Huzzah!

Today a celebration of somewhere which was due for demolition but (for now) seems to have had a reprieve. The Skater park under the South Bank Centre has had a pop up branch of Wahaca hovering above it like the sword of Damocles for the last year or so. Today the pop up has gone and the boys are back to their usual business. The Mexican restaurant was due to take over the space once planning permission had been obtained. So far, so good.

I'm here to see History is Now at the Hayward Gallery with Paul and Anne Bryant. The show is 7 artists view of social history over the past 5 decades, although only one, Richard Wentworth had been an adult through all of this period. Not surprisingly I found his gallery the most compelling. Wentworth used iconic artefacts to represent events and movements, from the 'Winter of Discontent' in bin bags to Margaret Thatcher's clothing as worn by Meryl Streep in the movie.

Roger Hiorns detailed the history and timeline of BSE and vCJD, whilst the others  employed a more conventional curatorial perspective, collecting works from artist's who had made comment in this era.

Expensive, but well worth a visit. We easily spent three hours in the gallery, we could have spent more.