Grad

Grad is a new Russian art gallery that has opened in Fitzrovia, showing art from both Russia and the UK.

They had a very interesting recent exhibition about Russian-made tourist posters from the 1930s.  The posters were in glass frames so there is a bit of glare in my pictures but you still can get an idea of how the posters looked.

 A poster aimed at German tourists

 A proposed design that was never made into a poster at the time

Two poster emphasising Russia's cultural achievements

These posters were contrasted with how Russia was portrayed in internal propaganda.  The two styles of posters were very different.  In the external tourism posters the beauty of the landscape was emphasised and a romanticised vision of glamorous women and fast cars was shown.

Internal propaganda focused on spreading the communist message. Images of planes were used in a purely military sense.

An external Russian tourism poster, aimed at the French market, featuring a plane 

An internal poster featuring images of planes.

These two posters use images of planes.  In the first poster the viewer is positioned at the same height as the plane and is able to view the whole of Europe.  The internal propaganda poster show the plane above the people looking up at it, literally cutting them off from the skies.

A though-provoking exhibition.

Romanian and Russian shop Bruce Grove

I don’t think I’ve seen any exclusively Romanian shops in my world tour of London until heading up to the Tottenham area.  But I have to say that London is so huge that really for all I know there are loads of Romanian stops in parts of town that I’ve never been to.

Russian Revels

I finally made it to a party from the Last Tuesday Society a couple of months ago and I had a blast! Such a great evening.

But more relevant to my blog are the 'Russian Revels' two Russians who serve Eastern European food at various events around London.  They've  been to a Baltic midsummer night garden party and an International Woman's day event according to their flyer.

They were providing food in the Russian room at the Orphanage Ball.

You can find more about them on their site www.russianrevels.co.uk

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

Abracadabra

To say that Abracadabra restaurant in Piccadilly is ‘quirky’ would be a bit of an understatement.   They serve a mix of Russian and British food, they have three tropical birds in cage by the bar, the urinals in the men’s toilets are shaped like mouths, the owner has a photo of him and Cherie Blair by one of the tables and there’s a huge chandelier above the main table (which is a revolving table).  We were also the only people in the entire restaurant.

I had pickled vegetables as a starter and my friend Paul had borscht.  I had pelmeni for my main course - spiced pork and beef dumplings with sour cream which was delicious.  I tried out the Georgian wine with the meal.  We were both too full to manage any dessert.

 

World Press Photography 2012

The World Press Photography competition photos are displayed each year at the Southbank Centre. The photographs featuring this year focused on events that took place in 2011 with the tsunami in Japan, the conflict in Libya and protests in Egypt all featuring prominently.

 Japan after the Tsunami, photograph by Paolo Pellegrin from Italy

 Japan after the Tsunami, photograph by Koichiro Tezuka from Japan

Demonstrators kneeling for prayer near Tahir Square in Egypt, photograph by Jan Dago from Denmark

 Dakar Fashion Week, photograph by Vincent Boiset from France

Moscow, photograph by Alexander Gronsky from Russia

 Traditional dress worn by a tribal elder in Papua New Guinea, photograph by Brent Stirton

Ritual cleansing in Kazakhstan, photograph by Pavel Prokopchik from the Netherlands

Deep in Russia

On the opening evening of Deep in Russia the artist Oleg Kulik, whilst dressed as a priest, climbed into a large fish tank and read from the Bible to the fish inside.  According to the exhibition information, his ‘performative art practice emerged out of the bleak and brutal socio-cultural environment of post-Soviet Russia.” 

In Deep in Russia he examines what it means to be human through imagining not being human.  I guess as humans we are limited in how we can imagine not being human, especially  (as a Time Out review of the exhibition pointed out) as the very act of trying to imagine not being human makes us stand out from animals, who most likely are not spending their days trying to work out what it might be like to not be an animal.  Nevertheless the Ukrainian artist gives it his best shot, from acting like a dog in the street to interacting sexually with farm animals and pets.  Not an exhibition for the faint-of-heart.