Impressions Gallery, Bradford: Paul Reas

It's a great deal that this cute, little gallery is freely open to the public at the shadow of the enormous National Media Museum few metres away (read my review at the previous post). The leaflet produced by the gallery says they are one of the UK's leading independent venues for photography. Although in size, it's probably not leading, visiting the current exhibition makes me to believe the above statement.

Impressions Gallery

 I regret that I don't know a lot about photography as an art (what a shame!) and I regret even more that I didn't hear about Paul Reas previously. He is one of the most significant photographer of the new wave of British colour documentary, emerged in the 1980's. His works reveal the working class in Britain in an utmost different way as before, free of judgements and stigmatization. Some photos observing social characteristics - although taken in the 80's and 90's - still remain valid, which makes this retrospective exhibition very actual.  

I enjoyed the show so much that I promise to educate myself to photography more to be aware of waves and significant artists by the next time I get to a photo exhibition.

Exhibition space

The building itself is located at the main square in Bradford, very close to the train station. It provides space to a small museum (or art) shop and a library.

A very inspiring exhibition, I strongly recommend to photo/art lovers to pay a visit.

Paul Reas: Day Dreaming About The Good Times? exhibition is on display until 8 March, 2014. It's worthwhile to plan a visit to 1 February (Saturday), when 2-3pm Paul Reas will talk about his works - booking is recommended.

National Media Museum, Bradford

I chose to visit Bradford for a different exhibition in the Impressions Gallery but when my friend recommended the National Media Museum that she enjoyed during her visit to the city, I said, why not.

I was well surprised about the scale of this modern museum in this small city in Yorkshire which is - to be fair - not a typical tourist destination. As I later read on a museum leaflet, apparently Bradford is the UNESCO City of Film.

National Media Museum

The museum is massive. The permanent and temporary exhibitions of 8 floors encompass the mix that the concept of "media" covers. I must say, this is the best state-funded museum outside of London that I've visited so far (and I'm very critical here!). And of course the entry is free.

The informative leaflet is a big help in selecting those bits that are the most interesting. We originally chose to see only few parts: the Kodak Gallery, exhibiting about the history of photography; the Games Lounge where visitors can play with awesome old school video games such as Pacman, Prince of Persia and the Animation Gallery explaining about works of famous British and non-British animation studios, types of animation and influence waves.

In the Kodak Gallery

But eventually we also ran through a temporary photo exhibition of local artist, Chris Harrison (which left me a little bit heartbroken), the Magic Factory interactive part, which was a big disappointment in comparison with other museums' similarly aimed section, the Experience TV floor furnished as a television studio, and Life Online which was about the history and inventions of the computer and the Internet and here I could have spent an entire afternoon playing with HTML and Morse.

Life Online exhibition

The whole museum blew me away. It's aimed at the whole family, but for childless adult visitors it also offers a great day of enjoyment. The building is conveniently easily approachable from Bradford train station and is on the main square which I found the most attractive part of the city.

View from the 7th floor

I strongly recommend this museum - if not anything else, this is definitely worth a daytrip to Bradford.

Műcsarnok / Kunsthalle, Budapest: Enthropy of a City

I always enjoy a lot visiting my lovely hometown, Budapest. Apart from the obvious reasons of seeing my family and friends, I'm also deeply enthusiastic about visiting some of the greatest museums the city has to offer. This time I chose an exhibition at Műcsarnok (Kunsthalle) that sounded rather interesting - it showcases video installation works about urban space of the private Julia Stoschek Collection travelling from Duesseldorf, Germany.

Műcsarnok

Műcsarnok is a beautiful building itself, situated at the popular Hősök tere (Hero's Square) neighbouring Budapest's number one art gallery (my opinion), the Szépművészeti Múzeum (Museum of Fine Arts).

The entry fee is still bearable measuring by my UK wallet (equivalent to £6) and for this price I get to see three separate exhibitions: apart from the main there's an artwork of the Indian Shilpa Gupta and a collection related to new art techniques from Duliskovich Bazil in the basement by which I wasn't too impressed.

Hősök tere / Hero's Square

The Entropy of a City displays a number of videos from a selection of international artists around the subject of human interaction into urban space. I was also fascinated by the artworks' arrangement in the huge exhibition space: using tools of minimalism it reflected itself to the subject of the collection.

Many of the exhibiting artists are qualified architects offering a unique view of the subject. My highlights are the works of Gordon Matta-Clark who lived in New York, Tobias Zielony German artist and Cao Fei based in China.

Matta-Clark's videos documented the process of building modification he carried out on houses soon to be demolished. In one of them he cut out conical shapes of a Parisian building's wall (Conical Intersect - Program Seven, 1975). In another he cut out squares from a house creating the shape of the bingo form (Bingo, 1971). I was amazed by the idea of removing the original function of the building (housing, protection from the weather, etc.) and creating a new artistic view in front of audience of occasional passers by.

