ahhhhhhhhhhhh, can you say AWESOME??? le awesome day today and it's only our 2nd day here and WOW ART. so, woke up at 9 today so we could meet up with my aunt to go check out the victoria and albert museum for the modernist exhibiton (special exhibition! needed to pay 7 pounds to get in!). three words. totally. worth. it.
i took this art history course in first year called notions of modernity. it was, obviously, about the modernist movement in art. the rebelling of wars, the change in architecture, design, lifestyle, etc. and how it affected artists and their work. and in this exhibition.. were those pieces of works. everything from my textbook and then some.. were in this exhibition. i got to see schlemmer's pieces, drawings and paintings by mondrian, man ray, moholy nagy, ready-mades by duchamp, picabia's drawings.. gropius' bauhaus influences, ARP! ..i saw an original arp art piece. and pieces that were used in schelmmer's triadic ballet from the bauhaus. i am still in shock and awe. it is SO different to see these pieces in real life. i am so very lucky and grateful that i was given this opportunity to come here and catch all these shows. it was pure coincidence that all these galleries and museums that we're visiting also have special, exclusive exhibitions that i'm extremely interested in. dave, my aunt and i arrived at the V&A around 11:30 and went straight for the modernist exhibition. wow, the exhibition was just HUGE. we're so used to smallish, limited exhibitions at the AGO or the ROM, but this V&A museum. wow.. the modernist exhibition seemed like it went on forever. which was fine by me! haha.. the exhibition covered everything from early modernism, starting with various pieces of architecture, paintings and sketches, and then going into detail, fleshing out the various media and themes artists chose to express their frustrations and inspirations with at the time. there were rooms for architecture (living spaces), machines, performance art, body and health, furniture and anything else you can imagine that came out of the modernist era. it was nuts... my eyeballs were just about ready to pop out of my head by just being in the presence of such amazing art.
after the exhibiton, we shopped around at the gift shop that was especially geared towards the modernist exhibition and then went around the V&A's permenant collection for a while. this museum... is huge.. so very huge and just packed with all types of art. we went and saw the japanese art section (full of kimonos, swords, furnature, armour.. anything and everything).. also saw the chinese art section (filled with amazing paintings and CRAZY pieces of furnature, carved with intricate and obsessive compulsive detail.. and even modern chinese art). then.. we went to the raphael cartoon wing.. OH MY this place is huge.. it was like walking into a basillica. it had a huge nave and an apse at one end with a semicircular dome. unfortunately, there was no photography allowed... but me and dave both sketched the hall in my sketchbook and then took pics of the sketches.. haha.. the hall contained cartoons that raphael had drawn (cartoons are HUGE paintings on papers that are pieced together so they can be copied by weavers into tapestries). these cartoons were probably 20-30 feet wide.. huuuuuge-ness-ness.
oh! and another thing! in the main hall of the V&A, there's this CRAZY HUUUUGE glass chandelier.. we will definitely post pics of that too.. the V&A's permanent exhibitions are freeee so we will definitely go again. after poking around the main V&A gift shop for a bit, jen called to let us know she was already at the science museum so we ran over there to catch up with her.. becaaaause.. we were going to see the PIXAR exhibition!!! all about all the animations pixar did! it was crazy! full of original sketches, paintings, drawings, animations and even resin cast character figures! oh man, so much stuff to seeeee! all the movies pixar ever made were all featured in the exhibition! once again, totally worth the money.. and we got 20% off tickets too! when me, dave and my aunt walked into the museum, a lady was giving out postcards for 20% off tickets! but she only had 2 left.. so we took them and then saw jen and her friend yuki. we went to go buy tickets and asked if we could use the 20% off for our whole group and at first, the lady said a group is with 10 or more people, but she was nice enough to let us use it for our group of 5 so admission was only 5.60 pounds each for us students! yay! already an awesome start.. so after checking in our bags (there was a strict rule saying we couldn't bring bags bigger than an A4 size sheet of paper in), we went to the exhibit.. everything was so awesome. drawings and art from a bug's life, the incredibles, toy story, all their short films, that new car movie.... everything was there.. even some of the resin models they used for mapping out the characters' skulls were there.. it was crazy. and the last room of the exhibition was this movie theatre-like place.. where they showed a short movie of how pixar brings its backgrounds to life from 2D to 3D. it was crazy. the projectors were 1200x1024 pixels and there were FOUR of them, simultaneously running to project on a wall that was easily over 50 ft long. there were 4 computers, each wtih dual core pentiums running each projector and nVidia video cards with special daughter cards that let all 4 video cards talk to each other so they showed the correct frame at the exact time. (LOL, all geekingness provided by dave's memory and love for geeky things).
