London Map Fair: C15th-C19th antique maps, Olympia2 Hammersmith, Fri 10 June 2005, 12-7pm and Sat 11 June 2005, 11-6pm. The fair looked like it had been deliberately hidden away in one of Olympia's cavernous basement warehouses. 60+ stalls, too few for the space, and not many punters, making it a somewhat desultory experience. One dealer said that business was slow, and Miami was a better fair (and not just because of the sun in February), but you have to come to London to show your face if you haven't been in the business hundreds of years (some dealers have). Many, many beautiful maps. The vast majority of antique maps are stubbornly geographic, with very few symbolic maps on show, except for sea charts hatched navigational lines and compass roses. Antique map price record (every?? price 1983-2005), Jonathan Potter maps, Worldview.
Marseille Figs played at Barden's Boudoir, 38-44 Stoke Newington Road, London, Sat 11 June. 10pm doors, £5 entry. In a long galleried space cached under a furniture store, the Figs confidently performed their big-band speed-folk bricolage. There's a fantastic provisional quality to the songs: the warmup elides into the song, the themes are jumpily sutured together. Lovely. (Their album reviewed here.)
A HUF Haus being built at Grand Designs Live, ExCel, Docklands, 10-12 June. Turns out they finished the house in two days. Usually it takes a week, but they had their crack building team on the job. Expect to see a lot of HUF Hausen in the UK in future. They're Alpine-styled timber and glass-walled houses built on load-bearng post-and-beam templates (or "bays"). Modular.
And, to come still:
- Siegfried Anzinger at Spruth Magers Lee, Berkeley St W1, until 18 June. Wobbly, splashy Kippenbergery (but funnier?) paintings.
- Elizabeth McAlpine at Laura Bartlett, Leathermarket St SE1, until 18 June. Cutups from films, looks like Christian Marclay with more process.
- Lucian Freud prints at Marlborough Gallery, Albermarle St, until 23 June.
- David Thorpe at Interim Art/Maureen Paley, Herald St E2, until 26 June.
- Architecture Week, London. Dan Hill's highlights, though surprised he hasn't noted the trip in the Thames tunnel and the Brunel Engine House museum:
The Brunels’ system of tunnelling is used all over the world, and appropriately enough in the Channel Tunnel linking England with the family’s country of origin France. This is the birthplace of modern urban transportation.
Descend by escalator to view the plaque installed by the Institution of Civil Engineers and the American Society of Civil Engineers. This is an International Landmark Site, and the first tunnel under a river anywhere in the world. There are six sites in the UK, and you are at the most important. In a sense all tube journeys begin here…
To Wapping Station (one stop). By kind arrangement with TfL the tunnel lights are on for your journey and you may see the 64 arches with half columns, Doric capitals & pilasters and porticos. You are travelling through the world’s first underwater shopping arcade, and examples of original souvenirs (Thames Tunnel gin flasks, pin cushions, snuff boxes, nursery ware), once sold here, are displayed in the Museum nearby.
Return to Rotherhithe Station (one stop). The Thames Tunnel is the oldest section of tunnel in the London Underground and the site of the first Underwater Fairground. View the posters on the platform, the original Brunel arch, and ascend to the surface either by lift or by stairs through Brunel’s original shaft. View plaque in ticket hall. Descend to southbound platform, stopping to take in Brunel’s underground cathedral from the first viewing platform.
- Library of Babel at the Courtauld Inst Library, Somerset House, The Strand, until 26 June. Includes work from "the Library of Unwritten Books project".
- Nigel Cooke at Modern Art, Vyner St E2, until 3 July.
- Royal Academy Summer show, Piccadilly, until 15 August. Worth going for Ed Ruscha and Richard Hamilton.
- Open Systems: Rethinking Art c1970 at Tate Modern, Bankside, until 18 September.
Want more? More events. More art listings.
The Grand Designs show that featured the construction of a Huf Haus did fuel the bit of me that wants to live in a huge and airy modern timber-framed house in the country. http://www.channel4.com/4homes/ontv/grand-designs/houses/S/surrey_huf.html
Posted by: Phil Gyford | June 15, 2005 at 09:30 AM