ART Tours with a Theme - ART wiT

Hello this is Roby from ART Tours with a Theme and this is my weekly commentary on art and architecture in the news.

In this blog I discuss about the closure again of museums and galleries in this lockdown 2 or red area, depending where you are based, even if some shops can remain open. Museums had to close regardless the extraordinary safety measures in place over the Summer, when they could reopen. I strongly disagree with this situation and I think they should have been allowed to remain open. I also want to suggest a couple of fantastic museum’s and gallery’s websites that still facilitate our art experience even if online, making it a full experience, almost if we were at their premises.

In saying I disagree with the decision of closing museums in this phase, I want to report my experience. During the Summer, after the first lockdown, I visited the re-opened National Gallery, the British Museum, Tate Modern and I have never felt safer: masks were compulsory, visitors were limited per hour-slot, slots had to be booked in advance online, and there was a visitor’s route to allow for social distancing. I have also visited few private commercial galleries in Mayfair, where similar rules applied and where it happened I was the only visitor! Usually  commercial galleries have very few visitors in general, so where’s the problem? I do not see the point in closing museums and galleries, especially because art experience can help with our mental health.

I want here to point out what those museums and galleries have been doing online to facilitate our art encounter at the moment. The idea is not just just gazing at a painting, rather engaging with it, thinking around the themes and topics it represents.

For example, I suggest go to tate.org.uk – there is a section called “art by theme”, which by the way inspired the name of my tour organisation! In this art by theme section, you can find very relevant themes today, for example Black Identities and Art. This section investigates how black history has been represented by white artists in the past and how instead contemporaneous black artists are suggesting to represent it. Another topic is Women and Art, which gives voice to women artists and their point of view. But you can also find a topic like Wellbeing and Art, Disability and Art, etc. All very interesting and engaging!

Another suggestion from me is to enjoy the free online virtual reality tours many museums and galleries are offering. For example, go to Nationalgallery.org.uk, and enjoy their permanent collection from your sofa!

Private commercial galleries can also offer great free exhibitions in VR. Go to  GalleriesNow.net, an online magazine around global exhibitions, and sign up to the free weekly newsletter. You will receive the links to a number of global exhibitions, in London, Paris, in NY, with the VR link. All very handy!

I hope online art experience can help navigate this new lockdown, keep safe!

That’s all for this weekly blog! All my audio podcasts are available on 8 platforms under “Art Tours with a Theme”: including Apple Podcast, Google Podcast and Spotify. All my video-podcasts are in Instagram @artwit_london, Facebook: @artwitlondon.

Thank you for listening and share this blog with your friends! Bye!

Hello and welcome to my weekly video-podcast on art & architecture in the news.

One of the recent news is about Sean Connery and this blog is a tribute to his amazing career via the posters of his films. Are film posters art? Well, to me they are. Not only they are widely collected, but those images represent the context and the prevailing culture in society in those years. Think of the Bond girls, perhaps they can tell us something on the role of women in society and how it has evolved over time. All my video-blogs are in Instagram @artwit_london, Facebook: @artwitlondon.

From 1962 to 1983 Sean Connery acted in 7 films as James Bond. Check out the film posters! In all of them Bond is represented as a masculine heterosexual character surrounded by a number of girls, all gazing at him, with him only looking at us. They are all extremely attractive and attracted by him. They are little dressed, at his feet and dimensionally smaller than Bond.  They look like in ecstasy, enraptured by him and somehow controlled. Characters are drawn, rather than photographed and on a yellow, white or black background. This lack of context gives a cartoon-like dimension, as if outside reality, fruit of imagination. Was really the case? Were women in those years treated differently in society?

Over time the same pattern repeats itself and for over 20 years the role of those girls remains the same: either vampire cat women to fight or good girls to protect. They seem loosers, manoeuvred by men, who remain the ultimate decision makers.

If we look at the non-Bond movies of the same years, we finally see fully dressed female characters, drawn with the same height/ dimension as the character represented by Connery. Still something not right comes out: in Robin and Marian of 1976, the wonderful Audrey Hepburn, is a good girl who needs protection. In the same year, the poster for The Next Man, shows finally a woman with independent life, but the 2 big faces of that woman with the male character in profile ensure the usual pattern of man-controlling women.

