19 September 2009

Caught out

Thanks, Rhonda, for catching that I'd never actually finished writing the "Lost something" post. It's a "survivor" from long ago, started and then not finished ... because I couldn't remember the name of the artist whose paintings are grids of bright-coloured oblongs with words (usually white paint) - eg 100 musicians, that sort of thing. Ran across one of his works in a magazine and thought, "here's that artist whose name I can never remember - and it's such an easy name too" - of course, I promptly forgot his name again! Not David Wilkie - he was early 19th century - but a name sort of like that ... maybe ...

How to find him? Google randomly? Rack your brain? Go to an art library and look through book after book? (The magazine I saw has been recycled by now. Even if I could remember which it was.)

He might have been a minor YBA ... but none of those names ring a bell ... ah well, it's a mystery!

And now, let's have a random picture or two. "Red sky at night, sailor's delight" - does that apply to clouds as well as sky?
This piece by El Anatsui is in the Africa galleries of the British Museum (which also have one of his big metal pieces) - I like the way the planks of wood are cut at angles, and there's a sort of "floating layer" of pattern imposed by the alternation of black and white. This is a detail - it's hard to get a photo of the whole thing in a dim gallery with reflections on the glass. (But it's great that the BM allows photos of its collection.)

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