04/11/18: Galleries and museums

Most of the walking I did in the last week was around museums and galleries. I started on Tuesday at the Bob Dylan exhibition, Mondo Scripto, on New Bond Street. This is a fascinating collection of sketches by Dylan illustrating specific lyrics from his songs, which he had also written out in full beside the images. These pencil artworks are oddly literal – often not an interpretation of the song, but of one specific line or image from the song – but they were far stronger than his paintings, a few of which were also displayed. The exhibition also presented some of his metal sculptures and a short film – a very glowing summary of his career, with no new insights, but enjoyable to see nonetheless. The thing that probably made the biggest impression on me was the wall of books about Dylan assembled next to the staircase as additional furnishing. It was amazing to see books I have sought out for years, alongside others that I’ve never seen anywhere except for on my own shelves. Surprisingly, there was no gift shop. They surely could have sold Dylan CDs, Dylan postcards, Dylan tea towels and “I heart Dylan” fridge magnets. Instead, they had a £1,500 collector’s edition (4,950 copies printed) of the museum guide that was somewhat outside of my price range. Well worth seeing, the exhibition is set to tour the world after this initial London run.


Two days later I tubed to Elephant and Castle for the Imperial War Museum. While they had plenty of impressive objects on display, I found the arrangement cluttered and difficult to follow. It didn’t help that there were thousands of people trying to see the same things. It suffered from the modern museum plague of overlapping audio sound effects and commentaries fighting for your attention. I would far prefer to be left with my own thoughts, especially when the subject matter is as serious as this. The museum also suffered from mixing large- and small-scale exhibits. There simply weren’t enough tanks, bombs and planes, but a chunk of mangled debris from the Twin Towers was a memorable sight.

A walk around the harrowing Auschwitz exhibition turned into a sort of bad dream when I was unable to find the exit and kept circling the same disturbing exhibits again and again in search of the door…

A far more satisfying experience was this morning’s visit to the RAF museum in Hendon. I’ve been here many, many times and it’s to the organisers’ huge credit that any modernisation has been undertaken without diluting the experience. The sense of scale lacking at the Imperial War Museum is overwhelmingly present here. Everything is huge. As you walk around aircraft hangers with massive bombers looming over you, you see what military hardware really looks like. It was shortly after opening time, so the hangars were deserted. There were no audio commentaries, sound effects or flashing screens to distract or annoy, so you could just absorb what was in front of you (and above you) without interruption. Since my last visit, there had been various improvements: part of the car park had been grassed over, the flow between various hangars seemed more logical and orderly, and a new restaurant had opened up. But all the old favourites were still there to marvel at – the Provost T you can sit inside, the vast Vulcan bomber you can walk beneath, the colossal helicopters you can wander around and the various ponytailed male plane enthusiasts loving every detail.