Rose Wylie

Visited Rose Wylie yesterday and had a guided tour of her studio. It was amazing to look through her work and quite shocking to be told by her that we should walk on her paintings! Look out for Alli Sharma's interview with her at Articulated Artists very soon.

The Museum of Everything

I am probably the very last person in the whole of London to do it but I finally made it along to The Museum of Everything this afternoon. The approach to the museum is via a little alleyway which made me think of the good old days of the old Saatchi Gallery in NW8. The Museum, just in case you don't know, is a quirky space made up of small rooms, passageways and one high ceilinged chamber - sort of like a Mike Nelson installation. The 'exhibits' are a collection of outsider art annotated by short texts written by art (Peter Blake, Mark Titchner, Grayson Perry) and art appreciating (David Byrne, Nick Cave) luminaries. If you know a bit about outsider art there are some big names here such as Morton Bartlett, Henry Darger (his work is pictured above) and Louis Wain (not sure I thought of him as an outsider but he did suffer from schizophrenia so that pretty much qualifies him.)

I find myself slightly uneasy about the whole premise of the savant artist and outsider art in general. These are people on the margins of society, often mentally ill - we gawp at their work as if viewing Bedlam inmates. As for the idea of art having more value if it is by untutored people surely that questions the value we place on education altogether. Having said all of that there is loads of 'outsider' art that I like - I just wouldn't want to be seen as a Ben Nicholson type figure ripping off my own version of Alfred Wallis.

All in all this is a very impressive collection of work and the Henry Darger and Morton Bartlett rooms are unmissable.

1956 - Elvis's first ever TV appearance

Elvis came out looking like he had been shot out of a cannon... 
(Peter Guralnick Last Train to Memphis)

William Eggleston and the Unreal World

The new show at Victoria Miro is by legendary American photographer William Eggleston.

Eggleston was born in 1939 in Memphis Tennessee to a wealthy family (cotton plantation etc etc) and my favourite pieces of his work have an essence of the American south embedded within them. On the surface his compositions have a throw-away quality and if you have ever watched William Eggleston in the Real World you may wonder whether there is a touch of the emperor's new clothes about what he does - he generally only takes one shot of things he is interested in - the antithesis of the way that most photographers work.

He is very fashionable at the moment - there was a recent piece in the Guardian about all the bands who have used his images on their album covers. Of course as a resident of Memphis there must be an Elvis connection and although Eggleston apparently has no interest in the big E there inevitably is. Eggleston was commissioned to take pictures of Graceland and these were used in a Graceland guidebook in 1984 - the story is that the powers that be (probably Priscilla) were not that into the photos and the guide was withdrawn - hence it is now very collectible. The images however are still around and can be seen online and purchased in an expensive portfolio. They are archetypal Eggleston - colour saturated, throw away, hyper real and other worldly. They also look very much like any images that tourists take of Graceland (I say this because I have taken lots of photos there myself including the image above).

I sound like I am criticising Eggleston's work but I really am not - I love it. He was in attendance at the Victoria Miro's PV but unfortunately I missed him. A friend of mine who did have the honour said that he was very charming and still very much the ladies man.

Elvis is 75

Tomorrow would have been Elvis' 75th birthday. To celebrate I have been immersing myself in Elvis world. I have watched everything Elvis that has been on BBC2 and 4, listened to everything Elvis on Radio 2, flipped through all my Elvis photo books, listened to Elvis from Baby Let's Play House through to Long Black Limousine, started re reading Peter Guralnick's amazing Last Train to Memphis and yesterday I even watched a video of Jailhouse Rock.  Because of reading Last Train to Memphis I am mainly in Elvis' early years and have just moved with him from Tupelo to Memphis. I know it is hardly a new observation but it really is amazing how poor he was back then and explains so much about his over consumption in later life.

I am now looking forward to Michael Freedland's Elvis Trail programmes which are coming up on Radio 2 (by the way I am not generally a Radio 2 fan - maybe it has just got a bit better now that Terry Wogan has retired).

The pic is from the 1968 special which was on in a weird shortened form on Saturday night. Still watched it though!

Space and James Taylor

I spent yesterday afternoon at the Space gallery at the Triangle, Mare Street, Hackney before going on to check out Dumb Waiter at James Taylor Gallery just off Well Street. 


First up Laura Oldfield Ford showed a couple of episodes of Boys From the Blackstuff. Although I know lots of classic moments from this series (written by Alan Bleasdale back in he early eighties) I don't think that I ever watched a complete episode - I found it too depressing. It was interesting watching it now - it was all a little clunky but very moving and the episode where Yosser built the dodgy wall and head butted the boss, surrounded by his three small kids was quite heartbreaking - 'gissa job'. The politics and aesthetics of the early eighties with the confrontational atmosphere of Thatcher's Britain is fundamental to Laura's practice, so it was really interesting to revisit it.


