Trip to London

Write a review on the exhibition you saw in london. It must be between 500 and 1000 words in length.

On a recent trip to London I was lucky enough to visit several exhibitions held at that time. My favourite exhibition was the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize (TWPPP), which was exhibited in the National Portrait Gallery. The Prize has been displayed there for a number of years. The (TWPPP) is an open competition, welcoming entrants from a huge range of people over the age of 18. This wide range of photographers helped give a diverse and exciting viewing experience, where each portrait image was taken in an individual style. Each image was of a large scale, when walking around the exhibition I liked the uniformed, neat and clean style. White walls with single framed images of portraits. This meant that there were no distractions, I could focus completely on the content of the image rather than how it was displayed. I also liked the room in which the portraits were hung as it wasn't a long straight gallery, there were separating walls meaning I wad to walk around the gallery, turning into different spaces, every corner turned, every new wall provided interesting and eye catching material. I liked the large scale of the images, where I had to stand back and look at each from a distance, making me spend more time over them, thinking about what the images were trying to say.
Whilst walking around the gallery I began thinking about the difference between my work and the work on display, I would really like to see my images displayed in this exhibition one day. I have thought about entering it next year as I am 18.
Another exhibition that stuck in my mind was at the Hayward Gallery, the work of Pipilotti Rist. Her exhibition was titled 'Eyeball Massage' This involved lots of different work, displayed in different ways. When walking into the exhibition I was amazed by the amount of variation in the way she displays her work. The first thing I saw when I walked in was her display of pants, hanging from the ceiling and lit in the middle, this reminded me of a chandelier. This piece was very bold and drew attention, other pieces were harder to find, for example her work looking down a hole, which was located on the floor and could easily be missed if not careful. On closer look down the hole there is a video playing of Rist as if she is trapped. There were lots of fun ways of exploring Rist's work in this exhibition with work being projected in different ways and onto different things. I really like the way the viewer is more involved with this exhibition, interacting with the work, with the viewer having to lie down or bend to a small height, all of this interaction made the viewing experience more memorable. The only part of this work I didn't like was the actual content of the projections which wasn't to my taste.
I really enjoyed visiting the London galleries, it has given me inspiration for my work, firstly with the TWPPP which has inspired me to create more stunning portraits so that my work could be displayed in that exhibition. The work of Rist has also inspired me to think about different ways in which I could display my work, making the viewer interact more with my images, making my work more memorable.