Best of 2018

It’s been another busy, beautiful and thought-provoking year in museums and galleries, so I’ve struggled, as always, to limit myself to 10 highlights to give you for 2018. Like last year, I’ve not managed to blog about everything that I’ve seen and enjoyed, so thought I’d partly use this list to focus on things that haven’t featured in posts already.

Here are the things that have kept me thinking, in the order that I saw them, as usual. You can see everything that I've visited this year on the 2018 hit list.

1. Mark Dion: Theatre of the Natural World at the Whitechapel 

I love Dion’s work, especially the way that he engages with the natural world and the way that it is presented and discussed in museum settings. I found this solo-show particularly powerful in making you think about what ‘immersion’ and ‘performance’ can mean in contemporary art.

2. Harry Potter: A History of Magic at the British Library

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this exhibition. I grew up with Harry Potter (we were once the same age) so have an affection and enthusiasm for the stories. But what I found impressive about this show was how it mixed the world of Potter with the history of magic, film objects with library objects, the educational with the magical, and designed busy spaces to be filled with enthusiastic children that still had elegance and humour.

3. Vilnius National Museum

I wrote after our Easter trip, about how so many of the historic monuments in Vilnius made me uneasy. The National Museum, though, was a joy in how it used the historical and ethnographic collections to tell a rich, but light-touch, version of the complex history of Lithuania, and displayed them with particular flair.

4. Gottingen University Karzer

I was lucky to be invited to lecture in Gottingen in May, and so to get a chance to see the University collections. What has most stayed with me is the extraordinary University prison cells, covered in elaborate graffiti commemorating the students held there for being drunk and disorderly. Such a vivid graphic record of a slice of life.

5. Ocean Liners: Speed and Style at the V&A 

This show was particularly beautifully designed, giving a really vivid sense of the style and luxury of the heyday of cruise liners. But it also did a brilliant job of combining technology, design, fashion and fiction to evoke such monumental maritime objects in small exhibition spaces.

6. RA 250 at the Royal Academy

One of the most anticipated re-openings of the year, was London’s Royal Academy, with the new extension from Burlington House into spaces on Burlington Gardens, including more exhibition spaces. We went for a look on the bustling opening weekend, and I loved the new brick corridor between the two buildings used to show some of the history of the RA schools. It’s also great to see a permanent space for the RA's own collections. 

7. Charleston in Sussex

‘Home of the Bloomsbury Group’, I’ve long wanted to visit this farmhouse in Sussex. Not only is the house a delight, filled with artworks and decorated by the Bloomsbury Group, but the garden was a joy on a very warm August day, visitors even being allowed to eat apples from the trees. The guided tour was also one of the most enjoyable I’ve experienced.

8. Shape of Light: 100 Years of Photography and Abstract Art at Tate

I was entranced by this show at Tate Modern, which was filled with beautiful photographic techniques, and a compelling story of how new technologies challenged and interacted with more mainstream abstract art. 

9. The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Galleries at Westminster Abbey

I think these might be my highlight of the year. Housed in the Triforium, these galleries offer spectacular views down the nave and a stunningly beautiful space to display some of the Abbey’s treasures. I loved how these were displayed sensitively, and with a real attention to materials, but also with more than a touch of whimsy. And a particularly good use of digital elements.

10. Rachel Maclean: The Lion and the Unicorn at the National Gallery

Maclean is definitely my artist to watch from this year, although I’m late to the party as her star has been rising for some time. Her films are visually sumptuous and intellectually stimulating, with a wry wit. Her piece commissioned for the Scottish referendum, currently on show to complement Landseer’s Monarch of the Glen, at the National Gallery is beautifully crafted and thought-provoking in these complex political times. 

As a cheeky extra, I also want to draw my readers attention, if any are not already aware, to the media phenomenon that is the Twitter account for the Museum of English Rural Life in Reading. They are really showing us what humour and curiosity can be sparked by imaginative use of museum collections.