For Your Diaries...

Back in January I was fiddling about with listings of exhibitions, and trying to get a database of these together, ordered by closing date. I know of various other venues not listed here (it is London centric, with Kent and Sussex), which I'll add in due course, and it was a battle to use Mail Merge (I went back to cut and replace). [If I see anything in Liverpool, Birmingham, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Manchester that interests me I'll add it, but only if it would stir me to travel]


Anyway, I hope to go to some of the following:

Current as of 15 May 2009

• * Rodchenko & Popova: Defining Constructivism 12/2/2009-17/5/2009 Tate Modern
  
• * The Booker 40 at the V&A 6/9/2008-17/5/2009 V&A
  
• The Art of Architecture: La Corbusier 19/2/2009–24/5/2009 Barbican
  
• Roni Horn aka Roni Horn 25/2/2009-25/5/2009 Tate Modern
  
• Hats: An Anthology by Stephen Jones 24/2/2009-31/5/2009 V&A The Porter Gallery
  
• * Sickert in Venice 4/3/2009-31/5/2009 Dulwich Picture Gallery
  
• Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798-1861) 21/21/2009-7/6/2009 Royal Academy Sackler Wing of Galleries
  
• * Picasso: Challenging the Past 25/2/2009-7/6/2009 National Gallery Admission Charge [DONE]
  
• Neopolitan Display 2/12/2008-14/6/2009 Dulwich Picture Gallery
• Cultural Connections: Africa /7/2008-/6/2009 V&A Sackler Centre, Room 220 Free admission
  
• Seascape: Susan Collins 4/4/2009-14/6/2009 De Le Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea Free admission
  
• Young Curators [on theme Things Fall Apart] 4/4/2009-14/6/2009 De Le Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea Free admission
  
• The Photographic Object 24/4/2009-14/6/2009 Photographers’ Gallery
  
• Dark is the Night Jordan Baseman [films 12.30; 14.00; 15.30] 24/4/2009-14/6/2009 Photographers’ Gallery
  
• Iván Navarro - Nowhere Man 4/4/2009–20/6/2009 Towner Gallery, Eastbourne Free admission
  
• Isa Genzken: Open Sesame! 5/4/2009 – 21/6/2009 Whitechapel Gallery – Free Admission [DONE – AVOID]
  
• Passports: Great Early Buys from the British Council Collection 5/4/2009–14/6/2009 Whitechapel Gallery – Free Admission [DONE – recommended]
  
• John Kobal New Work Award 5/4/2009-21/6/2009 Whitechapel Gallery – Free Admission
  
• The Poor Clare’s Reliquary 14/7/2008-13/7/2009 V&A Free admission
  
• * Baroque 1620-1800: Style in the Age of Magnificence 4/4/2009-19/7/2009 V&A V&A Exhibitions, Rooms 38, 39 and North Court [DONE]
  
• David Blandy The Barefoot Lone Pilgrim 27/4/2009-19/7/2009 Baltic, Gateshead
  
• Contemporary Drawings 7/3/2009-30/7/2009 V&A Leighton, Room 102 Free admission
  
• Stutter 23/4/2009–16/8/2009 Tate Modern Free admission
  
• Art Now: Tony Swain 2/5/2009–16/8/2009 Tate Britain
  
• Tobias Putrih & Mos Overhang 10/4/2009-31/8/2009 Baltic, Gateshead
• Sarah Sze Tilting Planet 10/4/2009 – 31/8/2009 Baltic, Gateshead
• The Whitechapel Boys 5/4/2009–20/9/2009 Whitechapel Gallery – Free Admission [DONE – recommended]
• A Duck For Mr.Darwin Evolutionary Thinking & The Struggle To Exist 10/4/2009-20/9 2009 Baltic, Gateshead
  
• A Higher Ambition: Owen Jones (1809-74) 28/3/2009-22/11/2009 V&A Free admission
  
• The Permanent Collection on display in the John Madejski Fine Rooms 20/12/2008-29/11/2009 Royal Academy

