psmv5: Saatchi One

A week or so ago to Sloane Square to visit the Saatchi Gallery to see the Burtynsky extraction/abstraction exhibition there. An exhibition we learned about in the margins of the expedition to Soif noticed at reference 1.

A cold, early start to the day, an earlier start than we have managed for some time. But the brown bread was on form and the orange was on form - the quality of oranges being very variable at this time of year, even among oranges bought at the same time and place - so off to a good start. And for once in a while I accepted a lift to the station.

Lots of twittering in the bushes across the rails from the town platform and some birds to be seen. But too far for my eyes to identify without the help of the absent monocular.

New footbridge more or less in place at Stoneleigh, but clearly some way off being finished.

Much cogitation about the best route to Sloane Square, bearing in mind that my back was playing up a bit. Change at Wimbledon? Change at Clapham Junction for Victoria? Change at Clapham Junction for a Bullingdon? In the end, I decided that it was an easy run to Sloane Square from Clapham Junction and settled for the last of these.

Greeted on arrival by this substantial trolley, either from Lidl or Aldi, two shops which my brain does not care to distinguish properly. I would have had to look up where the relevant shop was and did not have that much time to spare, so in the end settled for no score, despite the record on Lidl and Aldi being very thin. If it exists at all.

On past the CrossFit operation underneath the arches where young men and women with improbably large amounts of muscle were doing all kinds of improbable things - including one gang of young men walking around carrying large weights. I might have had trouble lifting one, never mind walking around with one.

It was indeed an easy run, and I got to Sloane Square with a few minutes in hand, which I thought to spend quietly sitting in Holy Trinity church. A place which describes itself as the cathedral of the arts and crafts movement of a hundred years or so ago and which also does a lot of music. A place which, if the archive is to be believed, I had not visited for more than five years. See references 2 and 3.

Furthermore, once one got past Thames Water, the place was open, despite it still being fairly early.

Some trick of the lighting made the east window particularly impressive on this occasion, with the snap above doing better than I thought likely at the time, with black of the upper tracery very stark against the light beyond.

I was also intrigued by the arch to the left of the canopy over the pulpit in the snap above, the outer edge of the stones looking very sharp and thin, hardly like stone at all. Perhaps they were not carrying that much weight.

They boasted two pianos, a smart looking Bösendorfer by the altar and a not-so-smart anonymous by the door.

Inspection of the archive today suggests that neither has been scored before, with the only Bösendorfer being that at reference 4. Given that I did not get to see either keyboard, perhaps it will be fair to score one in due course.

Left to make my rendezvous and to inspect all the tents and sheds being erected in Sloane Square: no longer a pleasant place just to sit, one had to spend money. One might have thought there were enough fooderies without. Plus there used to be one of those green huts run by taxi drivers' wives for their menfolk, lady taxi drivers not having been invented at the time, but I did not notice any such thing on this occasion. Nor was I able to turn up a picture, but there are references 5 and 6.

In any event, spurning the sheds, we made for the Colbert, now a continental style café-restaurant, when I first knew it, back in the late 1960s, a rather shabby and usually more or less empty public house, a Courage house as I recall. Perhaps it was for the servants & such rather than the real occupiers of all the fancy houses round about. Not sure why, but I never used to use it much, even though I was living in nearby Elizabeth Street at the time.

Breakfast for me of tea and bacon roll, all rather nicely presented. Very good bacon, roll a bit light and buttery (or perhaps oily) but entirely eatable. Second half of it snapped above.

Onto Duke of York Square and the Saatchi Gallery, where the park part of the square was cranking up to a busy street food scene, with the perimeter lined with tents. I dare say the residents have mixed feelings about it all. Or maybe they are mainly rich foreigners who are never there? From where I associate to the fairground origins of the word foreign, that is to say the French 'foire' and 'forrain', with the latter being (roughly) someone with a stall in the former.

A handsome gallery, with a series of large, well lit rooms, arranged on two floors. Spot on for an exhibition of this sort. Impressive large format floor boards, maybe 12 inches wide, in very good condition considering how old they are and the amount of wear and dirt in a gallery. Impressive large format photographs, some cunningly incorporated into walls, and sometimes floors. Despite being curious, I did not, in the end, buy the book of the show in the hope of finding out how it was all done.

The one snapped above, for example, was very high resolution which could take very close inspection and I found no joins. Perhaps AI was used to smooth over them?

And even the smaller ones were still impressively big; much more impressive for real, in the gallery, than they are this morning at reference 7 - despite their being plenty of good quality freebies there.

This one, for example, was both at the exhibition and to be found on the website, download-able at around a quarter of a megabyte. Presumably if one pays, one can have lots more megabytes and get an image fit for wall-mounted display. Someone has to pay for all that travel, all those helicopters and all that photographic machinery.

Another good feature of the gallery was the provision of benches in the middle of most of the rooms. Just the ticket for the older visitor. And the pictures were quite big enough to be interesting sitting down.

A close up of a reef, I think off Australia, somehow printed onto the whole of an end wall, maybe ten metres by four. There were very high ceilings as well as very large floorboards: the military who once lived in the building clearly did themselves in style. Presumably posh military of the Household Division, now packed off to somewhere suburban.

