Archive for 'Art' Category

Visionary artist

The Guardian have asked artists to re-invent the Snowman, with mixed results. In March of 2005 I wondered if I should submit my Snowman project to for the Turner prize. I’m obviously 2.5 years ahead of my time.

That crack

Mick Hartley, in fine form, on the latest addition to the Tate Modern: The concerns with racism, postcolonialism, difference, whatever, are all contrived and arbitrary impositions seeking to impart a spurious relevance to a self-indulgent piece of banality. If meanings have to be assigned, why these? Why not say it’s about the shortcomings of a [...]

Medical Caricatures

The Many Faces of Medical Caricature in Nineteenth-Century England & France.

Jose Perez

Here is a fascinating series of satirical paintings about medicine by Jose Perez. Particular favourites of mine are: The Radiologist, The Pathologist, and The Pharmacologist. Don’t forget The Bureaucrats.

Stone me!

Initially when I read the headline about the giant pebble, as it was disparagingly called by The Sun, installed by University College Hospital as a piece of public art I was somewhat disheartened to see so much spent on a lump of rock – when so many NHS trusts are in financial difficulty. A HOSPITAL [...]

A machine to fight fascism

I think one of the most beautiful examples of technology from the last century is the Spitfire; there is something timeless about the design. Recently I saw one at RAF Cosford. On my daily commute I pass the factory where Spitfires were built, now the Jaguar Factory, at Castle Bromwich. Next to the plant Spitfire [...]

Christ as a pharmacist

Some evidence that the profession of pharmacy is more godly, or Lutherian, than I thought: Pharmacy serving to propagate the Lutherian doctrine of justification “Christus as a pharmacist” is an interconfessional, but confessionally differentiated symbolic motif (Sinnbildmotiv) of Christian folklore art in German-speaking countries. The article investigates the sociocultural conditions and prerequisites (German bible translation, [...]

Epstein’s Rock Drill

Clearing out the desk led to the following postcard of a Jacob Epstein sculpture being uncovered. Torso in metal from the Rock Drill Originally the torso was on top of a real rock drill, and called “Rock drill” from 1913-15. When he created “Rock Drill” he was enamoured with the possibilities of machinery. Machines were [...]

Lydia Pinkham Cure All #3

Lydia Pinkham Cure All #3 twenty five photograms Michelle Charles, 2001. This piece of art resides in The Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain’s headquarters in London. Each photogram is in its own frame on the wall. I’ve coloured in the gaps between the pictures, since it gives more of an impression of how it [...]