Popping out to Finsbury Library in St. John Street with my usual overdue books yesterday, I noticed a new addition to the building in the shape of the brand new Islington Museum. It's so new and shiny, in fact, it was only opened last Monday.
And it's not bad. It may be compact and fairly superficial in terms of history, but it does a decent job of telling the story of Islington and constituent areas such as Clerkenwell. Collections are based on twentieth-century artefacts from local people, including a mass of Arsenal souvenirs from a fan's collection, cinema and theatre ephemera, and wartime paraphenalia. Oh yes, and a bust of Lenin, who took visiting revolutionaries drinking in the pubs around Clerkenwell Green after work in the building now known as the Marx Memorial Library.
Most interesting for my money though are two library book covers defaced by Joe Orton. He and his lover Kenneth Halliwell used to plunder library books, collage their covers into subversive forms, and replace them on the shelves to surprise browsers.
The opening exhibition (until 7 June) is dedicated to 'Clerkenwell: Change and Continuity'. Future exhibitions will include a display of photographs to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of Lubetkin's Finsbury Health Centre (from 7 August).
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