A Different Kind of Take-Away

Bob played soccer again today, down in Wimbledon, so while he was running around in shorts on this cold afternoon, I did some urban running around of my own, but with my winter coat and scarf to keep me cosy. My first stop was at Rivington Place, the first newly built, publicly funded art space to open in London since the Hayward Gallery opened in 1968. The building makes a rather enormous modern statement amongst its old, brick neighbours on narrow Rivington Street:

Although the exhibition spaces are expansive, the inaugural exhibit, London Is the Place for Me, seemed somewhat lacking in content, and also suffered from a bit of careless setup. In spite of this, I'm interested to see what direction the gallery takes with its mandate to focus on culturally diverse arts, and its close proximity to home practically ensures a return visit. After a quick peek into the adjoining café, I headed to my next destination, St. Pancras station. After last night's festivities outside the station, I decided to head inside to have a look at the much-touted renovation. While the lower level is still rather empty and boarded up, with signs proclaiming the names of shops that have yet to open, the platform level is busy with people--many of whom were taking photos (so much so that an increasingly exasperated man made repeated station-wide announcements that flash photography is not allowed on the platform level). The powder blue of the station roof served as a nice replacement for blue sky on this overcast day:

Two statues can be found in the station, fairly close to one another near the Eurostar platforms:

The first is of John Betjeman, who was paramount in saving St. Pancras from demolition in the 1960s. Two concentric rings of calligraphy line the base of the sculpture. The innermost is a dedication, "JOHN BETJEMAN 1906-1984 POET - Who saved this glorious station," while the second ring quotes a portion of Betjeman's "Cornish Cliffs": "And in the shadowless unclouded glare / Deep blue above us fades to whiteness where / A misty sea-line meets the wash of air."

The second sculpture, The Meeting Place, is an enormous (30-foot-tall) representation of two people embracing.Strangely out of scale, there is no easy way to get a good look at the people's faces, considering the sculpture's location at the far end of the station. Conceived as a meeting point for users of the station, the work is meant to represent an English man and a French woman being reunited on the Eurostar platform, and in response to the rather conventional pose, the sculptor has said, "A lot of people will no doubt detest it because it is not violent or controversial but I'm sure those who do feel touched by it will outweigh them. It is not in an art gallery, but a sculpture for a very public place, and therefore has to be accessible for people who may not regularly experience art." I'm not particularly impressed with this comment--to me, the grand scale seems to suggest that art is something that may appear to be connected with everyday experience (an embrace), but is still something that is beyond mere mortals, in terms of scale and the ability to feel any connection with art. On a different critical note related to accessibility, while I was standing nearby taking photos, a middle-aged woman walked past the statue, looked up, turned to her companion, and said, "Well, that's certainly heterosexist, isn't it?" I also witnessed a glitch in the sculpture's imagined use as meeting point while I was taking photos of the Betjeman statue, when a slightly harried-looking man rushed up to a woman standing next to me and said, "There you are! I meant the other statue!" Another feature of St. Pancras that's been nauseatingly touted in the press is that it contains "the longest champagne bar in Europe" at ninety metres. Quite a few people seemed to be taking advantage of this superlative today:

As I walked around, taking photos, I noticed these people working up on the roof--you can just see them at the upper right, perched almost directly on top of the station:

The contrast between the station's blue railings and red bricks is quite lovely,

and after I was done walking around the station, I found I was just in time to catch a performance being put on as part of the St. Pancras Arrivals festival. The videos that comprise The Take-Away Shows are my type of music video: one handheld camera recording a non-studio performance in a continuous unedited shot. I hadn't heard of the series until recently and was happy to discover performances by some great performers including Beirut, Alan Sparhawk, Hidden Cameras, Dean Wareham, The Shins, and Arcade Fire. Today's performance was by Serafina Steer on harp, Etienne Jaumet on saxophone, and an unknown member contributing other odd noises. The cameraperson is Vincent Moon, the creator of this lovely series:

Steer smiled between her charming, quirky songs when a woman, thinking these were some great buskers, stepped forward to put a pound near the base of the harp. "We made money!" Steer said, holding up the shiny coin. My next stop of the day was at an independent artists' Christmas sale at Cockpit Arts Open Studios in Holborn. Normally £5 to enter, but free with the Arrivals brochure, the artists' studios were filled with lovely creations of every sort.

The only downside? In spite of buying items direct from the artists, the prices still seemed very high. The only place in the building where bargains were to be found was in the charming café, where I had a coffee as I planned a few return visits to individual studios for another look.