Spring should have sprung

Realising that Spring should have sprung, I thought it good to get out into the great outdoors and see some colour – perhaps the shy blooms of purple Crocuses peeping through the ground or the nodding heads of yellow Daffodils. Not many about – as we all lament, Spring is sleepily late this year.

What I did come across is the arresting new installation ‘Rock on Top of Another Rock’ by Swiss artists Fischli/Weiss, situated outside the Serpentine Gallery in Kensington Gardens.  ‘Rock on Top of Another Rock’ is exactly that: a huge rock balanced seemingly precariously on top of another huge rock.  If like me your imagination runs riot, you might see zoomorphic forms in the rocks as you circle - perhaps a dog in profile staring into the distance looking for Hyde Park squirrels to chase or a Max Ernst owl-like bird scanning for prey.  Whatever you see, it is a monumental sculpture that makes you ponder.  It also makes you consider the physical space in which it is set,  being visible from a number of viewpoints within the park; you start analysing the layout of the park with its elegant formal tree lined Georgian and Victorian Walks and avenues .

It is a new installation but its sum pieces are very old – igneous granite rock which makes it some 400 – 600 million years old; Palaeozoic and prehistoric in one.  The Rock on Top also enjoys a wonderful view of another man-made monument, a mere sapling in age terms,  the Gothic style Albert Memorial designed by George Gilbert Scott in 1872,  the newly re-gilded areas of the pinnacle of the canopy glowing like a beacon in the sunlight.

Two man-made monuments of deceptively different age and form both interacting with nature and viewer and bringing together place and space..

Spring Stock

Still starved of a glimpse of Spring I offer some colour in the form of three vibrant screen prints by the renowned abstract artist Anthony Benjamin (British 1931 – 2002) and some golden lights.

Wishing you all a fabulous Easter.
 
Johanna