leading directly outside the mini theatre was the makeshift gift shop (i say makeshift cuz it looked like it was built in the middle of nowhere). here, we found way too many things we wanted to get, but we settled on a 12 pack of postcards (and a few other postcards that didn't come in the pack, but we liked), a pixar catologue for the exhibition (we later discovered the book was actually made for MoMA for the same exhibition), and a few other goodies. jen was really into the exhibition and stayed till it ended. me, dave and my aunt wandered around outside in the main hall of the museum taking random pictures until jen and yuki came out. we definitely will be going back to the science museum. it is filled with such cool stuff.. it's like the science center in toronto but 100 times better and BIGGER. photography is allowed so we'll definitely take pics.
after the science museum, we hopped onto a bus (a double decker london bus! O_O) and rode to soho.. deeper in central london to look for food to eat. we ended up at a portugese restaurant that was famous for it's roast chicken (and spicyness of said chicken). it was another one of those restaurants where you had to order at the counter, pay, and then the food comes delivered to your table. it's pretty funny, cuz you even have to seat yourself.. as in, they give you a metal stick with a wooden chicken at the end of it with a table number and then you have to GO and find your table!! crazy!! you even get your own plates and utensils and any condiments you want. so we sat down, figured out what we wanted to eat and then went up to order. my aunt actually treated us to the meal which was really nice of her. oh! so to order, you have to take the chicken on the stick with your table number with you and bring it with you to the ordering counter so they know which table to bring it to. oh! and the chicken on a stick has it's own place/holder in this wooden ..menu holder at the table. so yeah, we ate a lot of chicken and a lot of fries (or chips, as they call them here).. you'll see by the picture.. lol.. me and dave ordered this.. meal platter, as did jen and yuki and it all came on one huge plate, with the fries piled up like a mountain. it was so funny cuz we also ordered a JUMBO spicy rice as an extra side and when it came.. oh my, it was so funny.. me and dave were both thinking the same thing: "THAT'S a jumbo???" it was seriously about the size and quantity of a single bowl of rice from back home in toronto, but 5 times as expensive.. haha.. anyway, the food was pretty good (although it reminded me of swiss chalet, sorta..) and after dinner, jen's friend yuki showed us her handmade jewelry! she went to the same school as jen and specialized in jewerly making and man.. lemme tell you.. that girl is crazy. all of her jewelry pieces were so conceptual and unique. nothing i had ever seen before... she had a ring where.. if you looked at it from a certain angle under a light, the ring would cast a shadow of a heart on your hand. O__O there were so many others, but one of my favourites was the bracelet where it was basically like a puzzle piece. two pieces could be separated and joined as one to be worn as a bracelet! dave took pics.. you have to see them.. so cool.. she handmakes all her jewelry and tries to sell them to stores. all of her pieces are so unique and creative.. i can't believe she's having such a hard time selling them... but i guess that's the fate of being an artist.. sigh.. always so unstable...
anyway, after dinner, we finally headed home after a loooong day.. and argh, my poor feet.. i'm still not used to my new insoles yet so my feet were killing me after the day was done. i wish i could soak my feet in something, but we only have a shower and not a bathtub. after coming home, we actually ended up going out again to just scour the area for some internet cafes.. there are a few across the way and there's even one at mcdonald's! lol.. unfortunately, we haven't had a chance to go yet.. going out late at night is a tad scary..so we just went to the grocery to pick up some drinks and headed home.. and then sleep time!!! zzzz...
