Yesterday I took both children up to the South Bank to meet up with my family and visit a gallery. South Bank is such a great place to visit, there is always plenty to do even on a wet and windy Thursday in January!
We were able to spend hours just looking around South Bank and it's amazing Brutalist architecture and installed tactile artwork...
The main purpose of the visit though was the Hayward gallery. We went up to the free part first to look around and watch some cartoons and an interesting video about the architecture on the screens they have up there...
Then we went into the paid exhibition, Light Show, a study of light from various artists. Unfortunately we were disappointed when before we had even got inside the woman checking our tickets said "I hope you understand that the children mustn't run about or touch anything". It seemed like they were being pre-judged! There were a couple more occasions inside where guards commented on what they should or shouldn't do when they were doing nothing wrong!
In fact they enjoyed the exhibition and Povey kept hold of the pamphlet and was talking through the names of each piece. Povey particularly liked Ceal Floyer's "throw" showing a splat of light on the ground and Conrad Shawcross's "Slow Arc inside a Cube IV" which had a light rotating inside a mesh box and casting moving grid-like shadows on the walls... although it made the rest of us feel a bit nauseous! Papaya's favourites were; Anthony McCall's "You and I, Horizontal" (partly because she managed to entertain a whole room of people demonstrating how she could use the light to make it appear like she was disappearing underwater!) and her other favourite was one of the few that we were allowed to photograph, Ivan Navarro's "Reality Show" where we had to queue to take it in turns to stand inside a mirrored box.
In fact she liked that one so much she queued a second time, this time taking these amazing photos from the inside...
It was a very interesting exhibition and the children got a lot from it, despite the over-officious staff!
We came back out to find more amazing light as dusk settled on the South Bank, the lights came on, and it became even more beautiful!
I love the South Bank! I used to work up at the BFI so have fond memories. I suspect we'll be heading back there a lot. There is a children's festival called "Imagine" taking place there in a few weeks time so we'll be back for that at least.
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