Vignettes

I have a show opening on 4th July at the new Rosy Wilde which is above the Ann Summers shop in Wardour Street. The show is called Vignettes and features a series of paintings which contain either groups of disperate characters or bits of people slipping out of frame.

This painting - Peeress - features the moment from the 1930s coronation where the Peeresses all raise their coronets.

Thumbs Down for an
There is a review for the last show at Transition - Baroque My World in the new June issue of an magazine. Following on from the reviews in Metro and BBC Collective it isn't exactly good but as they say all press is good! So I will refrain from any anti-an talk because it just isn't worth it and just say thank you for the mention. Incidently one of the artists that comes off well is the fab Petros Chrisostomou whose Bigwig illustrates both the an piece and this post.

What would really cheer me up now is for someone, somewhere to come and review our current show - Paperworld which is going down very well with the everyday gallery goers and really deserves a bit of attention.

Paperworld

Paperworld opened at Transition this weekend and the initial feedback is really good. On Saturday a coach party of Serpentine Gallery patrons decended upon us and although I wasn't there the very capable Sarah Doyle gave them a little talk about the show.

Sarah has been fantastic in the run up to the show and as well as designing the flyer at a moments notice made a window display and a huge Paperworld sign for the back of the 'faux shop'. The most impressive thing however was that she had no fear when I needed to assemble an IKEA cabinet and showed me how to do the whole thing (the trick is to look really carefully at what the men with closed eyes are doing in the instruction drawings)

One of the big hits of the show is Leo Fitzmaurice (Julia Peyton Jones underlined his name on the press release she took away with her) with his modernist town plans, cigarette packet football shirts and rolled holiday brochures. You can read more about him in his profile in the current Garageland magazine.

As well as artworks the show also includes a curated selection of artist made publications including many from the artists participating in the show. I will describe them more in a future post.

The picture above shows the end of the private view and includes Russell Herron, Karen D'Amico and Arabella Lee

Garageland Baroque

The new issue of Garageland has arrived. It's even here in time for its own launch which will be at Transition Gallery this Sunday between 4 and 7pm (7 May) . It looks fab even if I do say so myself and is themed around the Baroque. There are numerous highlights including a fantastically crazy painting of Chantelle by Stella Vine and a short story by Paul Gorman whose new book 'The Look: Adventures in Pop and Rock Fashion' is launched this week.

You can even buy a copy online

Good and Bad

The last few weeks have not been good (mainly because my laptop got stolen and of course hardly anything was backed up) but despite lots of little disasters there have been good things happening. Transition is now settled in to its new home in Regents Studios E8 and our first show here has been great. The private view was massively busy and there has been lots of press - I have put links in at the bottom of the Baroque My World home page. You can read the entertaining account of this private view and many others on Russell Herron's blog

Lots Of Art in Chicago

If anyone reading this lives in Chicago they must immediately go along to Art Chicago www.artchicago.com (it is on until tomorrow) because Rosy Wilde are there and there is some fab stuff on show.

Also in Chicago are The Clapham Art Gallery who are at the NOVA Art Fair at the City Suites Hotel, 933. West Belmont, Chicago. They have a good selection of artists on show including some of my Alleyoops series.

Becks Futures at The ICA

Very good this year. I like loads of it but my absolute (surprise) favourite is Seb Patane. His was the first work I saw as entered the lower gallery. It consists of a large monitor on the floor, a set of proper, big speakers, a large drawing of a mountain (which has some kind of occult connection – one of the themes of the moment) and one of his Victorian photos with ink blot type drawing obscuring part of it. The video and the soundtrack are the big hits for me. The video shows two men wearing old fashioned, Tyrolean mountain climbing gear against a white background. One of them is leaning on the other and neither of their faces is visible. Although it is ostensively a series of still images they occasionally wobble and sway with the physical effort of leaning and supporting. There is an impression of painful endurance about their performance. To accompany this there is a loud soundtrack of what I would ignorantly describe as mindless dance music but which I have since been told (thank you Russell) was Hardcore. For some reason this whole thing is ridiculously moving.