We need to wait until the 1990’s to see some change. In Medicine Man, actress Lorraine Bracco almost towers over Sean Connery and in The Avengers and Entrapment both Uma Thurman and Catherine Zeta Jones vindicate the past Bond girls with an attitude of self-determination. All well, until the poster of the final film before Sean Connery’s retirement in 2003, The League of the Extraordinary Gentleman. The only girl is prominent more for her cleavage than her actions. Ops!

But all those films are fun for, aren’t they? Reality is different, isn’t it?..

Goodbye Sean Connery, the Extraordinary Gentleman!

Hello and welcome to my weekly video-podcast on art & architecture in the news.

The news of this week is about a Banksy painting called "Show me the Monet", created in 2005, which has been recently sold at auction for more than double its estimated valuation.

It is ironic, as the title Show me the Monet! plays with the wording ‘show me the money’, and money has indeed been shown.

It represents an interpretation of the Water Lilies series by Monet, where the pond here becomes a polluted canal, with abandoned shopping trolleys and orange traffic cones.

This exercise by an artist who reproduces somebody else’s art is called “art appropriation”, and this is our topic of the day. “Art appropriation”, is when art comes after other art already produced, which is used as inspiration and starting idea, and then adapted for other purposes and different messages. This is not plagiarism, as although the original artwork is clearly mentioned, it is not identically reproduced. This is something European artists have been doing for centuries.

Could the Banksy painting exist without the original idea by Monet? Can this interpretation by Banksy be considered a tribute to Monet? Or has instead Banksy used the Water Lilies in an opportunistic way, just because he needed a famous painting to capture our attention? After all he needed just a pond, but he chose the most famous pond of the world. Was that to channel through a famous artwork his anti- capitalistic message against consumerism?

My view is that not only he needed to denounce we are polluting and destroying nature, but perhaps he wanted to denounce we are destroying art itself, including the masters of the past, with an art market that only looks at money and not at Monet, the beauty and the values it represents!

There are countless examples of art appropriation, for example the Rembrandt’s self portrait, with a striking pose borrowed from Titian’s unknown man. This use of art appropriation was an emulation, a tribute, a key technique in Europe from the Renaissance in 1300 to the second part of 1800’s. It was a way of learning a previous method, and creating an artist’s own style as a reply, as interpretation, of previous works.

In other cases art appropriation had a fun connotation on top of a way to learn the past better. For example Picasso interpreted Manet's "Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe", which is itself a playful, mocking restaging of Titian's (or maybe Giorgione's) Concert Champêtre.

More recently, we are witnessing playful photo recreations of iconic paintings as lockdown pastime. But this has also been done as remake by famous photographers who interrogate the power of images in our era, where we are bombarded by internet images without their original context,  appearing as all the same, wi

What is your favourite image? What does it communicate to you? Which famous and iconic painting would you buy as a replica for your home? Let me know your thoughts!

This is Roby, from ART Tours with a Theme – ART wiT. I hope you enjoyed this podcast!

This video is on FB and IGTV. The audio podcast is available on 7 platforms under “Art Tours with a Theme”: including Google Podcast and Spotify.

Thank you for listening and share this blog with your friends! Bye!

Hello and welcome to my weekly video-podcast on art & architecture in the news.

Big changes are happening this year in the way museums and artists are awarded in the UK. Usually there is one winner, taking the biggest cash pot, with shortlisted museums or artists getting a much smaller prize. This year, in response to the huge challenges and financial pressures currently facing by artists and museums, awards are made bigger with public and private funds and are equally split. This helps each brilliant shortlisted artist or museum to keep on pursuing exceptional projects and inspiration for communities.

Few months ago, the Turner Prize by Tate, usually recognizing the best British artist each year, was converted into 10 smaller bursaries and to international artists. The recent news is that the prestigious Museum of the Year by the ArtFund, the biggest museum prize in the world, has also followed this approach. The award pot has doubled to £200,000 and has been equally split among 5 British museums. The winners are the South London Gallery and the Science Museum in London, the Towner Gallery in Eastbourne, the Aberdeen Art Gallery and the Gairloch Museum in Scotland. Congratulations!

