Having just returned from a three-week trip to northern India, the British Library‘s latest exhibition makes me all nostalgic.

It is the first comprehensive look at the art of the Mughals, a dynasty whose empire spanned much of the Indian subcontinent during the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. As Muslims from Persia who ruled over a Hindu majority, the Mughals did not crush their Indian subjects, but fused their artistic skills and resources together, producing iconic creations like the Taj Mahal.

On my visit to India, it was impossible to visit any place in the romantic desert state of Rajasthan, or even in hectic and maddening Delhi, without stumbling across art and architecture that tells the story of the Mughals and their power struggles, romance and deep regard for the arts, as well as their eventual decline when the British came along in the 1800s.

Building an Empire

You’re bound to recognise the subject of this drawing in the exhibition, created in 1812-15. The Taj Mahal is one of the most well-known monuments in the world, and I’m happy to say it deserves its reputation as the most beautiful. The Mughals were prolific builders of forts, palaces and monuments and this legacy marks local people today – the Taj Mahal is maintained by descendants of the original 20,000 craftspeople who worked on its site in Agra for 22 years to create the breathtakingly symetrical building, a monument for Mumtaz Mahal, the late queen of the emperor Shah Jahan.

Fathers and Sons

Emperor Shah Jahan, famous for building the Taj Mahal, is pictured in this painting greeting his son Aurangzeb at the court or durbar in 1650-1655. Court rituals such as this demonstrate the complex hierarchy of life at court, but just a few years later Aurangzeb overthrew his father and imprisoned him for the rest of his life in Agra Fort, where he could only gaze at the Taj Mahal from a distance.

Colonialism

One of the first successful British missions to India was that of the ambassador Sir Thomas Roe. His journal entries from 1616 make a rare appearance in the British Library exhibition. Roe was presented to the fourth Mughal emperor Jahangir on 10 January 1616 and described him as “very merrie and joyfull” in the journal.

Final Days

Monuments like Delhi’s Red Fort, pictured in this painting, are legacies of Mughal creativity but also tell the story of Britain and India. This artwork was created in the dying days of the dynasty 1846. In 1857, the last Mughal emperor was dethroned here by the British.

Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire is at the British Library until 2 April. Tickets are £9 with reductions for concessions, seniors and students.

Next time you’re heading through Gatwick Airport, look out for a new installation called The London Collection, created by the godfather of British pop art, Sir Peter Blake.

The London Collection is a a walk-through gallery of 12 different London-inspired artworks that captures the city’s cosmopolitan and multicultural spirit. With hints of Blake’s trademark sentimentality and nostalgia, these artworks both welcome visitors to London, and provide a comforting cultural backdrop to Londoners returning home.

Have you seen the Blake installation at Gatwick? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Among the events going on this weekend, London’s arts scene offers up two gems – a musical piece in a cemetery and a collection of classic Marilyn Monroe portraits.

Marilyn Monroe: A British Love Affair at National Portrait Gallery
Opening on Saturday, this free exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery explores the most iconic pin-up of the 20th century, Marilyn Monroe, seen through the lenses of British photographers. The photos on show include Monroe’s favourite image of herself holding a rose in bed, taken by Cecil Beaton in 1956 in his Ambassador Hotel suite in New York. Other pictures cover the actress’s four month visit to Britain to film The Prince and The Showgirl with Laurence Olivier, a shot of Monroe meeting the Queen and selection of rare British magazine covers taken by André de Dienes and Milton Greene.
Until 24 Mar

Big Draw, Big Make at the Victoria and Albert Museum
One man’s scribble is another man’s masterpiece, and Roald Dahl illustrator Quentin Blake will be at the V&A on Sunday to inspire us at the launch of The Big Draw, a worldwide festival dedicated to drawing. CBeebies TV character Mister Maker will also make an appearance along with pop-up studios, drawing games, portfolio advice for older drawers and a battle between seven top cartoonists. All events are free but some need to be booked in advance.
30 Sep (The Big Draw runs from 1-31 Oct)

