The Museum of Everything at Selfridges

The Museum of Everything exhibition #4 has only a few days left at Selfridges in Oxford Street.

A few days ago I finally got to take a look at what's on show. The store has given over all their Oxford Street windows to the Museum and each window has large scale models of works from the exhibition. A selection of window photos - snapped between Oxford Street shoppers - are shown below:

The exhibition space is in the basement - the Ultralounge - and is smaller than I expected (smaller than suggested by the extent of the window displays). Nevertheless the Museum has packed in over 400 pieces of work.

Tomoyuki Shinki - Incurve, Japan

Previous Museum of Everything exhibitions have contained Outsider Art, but the art has been by recognised artists (to a greater or lesser extent). The best known of these has probably been Peter Blake and material from the former Walter Potter Museum (see previous post on this). Exhibition #4, however, features work from people with developmental and other disabilities from across the world. In the words of the Museum itself it is "Britain's first and only museum for the unintentional, untrained & unknown artists of our modern age".

George Wilson - Creative Growth Art Center, USA

In addition to the work itself there is a lot of interesting background information available in the exhibition about the artists and the studio workshops where they are based.

William Scott - Creative Growth, USA

The exhibition is fascinating and has attracted a large number of visitors - although it has also attracted some criticism, notably from Adrian Searle in the Guardian. It is true that it does feel a bit uncomfortable being critical of some of the work (it's not all brilliant) because the artists are not professionals and are, in fact, disadvantaged in some way or other. However, the great majority of it is as good as the work of 'regular artists' and much of it is considerably more interesting.

Jeroen Pomp - Galerie Atelier Herenplaats, Netherlands

If there is a theme, it is that of the obsessive/compulsive - one that all art-lovers and collectors can easily relate to. You can view some of the exhibition works digitally here - but it's not really a substitute for seeing the show, which has a wider range, including a significant number of sculpted and made objects (the images reproduced here are from the digital museum).

Daniel Green - Creativity Explored, USA

Marianne Schipaanboord - Atelier De Kaai, Netherlands

In addition to the exhibition itself there is a Museum shop containing some rather expensive mementos and the equally expensive books of exhibitions #1 to #4. It seems churlish to criticise but, as a registered charity, you do wonder about their marketing strategy - and why is there no entry charge? However, you can view and buy Museum merchandise online at the Shop of Everything - it's in a good cause.

All in all, however, a great exhibition - And now we can look forward to #5 ...

The last day of the exhibition is 25th October.

Carole Whelan - Coast at Birdwood House, Totnes

I was in Totnes yesterday and took the opportunity to call in at the Birdwood House gallery, which is at the top of the High Street hill, on the corner of the market square.

This week Carole Whelan is showing the results of two years photographing the beaches of Devon and Cornwall. The pictures are a mixture of wide views, reflecting the scale of the land and seascapes, and of more abstract photographs focusing upon the different textures and patterns of the beaches, the sea and the coastal rocks.

It is a small but fascinating exhibition - I was tempted to buy but don't really have the space to hang large prints. You can see some of Carole's pictures which did not make the final cut in her workbooks at Birdwood House and you can see more of the pictures on her website (but they are better when you see them close-up).

The work is on show for this week only but if you are in the Totnes area, it is well worth a look.

While I am posting, there are a couple of other exhibitions which you may be interested in and that I plan to get along to in the next couple of weeks. The first is The British Art Show 7 which is on a tour of four cities in the UK and includes the work of 30 artists at a number of venues in Plymouth. This runs until December 4th.

The second is the 4th Museum of Everything which is exhibiting at Selfridges in London, rather than at its usual Primrose Hill address. The Museum is known for its quirky Outsider Art but this time the exhibition focuses specifically on work from people with disabilities from across the world. This exhibition showcases a huge variety of work but finishes on October 25th (digital show here).

Jamaica Inn

Often on the way down to Cornwell we've thought about calling in at Jamaica Inn at Bolventor, and last week we finally did.









Today's Inn seems a million miles away from the dark and mysterious building portrayed in the book by Daphne Du Maurier and in the postcard below.

The sunshine of a Cornish summer day, combined with the picnic tables, the cheery yellow-jacketed car park man and the constant motor noise from the passing A30, all conspire to debunk any illusion of the 1820s and the wreckers of North Cornwall.

However, Jamaica Inn is not without interest. Apart from being the focus of the Du Maurier novel, the potted history - The Inn on the Moor by Rose Mullins - describes how in 1988 the collection of Walter Potter's stuffed animals was bought by the then landlord and put on display. Items exhibited included tableaux of kittens, rabbits, guinea pigs and more, acting like humans - playing croquet, taking tea, having lessons etc.

The collection was an attraction for the next 15 years, until the taxidermist who maintained it died in 2003 and then it was auctioned off.

Some of the collection ended up with Peter Blake (and has been on display at the Holburne as part of the Museum for Myself exhibition - now finished). Other parts were on show at The Museum of Everything exhibition 3 (now closed). Exhibition 4 ran at Selfridges from 2nd September to 25th October (also now closed). All that is left of Potter's collection at Jamaica Inn are a few photographs like these.

On the way out through the Inn shop I picked up a copy of Jamaica Inn and read the first half in a single sitting - It's a thumping good read and recommended for anyone exploring the area around Bolventor and Bodmin.