Remember that most British museums and galleries are free, therefore desperately needing public funds. The selected Museums have demonstrated ability to offer their audience and communities " inspiration, reflection and joy ". Apart from the very established Science Gallery in South Kensington, the other 4 awarded museums are less known.

For example, the South London Gallery is in Peckham, a very mixed area, off the beaten track of mass tourism. It is located in a Victorian building, part of the London College of the Arts, and education and connection are embedded its heritage. The ArtFund jury said it has delivered “ an exciting programme of exhibitions and educational events (as usual all free), expanding its size by converting a former Fire Station nearby. It’s mainly about contemporary art, but made accessible and with extremely interesting events or all audiences, not to mention the nice bookstore and café. I really like this museum, but it would hard choice for me to say which one is my favourite!

Could museums be inspired by those models? I remember very boring museums in my Italian childwood and I hope the Museum of the Year Award can provide a model in other countries on how to engage all audiences.

What is your favourite museum? How can it make you feel more part of public memories? Let me know your thoughts!

This is Roby, from ART Tours with a Theme – ART wiT. I hope you enjoyed this podcast!

This video is on FB and IGTV. The audio podcast is available on 7 platforms under “Art Tours with a Theme”: including Google Podcast and Spotify.

Thank you for listening and share this blog with your friends! Bye!

**Weekly Commentary - A weekly blog and podcast on art & architecture in the news**.
Hello and welcome!

The news we comment on today is about looted art and repatriation. The Victoria and Albert Museum in London, is in talks over returning looted Ethiopian treasures to their home country, where they were taken from more than 150 years ago.

This is one of the most recent news on the very controversial topic of looted art in periods of war, colonisation and archeological expedition: should looted art be returned to its country of origin and to its public and private owners?

Looting has always been a consequence of war since ancient times, thousands of years ago. For example, looting took place during the Napoleonic Wars in 1803-1815, the Nazi expansion in 1930’s and WWII, the Iraq War in 2003-2011, to name a few. A lot of European and US museums are filled with looted artefacts and treasures more and more they are the centre of harsh legal fights. One of the toughest of those legal battles is around the Parthenon Marbles, removed in 1801 from Athens and now in the British Museum.

What is new today is that countries and collectors who are reclaiming those artefacts back, are being listened and agreements restitution are taking place. However, a lot of legal issues seem unresolved: keeping something for a long period can give ownership, it is called “usucaption”. Does that apply? where does art property begin, what is private and public property in this field?

Another open question is when looted treasures have become listed and protected by the UNESCO: once those artworks are transferred back to their home countries, who ensures and pays for best preservation, restoration and storage?

Each case is different. The British Museums has already returned more than 2,000 objects looted during the Iraq War and helped with the reconstruction of the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul. The Victoria and Albert Museum is giving back the Ethiopian artefacts and this is part of a bigger research project by the museum on the provenance of its permanent collection, aiming to “decolonise” it, to share with the public a more honest conversation about history and colonisation.

This is all very interesting and I look forward to learning more.

This is Roby, from ART Tours with a Theme – ART wiT. I hope you enjoyed this podcast! This video is on FB and IGTV. The audio podcast is available on 7 platforms under “Art Tours with a Theme”: including Google Podcast and Spotify.

Thank you for listening and share this blog with your friends! Bye!

Hello and welcome to my weekly podcast on art & architecture in the news. The video can be seen in my Instagram and FB pages.

Today we talk about architecture and the winner of the prestigious annual RIBA Royal Gold Medal, the Ghanaian-British Sir David Adjave. Congratulations!

David Adjave was knighted Sir in 2017, and listed in the 100 most influential people by TIME magazine that year. His firm Adjave Architects has completed more than 70 projects worldwide, from private houses to major public buildings.

What is the award about? Why is it important?