I was puzzled by the absence of fish. But there were quite a few of the bottle shaped creatures, one of which can be seen a little off-centre above.

Have not yet got to the bottom of what the heaps were, but I did learn about the relatively recent arrival of rape seed oil. Or, to be more precise having turned up reference 8, its relatively recent arrival as a food oil. The stuff has been around for thousands of years for lighting and such, but it took the Canadians to breed an edible version. Canada and China now very big into the stuff, sometimes called canola for 'Canada oil low acid'. At least, according to Wikipedia.

With Bing offering the stuff snapped above. Not what I use in my bread, resting content with something more mundane, and a good deal cheaper, from Sainsbury's.

The scars left by tunnelling machines, probably somewhere in the former Soviet Union.

Altogether most impressive. But, notwithstanding, I came away with the feeling that it was all very dead. There was very little in the way of people and there was very little in the way of value-add from the artist. OK, so he had set the thing up, he had spotted the opportunity - but it was all very mechanical. A matter to be pondered on.

Out to sample the champagne in the outside bar contrived by Partridge's outside their shop. Enterprising of them. And you were allowed to eat sandwiches bought in their shop, provided you bought some champagne too. Lanson black label. Dear, but rather good. And lots of pretty people holding their pretty dogs. Some expensively got up pretty babies too. My sandwich was not very good though: not up to the standard of M&S or Pret. I suppose Mr. Partridge is a bit new to street food - but old fashioned enough to offer a selection of cigars to go with his champagne. And a very young waiter who could dilate on their various qualities - not that I agreed with him on them. I kept quiet.

To round off the proceedings there, I took a couple of bottles of his fish soup. Thick brown stuff, which I took with BH later on. Rather good it was too. According to the label, 30% fish. Thickened with carrot, onion, tomato, flour and various other odds and ends. Including a spot of rapeseed oil.

Some art concrete, just across from the champagne. Another offering from the yard which did that noticed at reference 9? There were some rather handsome planters too, offering mainly green and white.

Closely followed by the curious building snapped above. A curiosity in that it is a private preparatory school which is still run by the Townend family whose colonel started it in 1951. An operation which now includes small, lower, middle, upper and international schools, spread across Chelsea. The snap above is the Founders' Hall. Presumably with a clientèle drawn from among the pretty people, domestic and foreign, milling about on this Saturday.

And so to the Ivy, once the Six Bells, a famous haunt in the late 1960s. Proper memory lane job for my sister. The place was busy and we were not pretty enough to rate seats inside, but we were allowed in the large garden out back, a handsome garden which must have cost quite a bit to keep up and running. Furthermore, slightly to my surprise, we got served fast enough.

Along with so many other places, they offered afternoon teas on those three tiered cake stands. Topped out here with two little milk bottles full of some deep green sludge. I did ask, but do not properly remember now: spinach and ricotta smoothies? All very traditional!

Furthermore, someone was vaping in the garden and two team members were actually smoking real fags on the pavement outside. To be fair, they had moved along a little bit for the purpose.

Outside to inspect the large church in Sydney Street, on the way to South Kensington tube. A small café had been fashioned in the front that meant the church itself was open too. With a piano.

Later on, I tried to decipher the name of the maker, but I might have been a bit tired by that point, as it took the power of Google Images to translate to Ibach, from which I got, via the archive, to reference 11. Sadly, already scored.

A handsomely appointed church, in good condition but without any ornament on the altar table, despite still being up and running. And oddly cold. Perhaps it was just too obviously far too big for any likely ecclesiastical purpose.

Out to inspect the motor vehicles round about. Which included a now rare motor cycle combo, still common enough when I was young.

Some of it appeared to have been imported from India.

And an Aston Martin to provide a bit of balance. Presumably not from India, although quite possibly Indian owned. Not snapped for some reason, so we have to make do with the Datsun above, which Google Images tells me is a First Generation Nissan Z-car (S30), another collectible, if not quite in the same league as an Aston Martin. While car check tells me that it is a Datsun 240Z from 1972 with a history of failing its MOTs. And I now know that Datsun is a Nissan brand (or vice-versa). See reference 12 for some context.

Looked in at Daquise, and then into the very crowded tube station. I could not get into the first train, but took the second to Earls Court, also packed. And then another packed train to Wimbledon - but at least most of the people got out at Fulham Broadway, which I now know is one of the stops for the Chelsea Football Ground, where the Chelsea Ladies were to play Barcelona. Ladies football might be all the thing but it took me a little while to find this out, the Internet scene being dominated by men's football.

And so home to the fish soup mentioned above.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/04/celebration-with-soif.html.

Reference 2: https://sloanechurch.org/.

Reference 3: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/07/arts-crafts-1.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/11/piano-64.html.

Reference 5: https://stephenliddell.co.uk/2020/03/04/the-secret-green-huts-of-london/.

Reference 6: https://urban75.org/london/cabmans-shelters.html.

Reference 7a: https://www.edwardburtynsky.com/. This morning, this is still an advertisement for the Saatchi exhibition, now closed.

Reference 7b: https://www.edwardburtynsky.com/home.

Reference 8: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapeseed_oil.

Reference 9: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/01/skewered-again.html.