Yuri Gagarin and Henry Moore in Cultural Exchange

As the new Yuri Gagarin statue was unveiled in London today it was revealed at the reception that a familiar London landmark will soon be leaving for the Kremlin in Moscow. One woman connects the two unique public exhibitions - Elena Gagarina, Yuri Garagin's daughter.

 

The Yuri Gagarin statue was unveiled this morning outside the British Council's offices on the Mall near Admiralty Arch. It is an exhibition copy of the original which stands in Lyubertsy.  

 

The unveiling was performed by HRH Prince Michael of Kent and Elena Gagarina in front of a large crowd of press, dignitaries, and well wishers. Perhaps the most unusual feature of the morning was a greeting delivered live and direct from the International Space Station's crew, in a reception immediately prior to the unveiling.

Elena Gagarina is not only the daughter of the the first man in space, she is also Director of the Kremlin Museums. In this capacity, she, together with the British Council have arranged for the Kremlin to have its first ever show of Modern Art.

The Henry Moore exhibition will open at the Kremlin in Feb 2012 and will feature many sculptures and drawings by the British artist. The highlight of the show will be this familiar London landmark.

This is Moore's Knife Edge Two Piece made between 1962 and 1965. It stands near the Victoria Tower at the Houses of Parliament and regularly crops up in the background of political interviews.

 

The international loan of such a well-known London landmark is very unusual but then the gift of a Russian memorial or monument is equally rare. Special permission was required from the Governor of Moscow and Lyubertsy authorities to make a copy of the original Gagarin statue so that Roscosmos, the Russian Space Agency, could present it as a gift to the people of Britain. It will stand in the current location for one year before moving to a permanent site.

The statue's unveiling could not have been better timed. This year marks 50 years of manned space flight and today, July 14th is the 50th anniversary of Gagarin's lunch with HM the Queen. 

Gagarin visited the UK in July 1961. The authorities were wrong-footed and underestimated the enthusiasm with which he was greeted by the British public. What was to have been a pretty low-key 2 day visit was hastily extended to 4 days and a meeting with Harold Macmillan and lunch at Buckingham Palace arranged. During that lunch the Queen gave Yuri Gagarin a present of two dolls for his daughters, Elena and Galina. I wonder if they both still have them?

There is also an accompanying exhibition celebrating 50 years of manned space flight at the British Council but I will post separately about this.

The author of this blog is a qualified City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours throughout Westminster, see tabs for details.

New City of London Sculpture Park Completed

A piece by the late Kenneth Armitage (1916-2002) completes the new Great St Helen's and Undershaft Sculpture Park in the City of London.

Screen with Folded Arms dates from 1967. The screen is almost 2m high and is made from painted aluminium. It stands outside Hiscox's offices at 1 Great St. Helen's.

Kenneth Armitage was born in Leeds and served with the Royal Artillery during WWII, he died in London in 2002. This work dates from a period of his life when he was living and working in Berlin.

He is quoted as saying "I like sculpture to look as if it happened, to express an idea as simply as possible." Armitoge also said that he always saw this work in an urban setting "two massive, heavy, rounded arms coming out of the wall, as though the building behind was the body of the person. with it's folded arms sticking out in front.". I think this engaging piece achieves his aims perfectly.

There are more details of his life from the Guardian's obituary here.

This work joins three others to complete the temporary sculpture park.

 Anish Kapoor's Sky Mirror, a previous post on this here.

Garden Pouf  by Franz West.

 Julian Opie's Three Men Walking

More on the project as a whole from a previous post here.

The author of this blog is a qualified City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours throughout Westminster, see tabs for details.

New Sculpture Park Unwrapped in The Square Mile

There is a lot of art being unpacked and unveiled this week in London.

Around St Helen's Bishopsgate, a new sculpture park is rapidly taking shape.

The first piece to be carefully unpacked today was this:

It is Garden Pouf by Austrian artist Franz West.

Next up came this:

It is Julian Opie's Three Men Walking.

The piece I am looking forward to seeing most was still in it's crate.

The crate contains Anish Kapoor's Sky Mirror 2010 which will stand in Aviva Square.

These first three pieces will soon be joined by Screen with Folded Arms by Kenneth Armitage.

The official unveiling isn't until the 14th of July but if you are in the area this week, I would recommend nabbing a sneak preview. What is more you can actually enjoy and photograph the pieces! There is none of the precious citing of "security implications" as at Regent's Place or Sheldon Square, see my previous moan here.

Congratulations to the City of London for facilitating this genuinely engaging little show.

