Paul Klee, Collider and Water Water

Last weekend I went to London on an exhibition-visiting expedition. Plus meeting friends.

On Sunday I went to Tate Modern and saw the Paul Klee exhibition - "Making Visible".  Marvellous! There was a lot of work I wasn't familiar with.  His output was prodigious - he made thousands of paintings and drawings.  Mostly quite small.  The exhibition is arranged chronologically so you become aware that in the same year he was working on several series at the same time - for example, oil paintings in colour, and drawings in black and white, plus various mixed media pieces.

I also saw the exhibition by Mira Schendel, a little known artist whose work fascinates me.  Born in Germany, she lived most of her life in Brazil and that's where she produced her wonderful work.  She worked a lot with letters and messages.

(No photography allowed in the galleries...)

I bought some books by Klee, as well as the massive catalogue, and should be reading his thoughts for the next while...

On Monday I went to the Science Museum to see the "Collider" exhibition.  It is about CERN and the Large Hadron Collider, where recently the new particle, the Higgs Boson, was discovered.  Professor Higgs (who has just won the Nobel Prize for Physics), and Stephen Hawking, were at the Museum at the opening a few days previously.

It is a most fascinating exhibition.  I have to confess that I am a science addict, particularly loving exploring the two universes - the big one, of giant stars and galaxies, and the subatomic one of amazing particles.  Aversion to Mathematics stopped me from studying science - when I was 13 I wanted to be an astronomer...  These days I avidly watch many relevant TV programmes on those subjects ("Light and Dark" is the latest), and I bought at the museum, and have already read, a booklet on the Higgs Boson.

Science relates to art.  Albert Einstein used his imagination to visualise some of his theories. He said:  "After a certain high level of technical skill is achieved, science and art tend to coalesce in aesthetics, plasticity, and form.  The greatest scientists are artists as well."

More concretely, I have been invited to participate in an international quilt exhibition on the subject of "Radiation", which will open in Geneva (home of CERN) next June. Kate Findlay, who made the Large Hadron Collider the subject of a wonderful quilt series, is participating as well.

That leads me to the last exhibition I visited - on Tuesday - "Water Water" in Henley-on-Thames, organised by Kate.  It was a wonderful exhibition - now closed - with a huge variety of interpretations of the theme. Here are a couple of general photos of the work in the gallery.

The other two exhibitions are open until at least next March, so don't miss them!

Alicia