Unless you’ve been living under either a very heavy rock for the last few years, you’ll be pretty much aware of the fact that London is, this Summer, hosting the 2012 Olympics. A great source of pride for the British nation and a major pain in the arse for those of us who live in the capital, there are at least a few cultural and artistic distractions to keep our minds off the fact that we Londoners are going to be spending a few months in what essentially amounts to a military base filled with tourists.
Cue Rambunctious London. A collection of artwork by “creator, inventor, philanthropist, explorer, scientist, artist and gentleman” Joseph Alberstein Goode (who has previously designed for High Voltage, Wilderness Festival and the Secret Garden Party, this tongue-in-cheek antidote to the city’s ever-worsening chaos provides a comical insight into the city of London through an array of drawings from witty portraits of city stereotypes to a fascinating alternative map of the London Underground.
At the centre of the collection lies London 2012, a beautifully detailed large-scale art print that brilliantly showcases the eccentricities of Goode‘s mind, and contains countless references to various aspects of city life. Elsewhere, one can find Shoreditch Dandy (a caricature of that not-really-loveable Shoreditch hipster that we’ve all met at one point in our lives), London Underground (the aforementioned tube map drawn in Goode‘s unique style) and London (another giant print that packs in the most recognisable aspects of the city’s culture) and many more.
The works (and others) are available online and at certain retail outlets across the city, and are definitely worth a look at least. The collection really, genuinely does capture the city and its quirks beautifully, and at a time when the eyes of the world are on the city, what could be better?
For more information (and a preview of some of the other works), see https://www.londoncartoons.co.uk/, or have a look below at our preview of London 2012.
