Apu, Lucien and a Magpie

There is a new show at Transition – Apu150 by Paul Murphy. It features 150 (or near enough) drawings of Apu; the loveable storekeeper from the Simpsons. The drawings are very nice and are selling fast so get on down to Hackney this Easter, have a walk in Victoria Park and take in some art.



I went to look at a couple of other shows on Friday. Lucien Freud at The Wallace Collection and Joe Currie at James Coleman. I love the very fashionable Wallace Collection and having a show by a living artist there is a really interesting thing to do. The small room that his work is in has a slightly down at heel green flock wallpaper on the walls and this somehow enhances his paintings while at the same time making them seem more ‘homely’. While I was there, the room was pretty much full with most of the people seeming like Wallace, home counties regulars. I overheard one lady saying “ I’ve found his portrait but I don’t know why he had to make his face so red”. When I first walked in I thought wow, this is great and then almost immediately I thought no it’s really bad. Then I settled down and quite enjoyed the little portraits and the weirdly cropped horse’s bum. The colours were nice not as dour as is his usual want with some lovely fresh peachy pinks.

Joe Currie’s invite card has a bird (I think a magpie) on the front and this work is in the show as is a kind of vinyl sculpture of Steve McQueen crashing his motorbike and a nice Persian cat watercolour.

The Last of England

I am on my annual trip ina-gadda-da-vida, otherwise known as the island of Tresco. As usual it is very beautiful but slightly sad. It is too clean and too nice and ultimately represents an obsolete notion of Englishness held and maintained by an ageing upper middle class.

Alex Michon's Guest Posting

My Friend Alex Michon has written a letter to Adrian Searle, the Guardian's art critic, in response to his article about Stella Vine's painting. I thought that it deserved to be published in some form especially as it is so nice about me so here it is.


Dear Adrian Searle

As one of the artists who showed work in the Girl on Girl exhibition where that painting (Hi Paul Can You Come Over) was also exhibited and subsequently bought by Charles Saatchi, I was heartened to read your review in the Guardian on Wednesday 25 February: Good Bad or Bad Bad?

After the 'filth and fury' tabloid frenzy it was interesting to read at least one critic who admits to not having seen the painting and who talks about the reproduction. Long after John Berger's 'Ways of Seeing' where he points out that the experience of viewing a reproduction is not the same as viewing the original work, it seems that many critics - holed up in their comfortable offices - are still all too happy to make judgements based on what is after all a duplicate/facimile (and an especially badly cropped one at that)

I was pleased to note that you referred to the "blood or rather red paint that drools from Diana's lips" Up close and personal this fact is inescapable - paint or blood - blood or paint - it is the seminal punctum of the piece. All at once there is a double take which adds greatly to the painting's drama.

If You Make a social Revolution do it for Fun
When you say that the painting is "fun - but hardly Picaso's Weeping Woman" we say hurrah! Contemporary art is surely just that contemporary of its time - as Picasso's woman was of its time and doubtless garnered similar criticism to Vine's. In the pick and mix tomfoolery jumble sale of contemporary art, artists are competing with and informed by a tabloid sensibility of celebrity, to ignore this fact is surely to exist in a reactionary vacuum.

Again I must congratulate you for having done your research in referring to Transition as an artist run space. But I am continually bemused as to how the galllery gets smaller and smaller with each mention of it, so that it eventually becomes tiny. It is heartening to reflect that size is not necessarily an indication of either influence or importance.

The artist Cathy Lomax has for the past eighteen months been curating extraordinarily influential and interestting shows from an intensely personal vision and without any concern for market forces or what current art mores dictate. Cathy and Stella had recently been collaborating on a number of shows both at Stella's Rosy Wilde gallery and at Transition. The two artists finding a common bond in a new sensibility. It is therefore widely disingenuous to state, as Richard Alleyne did in his recent piece The Saatchi Effect has Customers Queueing For New Artist ( The Daily Telegraph 28 February 2004), that Stella "donated the portrait... to help fill the latest exhibition at her tiny gallery" The fact is that Cathy Lomax chose Stella's painting for the exhibition as she did all the other artists with an overall view of the aesthetic of the whole show (with the obvious limitations of space it is a wonder she could fit it all in!)

