Saturday, January 25, 2020

South Kensington museums


It must be - what - 55 years, by my reckoning, since I was last inside the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, despite going to the V&A, next door, almost every time that I'm in London.  Much of it is hyper new tech (and conservation minded; and full of dinosaurs that bring the point home) - but I never consciously took on board the breath-taking magnificence of Waterhouse's design before.  And yes, I know I have research to do in its collections, and this was by way of sniffing out the architectural territory - how could I not have come here over and over again?


Small child about to be savaged by taxidermied swans.



I had, of course, come to go to the V&A - to see Darren Waterhouse's Filthy Lucre, his installation that re-imagines Whistler's Peacock Room, collapsing and decaying under the weight of its own opulence, and also a commentary on the financial rivalry that went into its making and ownership (and I hadn't realised that Whistler himself had destroyed - deliberately - C18th leather panels and so on by painting over them, obliterating The Taste of the Past).  It only opened today, and the installation wasn't quite finished - the sound was only spasmodically working - but it was still impressive and fun, as doubtless anyone who's seen it in the US knows ...








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