CURRENT EXHIBITIONS & DISPLAYS

Current Exhibitions & Displays

• Decode: Digital Design Sensations

  

  Opto-Isolator, 2007, Golan Levin with Greg Balthus, Photo: John Berens, courtesy bitforms gallery nyc

  8 December 2009 - 11 April 2010

  In partnership with SAP

  The Porter Gallery
  £5 Adults
  £4 Concessions
  Free to V&A Members. For information on how to become a member visit our Membership pages.

  Book tickets

  Digitally growing plants and a mechanical eye that mirrors the blink of a visitor's gaze are among the digital works that feature in Decode: Digital Design Sensations. The exhibition shows the latest developments in digital and interactive design, from small screen based graphics to large-scale installations. Curated in collaboration with leading digital arts organisation onedotzero, there are works by established international artists and designers including Daniel Brown, Golan Levin and Daniel Rozin as well as emerging designers such as Troika and Simon Heijdens.

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• The Half by Simon Annand

  

  Daniel Craig Photo Simon Annand

  25 January – 11 April 2010

  Theatre and Performance, Room 104
  Free admission

  This display showcases the work of Simon Annand, photographer of leading actors in the West End for the last 20 years. It provides a rare glimpse into the dressing rooms of actors in the precious, private few moments before the show: The Half. This half an hour before curtain up is used for focus and concentration and is strictly private.  All members of the public are required to leave.  Whatever has gone on during the day, the actor must use this time to make a transition into the fictional character of the play.  There is no escape. These photographs pay tribute to the dedication of stage actors and reveal not only technical skills but also aspects of a very personal nightly ritual.

   

• The Metropolitan Police Service's Investigation of Fakes and Forgeries

  

  The Amarna Princess, created in Bolton 2003, sold for £440,000 and seized by the Metropolitan Police Service’s Art & Antiques Unit in 2006

  23 January – 21 February 2010

  Rooms 17a & 18a
  Free admission

  In this display, The Metropolitan Police Service's Art and Antiques Unit showcases some of the investigative methods involved in detecting and preventing the increasingly sophisticated crime of art forgery. Using historical and contemporary criminal cases, the broader financial and cultural impacts of art forgery on modern society are considered. Exhibits include the diverse body of work assembled by the forger, Shaun Greenhalgh, who executed such fake "masterpieces" as the Egyptian Amarna princess and paintings purporting to be the work of the English artist, L.S. Lowry.
  

• Digital Pioneers

  

  Herbert W. Franke, Squares (Quadrate), screenprint, 1969/70. Given by the Computer Arts Society, supported by System Simulation Ltd, London. Museum no. E.113-2008

  7 December 2009 – 25 April 2010

  Julie & Robert Breckman Prints and Drawings Gallery, Room 90 and Paintings, Room 88a
  Free admission

  This display provides an overview of the first decades of the computer's history in art and design. It includes some of the earliest computer-generated works in the V&A's collections, many of which have never been exhibited in the UK before.  Digital Pioneers offers a historical context for contemporary digital practice, and is scheduled to coincide with the V&A exhibition Decode: Digital Design Sensations.
  

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• A Fairyland of Flowers: Beatrix Potter and Cicely Mary Barker

  

  Cicely Mary Barker (1895–1973) Illustration of the Pink Fairies for Flower Fairies of the Garden 1944. Reproduction of Flower Fairy illustrations, © The Estate of Cicely Mary Barker, 2009

  21 December 2009 – 14 June 2010

  Leighton, Room 102
  Free admission

  This small display features illustrations by Cicely Mary Barker. In her fascination with natural history and scientific observation, Barker has often been associated with Beatrix Potter.  Both were strongly influenced by what Potter described as the Pre-Raphaelites' 'niggling but absolutely genuine admiration for copying natural details'.  Their principal concern was to explore the world of the imagination while remaining faithful to the true likeness of things.  Sketching always from life, Barker and Potter show a keen eye for natural beauty and a botanist's concern for scientific accuracy.  
  

