Guildhall Art Gallery, Guildhall Yard, London EC2V 5AR Date: Friday 16th February 2018, 7pm – 10pm
Exhibition dates: Thursday 7th September 2017 – Monday 2nd April 2018
Guildhall Art Gallery is offering an alternative Valentine’s Day experience, inviting you to celebrate something that we all have in common: life and death. Inspired by the core themes in Nature Morte, this Late event promises an enjoyable night of music, art, drawing, and cocktails.
There’s to be a Victorian entertainment show, with a variety of activities (including still life drawing, flower pressing or tote bag making) and hear a talk about ‘ethical’ taxidermy with Jazmine Miles-Long. DJ Museum of Vinyl’s life and death-inspired playlist will provide the soundtrack to the evening.
Nature Morte, one of the largest exhibitions ever presented by the City of London Corporation at Guildhall Art Gallery, illustrates how leading artists of the 21st century have reinvigorated still life. With over 100 pieces from different disciplines going beyond the two-dimensional, including sculpture, digital, and sound, Nature Morte displays works by artists including Mat Collishaw, Michael Craig-Martin, Gabriel Orozco and Marc Quinn.
Elizabeth Scott, Head of Guildhall Art Gallery & London’s Roman Amphitheatre, said, Nature Morte celebrates the age-old themes of life and death and yet, when you reflect on these themes, love isn’t very far away. Life, death and love go hand in hand, and what better way to explore these themes than an alternative Valentine’s Day Late that celebrates the romantic, morbid and life-affirming?
The events programme includes :
Talk on ‘ethical’ taxidermy with Jazmine Miles-Long (7pm and 8.15pm, Basinghall Suite) Described as an ‘ethical’ taxidermist, Jazmine Miles-Long produces work using only animals that have died from natural causes. This is an exciting opportunity to discover and understand the techniques used to create her work.
The audience will be able to handle objects and tools that show the process of taxidermy in different stages, while Jazmine also reveals some of the romantic stories in taxidermy historically. [please note: no dead animals will be used during the talk.]
Yep not your usual Valentine’s pursuit, but that’s no bad thing.
Memento Mori Still Life: Death Drawing workshop with Art Macabre (7 – 10pm, Undercroft) Join London’s purveyors of death-positive creativity, Art Macabre, to create your own unique memento mori collage. Be inspired by a contemporary twist on a traditional still life set up in the space, with objects from fruit and bones to symbols of modern life. Cut and paste a DIY design that will remind you of your own mortality. A reflective, creative activity to help you explore and draw inspiration upon looking death in the face.
Don’t go into the Cellar present ‘Tea with Oscar Wilde’ (split into three acts, taking place at intervals throughout the evening, Amphitheatre) A chat show with a difference brought to you by Don’t Go Into The Cellar! Theatre Company – the British Empire’s finest practitioners of top-notch Victorian entertainment. Join Oscar Wilde as he interviews a leading celebrity of the Victorian era, recounts a story or two and invites his audience to get ‘Caught in the Act’! Jonathan Goodwin plays the famed Victorian wit, in a show packed with comedy, music and audience participation.
These are only a few of what’s on offer. To find out more:
Website http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/guildhallartgallery
Location Guildhall Art Gallery and London’s Roman Amphitheatre, Guildhall Yard, London EC2V 5AR, 020 7332 3700
Admission Tickets are available priced £15 (plus booking fee) from https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/nature-morte-late-tickets40714482112?aff=efbeventtix
Getting there The closest tube stations are Bank (on the Central, Northern, District and Circle and DLR lines), St Paul’s (on the Central line), Mansion House (on the Circle and District lines) and Moorgate (on the Northern, Hammersmith and City, Circle and Metropolitan lines). The nearest rail station is Liverpool Street.
Twitter @GuildhallArt
Website http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/guildhallartgallery
.