Next up was a Miss B's Salon event entitled Agitation, Polemic and Design... and their contemporary adaptations chaired by Ruth Beale to accompany her show  What I Believe ( a Polemic Collection) (pictured above). The show features Ruth's own collection of pamphlets, each one containing a polemic on an important issue of its time.  The speakers were Ruth, Laura Oldfield Ford and Modern Activity (the designers of Le Gun and a new series of DEMOS texts amongst other things). It was really good discussion, very wide ranging. I was interested in particular in the ideas around the way that artists such as Ruth (and Jeremy Deller) collect and present work about political ideas without offering an opinion as opposed to Laura's stance whereby she is fully immersed in her political ideas. There was also lots of stuff about politics and design including an insight into the importance of colour - apparently purple is very much favoured as it lies somewhere between red and blue and whether print was a nostalgic outdated medium for disseminating information.


I then managed to catch a bit of Tony Palmer's excellent short film Wigan Casino, scenes from which were used in Mark Leckey's Fiourucci Made Me Hardcore. I've been meaning to see this for weeks and it really didn't disappoint  (its on until 19th December if you are over in East London).


Then on to James Taylor Gallery to see Dumbwaiter. I heard a rumour that Saatchi had visited a couple of weeks back and I'm not surprised, the work looks as if it has come straight out of the Saatchi book of art. Spec-tac-u-lar. From the impressive installation featuring weird petrol pump / one armed bandit type machines, flashing lights, red curtains, projections and a prone figure by Lee Holden (pictured above) to the labour intensive pin board / wallpaper room of Margaret O'Brien and the huge inflatable landscape by Neil Bromwich and Zoe Walker.  

Hockney Repeats at Tate Britain

I've seen the David Hockney room at Tate Britain a few times and thought that his three huge landscape paintings (made up of lots of smaller paintings) which all looked very similar were a bit rubbish - although I quite liked the repetition. It was pointed out to me yesterday on a flying visit that only one of the paintings is actually a painting and the other two are photographs of the original. This makes it all quite a lot more intriguing and interesting. It also means that I obviously do not look at things properly.

I can't find a picture of the room to post here (the Tate website does not have an image - maybe there are copyright issues) only an image of the painting which is called Bigger Trees Near Warter Or/Ou Peinture Sur Le Motif Pour Le Nouvel Age Post-Photographique, 2007

Rubbernecking

Rubbernecking the new show at Transition is all about paint. Jake Clark instigated the project and came up with the title and the other participating artists. The basic idea is that it is all about a different, slightly cartoonish way of looking and how this relates to painting.

One of the participating artists Rose Wylie (the others are Jake Clark and Phillip Allen) is showing some unstretched collaged canvases of footballers - for some reason this makes me think of Walter Sickett who in his later years painted stuff from pictures he saw in the newspaper. There the comparison ends though because these have much more in common with Guston than Sickett. I absolutely LOVE the fact that one of them is actually of Wayne Rooney (see the picture above which by the way was taken by Damian Griffiths who is currently showing work in Transition ShopSpace)

Garageland 9: Migration

Its finally here and the feedback so far has been good. I was probably less than enthusiastic about migration as a subject initially but I think we have stretched the theme in unexpected directions. Consequently there is some really interesting stuff in the mag and I am completely won over. I especially love David Webb's piece Mother Hen about his grandmother's migration from Tanzania to England.

You can get the issue online now here or from stockists later in the week. Sadly Borders are no longer on the scene so we now have a huge shortfall in our distribution (and money owing) - if you have previously bought Garageland outside of London from Borders why not order online or even set up a money saving subscription (which is still at the old price until I manage to change it so hurry up!)

The Dark Monarch

Since I first read about The Dark Monarch and saw that Michael Bracewell was one of the curators I have been itching to get down to St Ives to see it. This weekend despite the storms and a delayed sleeper train I finally made it. There was of course the added attraction of a day long Dark Monarch symposium to entice me which turned out to be a really illuminating day full of quite unexpected eclectic stuff.

The subtitle of The Dark Monarch is Magic and Modernity in British Art and the idea is that it straddles historical practices over the last century and a number of contemporary practitioners who are re examining the supernatural, mystical and unexplained. There is also a close tie with both St Ives as a place of post war escape and the whole of West Penwith which has lots of ancient sites and links with various dark magical stuff as well as an amazing landscape. So there is work by Richard Dadd, Graham Sutherland, John Piper, John Nash and Barbara Hepworth through to Derek Jarman who is a kind of bridge between the old and new, and on to Mark Titchner, Claire Woods, Damian Hirst (a gorgeous baby unicorn with a gold horn in a gold vitrine) and Goshka Macuga (plus lots and lots of other stuff).

