China One at Battersea

We went to see the China One exhibition at Battersea Power Station with Ping today. It’s the first of three annual exhibitions around the world of the work of upcoming Chinese artists. This exhibit was mostly video installations, very few of which I got any meaning from...

The online information about the show had said ‘No Photography’ so I’d left my camera at home but then I was kicking myself as we walked around; everyone else had a camera but no-one was photographing the art, they were all taking the building: Battersea Power Station is a vast industrial derelict which isn’t usually open to the public. I determined that I should spend another fiver to revisit on another day with my camera.

At the end of the exhibit was a small section devoted to the future of the power station. Taking in the models and watching the accompanying film, I thought it looked rather like they are going leave the station itself as full of pointless art; a huge spiral ramp, for instance, will occupy most of the space in half of the main body of the building. Visually it will be very dramatic (being bright red and all) but it looks like a crazy inefficient way to climb from one floor to another in a leisure and cultural complex! I am not much of a fan of ‘form over function.’

Afterwards we headed along to the South Bank and tried out one of the new restaurants that have been built beside the Royal Festival Hall. Iguana serves Latin cuisine in its many forms. From what we had there was nothing outstanding, but I’d quite happily go back and try some more; they have quite an extensive menu.

After that we parted company with Ping and drove home. Spent the evening watching rented DVDs and being grateful we hadn’t paid serious money to watch the films in a cinema!