Here’s my pick of three things to do this week- the Pop Art exhibition at the Barbican, Sarah Lucas at the Whitechapel Gallery and a film about Harpers Bazaar and Vogue Editor-in-Chief Diana Vreeland. Enjoy!
STOP
What: Pop Art Design
Where: Barbican, London
When: Until February 9
Brash, colourful and playful, Pop Art burst onto the scene in the 1950s, shaping a new sense of cultural identity, with a focus on celebrity, mass production and advertising. The Barbican’s latest exhibition brings together around 200 works by over 70 artists and designers, including Richard Hamilton, Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol, as well as objects by Charles and Ray Eames and Ettore Sottsass.
All images © Gar Powell-Evans.
What: Sarah Lucas: Situation Absolute Beach Man Rubble
Where: Whitechapel Gallery, London
When: Until December 15
The bawdy euphemisms, repressed truths, erotic delights and sculptural possibilities of the sexual body lie at the heart of Sarah Lucas’s work. She first came to prominence in the 1990s with a show at London’s City Racing memorably titled, Penis Nailed to a Board. Her work consists of stained mattresses, sofas and chairs, which act as plinths for ‘bodies’, as well as series of self portraits, most memorably one which pictures the artist with two fried eggs on her chest. This exhibition takes us from Lucas’s 1990s’ foray into the perversities of British tabloid journalism to the London premiere of her sinuous, light reflecting bronzes.
LISTEN
What: Diana Vreeland: The Eye has to Travel
Where: RIBA, London
When: November 5
Next week’s Film Nights with the RIBA and Disegno magazine shows a film about the editor-in-chief of Harpers Bazaar and Vogue, Diana Vreeland. During her fifty year reign as the “Empress of Fashion” she launched the career of Twiggy, advised Jackie Onassis and established countless trends that remain part of popular culture until today. This documentary won the fashion category in the Design Museum’s Designs of the Year this year.
