Plus One gallery & Paul Day

Yesterday it had been the intention for us (The group of CityLit gallery visitors) to look at the latest Saatchi exhibition, but the gallery was closed for a private function so we had to think again.

Lovely in the sun

The Saatchi gallery is  housed in the Duke of York's HQ and as well as a lovely building it's a great home for Art, at the gallery you can get up close to the work and the staff there are unobtrusive.

(You can see how beautiful  the gallery was looking from the accompanying  photo's).

London's Spring Sunshine

We met outside the Saatchi and the leader of the group decided that we could visit the nearby Plus One Gallery, she was though less than enthusiastic about the reception we were likely to receive at the gallery - they had been  fairly clear with her that they would not be welcoming of a 'student' group (I would say that the average age of the group is probably north of 50).

We were told that the The Plus one Gallery is aimed at a section of the art world which is interested in the figurative over the abstract and has something of an irony aversion.
Anyway when we were finished talking about how horrible some people were we ambled down to see what was mainly a Paul Day exhibition (Paul Day is responsible for public art that includes The Meeting Place Statue at St Pancras).
Paul day was born in 1967 and now splits his life between France and the UK - meaning that his work at St Pancras the London  terminus of Eurostar is particular appropriate.

Only two school children at a time please.

Now I too thought that the work in St Pancras was perhaps a little lightweight (although created in bronze) but if you look at the base there is quite a bit going on and so it was with the Day work at the Plus One Gallery -the technical side seemed accomplished to me and there was something of a critique of modern city life too.
What was apparent to me is that the line between popular and critically popular is a harsh one that rules success out for some work on each sider of the line.
On the subject of public statues there's a nice one of Mozart near the Plus One Gallery.

'Wolfie'