Is the Kelvingrove better than the V&A?
In this blog post I will be sharing my experience from our Visual Research methods trip to Glasgow Museums. I visited 3 museums, The Kelvingrove, The Lighthouse and also The Gallery of Modern Art. This blog post will be dedicated to The Kelvingrove.
First of all the amount of space dictated to the pieces of art is amazing, at no point was I walking through empty spaces, I was always confronted by a wall of art or a standing sculpture. This is where the comparison to the V&A comes in, the amount of artwork in the Kelvingrove is not comparable to the one small room in the V&A; however, having said that, the Kelvingrove had a lot more artwork than design pieces (which I can still appreciate) compared to the V&A (which is a design museum) and the Kelvingrove is still doing better than it. I think overall, I preferred the Kelvingrove because of the wide range of work in it, turning every corner there was something else to see and something more exciting than the last.
The first piece of art that i’m going to write about was painted to represent the Buka War, it was painted by Mathias Kauage. The painting shows the war that happened over copper mining on the Buka Island which lasted 9 years, where islanders lay down in front of the bulldozers to try and stop the destruction of their land. Destruction of lands and deforestation was shown a lot throughout the Kelvingrove museum, which was very thought provoking hence why I added this to my blog.
It was the colour that first caught my eye and drew me over to the painting, then all the abstract looking shapes. Once I read the information for the painting, it started to come together. I’m a big lover of history and wars like this have been happening for years and are still happening today; people thinking the have the “God given right” to take the land of others. I like how Mathias Kauage took something of importance and made art of it. The juxtaposition of the painting is what also caught my eye, the sad meaning behind doesn’t correlate with the colour palette used which is another reason I enjoyed this painting so much.
The next piece of design that i’m going to write about is why I was excited to visit the Kelvingrove - The floating heads by Sophie Cave. She created over 50 heads for this design each displaying different emotions. The design is all about having the feeling that people are watching you.
All of the heads are completely white and are lit with coloured lighting so that their expressions are illuminated which gives them an eerie feeling. The juxtaposition between the heads and their surroundings adds to the over all effect of the display. There’s no particular meaning behind the floating heads, perhaps maybe giving off a hunted feeling or maybe just making people confront their biggest fear of being watched. This is why I like this design so much because it’s up to interpretation of what the display means, its tailored to mean different things to different people.
The next piece I will be talking about is a watercolour painting by Avril Paton called “windows to the west”. I really enjoyed looking at this painting and I think it was because of the style she used, I also know the technique used for watercolour so I could relate the the painting more.
Avril Paton painted this from her studio apartment across from this building after a snowstorm. The painting is very large in scale and while painting she couldn’t use an easel she had to paint while on the floor, this painting took her 6 months to paint. While looking at this painting you can see all the individual brush marks and all the layer she had to use for the watercolour, the painting shows so much detail and the large scale of it makes it feel as if you are actually look through the window at this building. That’s why I like this so much because it captivates the viewer.
The last piece that caught my eye while in the Kelvingrove was called Embassy Lodge by Anthony Green and this piece could be seen as a design work or art work. It was painted with oil on shaped wood. It was influenced by the breakage of his mothers best china.
The scale of this design is what caught my eye, it is so big that I was stood there looking up at it and was struggling to fit it in the camera frame without walking into the wall behind me. The abstract shape is what pulls it all together. The story behind the design is that he broke his mothers best china so he painted the experience he had from it. I also really like this design because it is daunting and makes you feel as if it was you that broke the china, standing underneath this massive painting with the women looking angry in the foreground, it interacts with the viewer.
So my trip to the Kelvingrove…was much better than my trip to the V&A. I felt as if I achieved more here than I did visiting the V&A. The museum is very well laid out and is worth a trip to go and see.
Drew Moody
