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Norway continued to delight us. Here I am seeing - and loving - Tracey Emin’s ‘mother’ for the first time. I never imagined it to be so powerful and spiritual
After the Munch Museum we went to the National Museum and I saw this painting in their archive featuring a child in similar position to Emin’s ‘mother’. I can’t help but think Tracey might have seen this
In this work “Puberty” a young girl is sitting in front of the bed – poised between childhood and adulthood
Later, in another section of the museum are works from the Fredriksen Family Collection ‘The Pillars’. I am happy to see this work by Marguerite Humeau ‘Venus of Frasassi, A 10 year old female human has ingested a rabbits brain’. Her works are always brilliant biological fantasies
Last stop is Christen Sveeas collection in his offices. Norwiegen artists, Frida Orupabo, Tyra Tingleff and Apichaya Wanthiang step in and do the hosting for an absent Christen. Ahmed Umar gives a speech and performs their Sudanese roots shaped by a childhood in Mecca, embodying queer histories of the Muslim migration
Here they are performing in the Venice Biennale
Then it was goodbye to my lovely group of Tate friends
With Midge Palley, Amanda and Andrew Love we head ... or run... to the beautiful June weather in Sarvisalo. We look at the art and they are intrigued by Keith Tyson’s nature paintings
I imagine you are not familiar with Henry Coombes but he represented Scotland in the Venice Biennale not too many years ago and was one of my favourite artists in the collection
Our new James Ireland sculpture was up and looking magnificent in the Finnish sunshine
We visited Kiasma where there was a lovely show by Simon Fujiwara who had researched the worlds of theme parks and places of mass tourism. On one of these trips he managed to salvage a set of ruined plaster cartoon figures. He made these fingers into giant ruins
Later we had a lovely night out with collectors Rafaela Seppäla, Kyösti Kakkonen and Julianna Borses. With our friends restaurateur Aku and Jasmine Wikström
We visit the Forsblom gallery and view some show stopping works by Kim Simonsson, including this ceramic work ‘Grower’
Here is the towering ‘Bringer of Light’ by Kim Simonsson in front of the Amos Rex. It is a giant 4.5m high figure in the street
In the Amos Rex we at last get to view the incredible beta bellies work by Keiken great to see them again after their first iteration in our exhibition Among the Machines
I flew to France from Helsinki and we drove to Arles. First stop was Van Gogh Museum where Starry Night was a lovely thoughtful show. This commissioned work ‘Nebula Watcher’ by Jean Marie Appriou was perfect for the exhibition
I had not been to LUMA since it was built - it was looking splendid glittering in the shining sun
A great retrospective by Rikrit Tiravanija ‘The market of Arles’ where he is trying to find a space ‘where all differences can exist together’ Then an introduction to Ralph Nauta by Simon Castets and our hostess Maja Hoffman
The drone performance by Studio Drift was magical and epic
Something I will never forget
Then it was finally Home Sweet Home to London where launched the new Invites book (Volume 3!) modelled here by Athena Papadopoulos
We hosted a lovely talk with Athena, Jake Elwes and Ding Shilun
And had a special visit from Alex Israel
It was a very special lunch, here is a very happy Lizzie with Ding
Lizzie and Ken Paranada who is now Curator for Climate change at the Sainsbury Centre and Anna now working with Goodman Gallery. It was so good to see our old team going on to such brilliant roles
And finally, a great team pic - with Antonia, Jake, Anna, Julia, Paul and myself