Artwork arrangement in the space // In the background Matta-Clark's video

I particularly liked Tobias Zielony's The Letter (Der Brief, 2013) video although I didn't see its close fit into the urban space concept - it's rather related to social matters. It documents a report with two prostitutes who talk about an occasion when a client fell in love with their colleague and being rejected he became abusive.

Cao Fei's video, photo and sculpture installation (Whose Utopia, 2006) explore the life of lightbulb factory workers by using Second Life, the popular online game where players create their character to live an imagined life.

Museum interior

 
There's quite a big variety of artistic views and concepts at the exhibition with stronger and weaker works. Some of the videos weren't running at the time of visit (that's a shame!). The information on artists and artworks displayed on the walls are sufficient, unlike in the accompanying leaflet which is rather poor both in content and the English translation.     

All in all, I would recommend visiting this unique collection to art lovers who find interesting land art and urban space concept. Also, it's a great occasion to find out more about contemporary artists linked to a pleasant walk on Andrássy út or in Városliget (City Park).

The exhibition is on display until 23. Feb. 2014.   

FACT, Liverpool: Mark Boulos

I see the FACT in Liverpool pretty much as the sister venue of the Cornerhouse, Manchester I wrote about at my previous post. It's a similarly thriving cultural hub in downtown, the three-story modern design building accommodates a cinema, two gallery spaces and a cosy cafe with an additional exhibition space in the lounge. Its immediate neighbourhood is a busy street, the pair of the main shopping street (which is also nearby), however instead of the big labels it is scattered with charity shops, fair trade stores, ethnic restaurants creating a very pleasant and inclusive atmosphere while approaching the venue. 

FACT @Liverpool

FACT is actually an acronym, it stands for Foundation for Art and Creative Technology.
The lounge provides space to an interesting and indeed unusual project, called Headspace. It's a collaboration between a face-surgeon of the Alder Hey Children’s Hospital and artists taking 3D photos of volunteer visitors head including their smile. These photos then will help the surgery practice to improve the technique of face reconstruction undertaken on patients with face injury. The photos are uploaded on the project website as well. The number of volunteered visitors almost reached 1000 at the time of my visit and the Headspace booth will be open until 1 December. Unfortunately they haven't planned an exhibition with the outcome of the project which is a real shame given the interesting artistic side of the technique.

Cafe at FACT

In its galleries FACT presents a retrospective exhibition of Mark Boulos artist and filmmaker. The whole show contains only 4 works from which two really captured my mind. Both show life sequences in form of interviews with members of two illegal groups on the margin of the society. 

No Permanent Address (2010) tells pieces of stories of the New People's Army (NPA), who are based in the Philippine jungle, fighting with guns against the wealthy in the society. The film is shown with three channels on three screens technique and the interviewees talk about their personal reasons for joining the group considered terrorist. A woman who left her husband and family as a consequence of her decision to serve the cause was especially shocking. Other interviewees talk about rules of the group such as how to act when falling in love with other people inside or outside of the organisation.

The other work, All that is Solid Melts into Air (2008), consists of a footage about the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta and another of the capitalist life symbolized in scenes from the stock exchange at the 2008 credit crunch on an other, opposite screen. Both films show strong emotions around oil from opposite ends of the world. Especially in this sharp contrast, the video of the Niger Delta is percieved as a fully exploited community in devastation.



Both videos are very interesting and somewhat touching as these ethnicities are rarely seen as the objects of art. Although the real curiosity is brought by the position of the artist: being a marxist  filmmaker Boulos openly adds his own standing point to the work instead of trying to depict or observe without opinion.

At the rear of the FACT building there's a small exhibition comprised of a voting machine for visitor use with the question "Does capitalism work for you?" and a footage with short interviews when USA residents give their vote and reasoning for the same question. Actually this work has been on show for longer but now it nicely adds a point to Boulos's exhibition.

Overall there are very interesting projects going on in FACT, the exhibition of contemporary art with up-to-date topic I recommend to anyone visiting Liverpool. The duration of the visit is reasonable as well, perfectly suitable when on a daytrip.     

Mark Boulos's exhibition runs until 21 November.

Cornerhouse, Manchester: Double Idemnity

If I have to name my favourite venue in Manchester, than it's the Cornerhouse. I believe many cities of the world has a similar art-hub, but when I moved to Manchester I was truly blown away.

Cornerhouse @Manchester

Cornerhouse accommodates a cinema with 3 screens, an exhibition space with 3 separate galleries, a cafe downstairs often showcasing photo works, a bookshop selling art albums, poetry magazines and so on, and another cafe-bar to just sit back and chill out. I'm quite a regular visitor of the cinema as this is the only one in Manchester showing European films that I'm fond of, but I also keep an eye on the ever changing exhibition agenda of contemporary artists.