In the whole wind it up and spin it out of control farrago of British art where you point out "the rope is only six inches above the safety net" (after David Sylvester). It is perhaps interesting to look at the context in which this painting appeared. Girl on Girl examined a new sensibility in art:
"Made by girls and about girls it makes a virtue of discontent, sexual disruptiveness and bad manners.. it has both the shy and the brash as equal role models. Think sense of conviction and to hell with the consequences because Girl on Girl is above all not about being nice"
The show was a definate gathering together of a shared method of work which explored an emptional response to the subject matter. We were very aware of presenting a type of work which was hand-made and heartfelt, tongue in cheek and naughty.

Artists unlike critics or tabloid journalists, are on the front line, beavering away, (like kids in their tree houses) painting, making things, endlessly discussing, endlessly going to shows, supporting each oother, looking at things in a different way, trying to change the existing order, trying to loosen the establishment's hold on what is or is not allowed. Making a space for the work in the world, holding onto a personal vision, not doing it how you are supposed to - doing it your own way. We get down and dirty and we know there is no safety net, if there was one - achieving the triple in the air would not be half as exciting or extraordinary.

All this and more was written up in the Girl issue of Arty - the art fanzine referred to in your article and made especially for the exhibition. It also included interviews with new artistss in a 'slice of life' look at making work today.

Arty
Arty itself was started in 2001 by Cathy Lomax as an antidote to the kind of dry academic writing about art which was becoming increasingly elitist and out of touch with the kind of riky tiky, hand-made and heartfelt work which was appearing in miniscule galleries throughout the land.

You were right in your article when you stated that the fact that Stella had worked "on the fringes of the sex industry" had "turbo charged the story". Like one of Nigella's cakes, the exotic confectionary of a glamourous and tragic princess, a penniless artist and the allure of a titillating quasi 60s' Gipsy Rose Lee stripper (Stella had worked at The Windmill - ooh missus!) was too heady a mixture for the voracious tabloid monster to ignore.

But maybe - just maybe there is something at work here. For the painting to take such a hold on the nations consciousness (with even Fern Britton and Philip Scholfield on This Morning at loggerheads as to whether this painting was good bad or just bad) there has to be something else. An illusionary zeitgeist perhaps? Or just the fact that as the old/new YBAs prepare for yet another retrospective, what is longed for is, if not an overthrow of the existing order then at least a loosening of it?

You also write that "painters are mostly a conservative lot" . As someone who has just finished an MA, I can assure you that there are many so called conceptual artists being rehashed through colleges who are deeply rooted in a kind of stymied art speak and who are making work from a deeply conservative place. Painters are no less or more conservative than artists working in other media.

Much has been made of the fact that Stell Vine is self taught, shock horror! Where will it end? In the punk fanzine Sniffin' Glue, Mark perry once drew three cords and wrote "here are three cords - now go out and form a band"

"Real life is elsewhere" - Arthur Rimbaud

Alex Michon - February 2004

In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida

The new Hirst, Lucas and Fairhurst, Britart show at the Tate is named after a song by Iron Butterfly. This must surely be the final nail in the coffin of this ailing Cool Britannia bunch. They started off with their three minutes of teenage kicks and have ended up today with the lumbering carcus of a West Coast concept album. Sarah Lucas's wanking references surely say it all.

I must now admit that I haven't yet seen the show but the blanket coverage it has received by the unimaginative media makes me feel as though I have. I will go at some point and I may even write a proper review, then again I will probably write about something else that hasn't been fortunate enough to have dedicated PR people pushing it



This Gorilla with its arm missing by Angus Fairhurst is my favourite thing from the show (from what I've seen so far). Although I've just noticed that in this picture by Maia Norman it still has its arm and is carrying something.

