Saturday 7 March 2015

Whitworth Art Gallery ft. Beautiful Weather


WHITWORTH ART GALLERY FT. BEAUTIFUL WEATHER

Today I awoke to the most beautiful blue skies that kept just getting bluer and bluer as the day progressed. As happened yesterday, some strange miracle has been granted to us mere mortals by the weather gods, and Manchester has been graced with a weekend of sunshine, blue skies, a gentle summer breeze and temperatures of sixteen degrees and possibly even higher. Contrary to this time last week when it was raining all day and all night, intermingled with a sprinkling of snow, and the weather up here in general, this strange turn of events means Manchester feels practically Mediterranean, and it's bloody wonderful. When I left my flat today, it was like walking out onto a Spanish beach in the middle of July with the warm breeze blowing and sunshine shining down, that's if you substitute the actual beach for a busy Manchester street, so almost Mediterranean. Almost. Of course the beautiful weather was too beautiful to go unappreciated, and duly put a sock in my plans to do lots of work and things that I've been putting off for way too long. When you're sat inside and the weather outside looks so picturesque, and with sunshine and warm weather being such a rarity up here, you simply have to stop whatever else you're doing and go out and appreciate it. And appreciate it I most certainly did.

I decided that I would firstly walk up to Whitworth Art Gallery on Oxford Road, where I've been meaning to go ever since it re-opened on Valentines Day, after undergoing major renovations. Although I love art, I personally find art galleries to be a bit hit and miss, with some I absolutely adore and others which I definitely don't. I'm very particular about what I like in an art gallery, so I was curious to see what the Whitworth, my local gallery, would be like, and with it's beautiful park location plus the gorgeous weather and pretty decent reviews today felt like the right day to pay a visit. The short and short of it is that the Whitworth is a rather wonderful and utterly gorgeous little haven full of a wide variety of different exhibits, installations, photography and artwork, all of which were actually really interesting to peruse and admire, much to me & my 10 second attention span's delight. The building itself is nothing short of incredible with big open plan rooms, giant windows that overlook the park and flood the rooms with natural light, sublime architecture, smooth wooden flooring, skylights... I had such a lovely, lovely time and to top it all off, I followed it by walking down Oxford Road into town in the sun, fabulously happy music playing, and had a little wander around some of my favourite shops in the Northern Quarter (and very almost got hit by a car, as you do). So it ended up being the most perfect day, and so to share with you some real life proof that Manchester does actually get sunshine occasionally, as well as how beautiful Whitworth Art Gallery is, here are some of my fave pics from today...


-PHOTOBOOK-

The Royal Infirmary, and look at those blue, blue skies!

Oxford Road   //   Uni looking lovely as always


Admiring some of the fantastic artwork in the gallery...

A beautiful set of stairs I found...

Only in Manchester do you find a randomly deserted carton of milk in the middle of an empty pavement

Big wheel be wheelin' as per usual

Super cool art installation and rather funky artwork

Cornerhouse cinema looking swanky & retro

My favourite art installation, soooo cool!!

So. much. natural. light.

The Ali. G building at uni!

Michael Craig Martin

Manchester or the Mediterranean?

Sassy sculpture //   Vair cool decoration

Serious motorbike appreciation

So stunning inside the gallery!

All you need is...

Amazing uni campaign fighting for women's rights!

Really cool collection of black & white photographs

The Palace Hotel //  An incredible installation

Inside the gallery, looking all pretty & stuff

Ceiling light appreciation

Turned the corner and wham bam, was greeted to this beautiful beast of an installation

Birds flying high in the sky :)

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