Three years ago Christo’s mastaba floated majestically, magically, colourfully and enchantingly on the Serpentine.
I loved it, not least because it looked different in different light. Oh joy! Yesterday the American banker (retd.) took me to see the controversial installation at Marble Arch. Oh bore! We spent ten minutes from entry to exit but the ascent and descent were good exercise and we tried to name check the towers of London.
So we had plenty of time to walk south east to the achingly cool Gagosian to see the Helen Frankenthaler exhibition. When SBM said she wanted to introduce me to Helen Frankenthaler I thought she was a friend of hers.
This is the one I’d take home if I had wall space and circa $3 million. SBM, seeing I needed a bit of education, told me about Joan Mitchell. I’d never heard of her either. This example of her work is mesmerising.
I like some of Georgia O’Keeffe’s pictures, usually paintings done in New Mexico; another unaffordable artist and I don’t need her flower pictures when I have this in the front garden, now renamed the bin park.
Having admitted to my ignorance about Frankenthaler and Mitchell, I was pleased when I suggested a trip to see some Grinling Gibbons (he died three hundred years ago) SBM thought he was a stamp dealer. Anyway, after a most enjoyable morning and a brief Uber transfer we got our legs under the table at Le Colombier. I almost forgot, SBM didn’t buy even one Frankenthaler but she did splash out on the exhibition catalogue. As it was expensive the gallery threw in a black fabric bag. A lot of lunchers clocked it.