Show Time

I've managed to break away from my compelling studio practice to visit some shows, here are some thoughts

Brand New and Retro - Up Projects

At a new space in Wadeson Street (which I don't think is permanent)
This is a very slick and expensive looking show which doesn't necessarily mean that I don't like it.
A lot of the work is by people I know - Tanya Fairey's dreamy figurative paintings, Kirsten Glass's cut out and collaged fashion goth scapes and Luke Caulfield's paintings of disaffected youth, for instance. Other stuff is by well known names such as Douglas Gordon and Jim Lambie. There are also a whole lot of videos which I am ashamed to say I couldn't be bothered to look at. My favourite things were Peter Liversidge's white framed wall of drawings of old product logos and cardboard, Blue Peter-esque 3d Super 8 and instamatic cameras. I also really liked Jim Lambies red glitter encrusted mask made from underpants (I didn't know I Loved You Til I Saw You Rock & Roll) and Jun Hasegawa's wall of schematic women.
Overall though the whole thing feels a little jaded, the neat little catalogue lists the artists favourite books and films in the style of teen mags something which has been done before and with a whole lot more conviction. The whole theme seems very tenuous and can be summarised as work now which is influenced by the past ... umm yes. The pinning on of the fashionable bedroom artist /fan thing is an attempt at trendy coherence which just doesn't work.
I also felt curiously suspicious of the free copies of the appalling Art Review and the arts council funding (surely the arts council should be funding more ambitious projects than this)


Jim Lambie's Pants

Raqib Shaw - Garden of Earthly Delights - Victoria Miro

I graduated from my MA at the same time as Raqib and his success is a source of great pride to us St martins' alumni (unlike Goldsmiths, The Royal college and Chelsea not many of us go on to greater things). This show features his trademark ornately decorated paintings. These ones are huge and must have taken ages. I hope Mario Testino has a lot of spare change if he wants one. They are enjoyable to look at but are very constrained and quite claustrophobic going against the very latest looser painting styles. I suppost they look like decorative things for rich people and would probably have benefitted from a little more rudeness (there were suprisingly few members on display). The works on paper are more interesting with their animal headed people. I still like the portrait of the queen from the MA show best though.

Boys Who Sew - The Crafts Council

I love the title of this show but it wasn't as great as it sounded. The work by Hugh Locke has been tamed and displayed in a provincial institutional style. My favourites are the pieces by prison inmates

Yoko Ono - ICA East

I didn't really want to see this as I hated the photographs that I'd seen of the giant shoe but it was next door to Victoria Miro so I had a peek. This is a huge space and I feel very sorry for the poor invigilators as it is freezing. The best things are the haunting sound track and the free badges but all in all it is a bit of a mish mash. My friend Alex (that I went with) thought that she was going to hate it but really liked it so it has some merit

Searle and Saatchi

Today I have talked to some very nice journalists from The East London Advertiser and The Telegraph. They all want to know what Mr Saatchi said when he bought the now infamous painting of Diana by Stella Vine, how I felt (as the gallery owner) when he bought said painting and by the way is it true that Stella is a stripper. This press thing is a curious business, it seems to escalate, the act of Charles Saatchi buying a painting causing a series of ever increasing ripples.

I have just read a piece written in yesterdays Guardian by Adrian Searle where he muses on good and bad painting and concludes that all painters are conservative anyway (well I guess he would know) . Although I fundamentaly disagree with his smart assy conclusions, the piece does have some well put together points. However ultimately I think that he is all pissed off because he didn't spot what is clearly the starting point of a new movement. A movement that is all about an emotional attachment to ones subject matter, a movement which is new and dangerous and not about clever dicky, boys own, in jokes for the art world. The show Girl on Girl was ground breaking, it presented a group of female artists who were prepared to go out on a limb, who had been through the ridicule of artschool, expression hating, has been tutors. This new art is dangerous because it wears its heart on its sleeve, and because it is not afraid to appeal to its audience. It is a diy, anti-slick, hands on and heartfelt. Buy Arty, visit Transition, look at the work of Stella Vine, Alex Michon, Delaine Le Bas, Liz Neal, Karen Kilimnik, Marcus Oakley, Cathy Lomax, Sarah Doyle, Annabel Dover, Nadia Hebson and loads of others and be there at the beginning.

