We explore why restaurants are reluctant to let punters bring their own booze - and reveal the ones that allow it.
Our guide to the new market in the City, featuring artisan bakers, cheesemakers and fishmongers.
There's some particularly experimental and enigmatic shows opening on the fringe this week.
What's happening at the Pulp polymath's live art, aerobics and music happening in Shoreditch next week.
Performances and backstage interviews from the gig
Lathe chairs VIII, 2008 Sebastian Brajkovic © Sebastian Brajkovic. Courtesy of Carpenters Workshop Gallery
A wooded entry leads you from the V&A lobby into 'The Forest Glade', the first of three stagey sections; 'The Enchanted Castle' and 'Heaven and Hell' being the other two camper-than-Christmas environments. Looking beyond the theme-parkery, there's a true engagement with the complex nature of these objects and how their ugly or ostentatious aesthetics seem to frustrate the very purpose of furniture or domestic usefulness. The definition of 'design art' is everywhere: when function is not of primary importance, the artistry in the details takes over. So, the 'Fig Leaf' armoire by Dutch designer Tord Boontje is at once a place to hang clothes, on its bronze branches, and a thing of insane beauty, with its 616 hand-enamelled copper leaves. But what makes it art and not just louche design is the comment Boontje prompts on the very act of covering our original nakedness - dressing oneself in the morning becomes an experiential meditation on identity. (OW)
The V&A houses one of the world's greatest collections of decorative arts, in such varied fields as ceramics, sculpture, portrait miniatures and...
Read full venue reviewTransport South Kensington
020 7942 2000, bookings 08445 791940
Times 10am-5.45pm daily, until 10pm Fri
© 2009 Time Out Group Ltd. All rights reserved. All material on this site is © Time Out.
Add your comment