Summer edition

Is it over yet?

I’m sorry for the extended summer hiatus - school holidays are looonnnggg. Plus I’ve also been weighing up a bit of a new direction for Art Advice with even more added value…more on that soon. In the meantime, here’s some of the relevant bits of what I did on my summer holidays.

Art

V&A East opened at the end of May, to rapturous acclaim. I went with an 11 year old, and we both loved it. For the uninitiated, it is essentially an invitation to explore the V&A’s storage site, its vast holdings stacked high on shelving across three floors, all of which are visible via a central atrium. It’s a behind the scenes look at how museums function beyond the blockbuster exhibitions, the traditional displays, the education programmes, and all the formality that can be typical of the normal museum experience. In a word, it’s fun.

Maybe the fun lies in the chaos of the experience - one minute you’re looking at a contemporary road sign, the next you’re staring up at the 16th Century Torrijos ceiling. Hanging down the atrium are facades from Robin Hood Gardens, the Brutalist estate built in 1972 in East London, and now being demolished as part of redevelopment of the area. There’s a lot of furniture, modernist, and, er, older. There are several recreated spaces - Frank Lloyd Wright’s Kaufmann office is particularly elegant, as is the functionality of the Frankfurt kitchen, one of 10,000 designed by Grette Schutte-Lihotzky in the 1920’s. As well as exploring these historical spaces, you’re also offered a view into the contemporary life of being a museum, with various conservation spaces on full display to the public.