Its All Kickin' Off

By now you will have read about the controversial painting of Diana, Princess of Wales by ex stripper Stella Vine, as the story appears in every single national paper this morning (if you don't know about it I recommend waiting for the Hackney Gazette version on Thursday). It is amazing how the press works and how it is manipulated by PR companies. I have of course always realised that the newspapers / magazines need to fill their columns and will print stories handed to them on a plate but the fact that every single paper has jumped on this story because it is about
1: Saatchi
2: A stripper
3: A painting of Diana bleeding
is amazing.
This painting was in the Girl on Girl show at Transition for a month, the image was sent out to all the relevant people and there was no interest from the press, because there were two factors missing. Saatchi was not involved and Stella's previous occupation was not highlighted.

Saatchi to his credit came to the show and bought the painting and immediately hung it at County Hall. Then the publicity machine took over and it was decided that the painting had just the right combination of controversial factors to make it perfect to head the New Blood show. A show which would hopefull re inject that cutting edge factor into a collection with a jaded brit art feeling.

The Telegraph art critic Richard Dorment (who?) is quoted as saying that
the painting was the equivalent of gutter journalism. "It's trash," he said. '"It is another stab at creating the visual equivalent of tabloid journalism. Contemporary art always reflects popular culture and this is no different"

Hhum... I feel a new art movement coming on. The Tabloid School, thanks Richard. As for the rest of the press pack, maybe you should get out a bit more and look around at what's going on. Saatchi is not the only arbitor of taste and there is a lot of really exciting art going on especially in the artist run spaces in East London. You could all be there at the start of a story and not just one of the sheep.

As for Stella Vine, well she paints great paintings and is not just a one trick pony. Check out her work when New Blood opens at The Saatchi Gallery on March 20 and see more of her work later this year at Joe at Rosy Wilde and Goth Moth at Transition


The Lodge and Tracey - Stella Vine

Stella at The Saatchi

Today I went to the Saatchi Galllery at County Hall to see the latest exhibit. It's called Hi Paul and is by Stella vine and just 10 days ago it was in the Girl on Girl show at Transition. The painting is going to be part of the new display at the gallery which is going to be called New Blood and this is what Stella and me came up with to go on the label -

Stella Vine's work deals with her fascination with the trashy and the dark. Underlying this is a sometimes contradictory love for her subjects. Hi Paul Can You Come Over... examines that pivotal moment in the standing of the British Monarchy, the death of Princess Diana and the horror of her crash. All the conspiracy theories are summed up in this painting as a wild eyed and tiara clad Diana cries for help whilst painterly blood drips from her luscious lips.

Apart from this art trip I can't think of anything else that I have seen recently that has made a big impression on me (apart from of course the superlative Love N Bullets at Transition). Sophie von Hellerman at Vilma Gold's new gallery is very predictable and quite dull. I do like the sound of the new show coming up at The Nunnery where a whole lot of artists have responded to a Lowry painting. It opens on Thursday 19th Feb. Will report on it soon.

Hi Paul Can You Come Over... - Stella Vine

Arty Girls

Arty 14 is here, available from all good London art gallery bookshops (see Transition gallery web site). It is all about Girls and goes with the Girl on Girl show that I am part of which is currently on at Transition. We think (me and my collaborator Alex Michon) that it is the best yet. It has a good attitude, lots of art (not enough art in the last issue I thought for an Art fanzine) and the lo-fi looks that we love.

To give you a little taster I am going to reproduce part of an article called The New Girly:

"In the catalogue to the groundbreaking show the americans: new art the curator Mark Sladen says that some of the work on show was “playful and downright girly” adding that “the derogatory overtones of the word (girly) have been undermined sufficiently for it to be reclaimed” this comment was very liberating and opened up a whole new aesthetic.

In the girls issue we have asked all the artists about their thoughts on girly and we have thought long and hard about it ourselves, this is what we have come up with.

Girly is an adjective describing all things associated with femininity i.e frills, pretty colours, decoration, dolls, romance, flowers etc. The new girly is not however gender specific, its about an open mindedness, a mix of high and low, a gathering and reclamation of things that have traditionally been thought of as inferior, frivolous and weak. It is about a shift in power and a change in the world order, with the shy equal partners to the brash. Above all it is totally subversive."

