After the obligatory festive consuming and dumb-ass TV over the last few days I felt the need for some cultural eye candy. Being busy and, let’s face it, disorganised, I decided to visit some exhibitions here in Nottingham. There are plenty to choose from at present; Anish Kapoor at the Castle, L.S. Lowry at the Lakeside Arts, Stefan Boness, also at Lakeside and Klaus Weber at the Contemporary.

Starting with Lowry we, I went along with Ali, obviously had the same idea as all the other people not at work. It was extremely busy although I have to say, the visitors there were ‘well behaved’. I have been to exhibitions with a lot less people but a lot more noise. About the exhibition: I, like so many others who were around in the late 70s, was introduced to Lowry through the song ‘Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs’ by Brian and Michael (catchy name for a band). Since then I have seen his paintings in various art books but never in the ‘flesh’. The show was arranged in the chronological order(ish) which gave an inkling to the evolution of his personality. The accompanying narrative spoke of his mother, and in particular her death, and Lowry’s despair and depression (partly attributed to the loss of his mother). What stood out for me whilst wandering and viewing his work were his early c.1920s pencil drawings. Once I had visited these I lost interest in the other work (more accurately I lost interest in the dark despair of the latter industry and hardship and was lifted by his early youthful optimism). The handful of painted portraits in which all the subjects/creations looked fraught were stunning albeit clown-like. These were new to me but the aforementioned pencil drawings spectacularly stood out for me and stole the show. They had a graphic cartoon-esque style to them, simplistic in form but technically beautiful. Many of these went on to be painted but I preferred the original take.

Hosted in the same building was Stefan Boness’ Southern Street exhibition. I received the book as a gift before I saw the show. I have to admit, I feel the book worked better than the gallery format. The images taken of the street by the same name are place above each other on the wall and do not give the feeling of scale. The whole street was torn down and the images show houses in twos side by side (in the book). It reminds me of Ed Ruscha’s ‘Every Building on the Sunset Strip’. This worked because. like in Boness’ book, the images were in a row, like the street. There are a two or three images taken from the same spot with a Fish and Chip shop on the corner, the houses there in on image, gone in the next. On the wall they were at the opposite ends and so easily missed as a before and after study. It was good to see them on the wall I just feel it could have been curated better.

The third exhibition of the day was the Klaus Weber collection (Anish Kapoor was going to be next but the Castle closed early – or is that ‘we were late’). Weber’s show was a mixed bag, some pieces great others not so. One thing though, it is what I come to expect when visiting the Contemporary – a collection of conceptual ‘odds and sods’ randomly (that’s how it seems anyway) scattered around the concrete space. This exhibition was composed of two halves. Firstly was Weber’s own creations, the second part was a collection of pieces curated by Weber with a few bits of his thrown in.

I missed the opening talk Weber gave and therefore missed out on how his ideas were conceptualised into physical works (taking notes during the visit would have helped). This was a bit of a handicap as there was little in the way of individual narrative leaving me wondering why. There are pieces that are stunning regardless of explanation or not. One such piece is the book that is printed on glass and the ‘pages’ stacked with spaces in between. One page was set apart in a metal frame and again, I would have loved to have known why. Similar pieces were on display with the Bees piece taking up a complete wall. White canvases had bee crap dots in catious amounts on 10+ canvases. They sound gross and I cannot imagine having one hanging one in my living room but they worked in this exhibition. The biggest disappointment was the giant windscreen wipers on the main gallery window. They would look more at home as the window display at a Ted Baker shop. The curated exhibition had a handful of brilliant piece but overall it felt more like a curiosity shop than an exhibition.

A great day in the galleries and the stand out works for me were Lowry’s pencil drawings and the handful of Weber’s afore-praised pieces. Still to see is Anish Kapoor at the Castle, Hugh Pascal’s commissioned music composition inspired by Weber’s show at The Space and the new Rashid Rana’s show at the New Arts Exchange opening mid January.

Rashid Rana’s ‘Everything is Happening at Once’

L.S. Lowry at the Lakeside Arts

Stefan Boness’ Southern Street exhibition

Anish Kapoor at the Castle

Klaus Weber at the Contemporary