Buses and exploding walls

Dulwich Hill Picture Gallery, Jan van Huysum

New friend at Dulwich Hill Picture Gallery 

Garden Museum cafe

Captain Bligh’s sarcophagus
set in a garden of Pacific plants

Newport Street Art Gallery

Works by Dan Colen

Pharmacy 2

Great minds think alike,
we both found the same inside-outside card

We start out on the P4 bus and potter up the hill to Dulwich Hill Picture Gallery. This gallery is the oldest in England and has an envious collection of paintings. Including a Rembrandt,  Jacob de Gheyn III that is in the Guinness book of records as the most frequently stolen artwork in the world.   I like the flowers by Jan van Huysum but the rest is a bit ho-hum. A quick hello to the West Highland Terrier sitting at the door and its time to move on.

The weather is grey and dreary will it rain? We head off towards the bus stop, meandering through Belair Park, discover a Mona Lisa with a squirrel and hop on the number 3 bus to Lambeth. The Saturday traffic makes a slow trip but its great on the top of the bus checking out all the sites, a bit of street art and one of my favourite spots from last year, Brixton.

Off the bus and its raining, lets duck across the road to the Garden Museum cafe, a couple of nice meals later and we are ready to continue the tourist trail. Whats this big garden stone thing in courtyard, Why its Captain Bligh’s sarcophagus. Well, that was an unexpected find. 

Google maps out its time to find the Newport Street Gallery. It's easy we are here, with a little bit of street art on the way. This gallery is owned by Damien Hirst an English artist, entrepreneur, and art collector. I used to think he was a bit way out for me, but he is definitely growing on me or maybe my tastes are changing. First the obligatory security check, the security guard is big and beefy but so sweet. Then we are greeted by one of the staff who explains how the gallery works. This is not.your usual stuck up gallery, what a nice friendly way to start the experience. 

The works are all by Dan Colen, an American artist. Bam, its American flag draped around a sandstone block, then holes in the walls it looks like a roadrunner has gone through, now Scooby do, great paining with subliminal you and me and on and on we go with cigarette butts to colour glass balloons this exhibition has it all. The final room has more exploding walls and a few surprises on the other side. They have to be seen to be believed.

But wait there is more on the staircase on the way down a pair of shoes are dancing on the roof, very Pottereseque. They stop everyone in their tracks.

Now we find the Pharmacy 2, a cafe decorated like a chemist shop inspired by one of Damien’s works from the 90’s. Not much of a gift shop but some very nice picture books, hmm, whats in these folded pages. Oops, that is definitely X rated. Think I will stop looking at books now.  

A walk along Southbank, a cup of tea (surprise, surprise), a spot of shopping and home we head. Oh oh, Waterloo is shut for engineering works. What a pain, its time to box around, Jubilee line to Canary Wharf then the DLR to Lewisham. Along the way, we saw John Lennon, Sid Vicous and lots of young ones in lederhosen heading to Octoberfest. London is really coming alive for a big Saturday night. We have a big night in critiquing all the dancers and judges on Strictly Dancing.