Picasso to Julie Mehretu modern drawings, the British Museum collection

Picasso to Julie Mehretu modern drawings, the British Museum collection
7 October 2010 –25 April 2011


Currently, the British Museum exhibits many of the great artists' drawings of the 20th century collected over the past 35 years.
The collection starts with Picasso’s study for his masterpiece Les Demoiselles d'Avignon and concludes with Julie Mehretu, the Ethiopian-born artist who is one of the stars of the international contemporary art scene with acclaimed solo exhibitions at the Guggenheim in New York and across the world.

The collected drawings are not selected artists' famous major works. But, I believe it is rare opportunity to enjoy their practice pieces and early studies. (unfortunately, taking photos was exhibited.)

Cradle to Grave by Pharmacopoeia

The theme of British Museum's Room 24 is Living and Dying and when I visited Brisith Museum 'Cradle to Grave by Pharmacopoeia' was attracting people's attention.

a 13m long 0.4m wide fabric incoperates over 14,000 drugs. According to the description of the piece, It is the estimated average prescribed to every person in Britain in their lifetime.

Cradle to Grave by Pharmacopoeia explores the approach to health in Britian today.
It contains a lifetime supply of prescribed drugs knitted into two lengths of fabric, and illustrates the medical stories of one woman and one man.

Through this object, Susie Freeman, Dr Liz Lee and David Critchley wanted to say that maintaining a sense of well-being is more complex than just treating episodes of illness.

Ecobuild 2011

Ecobuild is the world’s largest event for sustainable design, construction and the built environment. This year Ecobuild was held at the Excel Centre in east London with more than 600 speakers and 1300 exhibitors, all held over 3 days from Tuesday 1st March.

I attended two days and interestingly in this year Kingston University launch a library of 1200 samples of sustainable materials that use fewer virgin resources and that are easily renewed.

To be honest, comparing with last year, I felt Ecobuild have become a giant commercial event. There were a lot of material and product companies and some parts lost point for sustainability and future environment.

For me, the most interesting session of Ecobuild was seminars and lectures for sustainable design and landscape. In particular, Grant Associates’s presentation for their winning design ‘Garden by the bay’ in Singapore was really impressive. (Even it was not entirely focused sustainable design..) They described their strong narrative planting scheme with different story and environmental concept. Moreover, I could realise their design consideration for relationship between building and garden. But I still want to know more about their scheme for ecosystem of the garden.