Symbolic Forest

We jaunted off to London the other day, for the “Pop Life” exhibition at Tate Modern. I would link to details; but, well, it closed on Sunday, so you can’t go and see it now. The subtitle was “Art In A Material World” and the concept was to review artists who have embraced commerciality over the past 40 years or so, starting with Warhol and taking things on from there. It followed two strands that Warhol pioneered: on the one hand, the commercialisation of art; on the other, the objectification of the artist. From there it moves on through, on the one hand, Keith Haring, Emin & Lucas, Damien Hirst and Takashi Murakami; on the other, Martin Kippenberger, Jeff Koons, Cosey Fanni Tutti and Andrea Fraser.

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Keyword noise: Andrea Turner, Andy Warhol, art, Art In A Material World, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Damien Hirst, exhibition, Jeff Koons, Keith Haring, London, objectification, Pop Life, show, Takashi Murakami, Tate Modern.

It is, according to Venue magazine, possibly “the biggest cultural event of the decade”. With it only having a few weeks left to run, we finally made it along to the ever-busy Banksy retrospective at Bristol Museum.

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Keyword noise: art, Banksy, Bristol, Bristol Museum, exhibition, gallery, Hartcliffe, Jon Kay, museums, Robin Gunningham.

Something else that got done in London the other weekend: we popped along to the Serpentine Gallery, to see the Jeff Koons show that’s on there at the moment. His first major show in Britain, apparently; his first major show in a 20-odd year career.

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Keyword noise: art, chains, exhibition, fetish, gallery, inflatable, Jeff Koons, London, sculpture, Serpentine Gallery, Waldemar Januszczak.