An art focused long weekend in London is easy and can be exceptionally varied. Regular daytime direct flights from Boston to London make that arts rich city a simple jaunt. A fast digital visa and a current passport are the only requirements to make this international city as painless as a flight to Los Angeles.
Our agenda was loose. We surveyed the arts schedule on ArtRabbit, a weekly schedule of galleries. We picked out “R. Crumb, There’s No End to the Nonsense” at David Zwirner and “Best Femmes Forever,” Marie Antoinette brought back to life by artists Mary Reid Kelley and Patrick Kelley at Pilar Corrias, as “must sees.”
We also gleaned the museum schedules, but we have a strong familiarity with the permanent collections in these iconic institutions from previous visits and stayed focused on personal research objectives. We singled out the ongoing show of Lewis chess pieces and the Royal Lion Hunt of Ashurbanipal, a massive group of Assyrian reliefs, for our rainy afternoon visit to the British Museum. We sprinted past tomb art and only slowed at our favorite Asian and Japan Galleries, but as we all know, there is enough treasure in the various museums to suit all tastes.