Commissioned by Artangel, the British non-profits arts organization supported by the Arts Council of England, fashion curator for the Victoria and Albert Museum Judith Clark and psychoanalyst Adam Phillips together have created a psychological look at clothing in their new exhibition, The Concise Dictionary of Dress. The exhibition “re-describes clothing in terms of anxiety, wish and desire, as a ... Read More »
Tag Archives: London
Art + Travel + WALL-E
The 2008 Disney film WALL-E became an instant classic with it’s incredible computer animation and tender story of a heroic robot. During the closing credits of the movie, art history buffs were treated to a special surprise, a historical time-line of the world’s art with WALL-E and friends incorporated as the main feature. The credits are a smorgasbord of ... Read More »
Remembering Malcolm McLaren
Music lost a pioneering force today with the death of Malcolm McLaren, the British musician, promoter and manager most famous as the mastermind behind the Sex Pistols. A life-long Londoner, McLaren got his start with a little shop called SEX along with partner Vivienne Westwood. Located in the fashionable Chelsea neighborhood, SEX (later Seditionaries) became the official HQ of ... Read More »
The Wizarding World of Harry Potter and Real-Life Hogwart’s Locations
So, it was not without some measure of child-like excitement that we flipped through the recently released shots of the soon-to-open Wizarding World of Harry Potter attraction at the Universal Orlando Resort in Florida. There’s just something about J.K. Rowling’s creation—the books, the movies, the toy wands—that turns even skeptical muggle adults into wide-eyed kiddies. Certainly, the pictures of ... Read More »
Life On London’s Docks: “The Rime of the Modern Mariner”
For eons, Britain has lived and died by the sea. Cut off from mainland Europe by the English channel and from the West by the Atlantic Ocean, the sea has been both a treasure trove for the Brits, supplying them with food, trade roots, and, more recently, oil, while providing them with a strategic moat that defended them from ... Read More »
Birds on A Wire, Japan’s Penis Festival, and An Abstract Artist Battle Royale
At London’s Barbican, zebra finches play guitar for the pleasure of museum goers—play “Freebird”, dudes! (Guardian UK) Only 33 years after its last use, France has opened a museum dedicated to their favorite method of capital punishment, the guillotine. (Guardian) If you’re liable to blush or giggle at the sight of giant wooden weewees and whowhodillys, you ... Read More »
BA Gets Naughty, Ebert in London, and Zoolander Returns
The posters for this year’s Baftas remind us that despite all our advances in digital manipulation and focus groups, marketing was just better 40 years ago. (/Film) Thom Yorke and Flea’s new superband, Atoms for Peace, hits the road. (Brooklyn Vegan) Roger Ebert reminisces about the years he lived in London’s soon-to-be-replaced Jermyn Hotel. (Guardian UK) ... Read More »
Carnaby Street Celebrates 50 Years of Suiting Swinging London With Photo Exhibit
Looking for something a bit more flash than what Savile Row or the High Street had to offer, a few fashion-forward Londoners began to frequent a warren of stores and corners called Carnaby Street in that city’s SoHo district in the late 1950s. The loud prints, loose ankles, military surplus, and other bits of flair offered by retailers like ... Read More »