Fell in Love with a girl (and a boy)

Went to see the White Stripes on Tuesday at Ally pally along with 7,000 other people. I must admit that this is the first gig I have been to for a while, and I’d forgotten that whole thing about not being able to see because someone really tall stands in front of you! Anyway despite this small quibble it was great. I was reading in the paper today a kind of exit vox pop of the gig and the general opinion seemed to be that he (Jack) was a fantastic guitarist but that she (Meg) was rubbish and only had a very limited repertoire of drum beats. Someone even suggested that a few more people in the band would improve things. STOP. How can people be so stupid? If Meg were drum soloing all over the place the whole thing would tumble over into the wrong side of ‘70s prog rock. The simplicity of her beat is essential. Also the whole fantastic duo, sister / brother incest thing is a vital component (as is Meg’s rather bizarre one arm drumming, one arm on hips stance). Some people are appalling, it really is like punk never happened, can people really just be concentrating on musicianship and ignoring the romance of the myth and the power of conviction. Anyway, it was a good gig, minimal, powerful, charged atmosphere, a little Led Zeppelin (who I have always hated but now have to admit that Robert Plant’s voice was interesting) a little bit Cramps and they even eventually played all their hits.



Meg - Cathy Lomax - Oil on Canvas and Metal - 2003

Of course I also meant to say that I went to this gig with my friend Paul who writes about it on his blog (I've been told that I have to do links like this as it is blogger etiquette)

Girl on Girl

There is a new show opening at Transition next week (Friday 16th if you fancy coming along) called Girl on Girl. This deliberately provocative title has obviously been chosen in order to get as much publicity as possible although some of the work in the show is a little risque. The basic idea is that it is by women and about women but it is definately not a feminist thing. The artists involved are Delaine Le Bas, Alex Michon, Liz Neal, Stella Vine and of course me!

I'm currently trying to write something to go alongside my work for Arty (the art fanzine) and as usual writing about my own work is really really hard! I am painting a collection of bad girls from Patty Hearst to Courtney Love the idea being that I create a kind of landscape of unnatural women (ie not focusing on the usual feminine attributes). Of course there is more to it than this and I have to try and articulate what it is. I think it is something to do with visual imagery, representation and myth making but pinning my thoughts down is very tricky.

Anyway here is a little preview of one of my "bad girls"

So two great shows have just finished Fanclub at Rosy Wilde and Snow at Transition. If you didn't manage to see them in person here are a couple of pics to show you what you missed.



You can also still buy stuff from the Fanclub shop

Ruins/Souvenir

Lots happening at the moment. On Friday there was the private view of Ruins/Souvenir at Transition. The show looks great and is soo different from the last show (Temporary Fiction). I've already described a bit about Souvenir but thought that it might be nice to show a few of the photos, remember they are all for sale - £5 each and the show is on until 30 November at Transition - 110a Lauriston Road, London E9





All the photos are anonymous while the show is on , so you have to buy one to find out who it is by. Artists involved in the show include: Melanie Manchot, Harry Borden, Hans Scheirl, Stella Vine, Sarah Doyle, Nicholas Hughes and Malcolm Garrett

What's Goin' On

So after a very long absence In am back. I haven't been away anywhere just seem to have been very busy and have lost the blogging habit. Loads going on at the moment at the gallery, we have a fantastic show on until 2 November called Temporary Fiction and opening on 7 November is a two part project called Ruins/Souvenir. Ruins is a collection of prints by Pirenasi gathered together by the artist/curator Hugo Worthy to form a "simulacrum of a conservative exhibition space" while Souvenir is an installation of snapshot photos by over 100 artists and photographers put together by the artist Paul Murphy. The Souvenir snaps are being sold at a very reasonable price to raise money to fund future projects at the gallery £5 unframed and £40 framed. The exciting bit is that the photos are only going to be identified by their locations and the artists will only be revealed at the end of the show.