I also liked Daniel Sinsel a lot, his delicacy and precision is really gorgeous and I love the idea of painting on an eggshell.

So in agreement with all the other reviews I’ve read Beck’s Futures knocks the Tate Triennial into a cocked hat.

Oh and Seb has a solo show at Bureau in Salford until April 29th

Openings and Closings

Since my last post lots has happened:

- I have been on a very short holiday to the Scilly Isles where it mostly rained.

- Godwottery has finished and Transition in Lauriston Road has pulled down its shutter for the last time. Everybody who has told me that they really loved the space and its such a shame that we are moving should have 1: told me this while we were open, 2: try sitting in a freezing cold garage for 5 hours in sub zero temperatures with no punters, 3: open their own gallery.

- Stella Vine is well on the way towards opening the fab Rosy Wilde mark 2 in Soho. She is brimming over with exciting new ways of doing the gallery thing. It is fantastically refreshing and a real antidote to all that art world subfusc intellect, shark like commercial dealing and basically nasty backstabbing. Check out its progress at her always entertaining blog.

- Very excitingly me and Stella are going to be doing a show together in September called Sweet Love and Romance at a venue yet to be confirmed. Watch this space for more details.

- I have a solo show opening at LANGE GASSE 28 artist studio in Augsburg Germany on 7th April. It is called Mary, Mary, Mary, Mary and features a series of obsessive, repeated paintings of Mary Bell.

- I went to a very exciting party for the launch of GQ Style with Stella. We had a great journey to the Bond Street venue, winding our way through an Absolute Beginners esque soho and stopping off to check out the new Rosy Wilde. The highlight at the party was the appearance of Chantelle and Preston accompanied by legions of bulb flashing paps. They looked really cute and like they were really loving it.

- Everything is coming along nicely at the new Transition venue and hopefully it should all be ready for the opening of Baroque My World on friday night (7th April 6-9pm in case you wanna come along).

Andrew Mania

Went to see Andrew Mania's show at the weekend at Vilma Gold - it is fantastic, my absolute favourite thing of the moment. Mania's show at the Chisenhale was great but I think that this one is even better. The show is billed as a collaboration between Andrew Mania and Carl Van Vechten but is really more Mania's homage to Van Vechten who is an American photographer who died in 1964. Van Vechten's photographs have that slightly campy, aesthete, early 2oth Century look and interestingly all of the works in the show are from Mania's own collection.

So to the show... The gallery is dark and Mania has placed the photographs in little shrine like groups, some propped up on shelves, surrounded by bits of his own work and other found objects. The light that there is in the gallery is supplied by different coloured light bulbs, which are clipped on to various gallery objects. The whole show has a faded, nostalgic, decadence to it, when you leave the gallery you are left with a real sense of something that is hard to put into words, something akin to a romantic mood or a seductive smell that lingers in your nostrils.

Vilma Gold don't really give a whole lot away about the show on their site so I'm afraid that the image I've pasted in doesn't really describe the experience at all.

I first came across Andrew Mania when Annabel Dover wrote about him and how she wanted to marry him in the Our Idols issue of Arty and then again in Arty Greatest Hits, Lady Lucy named him as one of her great Bristolians.

Godwottery

I'm invigilating today and tomorrow at Transition where we are showing the zany, Godwottery a show by Jacob Cartwight and Nick Jordan. The show is made up of a series of small pieces which are like bits of a jigsaw which don't quite fit together. My favourite pieces are Minotaur - a speaker from an old gramophone fixed on to a miking stool which croaks like a bullfrog, Edgar - a creepy black and white film about a magpie and a crane which references hanging and gallows and The Last Dream of Francois Mitterand - a triptych of paintings by Jacob Cartwright which is jam packed full of references, including stories about the little bird that appears in painting c. Jacob has sent us a whole ream of stuff about it and I am pasting in a bit below -

