Dale Chihuly at the Halcyon Gallery

A must see, Dale Chihuly at the new Halcyon Gallery on New Bond Street until the 28th February 2012. The astonishingly beautiful glassworks take your breath away. Uplifting organic forms and vibrant colours, a show to blow away the January blues.

 

Darwin Centre cocoon, Natural History Museum

Take two children to the superb new interactive section of the Natural History Museum, and what do they want to do - play on their hand-held computers!  The museum did a fabulous talk with a resident entomologist about stick insects.  We had the rare opportunity of petting some live ones, although some of our group passed on it!

The magnificent cocoon structure protects and houses the Museum's most valuable specimen collections.  Designed by internationally renowned C F Møller Architects of Denmark, construction took 28 months and was finished in September 2008.

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/darwin-centre-visitors/cocoon/index.html

White Glass @ the Victoria & Albert Museum, London

V&A, Contemporary Glass, Room 129

The Märit Rausing Gallery

The international glass displayed in this gallery is recent work by contemporary artist-makers and designers. To maintain this contemporary character, the displays will change as newer works enter the permanent collections. At times, there may be a temporary exhibition of invited work - either a solo or a thematic show.

Colorbox 1-5 is a glass installation in five pieces by Jun Kaneko, made at the Bullseye Glass Factory, Portland, Oregon, USA, 2006.


Jun Kaneko was born in Nagoya, Japan in 1942. He moved to the United States in 1963 and established his current studio in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1990. Kaneko started painting is his youth, but he switched to sculpture soon after his arrival in the United States, working mostly in ceramics, but also in other media such as bronze or glass. He is best known for his large scale ceramic sculptures or 'dangos' (the Japanese word for dumpling).