June 2026 UK road trip, inc. Isaac Lythgoe in Leeds, and Chatsworth House

Posted


A couple of days after seeing Hans Krása's Brundibár, at the Opéra Comique, I set off on a 10-day 'roadtrip' in the UK (which is why my article about the opera appeared so late). As usual, the trip was by car because we were travelling with Olga, the cocker, so off we drove via Calais and the Channel Tunnel.

I'd already planned to visit my sister and her family in Wales, when I found out from Isaac Lythgoe that he would be showing some of his work in a group exhibition in Leeds. To be able to catch the show, I added a day to our itinerary, and by taking in Leeds, we were able to visit Chester (much improved by pedestrianisation since I was last there) on the way, and Chatsworth afterwards.

The neatly-curated exhibition, called Phantasmagoria: Folkloric Sculpture for the Digital Age, was at the Henry Moore Institute. Its aim was 'exploring how digital technologies are reshaping what sculpture can be, and how it can be used to tell stories about our past, present, and future.' It reminded me, in parts, of Ali Eslami and Mamali Shafahi's nerd_funk exhibition in Eindhoven last year, though, curiously perhaps, there was no VR on show in Leeds, unless I missed it.

Isaac is an artist I've mentioned before on this blog, when he was in residence at Fiminco, in Romainville. The tall, winged work he showed at the end of his residency there greeted visitors to the Leeds exhibition, which also included one I'm even more familiar with, as it was on loan from my living room. But there were two more that I'd only previously seen in photos. Isaac, by the way, recently had a magnificent solo exhibition in New York, Everyone's a Bad Guy, so I'll take this opportunity to post a link to that.

Here are some of the pictures I took while at the Henry Moore Institute, focusing on Isaac's pieces:







I wanted, while in Leeds, to see some of the city's Victorian architecture as well, so we spent some time exploring the extensive and sumptuously-restored covered arcades, and the grand and surprising covered market, with its 'airship' dome. We also, I should mention, had a very good vegetarian dinner at an Indian restaurant between Leeds and Bradford, called Prashad, a 'Bib Gourmand' in the Michelin guide.

And then we went to Chatsworth, where I hadn't been since I was a child. Nothing in particular to say about it, except that it was good to see it again, in such pristine condition despite the crowds. Photos at random:








And finally, just to prove I did go to Wales (where the mussels and crab from Câr-y-Môr were memorable), one shot of Fishguard Harbour at low tide, long after the French invasion fiasco, plus one of Chester Cathedral, to prove, as well, I went there:






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry at Chantilly

Posted
Image
This week I made the trip out to Chantilly where, in the Jeu de Paume, the Condé museum is showing, quite exceptionally, the calendar folios of the Duc de Berry's  Très Riches Heures . These twelve double-page spreads have just been restored, which explains why it was possible now to display them individually, in specially-made, air-conditioned cases, before they are bound back into the book and shut away, like Sleeping Beauty (the original Disney version of which they are said to have influenced), for the next hundred years, maybe more. The museum is marketing the show as a once-in-a-lifetime experience. According to museum director Mathieu Deldicque, who also curated the exhibition: ' This manuscript was already famous in the Middle Ages. By putting it back into context, we can better understand what makes it the most ambitious, where it came from, who commissioned it, and why, from the 15th century onwards, it had such a profound influence on the arts, manuscripts, painting,...
Read more

Paris art fairs 2025 - 3: any other art...

Posted
Image
Having posted some photos, with brief comments, from Art Basel Paris and Paris Internationale , I simply forgot I'd meant to add a third article about Paris's 2025 October events, this time covering any other art that had struck me since I came back from Greece. In other words, this particular post, now that I've remembered to write it, isn't limited exclusively to the fairs; it's intended to tie up loose ends. The reason I came back to Paris when I did, mid-October, was not only to catch the art fairs, but first of all, to go to a concert in Brussels, written up on my other, opera blog . We had some time to kill before the event, time enough to visit the John Baldessari exhibition at the Bozar, i.e. the very building the concert was due to take place in. It's uncanny how, when in the presence of really good art, you just know it. I liked it a lot. Back in Paris, the first fair I went to was actually neither Art Basel nor Paris Internationale, but Asia Now. Thi...
Read more

Wolfgang Tillmans - Nothing could have prepared us – Everything could have prepared us, at the Pompidou Centre in Paris

Posted
Image
This week I went twice to see the big Wolfgang Tillmans exhibition at the Pompidou Centre, called Nothing could have prepared us – Everything could have prepared us . One of the best exhibitions I've ever seen. There isn't much point, I think, in posting photos of photos. But once again, and perhaps more than ever, Tillmans has done a brilliant job of curating and designing the exhibition and installing his own work in relation to the space on offer - in this case, 6,000 square metres, where the Pompidou's public library was. Uncannily, it feels almost as if the space had been designed for the works, rather than the other way round. So, rather than focusing on individual works, I've tried to take photos that give a feel for the way he uses the vast space, inhabiting and highlighting the building before it closes for renovation.
Read more