Capri

Last weekend was the Frieze art fair and to accompany this there has been a frenzied amount of art activity in London. The east end saw F-est and Capri which are two gallery umbrella organisations. Capri is a grouping together of the younger east end galleries and includes Transition. The party held on Saturday night in Vyner street was fab with many galleries contributing cars suitably arted up for the Capri rally. The two galleries in the street Modern Art and Mobile Home seem to have got together to provide work which was almost identical - little paintings that looked like photos. Very clever but ultimately really quite boring and sterile. Anyway there was free beer and dispite the cold everyone was very upbeat.

Frieze

The Frieze art fair was huge. Held in a specially designed tent in Regents Park which creaked and shuddered with every gust of wind in contained stalls from every trendy gallery in the world. Because of this many artists were grossly over represented - stand up Sophie Von Hellerman - as their Berlin, New York and London galleries all fought to show their best pieces. I had read the Adrian Searle piece in the Guardian before I went so I was already clued up on the star attractions (precocious performance children, big grassy slope etc.) However the most exciting moment for me was my first sighting of Charles Saatchi in the flesh (he has been into Transition before but I wasn't there) He was at a Berlin gallery and looked like he was going to buy a load of messy sculpture by someone who I thought was called Urs Fischer but I have just looked him up in Google and it wasn't him at all. This brings me to a gripe - what is it with the really confusing labelling at the moment in art, it just is not allowed anymore to have the artists name under their work there has to be a map or sometimes no indication at all of who has done what. Anyway the whole Frieze thing was very elitist and although I started off enthusiastically by the end I was really depressed - art can not be sold like a packet of washing powder. My favourite things were the Tokoyo galleries which seemeed to have a much younger fresher outlook and the Franz Koenig bookshop was excellent (pity no Arty on sale though).

St Martins' MA

It is time once again for the St Martins' MA Fine Art show. On until Wednesday 10th it is an eclectic mix of stuff a lot of which has a slightly dry conceptual bent. The undoubted highlight is Alex Michon's Billy Fury / Momento Mori which can be found on the ground floor. I do I'll admit know the work very well (and have written a little piece about it which you can find below) but it still shines out like a beacon amongst the mish mash of over thought, academy pleasing trash. It is also worth checking out Nicky Magliulo's video provokedly titled Elton John Is A Cunt .

Memento Mori/Billy Fury

Alex Michon’s Billy Fury, Memento Mori is a drawing space, a wholly inhabited fantasy world spun around the pivotal axis of the English 50s pop icon Billy Fury with a Jean Genet prison cell sub plot. These references are Michon’s own personal inspirations and knowledge of them is not essential to an understanding of the work, it’s the infectious, obsessive space that the work puts you in that is its point.

Billy’s early death was caused by a congenital heart defect and this vulnerability is friable in the heartfelt scratched out drawings which cover every wall surface of this miniature gallery /cell. Nostalgia is the hook but it is not the ultimate point, this is compulsion and obsession, a need to make work and breathe life into a world that would otherwise lie dormant.

In 1688 a physician from Muhlhausen called Johannes Hofer proposed that the term nostalgia should be used to define the medical condition of homesickness. ‘So that thus far it is possible from the force of the sound Nostalgia to define the sad mood originating from the desire to return to one’s native land’ (1). Michon’s work evokes this original definition of nostalgia in so far as we feel we know this/her world and whilst viewing it we want to be part of it.

Whilst creating a new work /world, Michon in the mould of Sybil, Christine and Eve White adopts another personality, she lives in another world, which is in this case the Denmark Street, Tin Pan Alley of Larry Parnes and his stable of stars. Billy’s world becomes intertwined with the homo-erotica of Jean Genet’s Our Lady of The Flowers as the low camp of hundreds of twinkling fairy lights illuminate butt smoking Indians and winsome bequiffed boys.

Memento mori are reminders that we will one day die and were a devise often inserted into 14th Century paintings (2). Pop stars have a unique position in modern society in that they are worshipped, identified and empathised with, their every move is something we can live through -“There were people whose interest in Maria Tambini seemed to rise with her decline. Over the years she had uncovered an audience who were attracted to her suffering” (3). Their failings and frailties are our own modern day memento mori.

Memento Mori/Billy Fury is a reminder of the frailty of the individual as they expose everything of themselves to a hostile world / institution. It is affecting, touching and courageous.