This time I expected a very interesting collection organised around a topic of desire. The artworks are inspired by Billy Wilder's classic film noir, Double Idemnity - the exhibition has the same title. The installations reflect on different characters of the film who represent objects of male desire, desire of youth, bureaucracy, desire for consumption (communication technologies).  I've found this concept a certainly exciting and unusual choice and I hugely regretted I hadn't seen the film.  As rarely I am, I wasn't disappointed this time either - the newly commissioned works on display all add something to the subject in a non-ready-made way. They made me think what they mean to myself and left me with unclear answers - the process and outcome I like in a visit of contemporary exhibition.

The variety of the used media was wide, I especially found a work by Bunny Rogers & Filip Olszewski (Choir) a pleasant surprise that uses the medium of sound - children singing - as a major element of the installation. 
The other exciting surprise work was Anicka Yi's Mutual Glaze that used a fragrance as a centre of the piece thus transcend the border of visual art.

There were video installations that I would have wanted to watch in whole, but unfortunately being too long (around half an hour, up to 1,5 hrs!) I just had a (long) glimpse - and I found other visitors doing the same (or even shorter glimpse). 

I wonder what would have been the experience if I had seen the film before the visit, how much the artists reflected to the film and what would I have noticed of that. However the subject of desire being universal and the focal point of some of the installations very topical, I wasn't short of reference points and could fully enjoy the exhibition.

I certainly recommend this exhibition to anyone who doesn't dislike nor cynical about contemporary art and I suggest to pick up a leaflet, read the short gallery introductions on the walls to understand and enjoy the visit more.

Double Idemnity in the Cornerhouse on display until 5 Jan 2014 (Sunday)

Manchester Art Gallery

Today I went to my new (old) city's art gallery that I had visited few times before. One of the best thing in the UK is that there's free entry to the majority of museums, so budget limits never stop me from checking out new exhibitions.

The museum is just few metres away from Piccadilly Gardens, the heart of Manchester and consists of two buildings actually connected with a glass corridor and hall.

Manchester Art Gallery

Most of the exhibition spaces are used for the display of the permanent collection: British paintings from Victorian times throughout the centuries until modern and contemporary era. The pieces are periodically organised into rooms and the older ones don't raise my interest much with an exception of well-known Bristolian graffiti artist Banksy's work "Love is in the air" hanging totally out of the blue in the Early 19th century room!

(Btw if you are in England, I strongly advise to visit Bristol, home town of Banksy where he started his career. You can see some of his famous works on the streets and anyways it's a very pretty city, loads to see and do.) 

Graffiti in Bristol

The highlight of today's visit is the Radical Figures: Post-war British Figurative Painting exhibition in one of the small rooms used for temporary collections. The works are individually exciting (the absolute favourites are Francis Bacon's painting of the "screaming popes" series and Euan Uglow's "With eyes wide open") and as a selection it manages to showcase the variety of styles, influences and topics of the era. I would have liked to see more paintings of this kind.

Interior of Manchester Art Gallery

The temporary exhibition at the top level is also quite interesting, it's a collection of works around the topic of Britain's transformation from heavy-industrialized country to the domination of the entertainment industry. The story is told through a number of areas, such as family trees of famous singers where we see that all the ancestors were coal miners, blacksmiths or similar, or there was a factory "house rules" on display with conditions that would be considered terribly cruel today. The most shocking pieces were photos of Amazon warehouse with km-long shelves where workers wore machines meant to monitor working speed thus helping efficiency. Also one of the explanation text said the majority of warehouse workers are on zero hours contract. It really made me think about the conditions this post-industrialized state can offer to people and if this is the reason for some retailers' cheap prices, how acceptable is that. 

The exhibition is called All That Is Solid Melts Into Air and is on display until 19 January 2014.

All in all, I can recommend for art lovers to pay a visit to the gallery in their spare time as it's free, but don't expect to be amazed by lot of exciting contemporary artwork or famous paintings - this museum is on a lower scale and the majority of collection is from old times.
 

Introduction of the project

One of my biggest passion is travelling! And the other one is visiting museums. This blog is a joint venture of the two while I'm giving my opinion and suggestion to anyone interested in visiting museums around the world.

I'm going to post reviews of museums and exhibitions I have visited in various cities and countries hoping that my opinion will help blog-readers to choose between museums when on holiday, prompt them to visit the local gallery so far avoided or start discussion with fellow museum hoppers about the experience.

Generally saying, I much prefer art galleries than any other themed museums and within visual arts my very favourites are the contemporary exhibitions. However I enjoyed few science and technology museums a lot, such as Munich's Deutsches Museum or Manchester's Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) - both of them kept me there for almost a whole day!

As a reference, my top picks are:
Reina Sofia, Madrid
Ludwig Museum, Budapest
Caixa Forum, Madrid
Tate Modern, London
Government Art Collection (unique and travelling exhibition, seen it in Leeds Art Gallery)