Nature Morte Late Visual Arts

As romantic clichés take over, Guildhall Art Gallery is offering an alternative Valentine’s Day experience.

As romantic clichés take over, Guildhall Art Gallery is offering an alternative Valentine’s Day experience, inviting you to celebrate something that we all have in common: life and death. Inspired by the core themes in Nature Morte, this Late event promises an enjoyable night of music, art, drawing, and cocktails.

Watch a top-notch Victorian entertainment show, enjoy a variety of activities (including still life drawing, flower pressing or tote bag making) and hear a talk about ‘ethical’ taxidermy with Jazmine Miles-Long. DJ Museum of Vinyl’s life and death-inspired playlist will provide the soundtrack to the evening.

Nature Morte, one of the largest exhibitions ever presented by the City of London Corporation at Guildhall Art Gallery, illustrates how leading artists of the 21st century have reinvigorated still life. With over 100 pieces from different disciplines going beyond the two-dimensional, including sculpture, digital, and sound, Nature Morte displays works by artists including Mat Collishaw, Michael Craig-Martin, Gabriel Orozco and Marc Quinn.

Elizabeth Scott, Head of Guildhall Art Gallery & London’s Roman Amphitheatre, said, Nature Morte celebrates the age-old themes of life and death and yet, when you reflect on these themes, love isn’t very far away. Life, death and love go hand in hand, and what better way to explore these themes than an alternative Valentine’s Day Late that celebrates the romantic, morbid and life-affirming?

The exciting events programme is as follows:

Talk on ‘ethical’ taxidermy with Jazmine Miles-Long (7pm and 8.15pm, Basinghall Suite)
Described as an ‘ethical’ taxidermist, Jazmine Miles-Long produces work using only animals that have died from natural causes. This is an exciting opportunity to discover and understand the techniques used to create her work. The audience will be able to handle objects and tools that show the process of taxidermy in different stages, while Jazmine also reveals some of the romantic stories in taxidermy historically. [please note: no dead animals will be used during the talk.]

Memento Mori Still Life: Death Drawing workshop with Art Macabre (7 - 10pm, Undercroft)
Join London's purveyors of death-positive creativity, Art Macabre, to create your own unique memento mori collage. Be inspired by a contemporary twist on a traditional still life set up in the space, with objects from fruit and bones to symbols of modern life. Cut and paste a DIY design that will remind you of your own mortality. A reflective, creative activity to help you explore and draw inspiration upon looking death in the face.

Don’t go into the Cellar present ‘Tea with Oscar Wilde’ (split into three acts, taking place at intervals throughout the evening, Amphitheatre)
A chat show with a difference brought to you by Don't Go Into The Cellar! Theatre Company - the British Empire's finest practitioners of top-notch Victorian entertainment. Join Oscar Wilde as he interviews a leading celebrity of the Victorian era, recounts a story or two and invites his audience to get ‘Caught in the Act’! Jonathan Goodwin plays the famed Victorian wit, in a show packed with comedy, music and audience participation.

15-minute tours of Nature Morte with Curators (Michael Petry, Roberto Eckholm (Museum of Contemporary Art)) (7.30pm, 8.30pm, 9.30pm)
Join the curators of Nature Morte for a brief introduction to the exhibition, as they will highlight particular works and discuss what inspired them to create the show. This major exhibition is one of the largest shows ever presented at Guildhall Art Gallery - with works displayed by artists including Mat Collishaw, Michael Craig-Martin, Gabriel Orozco and Marc Quinn.

DJ Museum of Vinyl (7-10pm, Victorian Gallery)
Museum of Vinyl will be spinning an eclectic mix of sounds inspired by, and exploring the themes of, life and death.

Flower pressing ‘make and take’ activity (7-10pm, Victorian Gallery)
Flora has traditionally held a special place in the still life tradition. Explore the relationship between this symbolic motif and the passing of time, whilst pressing flowers and using your artistic skills to create your own keepsake to take away.

Tote bag decorating ‘make and take’ activity (7-10pm, Victorian Gallery)
Using stamps and stencils displaying the common themes of still life – flora, fauna, food, domestic objects and vanitas – you can decorate a tote bag and express your own thoughts on life, death and the transience of time to make your own still life creation in the form of a tote bag!
Nature Morte has been assembled by MOCA London.

The City of London Corporation, which owns and manages Guildhall Art Gallery, invests over £100m every year in heritage and cultural activities of all kinds. It is the UK’s largest funder of cultural activities after the government, the BBC, and Heritage Lottery Fund. It is also developing Culture Mile between Farringdon and Moorgate – a multi-million-pound investment which will create a new cultural and creative destination for London over the next ten to fifteen years. This includes £110m funding to support the Museum of London’s move to West Smithfield and £2.5m to support the detailed business case for the proposed Centre for Music.

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