Pearly Kings & Queens Harvest Festival Parade

You’re guaranteed to spot royalty in London on Sunday, as the pearly kings and queens of the capital don their signature pearl-button-covered outfits or “smother suits” to march through East London. Each borough has a king and queen, thanks to groups who continue a working-class tradition started in Queen Victoria’s reign. Their annual parade starts at Guildhall Yard on Gresham Street at 1pm, and will include donkeys and carts.  The day rounds off with a church service at 3pm at St Mary-le-Bow Church.
30 Sep

The London Requiem at Abney Park Cemetery
Abney Park Cemetery is the venue for the first performance of a new choral work by English composer Benjamin Till. It’s a fitting location as The London Requiem was written after Till spent time in London’s majestic cemeteries, and the story is inspired by Londoners who have passed away. Organisers plan to create an “avenue of remembrance” using white balloons which each visitor can dedicate to the memory of someone for a donation. Tickets are from £15 and guests are advised to bring a torch and note that reaching the cemetery involves a 200m walk down a woodland path.
29 Sep

What are you up to this weekend? Post any events we’ve missed below.

This morning I attended the preview for the Hayward Gallery’s new exhibition Art of Change: New Directions from China, which opens on Friday.

The exhibition shows performance art or installations by eight contemporary Chinese artists on the theme of change.

Art of Change is certainly one of the most unusual and interactive shows I’ve seen at the Hayward Gallery. All the works are in a state of change, allowing the artists to explore notions of impermanence and transformation.

The first installation is a piece of gym equipment which you can move yourself via remote control. In the next room, a performer tucks herself into a sleeping bag on a shelf, while another pokes her head through a shelf.

It soon became clear that we were not alone – striped pyjama-clad performers were silently following some of us around the gallery, stopping patiently when we paused to read, and following quickly when we changed direction.

The real “wow” moments for me are Xu Zhen’s In Just a Blink of an Eye, where a person seemingly floats in mid-air. This was the one that got people talking – “is it a real person,” “how do they do that?” It is a real person, although I didn’t see him blink or even breathe.

Liang Shaoji’s Nature Series is another highlight: a room full of items around which silkworms have spun their cocoons, from giant chains to tiny bed wire bed frame. There’s also a darkened room where you can sit on a cushion and “listen to zen,” the sound of silkworms eating and spinning. You even see live silkworms in the next room.

The upper and lower galleries have a more sombre tone. Here you can see a room of work by controversial duo Peng Yu and Sun Yuan, including a four metre tall tower made of human fat siphoned off during liposuction, and a room of objects covered in mud by the late Chen Zhen.

There’s also a digital archive where you can find out more about each of the artists in the exhibition, and about the development of installation and performance art in China from 1979 to the present.

Art of Change: New Directions from China is at the Hayward Gallery from 7 September to 9 December 2012

Founded by the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries to help train apprentices in identifying plants, the garden and its collection of around 5,000 useful, exotic and medicinal plants form one of the world’s oldest botanic gardens.

Expansions and additions from successive head gardeners mirror discoveries in botany and horticultural fashion. Two examples are a fascinating pharmaceutical garden, and the UK’s oldest rockery – compete with giant clam shells brought to London by Captain Cook on HMS Endeavour!

Free guided tours by well-informed volunteers help bring the garden to life for those more interested in the history than the horticulture of the garden. These are usually available two or three times each day (timings vary).

Currently appearing at the garden is “Pertaining to Things Natural“, a series of outdoor sculptures by more than 20 leading artists. Each of these artworks responds in some way to its surroundings, ranging from a beautifully fluid marble screen to a pink metal spiral.

“Pertaining to Things Natural” runs until 31 Oct. The garden is open until 10pm every Wednesday until 5 September. Tickets to the garden are also 2-4-1 until 9 September if you present your Oyster card. Find out more on visitlondon.com.

Are you a fan of London’s gardens and parks? Let us know your favourite in the comments section below.

When Victorian Londoners craved some cultural stimulation and a little mischief, they could head to the city’s opulent pleasure gardens to find it. Those long-faded entertainment destinations are about to be resurrected, with the launch of London Pleasure Gardens on 30 June.

Pontoon Dock, a derelict site in east London is currently being transformed into a pop-up cultural centre that can hold 35,000 people, with venues for music, dance, arts and theatre as well as a floating cocktail lounge, a hotel and restaurant, a nature reserve and sculpture gardens.