RIBA is the Royal Institute of British Architects and the award has a long tradition that goes back to 1848! The Royal Gold Medal is awarded in recognition of a substantial contribution to international architecture and for a distinguished body of work rather than for one building. Some winners of the past include the masters of Modernism such as Frank Lloyd Wright (1941), Le Corbusier (1953), Walter Gropius (1956) and Mies van der Rohe (1959) and the star-architects of post-Modernism such as Renzo Piano (1989) and Zaha Hadid (2016), among others. It also included writers and historians of architecture, engineers and archeologists! Winning this prize is a major achievement, especially at 51 years old, considered a young age in the architectural industry!

At the core of Adjave’s vision is the experience the human body has inside the buildings, the creative and transformative relationship between the human body, society and the world. He calls this approach to design “inside-out”, where a sequence of spaces “unfold cinematically” to facilitate this relashionship.

Other key components of the architect’s vision are natural light, collaboration between art & architecture, sustainability and community engagement.

The largest project so far is the National Museum of African American History & Culture in Washington DC. In offering a black African-American experience, it introduces a “different language” than traditional US museums, typically in white stone and marble. Outside, the volumes are clad in thousands of bronze coloured cast-aluminium panels, with patterns inspired by African-American craftsmanship. Inside, visitors are guided on and historical and emotional journey with vast spaces and natural light.

Another large innovative project is the Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO (2010). Moscow’s weather can be very harsh and a big and dispersed university campus can be a very disruptive and isolating experience for students. Adjave wants to “prioritise student interaction and reflection” and designed the school’s facilities as a single building, but made by different geometrical volumes.

It is located on an idyllic wooden valley like any campus in the world, but it is perceived and lived very differently. Outside, the appearance changes dramatically depending on the direction which it is seen, giving a sense of dynamism and forward-looking teaching approach. Inside, spaces are well connected giving students a sense of belonging.

In London you can see public and private projects, mainly in Shoreditch and Hackney, such as Rivington Place , Idea Store, Mole House , Sunken House, among others. Let’s go and explore!

This is Roby, from ART Tours with a Theme – ART wiT. I hope you enjoyed this podcast!

This video is on FB and IGTV. The podcast (audio recording) is available on 7 platforms under “Art Tours with a Theme”: including Google Podcast and Spotify.

Thank you for listening and share this blog with your friends! Bye!

Hello and welcome to my weekly video-podcast on art & architecture in the news.

Today we talk about a Botticelli painting, Young Man Holding a Roundel, which will appear on auction in New York in January 2021. It is considered one of the greatest Renaissance portraits in private hands and it is one of the few surviving artworks by Botticelli (Florence, 1445-1510) and one of his finest portraits. The auction is estimated to fetch more than 80mil dollars or 63mil pounds, one of the highest values at auction for an Old Master.

I would like to provoke a discussion and I have a couple of proposals to the auction house.

The first one is related to the value of the masterpiece. Why just 80mil? Perhaps it is a conservative figure, to me it should be valued more and for a number of reasons:

• This is a timeless masterpiece - It represents all the humanist values embedded in Renaissance, which could be still our values today. Its lack of background and context allows the painting to be a timeless artwork, highlighting the centrality of the humans in creating their own future.
• Moreover, It does not deserve to be valued significantly less than Leonardo - I understand 80mil dollars is a similar value reached at auction by other portraits by Van Gogh and Klimt, but it is still significantly lower than the Salvator Mundi by Leonardo, which reached 450 mil dollars! So perhaps 80 mil is a conservative figure, it should be higher
• The third reason why it should be valued more is a bounty -, 80 mil is unfortunately the same gruesome figure which, back in January this year 2020 was put as a bounty by a country of the Middle East offered for the head of the current President of the United States. Could the Florentine ‘s head have more value than a president’s head?

My first proposal is to the auction house is therefore to raise the valuation.

My second proposal is to include a clause to the auction. The buyer must 

• allow live streaming all year round and
• allow free public viewing for at least 6 months a year in a bespoke and ad hoc structure. 

Would that make sense to you? I hope any decision will allow for the artwork to be visible, as it has been so far in public galleries, loaned by the current seller.

What would you suggest to the auction house? A higher valuation and public viewing are just two of the possible suggestion. Let me know your thoughts!

This is Roby, from ART Tours with a Theme – ART wiT. Thank you for listening and share this blog with your friends!

