I love how traditional museums are embracing other forms of art. Exhibits like The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk at the de Young Museum in San Francisco give high fashion as an art form their place alongside masterpieces from painters, photographers and sculptors.

The exhibit was playfully curated - as you enter, the mannequins are dressed in JPG and are animated - they look around, blink and what not. Kinda creepy, but cool.There are high fashion photographs of the models who wore the creations and rooms devoted to the different periods of JPG’s work. I really dug the boudour room with these leather chests:

This area also had all the Madonna “Vogue” era items - including sketches of the designs:

Another room had a moving catwalk with his Paris themed designs.

In the same room was a wall of punk rock designs (with a lively SF themed mural behind it):

Really enjoyed the entire exhibit - it’s running at the de Young through August, so if you’re in SF before then, go check it out.

I went back to the Tate Modern today to catch the Yayoi Kusama exhibition. LOVED IT. I won’t bore with the details but I had to post photos of a sculpture installed on the 4th floor balcony. There were kids climbing on it forever (reminded me of the Niki St. Phale sculptures in Balboa Park) but I waited patiently and my reward was a great series of photos.

Tate Britain

I set out quite a bit later than I planned to this morning. It’s a good thing that the Tate Museums are open later today. I decided to go to the Britain first as they have a Picasso exhibit right now. Its focus is on his art as an influencer of British artists. It featured quite a bit of his work, some of which I had never recalled seeing even though I studied him quite a bit in college. I also loved the sections on Henry Moore (the sculptor) and David Hockney. Especially the Hockney photographic collages that recall cubist paintings.

My other favorite section at the Britain was the John Singer Sargent paintings. There was a study for his famous portrait of Madame X, and I could stare at that for quite a bit.

But then it was off to lunch at the acclaimed restaurant, where I had the 3 course set menu with wine pairings. Why the hell not?

Two of the courses were spot on - a venison and chorizo terrine for the first course and the blood orange tart for the third course. The second course was a stuffed chicken breast that was a bit overcooked. I knew I should have ordered the hake! But the sherry that was paired with the third course more than made up for all of it. I’m going to have to find it when I get home.

I travelled between the museums by boat. The ride on the River Thames is a wonder, especially with the view of the Parliament Houses, Big Ben and Westminster Abbey.

I was fairly wiped out by the time I got to the Tate Modern. I did a cursory tour of the permanent exhibitions but skipped the rest. I may go back tomorrow as they are open late. We shall see how my day goes. Just one more day of adventures.

Tower of London and Tower Bridge

A quick trip to London. My first day here was a bust; I was too tired and disoriented to do anything but today was much better. So to get a better feel of where everything is in relation to where I am staying, I went on one of those hop on - hop off tourist buses. I am not ashamed of that at all. I saw a lot from my perch on the top of the bus and also spent some time at Harrods. Yes, I went to high tea. It was good but not fabulous. I will probably do tea again before I leave so all good.

Tonight I went to the Ceremony of the Keys at the Tower of London. I had to write to the Tower of London office to request a ticket - it’s very exclusive, they only let 50 people get tickets, then there are another 50 or so people from the Tower of London night tour, and i’m guessing another 25 people who were dignitaries of some sort. Very cool to be in the Tower of London with barely anyone around and actually watching this ceremony that has taken place there every night for 759 years. Hello history nerd!

Tomorrow I will be checking out both of the Tate Museums - the Tate Britain has a Picasso exhibit going on (yes, he was Spanish and painted in France but this exhibition is centered around his influence on British artists.) A little something for my art nerd. More from London tomorrow.