I don’t go to nearly enough art exhibitions or photography exhibitions or dance recitals or concerts these days. Maybe part of it is living all the way out here in a tiny, quiet village. It is mostly Camilla that finds art exhibitions in and around Malmö and Lund and suggests them to Debbie and I as possible excursions for the 3 of us. Concerts are too expensive most of the time, and require way too much work and honestly, I’ve seen most of the musical artists I like or am content to listen to their music via Spotify.
Most of my Instagram feed is made up of artists, who work in all kinds of media, because I love looking at beautiful things and art, so I also kind of feel that that is enough for me these days. I save the images that I find most beautiful in a collection on Instagram, where I can browse through them at my leisure. I used to download images and save them to my PC in a folder named “art” with the thought of printing them out, maybe putting them in a scrapbook, the way I used to when I was younger (ripping pages out of magazines to save pretty things). But I stopped that years ago, because I never did it, and the amount of files I was saving was getting unwieldy, and also I didn’t always have the source/name of the artist or the work, and I wouldn’t now want to print a book with those if I couldn’t give credit to the artist. Files saved off the web are often named with a jumble of letters/numbers so that was never any help, and I was apparently too lazy to rename them properly when I saved them, most of the time.
Today, the three of us met up at the Falsterbo Photo Art Museum, about an hour south of where I live, near the sea. The place is owned by a couple who has been collecting photography for over 25 years, with an extensive collection of big name photographers. Neither the exhibition from their collection nor the special visiting exhibition are permanent; they change about every 7-8 months or so. The private collection selections that we saw today were photos from Richard Avedon, Herb Ritts, and Helmut Newton, many of which I’ve seen before in various places. They were all from the 80s and 90s mostly, and lots of fashion photography and celebrities. Some really cool photos, but also some that weren’t really anything to write home about (says me, the amateur critic). I know what I like, haha.
I was a little unsure about what I would think of the main exhibition which was 74 photos and items: costumes mostly, used in the photos, for a huge collection called Wonderland by a UK artist/photographer named Kirsty Mitchell. I liked some of the photography very much, while others were just not my thing. It was funny because Camilla and I often disagreed. She liked images that I DIDN’T, and vice versa. The whole collection was very fantasy-filled and imaginative, based on literature that the artist’s mother used to read to her as a child, including obviously Alice in Wonderland, Narnia, The Fairie Queen, and other otherworldly stories. But the creations she had made, sometimes taking years, of dresses, costumes, headpieces, and other garments were AMAZING. They were made of books and leaves and paper butterflies, flowers and beads and bells and jewelry, lace and tulle and beautiful fabrics.
Many of the photos were images of models WEARING these creations, staring directly into the camera lens, and while their eyes were hypnotising, it was the intricate surroundings that were the best part. So even though her art isn’t really to my taste, the stunning costumes in all their beauty most definitely were. You can see images from the collection here.
We had lunch in their bistro cafe, which was DELICIOUS. Camilla and I both had baked arctic char with new potatoes, white asparagus, and brown butter. It was so good I could have eaten an entire ‘nother plateful, and very carefully scraped up ALL the sauce. YUM YUM. It was a windy cloudy day though we didn’t actually get rained on, and start to finish, since we got there at 11, and left just after 4, it was a very full day. We had planned this vacation day ages ago, and I’m really glad I was able to keep it, that it was after my health ordeal, even though taking a day off the week before I go on vacation was a little crazy. Debbie and Camilla are both teachers so they started their vacation over a week ago, and a day trip wasn’t any problem, logistically, for them.
Anyway, I feel full up with art and pretty things and good food and the good company of good friends: a good day, in every way.
Mood: happy
Music: Lights—Lucky Ones