Thursday 9 July 2015

Serpentine/Serpentine Sackler


It was a real pleasure recently to cycle through Hyde Park on a lovely sunny day and to interrupt my journey to see two very interesting exhibitions which employ the figure as their focus. At Serpentine Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: Verses After Dusk, is a show of her imagined portraits loosely rendered in oils.






I really admired the drawing techniques and mark-making in her series of etchings.





Whilst over at Serpentine Sackler is an exhibition of Duane Hanson's hyper-realistic
figures.


I thought these were good fun, and the attention to detail is incredible. The hands in particular were really well rendered. The only element in which they failed to fully convince was the hair/wigs which mostly look obviously false, and a little worse for wear with age, on some of the sculptures. Many of the figures really did fool the eye from a certain distance though, and were credible representations of blue collar workers.












Lastly, there was this year's colourful temporary pavilion outside the original Serpentine gallery, designed by Spanish architectural duo Selgascano, which proved to be a hit with adults and children alike, if not perhaps architecture critics.













Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: Verses After Dusk
Serpentine Gallery
Kensington Gardens
until 13th September

Duane Hanson
Serpentine Sackler
West Carriage Drive
until 13th September

Serpentine Pavilion
Kensington Gardens
until 18th October


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