|
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Willie Nelson | |
|
 Veteran country music singer Willie Nelson is always up to something new. Read our Willie Watch column to keep up.
|
| |
|
|
London Outdoors |
|
|
|
|
Old Masters hung in the Street
• Taking Art to the People
 Images |
|
|
 On the Web |
|
|
By
The Minx
Wednesday,
13 June, 2007
Londoners in the West End on 12 June were greeted by 44 of the Nation’s greatest works of art adorning their city’s streets.
Caravaggio's highly sensuous Salome Receives the Head of John the Baptist, was found hanging on the outside of a Soho sex shop.
The masterpieces, it turned out, were not the originals but perfect, framed reproductions, all with curators' labels, of some of the National Gallery's greatest treasures. They were hung in the streets of the West End by the gallery itself as a well-meaning hoax.
"If the people won't come to the paintings, the paintings will come to the people," explained Charles Saumarez Smith, director of the National Gallery.
From Oxford Circus to Covent Garden, Van Gogh's Sunflowers, Monet's Water Lillies, Constable's luscious Hay Wain and Stubbs's monumental Whistlejacket had passers-by gawping.
Mr Saumarez Smith added: "We hope that people who might be inhibited from going to the National Gallery will be excited by what they see in an unfamiliar setting and will be encouraged to see the real thing."
The full-size reproductions, made by Hewlett-Packard, the imaging and printing company that has digitised the National Gallery's collection, will remain in place until Sept 4. Maps of locations and audio descriptions of the paintings can be downloaded from www.thegrandtour.org.uk.
The National Gallery is crossing its fingers over vandalism. "They are reproduced on a kind of vinyl that we can wipe clean and we'll be checking the pictures regularly. We have got replacements for some of them but if someone decides to take a knife to one of them there's not much we can really do," said a spokeswoman.
The critic Andrew Graham-Dixon said: "I can see that they may well appeal to graffiti artists. They invited a Banksy type of intervention and I suspect we are going to get some interesting juxtapositions between the paintings and street art.
"I hope that this idea generates a new street lingo. You can imagine people making arrangements on the phone saying, 'I'll meet you at Whistlejacket at 12.30' and getting the reply, 'No, it's more convenient to meet at Samson and Delilah'."
The Naked Reader 2007
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| Advertise! |
|
|
|
Advertise! |
|
|
|
Copyright OnTheLam 2006
Terms of Service
|
Contact Us
|
|
 Wireless Access
 RSS Feeds
|
|
|
