Friday 15 March 2013

Salty Dog at the Whitechapel Gallery

In search of culture, knowledge and wisdom for my small-child ravaged brain, last week I went to the  Whitechapel Gallery's First Thursday.

I love First Thursdays.  The ritual of the galleries of the East End of London opening their doors to their neighbours just adds to the buzz of excitement that fills our streets these days.  I don't normally go in to the galleries as the Cool Factor inside is way too high & subsequently fills me with fear, but I like to stare in wonder at the beautiful people spilling out onto Redchurch Street as I wander up to Albion to buy a late night choccy brownie.


This evening's trip was part inspired by the larger of my 2 small rioting children, as she recently came home from nursery with a postcard of what looked like a peeled tree trunk dipped in gold following an inpromptu trip down to Whitechapel with one of her awesome (there simply is no other word) teachers.  I was intrigued, and also a bit disturbed that my 4 year old knows far more about the latest exhibits in our neighbourhood than I do. 

Time to redress that balance. 

I fell in love with the Peeled Golden Tree, more commonly known as the latest Bloomberg Commission by Guiseppe Penone called Spazio di Luce.  Rachel Whiteread's Tree of Life is quite simply beautiful, and the video showing how the facade came to life is fascinating.

In a bid to be grown ups, my pal & fellow Mummy-in-need-of-a-break-and-culture and I popped up to the bar for a sneaky glass of wine where I was ridiculously excited to find these awesome Salty Dog crisps.  There is a no photography rule at the Whitechapel, so this is my only memento from my evening of culture, but pretty fitting for a doggy kinda blog!

We wandered home, me with an empty bag of crisps and a dog eared postcard of my Peeled Golden Tree.  We stopped at the Albion Cafe to look at the stacks of beautiful tins and yummy delicacies on their shelves, leaving with a ridiculously delicious salty caramel tiny tart to nibble as we watched the last of the Redchurch Revelers go about their cool ways.

Lovely.

Note To Self: Must Try Harder on the Culture.







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