Tag Archives: Claes Oldenburg

A Visit to Middlesbrough – Claes Oldenburg and Haroon Mirza

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The Bottle of Notes sculpture by Claes Oldenburg  is in the centre of Middlesbrough by MIMA (Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art). There have been plenty of photos taken of it before now, but these are mine!

We had a short visit to Middlesbrough at Easter and managed, amongst other things, to see this, the MIMA exhibitions, the Anish Kapoor sculpture at Riverside Park (see tomorrow’s post) and had a walk round Great Ayton.

Bottle of Notes

Bottle of Notes

Bottle of Notes

MIMA

One of the exhibitions we saw at MIMA was Untitled Song by Haroon Mirza. I can’t show photos other than this wall in the gallery, but I did record part of the audio in the exhibition. Here is 30 seconds of it.

Haroon Mirza

You may not find the sound particularly easy to listen to – it’s not exactly popular music – but there was more to it than this sample and it worked well with the space and the sculptures by James Clarkson, some of which had been modified by Mirza.

Not Such an Ugly Town

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from Suburban Lakeside Walk - Middlesbrough

from Suburban Lakeside Walk - Middlesbrough

Suburban Lakeside Walk – Yesterday I uploaded a new StillWalk to Winter Walks. It is from Middlesbrough, one of those places that only ever get bad press and gets into those Ugly Towns books and programmes every time. The result is an undeserved bad and sad reputation.

There are, however, many aspects to Middlesbrough that defy this reputation. The StillWalk produced here, is, as described in the title, a suburban walk, but I have plans to go back and produce at least one more of the town itself. The images below will help to explain why.

Middlesbrough and Claes Oldenburg's "Notes"

Middlesbrough and Claes Oldenburg's "Notes"

Middlesbrough Town Hall

Middlesbrough Town Hall from MIMA

MIMA - Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art

MIMA - Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art

MIMA

Inside MIMA

MIMA – Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art is one of the places I visited over the New Year. There was a great exhibition of South American Drawing and, in particular, I liked Brigida Baltar’s work. I am definitely going to go and see the Sean Scully show when I am next there.

Brigida Baltar

Brigida Baltar's work in the South American Drawing exhibition

Full Screen Samples – The StillWalks on the website are sample length only, but remember always to watch these in full screen mode. If you would like to see more, you can buy it for just £1.99 or, if you haven’t already signed up to the website, do it now and get the StillWalk FREE.

Here is one more image from the Suburban Lakeside Walk – the location of which is here.

Hemlington Swan

Hemlington Swan