1: William Fiennes - The Snow Geese – Picador 2002
2:Such as Hans Holbein’s - The Ambassadors – (1533) - The National Gallery, London
3:Andrew O’Hagan – Personality. The text refers to the rise of fictional singing star Maria Tambini.

Arty + Rosy Wilde

I am back from my various summer and holidays ready to start a new year of art projects. The new issue of Arty - Nature, will be out next week and is available from all the usual outlets. I have also had some work in a show at the new Rosy Wilde Gallery in Whitecross Street, London and have a couple of pieces in the new show - Vaguely Romantic. It is a really interesting gallery with a very distinctive style, run by the artist Stella Vine it focuses particularly on figurative painting and drawing - think Karen Kilimnik. The new show at Transition is opening next week and features the work of the artist Mark Croxford.

Goria: Nadia Hebson

This is the new show at Transition and runs until 27th July.

Nadia is predominantly a painter, she paints exquisite portraits on copper which are a tantilisiing mixture of traditional and contemporary - John Currin mixed with Hans Memling. For Goria however she has made an installation which places her paintings within an evocative environment.

For Goria, Transition has become a theatre set through which the viewer is invited to walk. There are towering trees and clouds of mist which finally part to reveal small, jewel like paintings. These are self portraits of an emotional artist with tears trickling down her face. There is also a minature grotto celebrating or remembering something long forgotten and inviting us to enter - but of course we are much too big.

The whole experiece is quietly affecting and really quite beautiful.

Peter Blake @ Tate Britain

I went to hear Peter Blake talking at the Tate (Wednesday 18th June). I've always liked his stuff with his Elvisy, poppy motifs, in fact his toy shop was one of the first art works I ever liked. More recently I saw a piece about how his On the Balcony was put together, at the Transition show at The Barbican - I hadn't realised its connections to the Royal Family. Anyway it dawned upon me as I sat in the Tate Britain lecture hall that loads of his themes and interests are also mine.

The talk coincided with the launch of a new Peter Blake book - one of the Tate's contemporary artist series and there was free wine and nibbles (which is unheard of at one of these events ). During the talk/Q&A Blake came across as a very nice, affable man with a penchant for story telling, he even apologised for talking too much. He was amazingly open in describing his working methods and influences even saying that if he sees an artists work that he likes he rushes back home to make his own version of it. His work over the years mirrors everything he likes, admires and wants and this enthusiasm is reflected back in his paintings, sculptures and collages. He said when I saw "things I was interested in I couldn't not do work about them"

Blake is now in his 80s and has officially retired which he says means he isn't worrying about the art world but just doing what he wants when he wants although this doesn't mean his work rate has slowed down. He described the making of a set of illustrations for Under Milk Wood as something he is doing as "a hobby in the evening".

Peter Blake gives me hope for the future, he is still there doing what he wants with as much enthusiasm as ever.

The Tate's website has this event archived

Arty-tecture

I’ve been very busy!
I’m currently curating a show called Arty-tecture at Transition (110a Lauriston Road, London E9) which opens on Friday 13th (my lucky day!) To accompany the show there is a new issue of Arty (an art fanzine that I edit) which is also titled Arty-tecture.

The theme is the cross over point between art and architecture, and specifically creative, dreamlike places. The show includes work by:
Alice Anderson, Emi Avora, Grania Cumming, Viviana Duran, Carol Ho, The House of O’Dwyer, Tom Hunter, Ben Ford-Smith, Antonio Gianasi, Sam Griffin, Antonia Low, Cathy Lomax, Paul Murphy, Marcus Oakley, Kavel Rafferty, Peter Robathan, Heidi Stokes, Andrew Thomas, Edward Underwood, Yolanda Zappaterra

You can find out more about the show and the artists at www.transitiongallery.co.uk

Arty has stuff by many of the same people as well as others such as Sex Lovemat and Paul Lewis. Below are some images from Arty by Emi Avora, Marcus Oakley and me.

