Big Ben and Big Bun Silhouette. Photo by Lucy Barwin, July 2014.

We had a lovely self-directed art tour of London galleries and museums this summer, plus a side tour to Windsor Castle, Stonehenge, and Oxford.

A highlight was our participation in Marina Abramovic’s 512 hours at the Serptentine Gallery.

From the website: {In a unique work created for the Serpentine, the internationally acclaimed artist Marina Abramovic will perform in the Gallery for the duration of her exhibition:  10am to 6pm, 6 days a week. Creating the simplest of environments in the Gallery spaces, Abramovic’s only materials will be herself, the audience and a selection of props that she may or may not use. On arrival, visitors will both literally and metaphorically leave their baggage behind in order to enter the exhibition: bags, jackets, electronic equipment, watches and cameras may not accompany them. The public will become the performing body, participating in the delivery of an unprecedented moment in the history of performance art. }

Daily diaries found here: http://www.serpentinegalleries.org/exhibitions-events/marina-midnight-serpentine-diaries 

During our visit on July 25th, 2014, the exhibit was utilizing ear defenders to block out sound, ritual walking, and the separating of black and white rice. The best part for me, was the visual of Anonymouse holding hands with one of Marina’s volunteers (which he coined the “sweaty hand brigade”), and walking in slow motion in the walking room.  I could see Anonymouse was really concentrating on walking slowly, while Marina was walking with another fellow, alongside them. This was right before the volunteer left Anonymouse to stare at a wall for 10 minutes.

Considering Anonymouse’s temperament, this experience has now become a legendary tale, and account of Anonymouse’s embrace of the contemporary art world. I now know from watching Marina’s daily diaries, that she is looking to record profound emotional experiences from herself and visitors, but sometimes the aftereffect is the most powerful, especially when it’s an unexpected, and unanticipated appreciation of the moment.

Marina Abramovic, Serpentine Gallery, London, July 2014.

Not all exhibits allow photos, but here are some highlights below.

Tate Britain

British Folk Art
Kenneth Clarke
Tate Boat

Tate Modern
Transferred Visions
Poetry and Dreams
Matisse Cuts Outs
Malevich
Russian Revolutionary Posters
Mark Rothko

National Portrait Gallery
BP Portrait Awards 2014
Virginia Wolff
Cubism
Catherine Goodman
Permanent Collections

National Gallery
Building the Picture: Architecture in Italian Renaissance Painting
Permanent Collections

Dairy
Julian Schnabel

White Cube x 2
Gilbert & George Scapegoating
Rachel Kneebone

Barbican

Serpentine x 2
Marina Abramovic: 512 Hours
Ed Atkins

Saatchi
Jenny Saville 

Gagosian
Alexander Calder

Victoria & Albert
MF Hussein

British Museum

Royal Academy x 2
Dennis Hopper
Summer Exhibition

Queens Gallery
The First Georgians

Society of Antiquaries
Portraying the Past

The Wallace Collection

Dulwich Picture Gallery
Art and Life: Ben Nicholson, Winifred Nicholson, Christopher Wood, Alfred Wallis, William Staite Murray, 1920 – 1931

The Fleming Collection

Philip Mould & Co
Personal Tour

Numerous New & Old Bond Street Galleries

Sotheby’s