Back on a plane to London to make it for what looks like a fascinating conference on architecture and art, both of which I like to photograph, of course.

Chicago

Berlin

NYC Highline

https://www.friezearchitecture.com/home

How can you not be curious about a conference announcement that describes the meeting location, London’s Royal College of Physicians, as a spectacular example of British Brutalism? The array of speakers is promising and a year that has seen the passing of some stellar architects, I’m thinking Dame Zaha Hadid, for example, calls for deeper understanding of the subject.

Since I won’t have much time for the city per se, I’ll check out the treasure trove of the best photographs of London here:

http://www.timeout.com/london/art/the-40-best-photos-of-london-ever-taken

And then off to Alison Jacques for the Dorothea Tanning exhibit. I adore this woman from afar, a self taught artist, who managed not to be oppressed in her long marriage to Max Ernst (he divorced Peggy Guggenheim), a painter who took up writing poetry in her eighties. She was born in a small town in Illinois, moved around the country, then around the world, a global citizen. Held her own amongst the luminaries of the day, including Ernst, of course, Man Ray, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Dylan Thomas. I was artistically influenced by Ernst, Becker-Modersohn and Nolde – but if I had to chose a life to emulate, it would be one like Tanning’s.

http://www.timeout.com/london/art/dorothea-tanning

One of my earliest montages contains her portrait set against Ernst, whose misogynist work Une semaine de bonté I was fascinated with at the time. If you look closely you’ll find her portrait twice (once as a warrior) and his portrait once (about to be pecked by the strutting rooster) in the montage.