Forthcoming

• ‘Fast Forward’ 30/5/2009–13/6/2009 Work by BA Fine Art students from Canterbury Christ Church University Sidney Cooper Gallery, Canterbury Free admission
• Harland Miller Don't Let The Bastards Cheer You Up 22/5/2009-19/7/2009 Baltic, Gateshead
• BP Exhibition: Classified: Contemporary Art at Tate Britain 16/6/2009–23/8/2009 Tate Britain
• Richard Long: Heaven and Earth 3/6/2009-6/9/2009 Tate Britain
• * Walking in My Mind 23/6/2009-6/9/2009 Hayward Gallery
• Per Kirkeby 17/6/2009-13/9/2009 Tate Modern
• * JW Waterhouse RA 27/6/2009-13/9/2009 Royal Academy Sackler Wing of Galleries
• * Futurism 12/6/2009-20/9/2009 Tate Modern
• Corot to Monet 8/7/2009-20/9/2009 National Gallery Free admission
• * Joseph Beuys 4/7/2009-27/9/2009 De Le Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea Free admission
• * Artists Rooms [contemporary art] 4/7/2009-27/9/2009 De Le Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea Free admission
• When You’re A Boy: Men’s Fashioned Styled by Simon Foxton 17/7/2009-4/10/2009 
• Fiona Crisp Subterrania 31/7/2009–4/10/2009 Baltic, Gateshead
• * Telling Tales 14/7/2009-18/10/2009 V&A The Porter Gallery Free admission
• Jeppe Hein, Appearing Rooms 27/4/2009 -23/10/2009 Hayward Gallery Free admission
• Fragments 10/11/2008-8/11/2009 V&A Room 116, The Belinda Gentle Metalware Gallery Free admission
• John Baldessari: Pure Beauty 13/10/2009-10/1/2010 Tate Modern
• Martin Parr Parrworld 17/10/2009–10/1/2010 Baltic, Gateshead
• Pop Life [was Sold Out] 1/10/2009-17/1/2010 Tate Modern
• Maharaja: the Splendour of India's Royal Courts 10/10/2009-17/1/2010 V&A
• * Turner and the Masters 23/9/2009-24/1/2010 Tate Britain
• The Sacred Made Real: Spanish Painting and Sculpture 1600-1700 21/10/2009-24/1/2010 National Gallery Admission Charge
• Kienholz, ‘Hoerengracht’ 18/11/2009-21/2/2010 National Gallery Free admission
• Objects of Luxury: French porcelain of the eighteenth century /9/2009-/3/2010 V&A Room 146 Free admission
• * Horace Walpole and Strawberry Hill 6/3/2010-4/7/2010 V&A
• Quilts 20/3/2010-18/7/2010 V&A Exhibitions, Room 39 and North Court
• Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes 1900-1939 18/9/2010-16/1/2011 V&A
• * Love, Magic and Power 10/9/2011-8/1/2012 V&A
• * Postmodernism 8/10/2011-15/1/2012 V&A Rooms 38 and 39, and North Court
• * Aestheticism: Beauty in Art and Design 1860-1900 4/7/2011-// V&A

Pride of Canterbury

Local and national press - see, say, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/8049841.stm - has announced that Canterbury Pride fears that the council is insufficiently gay-friendly - the council responds with the declaration that they've spent a whopping four grand since 2005. That's nearly a thousand a year. The last Pride march was in 2006.

It just so happens that my local was a gay bar in the mists of time - specifically lesbian, I gather - and another place I drink less often but now owned by the same person as my local also had a gay reputation. More recently the gay bar the WestBar became the CityBar and shut, reopened, and I think shut again. Bar 11 - gay friendly* - has rebranded. Bar 11 is now The Jaggy Thistle, presumably to attract the Scottish squaddies from the barracks. I have not heard whether Bar 11's previous clientele have embraced the squaddies with open arms, and what the squaddies feel about that. On the other hand, the gay night at one of the local clubs is one of the most popular in town.

Still, it's hardly the council's job to run pubs of any kind. Someone has been misquoted or is being silly.

I do ponder how The Canterbury Tales are going to police cheaper admission to their attraction ("The Canterbury Tales, said it would be offering members of the LGBT community a discounted admission fee until 30 June to encourage further "pink tourism".) It's not as if there's a membership card, like the Arts Fund or the RAC. A short quiz on Eurovision? The wearing of a green carnation?


* This was the site of a minor assault by a racist homophobe on someone who frankly would tax the mildest and most open minded of individuals. T is no respecter of anyone's personal space - but B is a bigot at the best of times. Dickheadedness is race-blind and sexuality-blind. In some cases both sides in a court case should lose.

ETA: The Daily Hate Mail has predictable comments on its coverage at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1181301/Canterbury-city-simply-isnt-gay-according-equality-campaigners.html