@MarDixon

The way that I found about the new Damien Hirst exhibition was about 4 weeks ago when I saw the Tate exhibition on a documentary. I already knew about him but this got me more interested in him.

On Saturday, my mom and I got to go to the exhibition – I was jumping for joy! The exhibition fills 14 rooms over one floor except for one special piece. When we went in there was a lot of people and the first thing I saw was the hair dryer pushing up the golf ball [What Goes Up Must Come Down, 1994].  But I didn’t care about that because I went right to Dead Head [With Dead Head, 1991] which is a picture of Damien with a dead head.  Damien didn’t kill the man – I think the man donated his body to science but a lot of people still thought it was wrong.  I didn’t. Read the rest of this entry »

House of Beasts is a fun, playful, quirky and very well-thought out family friendly contemporary art exhibition funded by Meadow Arts set in the gorgeous Attingham Park, National Trust site.

I’ve been to see the exhibition once before and although I was armed with my very informative House of Beasts booklet on that visit, this time, we had Meadow Arts curator Mandy Fowler to guide us through the exhibition.

Our tour and interview with the curator, which you can see here, allowed us to get behind the thought process that went behind this unique exhibition.

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Britain Tate Quiz Trail is a new app from The Connected Set Ltd on behalf on Tate Britain which is free to download.  The objective is simple: choose a category from the three available, choose a level and answer 10 multiple choice questions.  You receive 10 points for answering the question correctly on the first attempt, 5 for second, 0 for third.  You can play at Tate, taking about 45-60 minutes to work your way through the gallery, looking at each piece and answering the questions or off location (as I did).

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The day the Art Fund App was released, I happily and excitedly  downloaded it.  I happened to be in London that day so I went to the launch at Regent Street Apple Store where Will Gompertiz, BBC Arts Editor talked to contemporary artists Michael Craig-Martin and Mat Collishaw about technology in art (as related to the app).  They also talked about Damien Hirst as both work with Damien.

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First, we need to address this assumption that ‘all kids have been brought up with technology.’ The truth is for only certain areas within our society is that true. Yes some kids might have SmartPhones (actually very few do) and laptops but this doesn’t equate to them knowing technology or ICT.  As for having PC’s in their home, I will question the research which stated 90% have access to broadband.  This is certainly not true of the pupils I teach, many of whom do not even have an email account. And does access translate into usage?  I highly doubt it.

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On Friday April 20th, Charlotte and three of her school friends travelled to London to sleep at the Natural History Museum’s DinoSnore as part of Charlotte’s 10th birthday (sponsored by KinderHotels).  We were entertained from the moment the doors opened until lights went out at midnight then from breakfast until the museum opened.  The fun (and learning!) never stopped.  There was about 150-200 children and occupying adults. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ll be updating this as the conference continues.  It’s an Excel document, protected but should allow access to the links stated in the tweets.  I’ll pdf everything at the end of the conference.

Archives: 

• mw2012_April_15_1115.xlsx April 15 (11:15 GMT)
• musesocial.xlsx April 14 (13:00 GMT)
• mw2012_April_14_1300.xlsx April 14 (13:00 GMT)
• musesocial.xlsx April 13 (23:10 GMT)
• RT @SBanks20: Storify of second hour available here:  #musesocial
• MW2012_April_13_1900.xlsx (19:00 GMT)
• MW2012_April_12_2100.xlsx (21:00 GMT)

Museum Analystics

Museums and the Disposal Debate: A Collection of Essays, edited by Peter Davies, is a fascinating collection of international case studies trying to answer the age old question: How to know what to keep and what to dispose. While the book is collated in academia format, please do not let that discourage you from reading the valuable real-life examples.

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Along the same lines as 50 Modern Artists You Should Know, authors Kristina Lowis and Tamsin Pickeral have chosen 50 powerful paintings from renaissance to pop/contemporary and everything in between in this very comprehensive book from Prestel Publishing which is a most have for any art student or fan.

For the most part, each painting has a comprehensive biography listing the important factors in the creators career. There is a detailed timeline on the top of the page highlight important dates in history within a century timeframe. This helps show the influences of the artists.

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Anyone with even a passing interesting in modern art needs to own, at the very least, have access to this informational book by Prestel Publishing.

While I originally debated some of the artists (Whistler and Cezanne), it is fascinating to read a fact cheat sheets on each of the 50 artists. The book is designed so you don’t have to read front to back, however, it does make for an incredibly interesting read when you do.

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