"When François Mitterand, the former president of France, realized that he would soon die of prostate cancer, he engaged in a stupendous act of abligurition; that is, he squandered a small fortune on a lavish and bizarre meal for himself and thirty friends. The meal included oysters, foie gras, and caviar, but the piece-de-resistance was roast ortolan, a tiny songbird that is actually illegal to consume in France. Traditionally, the two-ounce warbler is eaten whole, bones and all, while the diner leans forward over the table with a large napkin draped over his head. The napkin, according to food lore, serves two functions: it traps and concentrates the aroma of the petite dish, and it conceals the shameful exorbitance of the meal — the abliguration — from the eyes of God. In origin, the word abliguration derives from the Latin preposition ab, meaning "away," and the verb ligurire, meaning "to eat delicately." Even further back, ligurire evolved from lingere, meaning "to lick," which is also connected to cunnilingus and linguine. As for the ortolan, the tasty object of Mitterand's abliguration, its name means "gardener" in Provençal, and it derives from the Latin hortus, meaning "garden." "

There is more about Jacob and Nick in the current issue of Garageland magazine which is available at Transition, and all good bookshops!

Tate Triennial



I have been to see the Tate Triennial today and it has made me very depressed. I saw the review of it on Newsnight Review on Friday night and Mark Kemode and Ekow Eshun remarked that it was impenetrable and it surely is that.

It is curated by someone outside the British art scene and although the overall theme of appropriating and reusing material is fine, the artists that she has chosen are bizarre. I have never heard of loads of them and what Cosey Fanni Tutti has to do with the current art scene I really am not sure... blah blah blah.

As far as I'm concerned London is the most exciting art producing place in the world at the moment, there is a whole new movement afoot that combines making and thinking. So why the Tate has chosen an outside curator I'm not sure and maybe because of this the show is all about that old style thinking art, that same boring old conceptual "I don't need to make any work myself its all about the ideas" stuff (yes I know there are painters in it but they are mostly so tight, there is none of that 2006 exuberance). How much more exciting would it have been to see the inclusion of artists such as Zoe Mendelson, Stella Vine, Sigrid Holmwood, Andrew Bracey etc etc.

The image I have included is from pretty much my favourite piece in the show and is by Jonathon Monk. However when you read the show notes everything is ruined when you find out that "Monk has pinned a different coloured drawing pin to the ear of each woman depicted in these anonymous portrait drawings from the 1930s, found in a flea market in Berlin. Through this simple act he attaches the work to the wall and claims another artist's work as his own, questioning notions of authenticity and authorship." - I only have one word for this - Lame - this has been said and done before so many times. He should just make some beautiful drawings himself or display these and make apparent their origins. The drawing pin authorship debate is nonsense and cliched.

I may well write a proper review for the new issue of The Critical Friend. So look out for that at The ICA etc, soon.

DARK ARTY

Finally after what seems like months the new Arty has arrived back from the printers. It is very different from before because it is now A4, it is printed rather than photocopied, it has an extra colour and it is what I am calling more 'practice based'. By this I mean that each issue will have fewer contributers but that they will each have more space to develop their themes. Contributors will be chosen because their work in some way adds to or clashes with the chosen theme of the issue.

It is good for Arty to have a change and now that Transition Editions publishes Garageland which contains some of the forthright and opinionated writing that was the old Arty it gives new Arty a chance to develop a different identity. I am also trying to link Arty a lot more to my own interests and painting practice. Putting it together is such a personal, labour intensive thing that it makes sense for it to join up with my other work. So fear not it still has that undesigned haphazard look about it!

Anyway it looks pretty good and I am quite pleased with it but printing rather than photocopying raises all sorts of different problems (not the least of which is the cost!)

So... please get out there and buy a copy. It is already in Transition and will be at other stockists over the weekend (some maybe not until next week)

Contributors for this dark issue are Rachel Cattle, Annabel Dover, Sian Emmison, Alex Michon and me

Garageland Magazine

Transition has a new magazine - the fantastic Garageland. It is available at all the usual places and a few more.

The magazine takes themes that arise from shows at Transition and expands on them to create a reference book about the chosen subject. The current issue no.1 is all about Machismo. Issue 2 (due out in May) is Baroque and issue 3 is Nature.