I’ve been to a whole host of shows over the past few weeks which I haven’t written about so here is what I think of a few of them

Days Like These - Tate Britain

I had been looking forward to seeing this show, I’d even came over to see it once before but found it closed as I was a day too early! Inevitably because of my high expectations it was disappointing and even the inclusion of a few of my current favourites didn’t stop the overall dull and depressing atmosphere.



Richard Hamilton’s controversial inclusion was an interesting idea that really didn’t work, he seems to be desperately trying to keep up with the latest trends but his video, drawings and Marcel Duchamp piece were uninspiring and vacuous. George Shaw and Peter Doig’s paintings are great but they were hung in a room with Shizuka Yokomizo’s exceedingly plain series of Stranger photographs – a curatorial thread I really couldn’t follow. In fact the curating as a whole was half hearted and the presentation was far too slick, this show says nothing about the current trends in British art.

As much as I may have criticised the current Becks Futures in an earlier review it did have that homespun, anti-corporate, diy thing going for it, something Days Like These attempted to reflect by the inclusion of Margaret Barron. Barron paints on pieces of sticky tape, which she then fixes on to a surface close to the scene she has painted. The show info. delighted in telling us that they couldn’t vouch for the longevity of the outdoor paintings, but there were also meant to be some inside the gallery. I really wanted to find them but hard as I tried I couldn't track them down.



There were also lots of film and video pieces and it is one of these that was the star of the show. Nick Relph and Oliver Payne’s film Gentlemen was brilliant. It was as I wrote in my notes as I watched it “so punk, so angry, so lethargic – poetry with images”. The film consists of mainly out of focus shots of tinsel, bright lights and urinals with a cutting voice over, and is a kind of love/hate message to the tacky, corporate culture of London’s famous streets. There is a kind of Oliver Twist / Steptoe feel to it; a mixed mocking of the old culture whilst still hanging on to an affection for it. The very feeling that infuses current English sensibilities.



Despite Relph and Payne’s beacon of light the whole show was very unsatisfying and didn’t work, it was trying to do everything and ended up saying nothing.

The Jerwood Painting Prize

This is another show I wanted to and expected to like. I have seen the last five shows of this annual painting competition and they have always been an interesting and varied mix of young and older painters. This one was just terrible! The work on show just seemed really old fashioned – John Wonnacott! John Hoyland! Shani Rhys James’s revoltingly coloured figurative compositions follow in the footsteps of Paula Rego but are completely superfluous in a world that already has Paula Rego. The most successful room features minimalist compositions by Marc Vaux – metal frames containing an inner frame of brightly painted wooden bars - and Alison Watt’s large paintings of fabric folds.



So what apart from the establishment reputation of the painters is my beef? Well… where is the humour? Where once again is the obtainable diy aesthetic? Why is everything roughly the same size – monumental (last year there were some gorgeous tiny paintings by Pamela Golden)? And most importantly where is the excitement?



If you have read my earlier blogs you may know that I entered this prize and was rejected, well I am not surprised. These painters are from a different art world; they are all very firmly routed in the routine commerciality of Cork Street and have nothing to do with pushing boundaries. This prize is not for me!

Paperworks @ Kate Macgarry

At last a show I liked! This is a new gallery to me, I was enticed to see it by this shows candy coloured email list of the participating artists and the inclusion of Lily van der Stokker (who I have read about but never seen).



The gallery is in the newly fashionable Redchurch Street (London E2) and is a small but beautifully formed space. The work as suggested by the title is all on paper (apart from kathrin Bohm’s screen print and installation) and is a mixture of quirky watercolours, cutout constructions and collages. I really loved Michael Harrison’s Cat watercolours. These are not cute, chocolate box cats but sleek, mystical, Egyptian style cats. The works are called things like Teaser and Crossed Destinies. I also liked Luke Gottelier’s bunch of watercolours entitled Cowslips, they are colourful, joyful and non-reverential. My favourite pieces however are by the fore mentioned Lily van der Stokker, little coloured pencil sketches entitled things like Grandmother and Grandfather (design for wall painting with seating). They are I expect exactly what their titles suggest and are executed in a heart-felt style.



An uplifting show, I look forward to the next one in this inspiring space by the charmingly off beat Francis Upritchard.

http://www.katemacgarry.com