Sensing Spaces at the RA

There's nothing that releases your inner child quite like being told 'yes, of course you can climb on the art work!' By an RA gallery assistant.

Sadly, the giddy excitement this initially filled me with, only lasted up a spiral staircase until the top of a pine cube, before the concept was old and the novelty expired.

In this huge architectural installation, we are asked to question materials and how they create the spaces around us and how we interact with them. A great idea, but the pieces themselves were just a little boring: some twigs with a light up floor and some long drinking straws I plaited and stuck in some corrugated plastic. It wasn't exciting and I forgot I was supposed to be intrigued. Diebedo Francis Kere, who came up with this claims to want to use architecture to 'respond to the users needs'. Well sadly, I was bored and you didn't entertain me!

Curator, Kate Goodwin, says this show should "encourage visitors to question their ideas about architecture and test its capacity to move them". Until I stepped into he Grafton Architects concrete structure room, I would say this exhibition had failed; but this installation is simply awe inspiring. It's not a half-cut attempt to show off your practices mission statement, nor overly playful. There is just a beautiful simplicity to walking under tonnes of vast, geometric concrete-esque plaster blocks. They are overpowering, quite literally as they hang over you, but subtle; you still see what's ahead, they are not obscuring your view. The play with light is superb and typical of Grafton's practice. They look at how structures sit in their surroundings and they alter a landscape, a practice which shines through, quite literally, in this installation. Go and see this exhibition just for the wonder of this piece.

Royal Academy, London, until 6 April 2014

http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/sensingspaces/

Ten Minute Talk: Saint Margaret of Antioch, by Zurbaran

Today I will be giving a Ten Minute talk at the National Gallery in Room 30 on this wonderful Zurbaran Painting.

At the height of his career, Franciso de Zurbaran was a freeman of Seville, living there with his second wife, three children from his first marriage and eight servants. He had been invited by the town elders as they thought his distinction as a painter with dramatic Baroque flair and such daring chiaroscuro effect could boost the reputation of the town. Not only was that true, but it also boosted Zurbaran's career and he was appointed as court painter to Philip IV Spain.

Saint Margaret of Antioch was painted by Zurbaran in the 1630s, just before his career really took off. This makes it a rare and exciting painting. Zurbaran's most famous saint paintings are painted in series, such as the magnificent series of the 12 Sons of Jacob in the collection at Aukland Castle, and are painted by studio assistants, rather than solely by the artist himself.

Saint Margaret of Antioch was a peasant girl who lived in the third century in Antioch, a small town in Byzantium, modern-day Turkey. Her mother had died in her early childhood and she was raised by her shepherdess nurse, hence Zurbaran's inclusion of a crook in the painting. To aid identification further, Zurbaran dresses the girl in his painting as a Spanish peasant girl, her bag (an alfornja) and hat drawn from life; she doesn't appear ethereal, as Zurbaran's saints often do, she is a real girl. Saint Margaret's  declared her faith with a vow of chastity, which ultimately cost her her life. When proposed to, by a Governer of the Roman Empire, Margaret refused and was taken away for torture. One of her martyrdoms was to be fed to the devil disguised as a dragon. Her purity saved her and she burst from it's belly. This is symbolised by the beast crouching behind her in Zurbaran's painting. It is most unusual of Zurbaran's Baroque style to have depicted the saint as an ordinary, contemporary girl, with a tame dragon. The high drama and excitement of painting at this time would usually dictate a story of this magnitude be illustrated at crux of the tale, namely where Saint Margaret bursts from the dragon. This suggests it was painted at the patrons request. As she is the patron saint of childbirth (due to bursting from dragon) it could perhaps be intended as a tasteful wedding gift.

Despite his great fame and fortune, Zurbaran's style became rather unfashionable even during his lifetime, with the pastel tones and subtle lighting of Murrillo taking centre stage, and Zurbaran died in obscurity.

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/francisco-de-zurbaran-saint-margaret-of-antioch

Men in Pants at the De Morgan Centre

There's nothing quite like saying it how it is. Men in Pants is what they say you're going to get and it's exactly what you get in this fabulous exhibition at the De Morgan Centre. The focus is on a hitherto unexplored area of Evelyn De Morgan's work, her preparatory life drawings. She began her career at the Slade School of Art, one of three of the first women to be enrolled. There, she actively engaged in life drawing and drawing from sculpture. She meticulously studied the human form; both the nude and the dressed, which she would scrutinise to perfect her depiction of fabric falling over the body.

Seeing these drawings in the context of the largest collection of Evelyn's paintings allows for a fresh look at the collection. Her rigorous technique and planning of her paintings is better understood, when one can appreciate her conviction and execution of the piece. The works on paper are simply beautiful in their own right and really show off her higher understanding of how to manipulate light and line to stunning effects.

The De Morgan Centre, Wandsworth, until 26th April http://demorgan.org.uk/meninpants