Christie's awards dinner

We had our final end-of-the year awards dinner this past weekend. The catered dinner was in the actual auction house - who doesn't love dining surrounded by millions of dollars of art? 

Cocktails and champagne flowed beforehand...

and our dinner table was a lovely one.

and I got an award! woohoo! Highest academic performance in my course...totally unexpected. yay! 

We ended the night being given wristbands by the Christie's staff to a very posh club nearby (where Will & Kate used to frequent in their younger days) called Boujis. I won't include pictures of that because that would just be embarassing, but suffice it to say it was a fun last night out with the Christie's crew. Going to miss everyone terribly but hopefully our future careers will force us to cross paths again and again. Crossing my fingers for that. 

Columbia Flower Market

A friend and I went last Sunday to check out East London and the Columbia Flower Market. We started with Brick Lane, where we grabbed some yummy street food, and then headed over to the flowers! 

Probably my favorite part about this place is the men selling the flowers - thick East London accents and half the amount of teeth a normal person has and in muscle tees, yet holding up bouquets of the most beautiful flowers. What a lovely juxtaposition.

Highly recommend a wander if you're in the neighborhood.

Propaganda exhibition at BL

There is an exhibition on at the British Library right now called "Propaganda" - a collection of books, leaflets, posters, videos, etc all about propaganda of all types from any and all countries. I was interested to see how they succeeded in making these types of objects engaging and display them effectively - how does one make quotes and books exciting? Well, you could start by printing those provocative quotes on creepy face-less human forms and dispersing them around the entrance...

Quite effective really. 

The exhibition began with the "origins' of propaganda...Trajan's column can be seen as one of the earliest manifestations of propaganda. Coins and medallions with profiles of emperors/politicians/etc were also a forms of propaganda

We then moved onto printing and books...Reformation propaganda is an obvious place to start - who doesn't love looking at pictures of "the donkey-pope of Rome?"

I loved this - American anti-British propaganda - this below was designed by Paul Revere and shows a (grossly distorted) version of the Boston Massacre.

This is cool - the British went to new lengths by literally making board games for children about the conquest of their colonies. The game below refers to British domination of South Africa. Players re-enact Britain's campaign under the command of Lord Roberts as they march on Pretoria.

I was happy to see they included a painting - this is a whole subject in itself (political portraits as propaganda) and there was a nice explanation of the conventions Napoleon used next to this portrait of him (the laurel crown, the scepter, the coronation robes, the throne etc all legitimize him as the inheritor of France's monarchical tradition)

I thought this display was an engaging way to talk about political propaganda - bright flags with small windows to display the propaganda from various countries helps make the space visually exciting despite the small size of the actual objects displayed.

These were produced during the South African elections in 1994 - the comic book is awesome. It is all about a young man convincing his father that the elections will actually be fair and allow for non-whites in South Africa to have a voice. The first elections in which all adults could vote was this year, 1994...less than 20 years ago.

I thought this was interesting was an curatorial move - how does one present videos? If you just played it out loud, you could only do a few so the sounds didn't compete. By putting headphones here, one can listen if they want to and get a really personal experience. The movies were only a few minutes long (usually speeches or political parades) and I didn't have to wait in line for any - I thought it was very effective. 

This was something I had never thought about before - souvenirs as propaganda tools? Yep.

I had never seen this before - a book literally full of Hitler greeting and being nice to children. Nazi propaganda at its best? 

THIS I thought was very applicable to recent events - the poster is from 1971, more than 40 years ago. It is from the Soviet Union and is called "Freedom American-Style." In the poster, the Statue of Liberty is parodied as a look-out tower for the American police to observe its people, mocking the idea that it is a symbol of freedom. The poster attacks and subverts American propaganda that promoted the idea of the democratic freedom of the West. I think it is particularly applicable to the recent Edward Snowden controversies.

I listened to this vid - George Bush coining the term "axis of evil" in his state of the union address. 

We've all seen this image a million times, but cool to see one of the original posters.

 This was probably my absolute favorite piece of the whole exhibition - it is a silk scarf trying to discourage people from discussing war and other political matters out loud in public (on the bus etc)...clearly aimed at women (the object is a silk scarf after all), it shows five different scenarios where women could be overheard by enemy agents - produced during WWII.

Last but not least, this was another headphones-only piece - I listened to some good old Nazi Jazz (which I never even knew existed?)...the words are basically political propaganda demonizing enemies of the Nazi regime and praising its leaders, all to the jolly tunes of 1940s jazz. Really interesting.

Knole

Welcome to Knole! 

Knole was built in 1460 for the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Bourchier. He chose the location because of its ideal distance between London and Canterbury and the abundant land allowed him to create a deer hunting park, the ultimate medieval status symbol in the 15th century (one had to have a permit from the king to have a deer park, so it showed off how well-connected you were)

I had no idea how extensive this deer park was...it is huge! After taking a bus from the train station to the edge of the park, I walked at least 10 minutes through a heavily wooded trail...started out paved but quickly turned to dirt.

which eventually led me to a grassy valley, complete with tons of little fawns!

I continued on up a gravel path and finally Knole opened up in front of me. 

(I was loving the deer)

Moving on in history, the castle was kept in the hands of whoever was the current Archbishop of Canterbury until Henry VIII. In 1538, Thomas Cranmer "gave" the king this residence.

During the reign of Elizabeth I (daughter of Henry VIII), Thomas Sackville, her cousin, managed to take over possession through some wheeling and dealing at court. The Earls, Dukes, and Barons of the Sackville family have lived here ever since. 

Most notable among the Sackville family is perhaps Vita Sackville-West, friend and lover of Virginia Woolf. Woolf's novel Orlando draws on the history of the Sackville-West ancestors. Also interesting - The Other Boleyn Girl was filmed here! 

Here is a look at the interiors...

This is one of the three "long galleries" ...during the winter months, ladies would walk up and down these for exercise.

Good old Henry's portrait is here (along with portraits of the family) - having his portrait showed your loyalty and connections to him. 

Knole is particularly famous for its intact furniture - original fabric literally from the 16th/17th c. 

This girl below is really interesting...Giovanna Baccelli was a ballet dancer and the lover of the 3rd Duke. He brought her to Knole in 1779 as his mistress. She was well-known in London society, if only for her scandalous life, and was painted by Gainsborough - her full-length portrait is at the Tate Britain here in London. 

This (below) was also interesting - one of the tapestries is gone for restoration, so the wooden wall was visible - its very rare to see undecorated surfaces in these houses and gives you an idea of how the house was constructed.

below -- one of only 2 sets of PURE silver furniture in England - the other belongs to the Queen.

On my way out, I stopped by an art exhibition in the Orangery. Such a great space for it! The paintings were being sold for charity.

After this, I took a walk around the courtyards. Apparently, it is called a "calendar house" - there are 365 rooms, 52 staircases, 12 entrances, and 7 courtyards. 

There is also an extensive walled-in garden.

and cricket fields! (those little white figures are school boys in their cricket whites) 

I went alone (it was a last-minute decision) but great little personal field trip and with some light reading along the way (I'm halfway through "Fine Art and High Finance" - thrilling, I know) I considered it quite a productive day!