This video is on FB and IGTV. The podcast (audio recording) is available on 7 platforms under “Art Tours with a Theme”:, including Google Podcast and Spotify.

Enjoy Botticelli, good bye!

Hello and welcome to my weekly short commentary on art & architecture in the news.

Today we talk about the current difficult times galleries and museums are facing due to Covid, with lack of visitors and consequent restructuring plans. The news is that the Royal Academy of Arts in London may be forced to sell part of its permanent art collection to survive, including a Michelangelo! It is very uncommon for an European institution to sell its collection, which is part of its heritage and identity.  The permanent collection has two functions: to preserve the artwork to the highest standard and to make it available to the audience. After the sale there is no guarantee on the quality of preservation and the artwork can be lost forever.

If you were the director of the RA, would you sell the Michelangelo to help your institution?

We are talking of the so-called “Taddei Tondo”, the Virgin and Child with the Infant St John, the only artwork by Michelangelo in Great Britain. It was made in Florence in the first part of 1500, commissioned by the wealthy merchant Taddeo Taddei for his home. It is an example of sacred art for private consumption and not for a church.

How did it arrive in the Great Britain? It was acquired by the British collector Sir Beaumont in Rome in 1822 and then donated to RA after his death in 1830.

It is a marble relief circular composition, which was a common shape in Italian Renaissance’s art. However, a number of elements make this artwork special: the geometrical composition itself, made by diagonals of the bodies and of the eyes direction, the twisted body of the baby Jesus, the incredibly detailed dress and hair, and the softness quality of the fabric in Mary’s dress. This is one of the unfinished works by M. who soon left Florence for Rome. It is possible he left part of his sacred art works unfinished intentionally, to convey the sense of mystery around the subject.

It is sad the RA may be forced to sell it and we wish its board all the best for the difficult decision. Could perhaps the Royals who already support the RA, and that’s why it is called Royal, help the institution at all for this challenging decision?

And you? What would you suggest to the Royal Academy? Let me know your thoughts!

This is Roby, from ART Tours with a Theme – ART wiT.

This video is on FB and IGTV. The podcast (audio recording) is available on 7 platforms under “Art Tours with a Theme”: Anchor, Breaker, Google Podcast, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Radio Public, Spotify Podcast.

Thank you for listening and share this blog with your friends!

CREDITS - Music: Sergio Camassa, Photos: Royal Academy of Arts.

Hello and welcome to my weekly podcast, a short commentary on art & architecture in the news.

Today we talk about residential architecture, how our homes could change in a post-pandemic world. The news is that companies are preparing plans to keep employees working from home longer than anticipated and possibly in a permanent way. As a result, developers and architects are rethinking houses, to become flexible working hubs.  What is the best environment for home and work?

This blog revisits a 1950’s utopian project called the "House of the Future" , which could possibly become our new working hub! It was a temporary installation for the Daily Mail Ideal Home Exhibition in London in 1956, by architects and married couple Alison (1928-1993) and Peter Smithson (1923-2003).

The Smithson’s were part of a group of artists and architects in the post-war UK called the ‘New Brutalist” or Independent Group, together with Eduardo Paolozzi (1924-2005) and Nigel Henderson (1917-1985). They were asking themselves the same question we are asking today: what is a house, what is a home, what should it have different from the past, how can it cater for the need of a world after a crisis (the war at that time, the pandemic today)?

The project House of the Future is a post-apocalyptic utopia, protecting its residents from any external shock. It shows a self contained circular space, a modern high tech flat with an open air courtyard in the middle, as residents spend more time at home than outdoors. The flat includes is a self-cleaning and sanitation entrance area, which resonates to today’s world. And all surfaces are made by a sanitised material, a kind of plastic!

Living inside is a cosy experience: almost everything is easy to reach, has a curvy shape, including walls, and the space to walk and move through is very fluid. The inhabitant’s clothes are futuristic, fashionable and hygienic, they could contain a moth and dust repellent. The external light comes in through irregular windows, to protect privacy. All suggests that spending a lot of time indoors is a pleasant experience.

