We’ve just returned from “Leonardo: Experience a Masterpiece” at the National Gallery. We are huge fans of this bedrock of the British museum scene. One of the things we like a lot about it is that the standing collection with all the masterpieces is free. This usually includes Leonardo’s Virgin of the Rocks. So why, you might ask, would anyone in their right mind pay an exorbitant £20 per person (we paid £10 using our National Art Pass) to see something that they can normally see for free? £20 to see one single painting? If the standing collection charged admission at the same rate, then the tickets would be £5,000 a pop. What?!! Well, the idea is that you pay for an immersive experience, kind of get into Leonardo’s head and the heads of the people that discovered this painting’s secrets. Fifteen years after a hidden drawing beneath Leonardo’s Virgin […]
Selfie to Self-Expression – Saatchi Gallery – our Review
We’ve just returned from a visit to this fabulous exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery. According to its brochure, “From Selfie to Self-Expression” is “the world’s first exhibition exploring the history of the selfie from the old masters to the present day, and celebrates the creative potential of a form of expression often derided for its inanity”. The first room shows self-portraits of Rembrandt, Edvard Munch, Picasso, Matisse and many of the other greats on i-Phone shaped large electronic displays with actual i-Phones to their bottom right-hand side, showing the Greats’ made-up Instagram profiles with 34,146 likes on the Picasso selfie, and so on. Hilarious. The whole things spreads over three floors, and it gets even better, the further you progress through the many rooms filled with exhibits. We were particularly fond of the exhibit in Gallery 3: “Hello World! […]