Last Saturday I combined a British Bryological Society Council meeting in Manchester with a visit to the newly re-opened
Whitworth Gallery. As an extra bonus I met up with Julie who happened to be in Manchester anyway for Urban Sketchers crawl.
It was interesting to see how they'd combined items from collections with new exhibits and installations. We spent some time poring over the watercolours and in the 'portraits' section trying to guess the artists when there were no information sheets left! Having no labels or numbers did mean it looked great aesthetically but was a bit frustrating when trying to work out who was who. Didn't get to see everything in a couple of hours, it'll be good to make a return trip.
The
Cai Guo-Qiang installation 'Unmanned Nature' , a 45 metre -long four metre high gunpowder drawing on hemp paper was spectacular. They only let a few people in at a time to enjoy the effect of being immersed in the landscape.
The materials used are pivotal to the work of
Cornelia Parker: the bullet drawings of lead wire; the squashed silver-plated objects.
My favourites however were in the section on
'Room for Margins' - canvas linings from various paintings by Turner mounted behind glass. I loved their patina with subtle marks, reminding me of the beauty of backs of stitched textiles, the 'unconscious side'.
In the textile section I was re-acquainted with this quilt by Michele Walker. It caused a huge fuss at the time being made of plastic bags but now it looks quite traditional , apart from the materials used ( the quilting patterns are tyre tracks)
The train journeys there and back were not without incident. On the way there lots of trains were cancelled so the train I was on was delayed and overcrowded ( mainly with Man City fans). The return journey was a'58 mins' late getting into Euston ( magically below the hour where can apply for full refund). I missed out on the eclipse on Friday due to cloud but the orange globe of the sun setting partially made up for it
2 comments:
Looks like a fabulous exhibition! As for the train journey with football fans ... I was once on a similar train, with a very rowdy coach of them - fortunately it ran on time, and at the end of the journey the "thank you for travelling..." announcement went something like this: "We hope you have enjoyed your journey and thank you for travelling with [us] - except for the football fans in Coach E, we sincerely hope you never travel with us again!"
Thank you for sharing your visit to the Whitworth.
Very nice to see the two main exhibits through your eyes.
x
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