The project is sponsored by Aviva, Hiscox, Gagosian Gallery, Lisson gallery, MTEC and New Art Centre, Roche Court,even British Land have decided to support this, they who forbid photography at Regent's Place!

The Sculpture Park will be in place up to 2012.

UPDATE: 4th July 2011 Anish Kapoor's Sky Mirror is now in place new post here.
UPDATE: 7th July 2011 Kenneth Armitage's piece is also in place, completing the park details here.

London Doesn't Warm to Sculpture

The newest sculpture in the City of Sculpture series has been unveiled in Berkeley Square.

It is entitled Berkeley Square by sculptor Jeff Lowe and is strangely the first piece to have been created especially for the programme. It is intended as a "Celebration of the London Olympics".

Speaking from his "retreat" in the Algarve,  the artist has claimed  that  “People don’t warm to sculpture easily in London."

I wonder, what on earth could have led him to form this opinion? Perhaps it is born out of a very personal experience.

The artist explains his ambitions in an interview with Unique "I wouldn't be happy knowing that all I’d done in my life was to make good sculpture. I want to do more than that. I need to feel that I’ve come up with something that’s difficult for people to understand." First ambition, highly unlikely; second already achieved?

More on Jeff Lowe, including a variety of carefully selected, but badly scanned, pdfs of his press coverage, from his website here.

Move Over Dancing Hares - Gagarin is Coming

Fans of Barry Flanagan's dancing hares have only a matter of days left to enjoy them in their current position.

 

This work, Large Mirror Nijinsky 1992 is to be resited somewhere in Westminster. Currently it stands outside the British Council's Offices on The Mall, near to Admiralty Arch.

It was installed to mark the British Council's 75th Anniversary but the British Council, together with the  Russian Space Agency, have successfully proposed a new sculpture to replace them during Westminster City Council's City of Sculpture festival.

The hares will be replaced any day now by a copy of a 1960s Soviet sculpture of Yuri Gagarin that stands in Space City. The Gagarin statue will commemorate 50 years of manned space flight. It is planned that the Gagrin statue will be in place for a year, just across the road from Captain Cook.

I have not been able to find out where the hares will be going but there is a major retrospective on Barry Flanagan, who died in 2009, planned for Tate Britain this September, so maybe they will feature there? If you do spot them popping up elsewhere, please drop me a line.

Horse's Head Found in Mount Street Gardens

Yesterday morning this new sculpture was delivered to Mount Street Gardens in Mayfair.

It is Fire by Nic Fiddian-Green, the sculptor who also brought us Marwari - Horse at Water at Marble Arch. More on this artist, who has been producing monumental horse's heads for over 25 years, from his website here.

Another of his works is currently outside the Sladmore Gallery in Bruton Place where he has an exhibition running until the 26th August. Details from the gallery here.

The Mount Street Gardens head is the latest piece in Westminster City Council's excellent City of Sculpture initiative.

The programme has so far delivered the temporary public display of major sculptures such as Jelly Baby Family, by Mauro Perruchetti, Vroom Vroom and Force of Nature II by Lorenzo Quinn and Core Femme by Jill Berelowitz as well as the Bruce Denny group in Soho Square.

All these, and many more are planned, have been installed at zero cost to the council. All the costs associated with installing and insuring each work have been met by the participating galleries and patrons.

See the City of Sculpture label below for links to related posts.

Looking Backwards in Cavendish Square

Lord George Bentinck and The Cavendish Square Cow have a new sculptural companion.

This is Jill Berelowitz's "Core Femme". Looking more closely you can see that each vertebrae is a female torso.

The sculpture is another in the City of Westminster's, City of Sculpture initiative. By the time of the Olympics we can expect up to 60 works of art to be on display in the City's open spaces.

The plaque on the plinth interprets the work like this:

"A towering image of the body's central element, the core through which life's energy flows. Curved female torsos in bone coloured resin represent stacked vertebrae in this soaring, spinal column. In the language of physiology, the backbone's topmost disc is named after Atlas, primordial bearer of the heavens and a symbol of endurance in ancient Greek mythology.

The sculpture is similarly mighty, yet graceful: a powerful metaphor for human strength of character, wisdom and spiritual growth."


More on this great South African artist, from her website here.

Bruce Denny in Soho Square

Yesterday I went to Soho Square to see the temporary exhibition of sculpture by Bruce Denny.

Ascension - Bruce Denny

Intrigue - Bruce Denny

Intrigue - Bruce Denny

The Conversion of St Paul - Bruce Denny

The Conversion of St Paul - Bruce Denny

They will be there all summer as part of Westminster City Council's City of Sculpture Festival. For more details and links to his catalogues click here.