• Gargoyles and Shadows: Gothic Architecture and 19th-Century Photography

  

  Photograph, Westminster, with The Henry VII Chapel and Clock Tower of The Houses of Parliament, Stephen Ayling, U.K., about 1869

  7 January – 16 May 2010

  Architecture, Room 128a
  Free admission

  Drawing on the V&A's rich holdings of 19th-century photographs, this display examines the relationship that developed between photography and architectural practice in the 19th century and explores how photography facilitated the re-discovery of an idealised past. The display also addresses the role played by photography in the recording of buildings before demolition and its use as a tool for preserving the national architectural heritage.
  

• Making Glover

  

  Still from Glover, Jo Lawrence

  30 November 2009 - March 2010

  Room 220, Sackler Centre
  Free adnission

  During 2008 new media artist Jo Lawrence spent six months as artist-in-residence at the V&A. Jo used the vast collections as a research base for a new piece of animation, Glover.  The resulting 15-minute film is the story of a glovemaker who travels in his dreams to the edge of the world and encounters a series of 'glovebeasts'.  The film plays with changes of scale and experiments with puppetry. Objects in the V&A provided inspiration for the film and this display explores the process of researching and making the animation.

  This display is part of the Museum Residency Programme which is supported by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation

   

• Capturing the Imagination: British Fairy-tale Illustrations 1860-1940

  

  Charles Robinson, Goblins cross-examining a baby whom one of them has captured (detail). Museum no. E.172-1982

  18 December 2009 - 12 June 2010

  Leighton, Room 102
  Free admission

  This display features watercolours by artists of the Golden Age of illustration, including Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac. It explores their imaginative responses to folk tales and fairyland.

• Designer Bookbinders: Fine Bindings for the Man Booker Prize 2009

  

  Bookbinding in progress by Derek Hood, for A.S.Byatt's The Children's Book, Booker Prize shortlist 2009

  22 October 2009 - 21 March 2010

  20th Century, Room 74
  Free admission

  This small display showcases the bookbindings designed by the Society of Designer Bookbinders for the six shortlisted Man Booker Prize novels. The society supports and promotes the craft of fine bookbinding in Britain and has helped to establish the reputation of British bookbinding worldwide through exhibitions and publications. It has been associated with the Booker Prize for fiction since 1991, when the Booker Prize Foundation first invited Fellows of the society to design and bind copies of the six shortlisted novels. This is an intense process: the bindings take around 150 hours of work, yet the binders have only a few weeks following the shortlist announcement. All the books have to be ready in time for presentation to their authors on the night of the Man Booker Prize award. Avid novel readers will enjoy comparing these artistic interpretations of the texts with their own responses.
  

• Design and Ornament in Renaissance Bindings

  

  A Venetian ducali binding, for a collection of decrees of the Council of Ten, about 1550, Inventory no.: A.M. 25-1881, NAL Pressmark: Drawer 76

  7 December 2009 – 3 March 2010

  NAL Landing, Room 85
  Free admission

  This small display features a selection of Renaissance book bindings from about 1350–1550 from the National Art Library’s collections, highlighting major decorative designs and ornaments. The display coincides with the opening of the Museum's new Medieval & Renaissance galleries.

• An 18th-Century Enigma: Paul de Lamerie and the Maynard Master

  

  The Maynard Dish, London, England 1736-37, Paul de Lamerie. LOAN: The Cahn family foundation.

  11 May 2009 - 9 May 2010

  Silver, Room 66
  Free admission

  This display reveals the brilliant craftsmanship of Paul de Lamerie (1688-1751), the greatest silversmith working in England in the 18th century, and his craftsman, known as the Maynard Master.  The V&A's outstanding collection of silver is showcased alongside masterpieces from the collection of Sir Arthur Gilbert, including a lavishly decorated salver, a lion mask (one of the signature elements of the Maynard Master), and the Maynard Dish, the piece that marked the first appearance of the artistic personality responsible for de Lamerie's most ambitious commissions.
  