The Creative Team

The idea for London Pleasure Gardens won the Meanwhile London competition to find uses for London’s wasted spaces before they are permanently redeveloped. The creative team behind the initiative have worked on projects like Glastonbury’s futuristic Shangri-La, the field where a night-time dystopia of clubs, costumes and theatrics unfold after the festival’s music stages close.

One of the directors is Garfield Hackett, the man behind east London’s counter culture art movement, Mutate Britain. He says London Pleasure Gardens will bring “the kind of urban leisure environment not seen in the city since the great pleasure gardens of the Georgian and Victorian periods.”

“We’re going to have beautiful structures, amazing art, places to chill out and all kinds of cultural adventures for those who want them. Our backgrounds in the guerrilla entertainment world mean we’ll be bringing lots of names and faces you really couldn’t see elsewhere.”

Coming Up at London Pleasure Gardens

The pleasure gardens have already signed up major events like Bloc 2012 and BT River of Music. For the Olympics it will put on a programme of entertainment ranging from big screen sports to cabaret, circus and comedy, in what Hackett affectionately calls “an environment of beautiful madness.”

Building work is well underway to create the site before the opening night on 30 June. “Over the next couple of weeks anyone passing by is going to see some cool structures going up and confront a stream of workers, artists, designers, architects, food and drinks co-ordinators and more heading in and out,” says Hackett.

“We’re right on schedule at the moment, though the pop-up nature of the site means it still isn’t looking finished. At the minute, it looks like a butterfly half out of the chrysalis, or, less poetically, like somewhere that is going to be pretty unbelievable in a couple of weeks time.”

London Pleasure Gardens opens with the Paradise Gardens Festival, 30 June to 1 July. Entry is free.

There’s just one week to go until the newly restored Dutch Galleries at the beautiful Wallace Collection are opened to the public.

This fantastic video give a taster of the amount of work involved in getting the galleries ready for 20 March. I can’t wait to see the finished article!

The Fourth Plinth on Trafalgar Square is welcoming a new piece of art on Thursday this week.

Yinka Shonibare’s Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle is moving, and a new sculpture is taking its place.

Powerless Structures Fig 101 is the name of this new piece, by Scandanavian artists, Elmgreen & Dragset. It’s a bronze sculpture of a boy on a rocking horse. Here’s some details about the artwork, taken from the Fouth Plinth website:

In this portrayal of a boy astride his rocking horse, a child has been elevated to the status of a historical hero, though there is not yet a history to commemorate – only a future to hope for. Elmgreen & Dragset’s work proposes a paraphrase of a traditional war monument beyond a dualistic worldview predicated on either victory or defeat. Instead of acknowledging the heroism of the powerful, Powerless Structures, Fig. 101 celebrates the heroism of growing up. It is a visual statement celebrating expectation and change rather than glorifying the past.

This video is just a little teaser, as the young boy isn’t revealed until Thursday this week. Keep an eye out, we’ll bring you some photos when the time comes…

Have you walked past this window display at Rivington Place in East London?

It was designed by Malian artist Abdoulaye Konaté. The 7 metre-wide (23 ft) textile was created especially for the window at Rivington Place. It was inspired by the striking plumage of the guinea fowl, and communicates the artist’s political concerns about the relationship between power and religion in Africa.

Abdoulaye Konaté was born in Mali in 1953 and still lives and works in the country.

The temporary window display has just been taken down (it was on display in December and early January) – so tell us, where else can you find Malian culture in London?

This is a great video from the UK Foreign Office’s YouTube channel, all about The Orbit – one of the new attractions being built in London this year.

The ArcelorMittal Orbit, to give it its full name, will be a contemporary symbol for the 21st century. At 115m tall, it’ll be Britain’s largest public art work. It has been created by artist and sculptor Anish Kapoor, and architectural engineer and designer Cecil Balmond.

When finished, it’ll be 22m taller than the Statue of Liberty in New York and offer unparalleled views of the entire 250 acres of the Olympic Park and London’s skyline from  special viewing platforms. The basic structure is a square rotated in space at 45 degrees.

What do you think of the Orbit? Let us know in the comments below.