Gaiety Is the Most Outstanding Feature of the Soviet Union

Gaiety Is the Most Outstanding Feature of the Soviet Union is the name of an exhibition of Russian art the Saatchi Gallery.  Here were my favourite pieces from the exhibition:

 

Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopedia Prints by Sergei Vasiliev

Balance of Probabilities by Yelena Popova

Sex in the City by Gosha Ostretsov

 Entry No Entry by Erik Bulatov

Procession Series by Francisco Infante

 Criminal Government by Gosha Ostretsov

 For the Poor Janitor by Dimitri Prigov

 Museum of Contemporary Russian Art by Leonid Sokov

by Alexander Kosolapov

Superobject -  Supercomfort for Superpeople by Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid

The Wurst Club

Another German sausage place as opened up near Bank.  It had not been open very long when I visited, which might explain why it took them so long to bring my currywurst and pommes over.  To be honest, it reminded me a bit of the episode of the Apprentice where the two teams had to run a fast food lunch place for a day.

Hopefully these were just teething problems due to having just opened, as the food was worth the wait.  There are no tables and chairs but you can stand at the counter by the window to eat.

 I didn't realise that my currywurst would come with a bread roll, so I was pretty full by the time I'd eaten all this!

The Wurst Club also sells a small range of German chocolates and sweets, as well as Club Mate to drink.

Arirang

Atlas Gallery had an intriguing photographic exhibition recently of  North Korea's Grand Mass Gymnastics and Artistic Performance Arirang.

The exhibition has now ended but there are plenty of clips on YouTube that are well worth checking out.  The show really is an incredible sight - tens of thousands of performers take part in it each year.

This photo shows the 'backdrop' - thousands of teenagers with a large number of coloured cards. They hold their piece of card in the air to spell out words or show scenes as a background for the performers below.  They are so synchronised that it's hard to believe that the result is not done by computer.