My contribution to issue 1 is a series of paintings and texts about skinhead girls.
So Macho

I know, I know I haven't written anything for ages and I have slagged off blogging, but I felt like revisiting at least one more time so here I am.

While I am here I guess I may as well mention the new show at Transition which just happens to be myself and Alex Michon and is called The English Museum. It is on until 11 September and will be featured (hopefully) in a forthcoming edition of Time Out and The Independent.

Arty Greatest Hits - Still Going Strong

There is a nice review of Arty Greatest Hits on the April 13th entry on the Art in Liverpool weblog written by Ian Jackson.

So here is a drawing from The fore mentioned publication by Jamie Clements and if you haven't bought a copy yet (why not?) you can find a list of stockists or buy online at the Arty site.

I'll be Your Mirror

The latest show at Transition is I'll be Your Mirror by Emma Talbot. It features a group of paintings inspired by the magazine collection at The Women's Library in Whitechapel, London. Emma has also made an animation inspired by graphic love stories which takes the form of a little book with the drawings floating across the pages and dissapearing down the spine.

The image below is one of the paintings in the show which seems to be a favourite with a lot of the audience and is called Leathers.

The show is on until May 1, you can read more on the Transition website. Also don't miss the fab publication that goes with the show with Martin Coomer interviewing Emma and an essay by Rebecca Loncraine.

San Sebastian

I went to San Sebastian last week to talk at a seminar called 'Mutations in Feminism'. Everyone was very nice and I got shown around the town - here is a snap showing pollarded trees and the 'Belle Epoque' roundabout.

New Show at Transition Shock

Soul Mining opened last night with two fantastic performances. The first was a short experimental set from Sharon Gal this was followed by a storming set from Esther Planas's Dirty Snow which included a noir version of The Beatles Day in the Life. The show itself includes the work of three artists, Ruth Calland and the already mentioned Planas and Gal. All the work is very different but hangs together really well, there is a curious tension between it all which fits very well with the show's psychoanalytical theme.
The image below is of Sharon Gal's opening night performance in front of Esther Planas's Happiness is a Warm Gun installation and was taken by Transition regular Marc Vaulbert.

Continuum

I have just written a beautiful, pithy piece about Conrad Shawcross's Continuum, the fantastic Queen's House and the crap National Maritime Museun Greenwich and somehow it has dissapeared into the ether. I am very upset and I may give up blogging altogether.

I will just give you a summary as I can't possibly write it again. The Continuum is brilliant and is perfectly site specific. The museum is bland and has no character. Too may visitors is bad, interactive is bad, engagement is good. the Continuum has now finished.

Tate Tales

Finally the Tate Modern have said yes to stocking ARTY GREATEST HITS. So on Wednesday I wheeled 20 copies in my trolley over The Millenium Bridge. If you don't have a copy yet shame on you, there is no excuse as it is available by mail order or from numerous stockists. Also look out for the review in the March issue of AN.

So Anyway, while I was there I had a look at the show Pin-Up - Contemporary Collage and Drawing. The show is in the space previously occupied by the small shop at the river entrance to the gallery and feels a little cut off from the main space as you can't now get in by that entrance. Really this is no bad thing as it makes it seem like an independent gallery seperate from the great institution. A factor I suppose in staging this show which is the first in the series Untitled - Exploring New Ideas in Contemporary Art, which are dedicated to showcasing recent or new work by international artists not widely exhibited in the UK.

Pin-Up includes the work of a couple of artists who have shown at Kate McGarry - Dr Lakra and Matt Bryans. Dr Lakra has also had work at the Saatchi Gallery, so that seems fairly well exposed to me, but maybe I am being pedantic and Dr Lakra is actually my favourite in the show. He is apparently a Mexican Tatooist and his work consists of vintage magazine covers with added tatoos. They are really clever and I would look great on my wall at home. Matt Bryans is also very clever, he rubs out newspaper pictures leaving only the eyes and then puts all these scraps together to make a huge blob of discolured paper and staring eyes. It looks a little like a dark wood with creatures staring out at you - very sinister. The other stuff was less interesting but the concept is good and it is about time some contemporary art got into the Tate.