Stop, Look, Listen: Three things to do this week.

STOP. British Design 1948-2012 at the V&A Until Sun 12 Aug

The V&A's exhibition, British Design 1948–2012: Innovation in the Modern Age, celebrates the best of British post-war art and design from the 1948 ‘Austerity Games' to the summer of 2012. Over 300 British design objects highlight significant moments in the history of British design.

Image: V&A

LOOK. Damien Hirst at the Tate Modern. 4 April to 9 September 2012

The first substantial survey of Hirst's work in a British institution, the exhibition brings together key works from over twenty years, including iconic sculpture The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living 1991, in which he suspended a shark in formaldehyde. 

Image: Tate

LISTEN. Life Drawing classes at The Last Tuesday Society. 4th and 18th April

Part of The Last Tuesday Society's lecture series involves a drawing club led by Mia Gubbay, working from life models interacting with the weird, wonderful and macabre exhibits of their shop-cum-gallery.

Image: Last Tuesday Society

Stop, Look, Listen: Three things to do this week.

STOP. Brain: The Mind as Matter at the Wellcome Collection

This major new free exhibition, starting from 29th March to the 17th June, explores what humans have done to brains in the name of medical intervention, scientific enquiry, cultural meaning and technological change. Featuring real brains, artworks, videos and photography, 'Brains' asks not what brains do to us, but what we have done to brains, focusing on the bodily presence of the organ rather than investigating the neuroscience of the mind.

LOOK. Gillian Wearing at the Whitechapel Gallery. 

From the 28th March to the 17th June, the Whitechapel Gallery is showing the work of Turner Prize-winning YBA artist Gillian Wearing, whose films and photographs explore our public personas and private lives. Drawing from early fly-on-the-wall documentaries and reality TV, Wearing's portraits reveal a paradox- given the chance to dress up, put on a mask or act out a role, the liberation of anonymity allows us to more truly ourselves. 

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LISTEN. Writing Madness on BBC Radio Four.

Vivienne Parry takes her diagnoses of literary heroines into the 20th century and the age of Freud, the Great War and the explosion of the 'sciences of the mind' focusing on three great works of fiction, including Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway. On Saturday 31st March from 11.30am-12pm. 

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Stop, Look, Listen: Three things to do this week.

STOP:

Mondrian and Nicholson in Parellel at The Courtauld Gallery. Apart from the most obvious reasons to visit Somerset House this week (as shown below), this exhibition explores the largely untold relationship between Piet Mondrian and Ben Nicholson during the 1930's and offers an experience to see two masters of abstract art side by side. 

LOOK:

London Fashion Week continues. Watch shows live here. Look forward to Peter Pilotto, Christopher Kane, Michael van der Ham, Erdem and Giles on Monday, and Mary Katrantzou, Peter Jensen and Meadham Kirchhoff on Tuesday. 

Above: Nicole Farhi

LISTEN:

BBC Radio Four's Women's Hour today- a special fashion focused edition, with blogger Susie Lau of Style Bubble, Maria Janssen, Creative Director of Fashion for forecasting company WGSN, Hilary Alexander from the Telegraph, and Caroline Rush, Chief Executive of the British Fashion Council to name a few. 

Stop, Look, Listen: Three things to do this week.

This week's 'Stop, Look, Listen' might be just a little Freud centred..

STOP.
Lucian Freud Portraits at the National Portrait Gallery. 9th February- 27 May 2012

Grandson of Sigmund Freud and one of the country's most influential artists of his generation, Lucian Freud was renowned for his portraits, such as 'Benefits Supervisor Sleeping' and 'Naked Man with Back View'. He was also famous for his portrait of the Queen, which he refused to paint in any other style but his own, and the supermodel Kate Moss, who posed for him in 2002. This retrospective exhibition marks an opportunity for a review of his work after his death last year. 

LOOK. 

A Dangerous Method by David Cronenberg.

Starring Keira Knightley, Viggo Mortensen and Michael Fassbender. Set at the beginning of the 20th Century, this film follows Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung's road to dispute in their respective Psychoanalytic theories.

LISTEN.

BBC Radio Four's Saturday Play.

Listen to Saturday's play again on iPlayer, or look forward to 'The Wolf Man' on the 18th February. 

Writer and playwright Deborah Levy has dramatised two of Freud's iconic case studies, 'Dora' and 'The Wolf Man'. 'Dora', set in 1899, finds a father imploring Sigmund Freud to treat his daughter after discovering her intention to end her life. 'The Wolf Man' focuses on 24 year old Sergei Pankejeff, a depressed son of a wealthy Russian landowner. 

Stop, Look, Listen: Three things to do this week.

A new feature to the blog, where I recommend things to do and see in London each week.

STOP.

David Hockney: A Bigger Picture at the Royal Academy. One of the must-see exhibitions of the year, featuring new large-scale works inspired by the East Yorkshire countryside. The exhibition also displays Hockney's iPad drawings and a series of films exploring his artistic journey. On till the 9th April 2012. 

LOOK.

Issue 7 of Love Magazine is out now. The spring/summer 2012 pop-art cover features Linda Evangelista, photographed by Mert & Marcus and styled by Katie Grand. 

LISTEN.

A Sou Fujimoto lecture at the Bartlett School of Architecture on Thursday at 1pm. Sou Fujimoto is a Japanese architect who established his practice in 2000, specialising in a "primitive future" style; a primitive situation that relates to the human "cave" habitation along with something new for the future. His projects include House N in Oita City and House O in Minami Boso.