London and Bath 2014 - Radical Geometry and the Poppies

I have just returned from a trip down south, I had really wanted to see the Kaffe Fassett exhibition in Bath, but it was so expensive to get the train down from Leeds, that it actually worked out cheaper to have a few nights in London and go up to Bath for the day from down there. 

It was also a great excuse to visit the London galleries too.

I got down to London on the Monday around lunchtime, which gave me the afternoon to explore a bit.  The first thing I did was head down to see the poppies at the Tower of London.  They are very special, and a beautiful sight, especially against the backdrop of the Tower.

I headed from there to a small exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, Radical Geometry.  This was a really interesting exhibition, as it was not something I knew a lot about.  It covers Modern Art from South America in the twentieth century.

Artists in the earlier part of the century were influenced by Europe, artists were very political, such as the Marxists of Argentina, and wanted to liberate art from the traditional.  They experimented with composition, and no longer wanted to think of art as something within a frame, but that could be any shape you wanted it to be. 

Technology was also advancing at this time, and in Brazil it was a machine-aesthetic that came through in the work.  Mathematical principles and the psychologists theory of Gestalt was used to create the work of what were known as the Concrete artists.

There were a number of pieces of 3D art, creating visual interest, along with the discovery of the shadows, which become a work of art in themselves behind the pieces. 

There is a wonderful piece in the centre of the room called Nylon Cube from 1990 by Jesus Soto.  Long pieces of nylon thread hang down to create a cube shape, which seems to shimmer as you walk around it.

The highlight of the exhibition was the final room, which showed the work of Carlos Crus-Diez called Physichromie No. 500 from 1970.  This is an amazing piece of art created using Perspex coloured strips which stand out from the canvas at different heights.  As you walk along next to the artwork it changes as the different colours come into view, it is beautiful and magical.