Last Sunday I went to Penge in south east London to see some of the wonderful street art that’s been done there over the last few years. Some of the countries top street artists are represented, including some of my favourites. I’d been hoping to see the work on the top floors of the Blenheim Street Car Park, but unfortunately it was all locked up, I think following a fire in a store room that destroyed a lot of the artists’ equipment. Despite this setback there was still a vast amount of art to see – and I think I only saw about half of it. Here’s a small selection.

The V&A is holding the first major UK exhibition to explore the exceptional talents of the Renaissance master Donatello, one of the greatest sculptors of all time.

A lot of the work on show is either of people who influenced Donatello or people who were influenced by him, but that only enhances the work of Donatello himself, which is sublime.

I’ve now been twice to see the Eric Ravilious exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery. I love his work, particularly the watercolours of the chalk downland and chalk hill figures. But I find his depiction of the Cerne Abbas Giant extremely puzzling. The giant is painted brown, rather than gleaming chalk white. Read more…

This morning I went to see ‘Seduced by Art’, the first exhibition at the National Gallery to feature photography. What a disappointment! The majority of photography in the exhibition was of the Turner Prize variety – full of nothing but post-justification of a trivial concept. The comparisons between the photographs and paintings were trite and largely meaningless and showed a complete lack of knowledge of photography on the part of the curators. I find it hard to believe that the comments in the labels had any thought behind them whatsoever. My favourite referred to the photograph of the naked Man with Octopus Tattoo by Richard Learoyd (which has been used on the poster for the exhibition) which describes how the tentacle rising up the man’s back follows and reinforces the curve of his spine. It just doesn’t!

For a review that states it better than I ever could (and before you choose to part with the  £12 entrance fee), you should read what Brian Sewell thought of the exhibition.

Went to the Tate Modern with friends today. I have to say that I really hate what they’ve done to Gilbert Scott’s old Bankside Power Station building. They’ve totally ruined the proportions by sticking what looks like a line of port-a-cabins on the roof. And the way the galleries are curated is just bizarre. But as we were on our way out there was a mass invasion of the turbine hall by people dressed as pirates from Captain Pugwash who proceeded to lie on the floor making the shape of the Black Pig.

We also looked at the Robert Morris: Bodyspacemotionthings interactive installation which was great fun – much less po-faced than all that art-with-a-capital-A.

While we were having coffee I took some photos from the balcony which I stitched into a panorama – not bad considering the photos were taken on my camera phone.