There is a lot of humour in this house, could it be a good idea for the post-pandemic world of the future?

And what about your home, how are you rethinking your space? Let me know your thoughts!

This is Roby, from ART Tours with a Theme, thank you for listening and share this blog with your friends!

Today we talk about Richard Rogers, one Britain’s greatest living architects. The news is that at 87 years old he has announced his retirement from the company he founded more than 40 years ago. This blog is a tribute to his amazing work!

To me, Rogers is famous for two reasons. Firstly, his architectural vision, called inside-out, for which his company won many awards over time. Secondly his influence on public policy in regards to urban design. He was was advisor to the mayor of London and wrote a manifesto he calls “urban renaissance”.

Let’s talk about his buildings now. For example the Centre Pompidou in Paris, which a museum for contemporary art, and in London, in the City, the Lloyd’s, which is an insurance broker, and more recently the Cheesegrater, a multi company building. These buildings are designed with a façade that shows pipes, lifts, and all the infrastructure that is usually hidden inside. This design is called inside-out and was revolutionary back in 1970’s when it was firstly introduced in Paris.

The ambition was to make buildings lighter and more flexible, to minimise indoor structure while maximising space and light,. The design reduces energy and pressure on the natural environment, while at the same time playing with technology.

When I ask my tour guests what does the Lloyd’s building look like, the answers are quite diverse and funny. Built in 1986, it has a stainless steel façade, round towers, external and transparent lifts. The clash with the 700 years old Leadenhall Market nearby is striking. I was suggested it looks like a refinery, a brewery, a coffee machine, a strange residential condominium, a space shuttle, an alien ship. But nobody in the tour guesses it is an insurance broker, a financial company founded in London 300 years ago. Some people love it, some others hate it. It quite extraordinary that after 30 years it still provokes a strong reaction!

The Cheesegrater, built in 2014 is the evolution of the inside-out style. Services are again shuffled to one side to free up floorspace and lifts create an animated “ballet” on the façade”, as the Guardian newspaper calls it.

Roger’s commitment to the environment has been at the core of each project, including airport terminals in Madrid and Heathrow in London. He wanted to create pleasurable, fun, comfortable, socially and economically sustainable places where people wanted to be, rather than to quickly walk through.

So thanks to Richard Rogers for having enriched our city experience!

Should you want to see the Lloyd’s and the Cheesegrater, the closest underground station is Bank. But why not joining one my City tours? These buildings are part of my tour Explore the London Giants. Please check details and how to book in my website artwitlondon.co.uk.

I hope you enjoyed my podcast, and if you like it, please share it with your friends. Thank you for listening! Bye!

Hello and welcome to my weekly podcast, a 5 minutes commentary on art & architecture in the news. My name is Roby and this is Art Tours with a Theme – ART wiT, where we explore art and architecture in London and in the world.

Today we discuss about religious art in museums. How to best enjoy it? For many reasons this art cannot be displayed in the churches or other sites it was meant to be. The news is that director of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence would like to return part of the religious art the gallery has to the churches from which it was removed and never returned. The removal took place in 1940’s and during WWII to protect art against potential damages. Or it has been removed because the original location was destroyed. So technically it still belongs to the religious institution.

The director of the Uffizi feels sacred can only be fully appreciated in its original context. It was not meant to be art as we mean it today, but it had devotional and spiritual significance only a church can provide. As an example, the director of the Uffizi is suggesting to give the “Madonna Rucellai”, painted by Duccio more than 700 hundreds years ago in 1285, back to the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, from which it was removed in 1948.

This is opening up an interesting debate and I would like to hear your thoughts. Can sacred, religious art be appreciated in a museum? How many times did you look at a Madonna painting or a religious sculpture in a museum? Did you have religious feelings? Perhaps you have admired the artist’s technical skills and the beauty of the forms, but struggled to connect with the religious message. Instead if you enter a church and see a Madonna then you may feel something more profound. This means the context for sacred art could be as important as the art itself. It provides the necessary environment to give this art back its spiritual significance.

