Explore over 150 Mind Bending Works by Legendary Dutch Artist M.C. Escher in London!

[00:00:00]A very warm welcome to Art Gallery Explorer, the vlog which explores and celebrates the London art scene. I'm George Dopamine. coming up.

[00:00:13][music] You know what lovers? The first ever art book that I was given at the age of six or seven was a small little pocketbook of impossible drawings by Dutch artist MC Cher and I was transfixed. Esher was born in 1898 in the Netherlands. Um, but it was trips to Italy where he became transfixed by the Renaissance buildings and Alamra Palace in southern Spain in Granada which really transformed his art. The Alamra particularly which he visited in 1922 and again in 1936 captured his imagination with those geometrical tessillating patterns in Islamic art. Um you're not allowed to portray human figures. So beauty had to be expressed in abstract form. and he loved these patterns which repeated um in in in in symmetrically pleasing geometric ways.

[00:01:19]Esher was um also very interested in mathematics and for quite a while his art was of interest to mathematicians and scientists not to um you know not to the wider art world but it did capture the public imagination.

[00:01:36]It is interesting because in the 1960s the counterculture uh which with its with its uh desire to sort of expand the mine and and produce trippy works uh embraced user and by the time of his death in 1972 um at the age of 73 he was one of the most popular artists in the world. He's primarily a print maker who uses wood blocks, uh, mezzotent sometimes and other uh, print forms. And this is the first ever show I've been to because um, as I say, I received this book um, very early on in my life. I feel I've kind of know him quite intimately even though it was very small. So I can't wait to head inside this show which is here in the lower galleries of Somerset House on the embankment. The river is over there. I'm going to head inside now. This show's on until the 6th of September. It has sort of dynamic pricing. The prices are different at different times of day.

[00:02:33]I've paid £21 to get in today. Um, so come and join me as we explore the weird and wonderful mathematical world of MC Cher.

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[00:21:08][music] [music] [music] >> [music] [music] >> Well, I really hope you enjoyed that exploration of the MC Ashes show from Somerset House in London. It's come as part of a world tour and the exhibition information told us that it it's been seen by over 20 million people worldwide. So if you visited it in a different city, different country, do post in the comments how this showing of Esher's work compares. Um I unfortunately have still not been able to find my little Essher book, the first the first art book, sorry, that I was ever given when I was a lot lot younger.

[00:22:15]can picture it with a red cover, but I'm pretty sure that some of the works in that book were in this show. I always think about these London shows in terms of the good, the bad, and the beautiful.

[00:22:25]And if we start with the good, there were several things I thoroughly enjoyed about this show. I really like the balance between putting art front and center, but also combining it with immersive elements. I'm not a fan of those purely immersive shows where it's of Van Go, for example, um where you feel you're like sitting in a in a room was staring at a projection from a computer of an artist's work unfiling on the walls. Um [clears throat] but but this did that so much better. The the immersive elements produced by Fever who were very good at this kind of thing and they complemented the art which dominated him was the main thing about the exhibition really really well and helped you get into Esher's mind and the way that he wanted to warp perception.

[00:23:07]So that [clears throat] balance between the immersive elements and but also putting over 200 of a's works front and center really um really was a thumbs up.

[00:23:17]And I should say by the way I didn't bring every single work to you because it was such a vast exhibition and and I do encourage you to go along and visit if if if this um appealed to you. The second thing I really enjoyed was the um the the way that the information took you through Ash's life and creative process. We learned about how Italy massively inspired his love of of drawing these warped u architectural uh works. And we also learned that his visit to the Alamra um sparked his love of tessellation and I thought it was done really really well throughout.

[00:23:53]There was a lot of information but it took you through um the exhibition and gave you a sense of the man and his art.

[00:23:59]So that was really brilliant and I would say along with the Julio La Park show in London, if you want to introduce youngsters to art, this is a good show to take them to because the art itself is really interesting and and it it forces you to look closely, but the interactive elements leave a wow to to this as well. So I thoroughly enjoyed it and I'd never ever been to a a mana show before. So, it's a real pleasure to see so many of his works um you know up up close. They it definitely is better seeing them um as opposed to uh looking at them in books as I have done in the past. So, all of that was thumbs up. I really enjoyed it. And a final thing that I want to say is really good is is the um something that that taken and and and the Freda Carlo show could learn from. Obviously, Ezer became popular and burst into the wider popular consciousness in the 1960s where he was adopted by that generation. And so, the Echermania room was really nice. It was one room at the end. It did not dominate the show unlike the Freda Carlo um exhibition where almost [clears throat] twothirds of it is about really Fred the influence of Freda Carlo that I really like that as a nice ending to remind us of how he's continues to influence different cultural forms today. So the balance was all really nice. In terms of the bad, all I would say is Cher is a bit of a Marmite artist. Some people um really are enthralled by him. Some people are turned off by his prints and and the kind of the idea that they're so mathematical and geometric in lots of ways. And you know, it's interesting how he was shunned by the art world, but embraced by the mathematical and science scientific communities um in his lifetime until relatively late on. But you'll probably know from this and from knowing about Esher if he's an artist that you want to visit the show. If you do um if you're a fan of Esher then this is a mustsee obviously. Um in terms of the beautiful I would have to have a a work like this on my wall because of the way it plays with our perspective. It's fun as well and I should have said that in the good you know this show is an upbeat fun show and that's another reason why I think it's good for youngsters, younger art lovers to be to to to be to be taken to. But yeah, this work I really love. I'd love it on my wall. I'd spend a long time staring at it, I'm sure. Overall, I'm giving this exhibition an 8.5 out of 10. I really enjoyed it. It wasn't really on my radar at the start of the year, hence why it wasn't in my top 20 shows to look forward to, but it's definitely proved a highlight of of the exhibitions I visited over the summer. Um, and it's on until the 6th of September. I think the pricing is reasonable. If you book in advance or at less popular times, it is cheaper. So, do bear that in mind and you can book on the website which I'm going to put a link in the video description. I'm sorry I've had a little bit of a of a break from posting. I should be back a bit more regularly now with shows from both London and overseas as well coming up over the next few weeks. So, do subscribe and hit that notification bell. Thank you ever so much for watching.