my visit. Trigger warning, be aware that, in typical G&G fashion, some of the titles are provocative!
There is, of course, merchandise you can purchase to commemorate your visit …
If you would like to follow me on Instagram here is the link …
If you get the chance, do visit the Guildhall Art Gallery to see The Big City exhibition. It’s superb, and admission is ‘pay what you can’. The challenge of finding the mice was keeping kids (and adults) very amused during my visit! More about that later.
Here’s my personal selection, starting with City Streets.
Cheapside 10:10 am, 10 February 1970 by Ken Howard (1932-2022)
This picture of Fleet Street in the 1930s is by an unknown artist and has a fascinating back story …
If you look at the characters in the foreground you’ll see that the picture is unfinished. Why is this? The label puts forward a suggestion …
The pedestrian crossing outside Barbican Tube station …
Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee Service 22 June 1897 by Andrew Carrick Gow (1848-1920)
Suffering from severe arthritis and unable to climb the St Paul’s Cathedral steps, the Queen remained in her coach, so the short service of thanksgiving was held outside the building. Some amazing old film footage has survived and you can view it here and here.
This is a more intimate picture of City pageantry and its participants (with some splendid beards on display) …
His most celebrated commission was the official picture of the Coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953. One day, as he was painting the huge canvas, his cat brought a dead fieldmouse into his studio. As a distraction from the task in hand, Cuneo painted a portrait of it. Subsequently, a mouse became his ‘signature’ and can be found in every one of his paintings.
There are actually two mice in the first picture above and one in the second.
They are so tiny you won’t be able to find them using this blog and will have to visit the Gallery. They are very difficult to identify, especially the second one, so to help you I took the following pictures …
Good luck!
At the far end of the gallery, in a space specially designed for it, you will find at the action-packed painting by John Singleton Copley: Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar1782 …
The painting is best viewed from the balcony above
A Spanish attack on Gibraltar was foiled when the Spanish battering ships, also known as floating batteries, were attacked by the British using shot heated up to red hot temperatures (sailors nicknamed them ‘hot potatoes’). Fire spread among the Spanish vessels and, as the battle turned in Britain’s favour, an officer called Roger Curtis set out with gunboats on a brave rescue mission which saved almost 350 people.
Look at the painstaking detail in the faces of the officers and Governor General Augustus Eliot, who is portrayed riding to the edge of the battlements to direct the rescue …
The officers were dispersed after the Gibraltar action and poor Copley had to travel all over Europe to track them down and paint them – a task that took him seven years at considerable expense. He recouped some of his cash in 1791 by exhibiting the picture in a tent in Green Park and charging people a shilling to see it.
Incidentally, just outside the entrance is the lovely little Veterans’ Garden created by the Worshipful Company of Gardeners to support the Lord Mayor’s Big Curry Lunch which takes place today (Thursday 30th March). Read all about it here …
If you would like to follow me on Instagram here is the link …
And various other pieces of work that made me smile …
This drawing high up on a wall looked vaguely familiar …
Then I realised I’d seen a work in the same style in Moor Lane outside the Barbican …
Incidentally, and bizarrely, this ‘crypto heritage’ plaque in Rivington Street celebrates the launch of the cryptocurrency Etherium …
It’s still around if you fancy a risky investment.
This is number 81 Rivington Street …
It displays the coat of arms of the Borough of Shoreditch, More Light – More Power. The twin bodied, single headed lion was taken from the coat of arms of the medieval Lord of the Manor, John de Northampton, second Lord of the Manor of Shoreditch and Lord Mayor of London 1381-1382 …
Adopted in 1900, the motto was inspired by the success of the refuse destructor located where National Centre for Circus Arts is now on Hoxton Square. Responding to the need for street lights, the progressive idea to generate power from refuse was launched in 1897. The energy this generated powered the street lighting across Shoreditch and became a particularly powerful symbol of the progressive Shoreditch policies.
The ‘destructor’ …
Back in Old Street, I admired once more the beautiful civic building that is the old Shoreditch Town Hall which opened in 1866 …
Later in 1904, the extension to the Town Hall included the tower and statue of Lady Progress.
The statue is based on the popular Victorian figure of ‘Hope’, with allusions to both Greek and Norse mythology and uncanny similarities to the Statue of Liberty. Aligning with the symbolic prominence of the refuse destructor and the progression it represented, she is depicted elsewhere in the borough as a beacon of light rising from ashes.
The latin translates as ‘Out of the dust, light and power’.
Old Street Magistrates Court was transformed into a hotel in 2016 (previous temporary visitors included Reggie and Ronnie Kray) …
The eastern half of the building contained a police station …
It included accommodation for a married inspector on the first floor and for 40 single men on the second and third floors. There was a kitchen and mess room along with rooms for storing, drying and brushing clothes and boots. You really could say there was a ‘police presence’ in those days.
The building in 1974 …
On my walk I checked out a few blue plaques. This one is at 333 Old Street …
This one is in Hoxton Square …
Parkinson was the first to describe ‘paralysis agitans’, a condition that would later be renamed after him.
The square also hosts this cutely named cocktail bar …
Walking back home via Tabernacle Street I admired the old street sign for Platina Street …
… along with the metal bollard which has seen a few bumps and scrapes over the years …
If you would like to follow me on Instagram here is the link …
