Noel's Adventure(s): March 29: The Saatchi Gallery

Today started off quite well. I got my Contemporary Britain paper back with a big old "A" on the front, which was wonderful. After lunch, I went with a friend to find the Saatchi Gallery, where our Museums class was meeting. We got horribly lost around Sloane Square but finally managed to find it. The gallery was...interesting. It's a modern art gallery, specializing in artworks that really challenge viewers and push the envelope in some way. Some of the works were interesting to me, and others were rather silly or even just stupid. I do not appreciate art created for the sole purpose of shock value. How is that supposed to be art?! Anyway, some things were neat, like the room filled with oil. Sounds weird, and it certainly was weird, but it was kind of fun to see. I also was interested by a very surreal exhibit that an artist had created using dead bugs. Yes, I did say dead bugs. She apparently collected the bugs from backyards and windshields, then strung them up inside a glass case (using horse hairs for some reason) as though they were flying through the air. Then, she fashioned little creepy humanoid-like figures out of tiny pieces of grass bulbs, stuck fly wings on them, and created a sort of battlefield between the dead bugs and the grass creatures. It was creepy as all heck and super strange, but it was actually less weird than some of the other pieces there, if you can believe it. I came home to cook some chicken and rice and green beans for supper, then settled down with my laptop to seriously look at some imported Japanese koi that I'm interested in. I'm torn between a doitsu (scale-less) kindai (mostly white) showa (black with red and white markings), and a doitsu kohaku (red and white). I'm not yet sure if I'll end up getting either of these, but I'm very tempted, especially because I probably won't be seeing many, if any, other Japanese tategoi (young koi) imports this year. Hmmm. It's such a tough decision! I've spent the rest of the night going through the hundreds of pictures I took at Kew Gardens and writing up my blog entry from Sunday. Now time to finish my tea and go to bed.