Tuesday 10th May: Lakwena on Carnaby Street

News in my regular Lakwena updates .......... the latest wall from my favourite graphic artist has cropped up on Carnaby Street, right behind Liberty.  Here it is fresh the day after she had made the finishing touches before the district's GQ style night with GQ.

Thursday 5th May: "MISSONI Art Colour" at Fashion and Textile Museum

Party people at the private view and dinner of "MISSONI Art Colour" inc. artist Andrew Logan, designer Bethan Wood who was guest posting on Missoni's Snapchat and photogprapher Rankin who was doing the Instagram take-over for the night's preview.  Here is Kitty Joseph wearing her own new pixelated pattern collection and just one snap of the mini ice-creams we were treated to alongside pots of tirimisu, plates of rhubarb cheese cake....... after saffron & tarragon rissotto and asparagus & broad bean salad......... all of which I have no photos because I inhaled each and every one too quick!

Fashion and Textile Museum, 83 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 3XF

6 May – 4 September 2016 

Thursday 5th May: "MISSONI Art Colour" at Fashion and Textile Museum, Part 2....... Roots

When you enter "MISSONI Art Colour" at the Fashion and Textile Museum, you first encounter a gallery of the family's inspiration in the form of Futurist & Constructivist paintings.  I was not expecting this from a textile show so I was immediately amazed from the very first step in.  The walls are hung with original 1930's avant-garde canvases including one by my absolute favourite artist Sonia Delaunay.  If you buy the book that accompany's the display there are pages and pages of other key works from their vaults including Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Josef Albers etc. ..... as the text explains "the rhythmic composition of shapes and colours used with purity, a language that the Missoni's translate and rework in the central motifs of their creative process".......

(Top to bottom: Fortunato Depero's Composizione, Date unkown,  Atanasio Soldati's Ambiguta Composizione, 1951.  Nino Di Salvatore's Struttura Spaziale In Tensione, 1952. Emilio Vedova's L'urto, 1949-50, Gianni Monnet's Costruzione, 1946)

Fashion and Textile Museum, 83 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 3XF

6 May – 4 September 2016 

Thursday 5th May: "MISSONI Art Colour" at Fashion and Textile Museum, Part 3

After getting giddy from gushing over the abstract-art of the first room, you enter the main event space dripping in a retrospective of Missoni's delicate collections.  Each mannequin has a composition of patterned pieces that are all separate identities in their own right but come together as one complete identifiable aesthetic.  Tapestries line the walls as a backdrop palette of yet more knitwear technique and ingenuity.  Fragments of samples and sketchbook experiments are all on show to give further insight into the origins of the signature stripes.  Its explained perfectly in a quote by Luca Missoni:

"I would like to describe visually the fascination of a creative process that leads to the physical transformation of material.  It s the mystique of colour taking shape.  There is experimentation, the repetitive process of infinite research, the obsession that builds experience.  It is the art of creating a fabric."     

 Fashion and Textile Museum, 83 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 3XF

6 May – 4 September 2016 

Thursday 5th May: "MISSONI Art Colour" at Fashion and Textile Museum, Part 4

 The final instalment of art history context comes as a display called "Conversations".  Here are pieces contemporary with Ottavio & Rosita Missoni's own work from the 1950's to the 1980's.  The cosmic mix of paintings, 3D reliefs and sculptures compare their own paintings to examples of Italian abstract art from the post Second World War period such as Dorazio and Accardi, to the MAC of Munari and Dorfles.  At this point of the show, up on the 2nd floor mezzanine I actually wanted to cry.  Every single piece is so exquisite and incredible.  As a visitor, you just feel so lucky to be able to see all these references up close and get a complete picture (literally) of how the MISSSONI's visual language formulated and came to be the iconic pattern coveted today.

 (top to bottom:  Ottavio Missoni:  Senza Titolo, 1971 and another from 1971 and 1970.  Luigi Veronesi:  Costruzione Movimento N.3, 1990.  Regina:  Struttura Multicolore Cerchi E Fili, 1968.  Luigi Veronesi, Costruzione, 1992.  Davide Boriani, Pantachrome n.5, 1967-76. Ottavio Missoni:  Senza Titolo, 1970. Unknown green sculpture)

 Fashion and Textile Museum, 83 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 3XF

Weds 4th May: London Marathon, Mile 21 "CheerDem" by Run Dem Crew

Each year RunDemCrew set up a cheering station at Mile21 to help all the runners make it thru the final hurdle of the London Marathon.  They arrive in the early hours to set up before the roads close and stay until the very last runner has been past.  Inbetween they let off confetti canons, clap and shout motivational words of encouragement to both the elites who speed thru at 4-minute-miles, and their own crew members doing it for charity.  Here are my snaps from Naomi Edmondson's street art project "Survival Techniques" as she sprayed the road with her pattern stencils.  In addition to this, posters where flyered up along the 26 miles of the course and runners faces were immortalised as large lolipop sticks......... including Danny Wood who ran as a panda-bear for WWF!

The crew will be out in force again this weekend, repeating antics for the Hackney Half marathon in their very own stomping-ground streets of East London.  Follow the cheer here.