Things to do in Bristol - Arnolfini Gallery and Cinema
Walking through the doors of the Arnolfini gallery, on Bristol harbourside, you will immediately be struck by contrast between the pristine white minimalist interior and the stolid brickwork of the exterior. The building recently went through a major revamp. The result of which is an interesting mixture of cinema, exhibition and cafe space.
I found it almost intimidating to walk through the doors. The signposting doesn’t seem too obvious and it feels more like walking in to a private company office than an exhibition space. If you do wander in you will find an exhibition space housing five galleries spread over three floors.
When I went along there were exhibitions by Lucy McKenzie, a Scottish artist, and New York artists Eileen Quinlan and Cheyney Thompson. The McKenzie exhibitions was a mixture of wall murals, sketches of Glasgow with a distinctive Charles Rennie Macintosh feel, and a room with a record player playing music. The most commerical piece on show has to be the cover she designed for Erasure’s 2006 album Union street. The oddest is a set of pictures, commissioned for a magazine, which depict Peter Mandelsen in various guises. Each picture is part sketch, part collage and they come across with a distinctly political eurosceptic feel.
The exhibition space is free to visit. There is a reading room on the top floor containing, among other things, books related to the current exhibtions. I can imagine an idle wet bristol afternoon being livened up by a browse through the exhibits and a leisurely skim of the interesting books in the upstairs reading room. One of the almost hidden little gems of Bristol.