"Wonderful Things" by Tim Walker - V&A museum, 25.02.2020

The thing about one's raison d'etre being scouting and blogging museum exhibitions, is that not all museum exhibitions are precisely to one's taste. One had been expecting that to be the case with the V&A's "Wonderful Things" exhibition. One was wrong.

Tim Walker is a genius and "Wonderful Things" was a veritable wonderland of colour and concepts.

I had not known who Tim Walker was prior to my visit to this gallery exhibition. I had no real idea what to expect from it. For the equally uninitiated, he is a photographer. And an artist. With a penchant for the surreal and fairytale-esque.

£15 buys entrance into the exhibition where one is greeted by a small mint green foyer with rainbow illumination, and "Wonderful Things" lit up over the arch of the door as one might announce a child's theme park.

This doorway leads immediately into a white-washed room freckled with surreal photography, while a television at the far end of the room plays Dmitri Shostakovich's Waltz II as a
perfect introduction to the surreality to follow.
Tucked away behind this TV wall is the small 'nudes gallery'. It is easy to miss, and I would have had I not returned for a second pootle around the exhibition (A true testament to an artist's compilation)
Dressed or undressed, not all of the images are flattering, though all are captivating.

It is a fascinating collection but ultimately transpires to be a mere 'training level' experience of the abstract workings of Mr Walker's mind. The work is unique, but the format is what you would find in any art gallery. I could imagine any avid follower of Mr Walker's work being disappointed in genericism (are we going to push for this being a word? Yes, I think we are) of these first rooms. But as one becomes acquainted with his effortlessly surreal and boldly colourful style in subsequent rooms, the first white-washed 'conventional gallery' becomes abstract almost by comparison.

From light to dark, the next door takes us into a black room punctuated by a stained glass mural loaned by the V&A museum. The purpose of this exhibition hereon in, explains a post immediately as one enters the room, is for Mr Walker to convey his own artistic interpretation of various items belonging the to V&A museum.

As such, opposite the stained glass are a range of photographs as an ode to this museum piece. Some of models in colourful garb. Some under colourful plastic sheeting. Ostensibly depictions of stained glass personified.
Had someone asked me to do such a thing, I would not have known where to start. One of the main thing's I took from this exhibition as I emerged from it was the fact that this art - art being something I had previously considered to be an undeniable but ultimately superficial talent - indicated the kind of ability to think about things in a new and unconventional way that would be invaluable in any office or employment landscape.

Mr Walker proceeded to employ this talent repeatedly throughout the subsequent rooms. Turning pen
and ink drawings into black clad models on white-washed landscapes and Asianic plains into colourful wildernesses frolicked upon by long-limbed wildcats and latex clad humanoids. Each section is painted a different colour, wall-papered in a different style and playing its own unique style of background music, so that each room is entirely independent of the others.

Of particular note was the section on "Masculinity" which worked around the V&A's contribution of "David's" Figleaf (Claimed by some to have been added at Queen Victoria's prudish insistence to cover David's attributes, though this has largely since been disavowed on account of so much of her other art containing unabashed nudity)



(FYI. The Figleaf was the size of my torso. Anyone who has seen Michaelango's David might note a slight discrepancy there)

At the far end of the room were small round portholes which, when peered through, conveyed a landscape of rolling green sheep-speckled hills punctuated by the lower limbs of the ginormous statue of David. The circular nature of the porthole seamlessly mimicked the circular photography unique to this section in a very satisfying way.

The careful curation of the museum specimen's was celebrated by way of model's in gauze and boxes.

The late poet Dame Edith Sitwell's uniquely flamboyant style was captured by the use of Tilda Swanson, a distant relative, modelling her style.

The Bayeux tapestry inspired a semi-circular padded wall of montage photos.

Each section was remarkable in it's own way and this is one of those rare occasions where I consider the £15 entry fee to not only be justifiable but a downright bargain. I left the exhibition, in all truth, a little dumbstruck. For the while it took for my senses to recalibrate I had the encroaching-upon-disconcerting feeling that what I had experienced within the gallery was reality and that the bland reality outside of it was just the dropping back of the curtain over the senses, Matrix-style.

Perhaps my mind was particularly open to such manipulations today. Perhaps that clementine 3 days over the expiration date I had eaten prior to entry did things no healthy clementine ought. But I would be remiss to not consider the possibility "Did this man's art do this to me?"

It has already been extended due to popular demand and will be closing soon. I heartily encourage anyone with a remotest interest in the surreal and 'art that makes you think' to visit before these images return to the 2D format of a fascinating but still ultimately generically-formatted catalogue.