The turning leaves are being pulled from the trees by a persistent autumn breeze that seems keen to sweep us right into November.
The nights are growing longer, the cool days shorter and shorter.
Soon it’ll be time for pumpkins, bonfires and mulled wine.
But this little in between bit, I like to call boots’n’jumper weather, deserves to be savoured.
These boots are made for walkin’, and that’s just what they’ll do.
To Mayfair, to a gallery just for you.
I wouldn’t blame you if you hadn’t heard of Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, it seems not many have.
Hidden in plain sight between The Arts Club and The Wolesley.
Behind the glistening black doors you’ll find a cavern of wonders.
A never ending bright white cave, filled with treasure.
Robert Longo’s “Let the Frame of Things Disjoint” exhibition leads you through corridors and rooms over two floors.
His works explore “the volatility of today’s contemporary climate through the lens of Macbeth’s famed line: ‘let the frame of things disjoint’. Uttered by the treacherous king in admission of his intense guilt, declaring that he would sooner die than live with the consequences of his misdeeds, the passage is understood by Longo as depicting a moment in which the world has already begun to come apart. It is through this ‘disjoint’ that the artist asks viewers to consider our contemporary climate and its chaotic state of flux.
For this exhibition, Longo juxtaposes historical iconography with renderings of recent social and political events culled from media sources, using charcoal to deliberate on the pace of image consumption, creating striking visualisations of power, protest, futility, desire and destruction.”
“Large-scale charcoal drawings draw the viewer into an unsettling balancing act: they address dualities between natural and man-made destruction, history and the present, confrontation and retreat and observers and observed. Longo has been pushing the boundaries of the charcoal medium for the past twenty years, advancing both the scale of his drawings and the technique with which they are executed. Each distinct work reflects the particularities of his source imagery, calling attention to the image surface, anything from the graininess of a telephoto image of riot police to the pixilation of degraded aerial drone video, or the intricate detail of an x-ray revealing what lies beneath the surface itself.”
“During preparative research for the show, Longo discovered that Ely House, home to the Albemarle Club between 1908 and 1939, was the first private members’ club to accept women and went on to become the unofficial headquarters of the women’s suffrage movement. It is with this context in mind that Untitled (X-Ray of A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, 1882, after Manet), 2017, is considered a central work of the exhibition. A large-scale, intricately detailed reimagining of Manet’s iconic painting, the piece is a result of Longo’s visit to the conservation department of the Courtauld Institute of Art.”
“X-rays of the canvas came to reveal that Manet had, in fact, altered the barmaid’s pose from one of submission to one of assertion over the course of its painting. For Longo, the uncovered past of Ely House and the x-ray of Manet’s canvas provide an opportunity to perceive the invisible and convey an alternative history.”
It wasn’t me!
Pioneering conceptual artists Ilya and Emilia Kabakov did it.
“Fallen Chandelier” sits along side “Concert for a Fly (Chamber Music)”
In the centre of the room, a paper fly hangs from the ceiling. Twelve empty chairs and music stands are arranged in a circle around it. Each stand holds a white sheet with colourful drawings and Russian texts, translated into English. Some also include musical scores. Everything seems to point towards the immobile fly, which acts as a focal point, directing our gaze upwards and orchestrating our movements. A continuous sound of classical music surfaces from an undefined source. It contains abstract notes, conjuring the viewer into a state of anticipation, as if waiting for a concert to begin.
Besides the genuinely quite staggering work on display, Ely House is exceptional in its seclusion.
We wandered the halls completely alone, never coming across another soul.
With the exception of poor St Francis…
For a quiet space to disappear into, this gallery is unrivalled.
Find them at 37 Dover Street in Mayfair.
Skip out of the real world and disappear for a little while. By the time you reappear it’ll be time for coffee and cake*.
*NB. It’s always a good time for coffee and cake.
Wrapped up in oversized cashmere (on repeat at the moment)
Dune’s perfect over the knee boots
They come in heeled and flat versions, don’t fall down and should last you all season long!
Another reason I’m proud as punch to be an ambassador for the brand.
A few steps away you’ll find The Wolesley, always ready with a warm welcome.
Try one of the freshly made jam donuts, or perhaps a wafer thin slice of strudel.
Dive into a bowl of coffee and snuggle in for a spot of people watching.
Mayfair at its very finest.
