I've been to a few exhibitions recently, starting off with ...
Light Show @ The Hayward Gallery
The hint is in the title, it's an exhibition full of works themed around light in various manifestations. One of my favourites was the first work you see when you go into the dimly-lit gallery, Cylinder II by Leo Villareal. It's a very big and rather marvellous piece in which light runs up and down silver streamers, sometimes random and sometimes making patterns. I stood and stared at it becoming ever more mesmerised by the magical lights. It's a very clever piece.
There are works that you walk into and interact with, others you sit and watch at a distance, some you can't touch and others you can join in and disrupt the flow of light to create your own art.
I loved Chromosaturation by Carlos Cruz-Diez that is made up of three rooms you can walk into and be saturated by different colours, bathed in bright primary colours that blend at the margins. It felt quite magical to be in those rooms, walking around and changing colour. A room full of blue light, another with red and another with green light, acting like photoshop on photos, everyone with cameras and phones out, experimenting with the light. It's not only art, it's great fun too!
The other piece I'd single out is Model for A Timeless Garden by Olafur Eliasson (the bloke that did The Weather Project - aka the Big Sun - at the Tate Modern ten years ago). It's basically a set of small fountains in a blacked out room with strobe lighting trained on the fountains. It's such a simple but effective idea and was quite magical, almost like seeing interactive diamonds in a dark dwarf kingdom.
Man Ray @ The National Portrait Gallery
There's a great exhibition of Man Ray photographic portraits at the National Portrait Gallery at the moment. It's not a big exhibition but it's quite a thrill to see all these famous people that've been photographed by the same man over six decades, see the changing styles, see the unknowns next to the famous, all quite fab really.
There are photos of Marcel Duchamp, a photo of George Braque and Pablo Picasso side by side, creators of Cubism, George looking quite workman-like and Picasso looking decidedly shifty. There's a rather dashing Ernest Hemingway, a bearded Henri Matisse and a host of others. Did he know every artist who was or was going to become famous? Later on we see a lovely, stylised portrait of Coco Chanel and a famous Virginia Woolf portrait.
It's not just the big names, the artists and film stars that he photographed. There was also the striking Barbette, a cross-dressing acrobat, with double exposures to show him on the high wire as well as in full make-up in the same photo.
It's quite a fun exhibition so go and see it while you can.
Becoming Picasso, Paris 1901 @ The Courtald Gallery
Yet another Picasso exhibition is the small but delightful 'Becoming Picasso' exhibition of his works from 1901 when he moved to Paris. As with every Picasso exhibition, it gets crowded so get there early. It's only made up of two rooms and, maybe, 30 paintings, but it's worth seeing.
My favourite painting was the in your face 'Yo Picasso' of the young and brash artist who knows he's good and knows he'll be the next big thing. I looked at it and looked at it and started to think he reminded me of someone else. Someone with the same attitude, the same moustache, the same flair for colour. Picasso looks like Prince! Or maybe Prince looks like the young Picasso? Who knows but there's definitely a resemblance.
Other paintings worth drinking in are 'Harlequin and Companion', one of a series of Harlequin paintings he did in Paris, and 'Evocation (The Burial Of Casagemass)'. The latter is very odd and doesn't really look like a Picasso painting, telling the story of the burial, from friends gathered round the body to his spirit riding off to heaven surrounded by the spirits of prostitutes he's known. Rather odd.
I like the Harlequin, the rather glum figures with a glass of absinthe, looking round and watching the world go by. I'd have that hanging on my wall any day...
Last night we went to see the new ballet by Wayne McGregor at Sadler's Wells, 'Tree of Codes'. It had been created for the Manchester International Festival in 2015 but it has finally arrived in London. I say it's a new 'ballet' but the list of co-creators should instantly make you doubt that - McGregor has collaborated with Olafur Eliasson and Jamie xx to create this astonishing spectacle. This is more than 'ballet' but what is it?
What's it about? I don't know. Everything and nothing? It opens in darkness, lights out all over the auditorium and then there's a dancer, then three, dressed in black save for a few lights in different places across their bodies, and they start moving. All you can see are lights moving on the stage, changing and making shapes, blurring and joining with others, almost like watching amoebas grow and mate and divide at times. The music pounding and primitive and the lights - the lights are just as important as the dancers and it's the movement of the lights that creates the dance and vice versa. This is not your normal dance show. And we were off and running
The dancing was superb, never still, constant movement through duos, trios, small groups and full ensemble, finely tuned and dynamic. The work is 75 minutes long but the dancers seemed to be on such a high at the end that they could probably have kept going for much longer. Complicated steps, jumps, poses, some synchronised and others chaotic, they filled that stage with movement and beauty. 
The music and overall soundscape is the other element that made this spectacular. I was only vaguely aware of Jamie xx before this but I'll pay more attention now. The music was excellent, constantly changing in style and texture, pace and density, giving the dancers so much to work with. Lots of different styles in there (I was reminded of The Creatures early on) all pushing things forward with heavy, thumping beats and lighter moments.