What is sacred art, what was it used for? In the Christian world, sacred art was typically commissioned by religious organizations and placed inside a church. It would have been instrumental to better explain the religious message in times where literacy was low and people could not read the Bible. It was also instrumental to show the Church’s power and wealth. And finally it had a devotional purpose, so a church is the main context.

But there are examples where religious art was not meant to be in a church. For example, art with biblical themes was in the past also commissioned by wealthy individuals, patrons who were trying to ensure their final salvation or they simply wanted to have a devotional image at home, in their palazzo.  Maybe this form of sacred art can still be appreciated in museums.

Also in Italy you can find sacred art placed outdoors, up at the corners of simple residential houses. Religious images in terracotta were at some point produced in series by dedicated workshops, they were not expensive, they were bought by normal people and placed outdoors, meant to bless and protect the house inhabitants, the street passers-by, as in those times plagues and wars were quite common. In this case sacred art cannot maybe be placed back, as the original context is very different today.

And what about sacred art in non-Christian religions? Can they be fully appreciated in museums and what was their original context?

Following last week podcast, what is a museum, I ask again this question today. What is a museum when religious art is involved? Is religious art more powerful than secular art? Does it always need to inspire a spiritual feeling?

Let me know your thoughts, get in touch in my in FB and Instagram! This is Robi from Art Tours with a Theme, I hope you enjoyed my podcast, and if you like it, please share it with your friends. Thank you for listening and go to see religious art! Bye!

Hello and welcome to the third episode of my weekly pod-cast, a commentary on art&architecture in the news.  

Today we talk about a piece of news from an Italian museum, but relevant for any museum in the world. A visitor damaged a statue, sitting on it for a selfie, breaking the artwork's foot and leaving it without few toes! This looks quite ridiculous, but instead it's dramatic, opening questions such as: how do we look at art? What is our responsibility in visiting a museum? To what extent museums should allow visitors to interact with artwork?

The museum in the news is dedicated to the master of Neoclassicism, the sculptor Antonio Canova, lived between the second half of 1700 up to 1822. He was the preferred artist of Napoleon who hired him several times to portray himself and his family. The damaged artwork was made 1805-1808 and it is actually the plaster of the white marble sculpture portraying Napoleon's sister, Paolina, completely naked on a reclining sofa-chair and represented as Venus, the Greek goddess of beauty. The statue was commissioned to Canova by Paolina’s husband, the Roman Camillo Borghese, for their marriage, and it was meant to be placed in their Roman mansion Palazzo Borghese, which is now a museum where the statue can be still seen today. So the statue is in Rome in Palazzo Borghese, the damaged plaster is in the Canova museum in North Italy, the Veneto region, where Canova was from.

The audience of the statue was meant to be private, the Borghese family as well as their visitors and there was a rotating mechanism hidden in the sculpture, allowing it to be seen from different perspectives. The plaster instead, was meant to remain with the artist, that’s why it is in the Canova museum.

The sculpture is so well done, as it is its plaster, and so realistic, that maybe Paolina’s chair looked comfortable to the tourist who decided to sit on it…..but instead sat on Paolina's foot! Ooch!

What should museums do to protect art? How can visitors be educated? To me it should be a broad and ongoing conversation between all parties - museums, schools, media, travel agencies, you name it! We need to educate visitors to love and respect art since childhood.

Any thoughts? share your opinions on my FB page, (artwitlondon) or Instagram artwit_london.  This is Robi from Art Tours with a Theme, I hope you enjoyed my podcast, follow me on Spotify, Google Podcast and other platforms and share my podcast with your friends. Thank you for listening. Bye!

Hello and welcome to my weekly pod-cast, a commentary on art&architecture in the news. 

Today I want to talk about architecture, popular buildings in London that are considered controversial. Think well, is there any building you would like to throw down, to bulldoze? A popular online magazine has recently run a survey, asking its London readers which buildings they consider so ugly to be bulldozed. As a result, 11 London buildings came up in that list, part are for residential use, part business and part for leisure and cultural activities. 

I am not surprised the list of the most hated buildings includes some residential condominiums of the 1950s-60s, typically designed under the British Modernist style called Brutalism, which made extensive use of raw concrete. People may hate them because they are very different from the idealised and traditional sub-urban houses, but also because over time their appearance has deteriorated a lot, as maintenance has not been run properly nor efficiently.

