Standing in front of ‘The Vision of Saint Jerome’ is like slipping down a water slide. The most important painting by sixteenth century Italian maestro Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola, aka Parmigianino, is an exercise in sinuous, surreal psychedelia, and it’s stunning.
London is notoriously expensive. Flat white? About £4 these days. Pint? That'll be £9 please mate. Rent? You'd better have a couple of kidneys to spare. But art? Well, most art in London is totally, completely, utterly free to see. Every major museum: free. Every single gallery: free. Sure, you still have to pay for the temporary exhibitions at places like the Tate and National Portrait Gallery, but the permanent collections – with their Monets, Michelangelos and Emins – won't cost you a single penny to visit.
Me, personally, I save on heating bills by spending most of my days keeping warm on one of the many leather banquettes at the National Gallery. Cosy. And while sat there, lounging in the luxurious tax-funded warmth of our nation's greatest gallery and incredulously asking 'don't you know who I am?' to passers-by, I update this here list with my reviews of free exhibitions at free galleries (many of which are very good), which you're free to read. As Funkadelic almost said, 'free your mind, and your art will follow.'
Eddy Frankel is Time Out's art editor, he is poor in money, but rich in bullshit.
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