They took us to some galleries around the Bethnal Green area:Between Bridges (which has something to do with Wolfgang Tillmans and we saw him walking down the road, my what a celebrity packed weekend!). The exhibition was of 1960s posters by Sister Corita, a Californian nun
Then went down Vyner Street, where there are loads of little galleries, mostly fairly commercial (in the London sense). Modern Art have a couple of spaces, Matthew Monahan did lumpy sculptures, disjointed and pathetic, like Frankenstein's monsters made from scraps left behind in the art cupboard and behind stage. Someone more clever than me in our group said that they seemed designed to appeal to buyers who wanted art that gave a nod to classicism while being suitably post-modern and ironic. Didn't get any pictures of the show as my battery ran out, but here are some pictures of his work in general, since I like to illustrate my ramblings for your entertainment.
Katy Moran was over the road in their other gallery, similarly hinting at art history, she paints images taken from the internet, then repaints them to a blur. They seemed like cheap fakes that had run in the rain, and made my eyes hurt, trying to figure out what they might have once been
Anj Smith had some tiny paintings in the show Feral Demosphere at Ibid Projects (more pics on their site)
In another mood I might have liked these, but found them too twiddly and arch, they reminded me a little of the Chapman Brothers' adjustment of Goya prints, although less well handled. They seemed to explore fashion as a nightmare, as if trying to get hold of that Takashi Murakami Louis Vuitton handbag has given her the sweaty night-horrors.
Vilma Gold had a show by Aïda Ruilova, there were slides of items from an architect's house that he thought of as a Pyramid-like tomb.
I was more interested in her videos of chains being pulled through models of buildings from films, or more accurately I liked the industrial music made by the repetitive loops, and how the visual rhythms of what was on the screens conditioned the viewer to behave in a certain way.
David Risley Gallery had Jonathan Wateridge's huge images of wrecks in landscapes, painted on layers of plexiglass that gave a tacky 3D effect that reminded me of postcards that change as you move them, or waterfall lights in restaurants. Some said "Found on Sky One", I couldn't possibly comment.
The rest is a bit vague, the only other one I can remember is that Fred had the Simon English drawing/collages Banks Cream and the Somerset Owls
there may have been others we went to but I was art blind by this point. Hope you're not.
Larger versions of my pics on my Flickr page; the rest are from the galleries pages
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