The most surprising buildings in the list to me are actually others. They have an important role in our economy and culture, and have all become important touristic attractions, so why bulldozing them?

The first one is Tate Modern, one of the biggest art museums in the world. It should not be bulldozed, but rather be preserved and for different reasons. Built after the second world war as a power station by the star architect Sir Gilbert Scott, it represents a great example of post-war industrial architecture. It should also be preserved because it is an extraordinary architectural conversion from factory-industrial structure as found, in red bricks and geometric shapes, to art and cultural space, by Swiss architects Herzon & de Meuron. Finally, it should be preserved for the experience it offers, more than how it looks outdoors, which is proving very successful. Let’s remember that since it opened as a museum exactly 20 years ago, it has attracted more than 40 million visitors, becoming one of the top three tourist attractions in the UK, and generating about £100 million per year. Let’s keep it!

Other two iconic buildings in the list of the ugly ones, should also be preserved, for the extraordinary innovative shapes and building technology they introduced The first one is the Shard is designed by top architect Renzo Piano few years ago and opened in 2013. With its 310 mt hight and its unusual glassy pyramidal shape, it reflects and plays with the light, blending in more that its dimensions and shape initially suggest. Its mixed use of office, hotel, bars, apartments, could evolve over time and, why not, maybe it could well host a museum one day. The second building is the Gherkin, designed by the star architect Foster and Partners and oned in 2004. Today, its 180mt height is not shocking any more, and instead we are still impressed by its innovative technology, where the flat glass panels it is made of are assembled to give a curved shape.

Finally the list includes the Prime Minister’s residential home, 10 Downing street. This is the most surprising building in the list, in my opinion: my question is where is the ugliness?. It is a typical Georgian house which London is full of, designed 1680’s by Sir Christopher Wren about 20 years after the London Great Fire. Wren is the same architect of St Paul’s Cathedral and I am not sure why 10 Downing St is a hated building. Maybe people confused the house with its residents, the Prime Ministers who have been living there since 1735 and perhaps the people who answered this survey do not like the house as a proxy for its current resident!!

Today I want to talk about Banksy, the graffiti artist whose real identity is kept secret! He usually makes use of stencils to quickly create his un-commissioned artwork on public spaces, and runs away before people and police realize. Then he publishes a photo of that graffiti online on his social media, which then becomes a virtual exhibition gallery space. The difference with the real space where the graffiti is made is that on social media we loose the context, the dimensions, and the personal experience.

What he has recently done, is to share his latest graffiti, which was made in a carriage of the London underground, through a video, rather than a photo, where instead of just showing the graffiti itself, it is the action of creating it that also matters. To me that is an interesting evolution of his style, do you agree?

In the video we see the artist completely covered and masked as a cleaner getting in a carriage of the London underground with few travellers around, and spraying the carriage walls, creating a graffiti representing his typical characters, the rats, wearing a face mask, taking inspiration by the Covid safety rules on public transport, where a face mask is required. And all this in front of few surprised travellers. It is reported that real cleaners of the underground washed away the graffiti, now retrospectively valued £7.5mil, even before it was made public on social media by the artist.

I have mixed feelings about this artwork. On one side I understand there is an element of fun: a masked artist, in a masked compliant environment, a quickly –created graffiti with masked rats, cleaned even more quickly by professional cleaners, I guess wearing a mask too. But apart from this element of fun, I have mixed feelings on the artwork itself.

For example: who’s the audience the artist wants to target, and what is the reaction he wants for the audience to have? And what is the actual art message? There were only few people in the carriage, so I assume the audience is meant to be online. However, I like in-person art experiences, I prefer to see art in its context, rather than online. In regards to the message, why do we need Banksy to remind ourselves to wear a mask? So honestly I am not sure his artistic message is actually relevant. But perhaps you have a different view.

Get in touch with me on my FB page, (artwitlondon) or Instagram artwit_london, to share your thoughts This is Robi from Art Tours with a Theme, I hope you enjoyed my podcast. Thank you for listening and be tuned for next Monday. Bye!