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• V&A Illustration Awards 2009

  

  'New York Trilogy', Tom Burns, 2008

  9 June 2009 - 21 March 2010

  Sponsored by the Enid Linder Foundation

  20th Century, Room 74
  Free admission

  The V&A Illustration Awards are held annually to highlight the best book and editorial illustration by UK artists published in the previous year.  Their aim is to encourage, recognise and celebrate high standards of creativity in the industry.  Prizes are also given to the most promising student illustrators.   In 2009, Tom Burns won the prize for Best Illustrated Book for the Folio Society edition of Paul Auster's The New York Trilogy.  He was also voted the overall winner of the competition.  This display showcases many of the competition winners and entries.
  

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• 'All the better to see you with my dear': Fairy Tales & Enchantments

  

  Large button Netsuke with a design of the story of Shiranui Montogar, Signed ‘Reigyoku’, Japan, About 1850-1900, Museum No. 564-1904. Dresden Bequest.

  2 July 2009 - 28 February 2010

  Sackler Centre Entrance
  Free admission

  This display focuses on a theme that is captivating to both children and adults alike: fairy tales. Some variant of fairy or folk tale exists in all cultures. Their tradition is rooted in mythology; their purpose to divert, instruct and caution. Employing equal measures of fact and fiction, tales of magic and enchantment make compelling subjects for the decorative arts. A selection of objects from around the world and across several centuries will demonstrate the hold that fairy tales and magic have on our collective imaginations. The majority of these objects have not been displayed before and include both well-known subjects and those that may be less familiar.  The display provides an opportunity to explore both the origins of fairy tales, in folk lore and legend, and also the darker side to their purpose:  cautionary advice and superstition.
  

• Judaica from the Gilbert Collection

  

  Torah crown, Austria, about 1825. Museum no. Loan:Gilbert 68:1-2008

  Until 30 September 2010

  Sacred Silver, Room 83
  Free Admission

  This small display features ornate Jewish ritual objects from Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert's collection. Arthur Gilbert's family, the Bernsteins, were successful Jewish immigrants, who had moved to London from Poland in the 1890s. Central to Jewish observance is the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. The scroll on which the Torah is written is wound on rollers called 'Trees of Life' ('Atzei Hayyim'). It is customary to decorate the rollers with either a crown or a pair of rimmonim. The crown symbolises majesty and the law of Torah. The rimmonim evoke the bells worn on the high priest's robe as described in the Book of Exodus.

   

• Objects of Luxury: French porcelain of the eighteenth century

  

  Sugar basin and cover, Saint-Cloud, about 1700-20, Museum no. 487-1909

  18 September 2009 - end May 2010

  Room 146
  Free admission

  Celebrate one of the most exciting discoveries of the 18th century in this display.

  Known as 'white gold', porcelain was produced for use in all aspects of fashionable public and private life; from banquets to boudoirs, from tea drinking to the toilette. The sensuous charm of the 'soft-paste' porcelain produced in France earned it universal admiration. This display introduces the major French factories, including the Royal Porcelain Manufacture at Sèvres, and demonstrates the wide variety of objects they could provide for their fashionable clientele.

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• Elegant Accomplishments: The Art of Noh Performance

  

  Noh mask of waka-onna, Suzuki Nohjin, Japan, 2000. Museum no. FE.127-2000.

  7 September 2009 - 7 March 2010

  Japan, Room 45
  Free admission

  This small display from the V&A's collection of superb Nō robes and masks, together with prints illustrating performance, is shown in the Museum's gallery dedicated to the arts of Japan.  It complements the tour of Nō performance and associated events being presented across the UK this autumn.  The V&A has been collecting Nō masks - worn by performers of this form of Japanese musical drama - since 1876, a time when the fate of Nō hung in the balance. That same year saw the ban on wearing swords by the samurai - who had been the traditional patrons of Nō for centuries. Many Nō families were forced to sell off their family treasures and western museums were then fortunate enough to acquire many fine examples of these crafts.