To Gasworks Gallery!

Marie-Claire Messouma Manlanbien: Mémoires des corps is the current exhibition. Quite a mouthful, for such a small gallery space.

Also long in length was the handout given to me by the charming front of house person.

I like to approach exhibitions blind. Understanding the concept and original ideas from the artist often ruins it for me. I prefer to approach with a fresh set of eyes.

The lengthy handout can be my toilet reading homework for later.

Ahh! So THAT was the whole point. And I thought it was all about pretty colours.

The pretty colours on show at Gasworks were aplenty. I was particularly taken aback by the charming peach shade that was painted on the walls for this exhibition.

But what about the art?

It was all a little mystic. The centrepiece is three handwoven fabrics hanging from the ceiling. They are surrounded by shells, also suspended in the space.

And beanbags.

There’s always beanbags at these exhibitions. I’m not the type of extrovert who takes up the position on the floor to add an extra layer of pretension to all the art noodling.

It’s a pleasant exhibition, but one that I haven’t got a clue what it’s all about. Maybe I should have taken a seat at the gallery and read the handout.

And not that type of seat, either.

Gasworks is a great little South London gallery tucked away behind The Oval. There’s always something worth exploring.

To The Design Museum! For The Blitz exhibition!

I explained my weekend plans to a colleague. They questioned why there was an exhibition about the Blitz at The Design Museum, and not the Imperial War Museum.

Destroy Borders, Build Stages, as we use to say in the day.

First things first: £18 is a tad pricey for an exhibition that will occupy you for a good hour.

Yeah yeah - I’m kinda out of touch, and still expect to pay a grubby fiver for a boozer toilet gig.

I rarely pay for exhibitions, such is the availability of fantastic freebie shows across London.

£18 felt about right an hour or so after I left The Blitz. There was so many artefacts and historical cultural items to justify the price.

The journey over to West Ldn itself was interesting. With the Sunday morning rain struggling to lift, I abandoned the bicycle ride idea, and opted for a tube and bus combo.

Sitting opposite me on the Victoria Line was a young female who looked like she had just exited The Blitz back in 1979.

DECENT look, Madam.

It was al there: Curtains for trousers that swirled all the way down to her ankles, and then came to an abrupt halt as they tapered around her army boots.

This must be a sign that the £18 for The Blitz was going to be money well spent.

I missed out on The Blitz experience by a few years.

To cut a long story short, etc, the characters that emerged out of Covent Garden and into the charts, reached me a year or so later in the local village youth club.

The original energy had long since moved on and become part of mainstream culture by the time I was trying to perfect my Studio Line crafted fringe.

Any FOMO back in 1982 was resolved this morning at The Design Museum. The attention to detail is incredible.

The exhibition documents the social history that led to The Blitz being set up by a bunch of outsider misfits. The context is an important part of the story.

Too glam to conform, too fleeting to stay.

Or something.

I was obsessive as I made my way around the gallery spaces, insisting on reading every last detail of text. I surprised myself by being more drawn towards the designers and costumes, rather than the music. I reckon I could still carry that look, if not the hair.

For such a short-lived scene, it’s surprising how much photographic evidence exists. It’s not as if the characters were shy about coming forward…

One corner of The Design Museum has been mocked up to resemble the club itself. An early live performance by Spandau appears on the stage. It’s the acceptable version of the bloody Abba avatars. I allowed myself a little bop whilst alone in the club.

This is a wonderful time capsule of an exhibition that explains a lot about how mid and late 1980’s music and culture developed.

For such a small, tight crowd, it’s astonishing how the Blitz Kids were able to spread their wings far and wide.

Christ, they were bloody young.

I love turning a corner around my S Ldn patch, and then OH MY DAYS, another new mural has appeared.

Create without permission, as we use to say back in the day.

But I suspect that Spanish artist Sebas Velasco did seek permission before he painted his beautiful new piece of work on the side of Broadstone House along Cobbett Street, SW8.

It’s titled ‘Yves’ - a local young fella from Brixton, standing on the Brixton mainline platform.

The art may - or may not - be long for this world. It’s right at the heart of the failed South Lambeth Estate ‘regeneration.’

If Lambeth can be arsed to get its act together after more than a decade of stalling, then we may soon have another soulless, uniform development springing up soon.

Then again.

When regeneration stalls, the streets speak.

Or something.