Gift Horse, a bronze sculpture by Hans Haacke, has recently been installed on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square. The larger-than-life-sized skeleton has a live feed of the London stock market running on a ribbon tied to its leg. The sharp commentary of this piece may not be noticed by all passersby but I do hope they stop […]
Places
Frank Stella sculpture in Royal Academy courtyard
It was quite a surprise to see this sculpture, “Inflated Star and Wooden Star” by Frank Stella in the Royal Academy of Arts courtyard on my way to the Rubens exhibition the other day. I had no idea it was by him till I looked at the sign. The man is 78 and still producing […]
Proof that Spring is here
The coming of Spring is a perennial delight, the sight of new life lifting the spirits. On one of my recent forays outside London we visited Evenley Wood, a charming woodland plantation created by Timothy Whiteley where drifts of over 80 varieties of snowdrop dominate at this time of the year. Cyclamen, crocuses and aconites are […]
Visiting The Mondrian Hotel London
The recently opened Mondrian in Sea Containers House used to be a pretty ugly building. It has now been adapted to resemble a modern cruise liner moored by the Thames. The interior design was by Tom Dixon so you can see his products everywhere. I’d only been to the top-floor Rumpus Room before, so was […]
Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris
I made a point of visiting the Fondation Louis Vuitton during my last trip to Paris, mainly to see the Olafur Eliasson exhibition, Contact, which is on till 23rd February. We were somewhat taken aback to find that the queue to get in was 1 1/2 hours long so, as we didn’t have time for […]
Arthur Beale – the yacht chandlery for London
Perhaps, like me, you have passed this shop in Covent Garden and never gone in. I’d always see Arthur Beale from the bus or my bike and wondered how it happened to be there. As I needed to source some rope for a project I finally visited and was charmed by what I found. In existence […]