The symposium was held together by Michael Bracewell who participated in the panel discussions and introduced speakers and films. One of the early speakers was Chris Stephens , a curator at Tate Britain who was very knowledgeable about Neo Romanticism and St Ives Modernism.

Also speaking was Philip Hoare who recently made a great documentary about whales called The Hunt for Moby Dick based on his book Leviathan, or the Whale. He described how his whole body shook when he was echo sounded by a sperm whale (and apparently some new discoveries has shown that whales have large enough brains to be able to form their own religion).

There were a couple of artist presentations including one by Mark Titchner which I really enjoyed. He was commissioned to make a new work for the show and decided that he wanted to produce a sculpture which would actually influence the gallery surroundings. The piece he made features a zone of protection surrounded by a barrier containing vials of St John's wort and towering poles topped by orgonite pyramids (a substance which is claimed to absorb radiation).

There was also some atmospheric newly composed music and a screening of a rare film about The Incredible String Band and a q&a with its director to end the day. Afterwards I managed to have a few words with Michael Bracewell who told me that he had unsuccessfully tried to convince his fellow curators that the show should have contained an examination of the current vampire fascination but apparently they didn't go for it (incidently Bracewell wrote a great piece in the current GQ Style about Twilight and Robert Pattinson.) Maybe that is an idea for a whole other exhibition?

It is probably the best show that I have seen at Tate St Ives and I have managed to see just about all of them over the last five years or so. It's on until January so if you get the chance it is definitely worth a visit. If you can't visit (or even if you can) I also recommend the accompanying book which features most of the above mentioned people + Morrissey, Jon Savage and lots of others.

Speeding back home on the train I spotted a white horse on the hills - very apt as there is a similar looking painting of a white horse in the exhibition by Eric Ravilious.

Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore

I have always loved the title of Mark Leckey's Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore but have never seen the whole piece until recently. It is an amazing 'art' film getting to the crux of what it is that makes youth culture/ nightclubs so compulsive and atmospheric. Check it out below.

Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore (Mark Leckey) from Anon. on Vimeo.

New Moon Over Battersea

I went to the opening show at the RCA's new painting department in Battersea on Thursday night. Walked from Sloane Square along the King's Road and over Albert Bridge which was very atmospheric. Lots of interesting stuff by the illustrious alumni including Laura Oldfield Ford, Emma Talbot, Paul Housley, Chantal Joffe etc etc and lost of champagne and canapes - all very impressive. I'm looking forward to the current student's Interim Show which is up next.

Then on to Leicester Square for the midnight screening of New Moon the second part of what has now been dubbed The Twilight Saga. It was a crazy scrum to get in but those teenage girls are no match for the slightly more mature woman when it comes to pushing to the front of a queue. As for the film, well... I was almost inevitably a little disappointed. It was much slicker than Twilight - lots more concentration on the composition of shots to the detriment, I felt, of character development. Also thought the film score was very cheesy while the much pushed indie soundtrack seemed almost gratuitous. As for the wardrobe all I can say is that with the exception of Kristen Stewart's Bella it was horrible and wrong - someone should get the sack. Maybe when I have watched it another five times or so I might be able to appreciate it a little better. Incidentally I really recommend Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo's review of it which is here for a few more days. Overall in the war that currently seems to be raging between the various Twilight Saga director's I'm on the side of Catherine Hardwicke (and I just saw her film Thirteen which iI really liked).

New Moon Fan Party

It was a rainy night and as anyone who has followed a 'red carpet' event will know there is often a terrible foaming up of all the old detergent that has been used to shampoo the carpet as the rain water become agitated by the guests feet. This was exactly what happened at the New Moon fan party in Battersea Park, London last week and despite the efforts of a man with a broom, spooky white footprints appeared all over the carpet. At the end of the night we spotted a forlornly abandoned sheet of paper lying amongst the footprints (maybe one of these prints was from the shoe of Rob himself... we will never know.)

Film Diary

Since the middle of August I have been keeping a film diary. A rather grand name for a list of all the films I watch. The inspiration for this came from an invitation to take part in the show 'The Days Before' which opens tonight at The Grey Area in Brighton. The show's theme is basically the everyday and my initial adea was to make a series of paintings of 'indecisive moments' (a kind of reversal of Cartier Bresson's decisive moment). As time went on I realised that I really didn't want to make these paintings - the idea was just not inspirational. So I re wrote my proposal and the Film Diary was born. Here is a bit more about it...

Everyday life is boring. This mind numbing drudgery needs to be punctured and deflated. A relief that can be provided by episodes of escapism – events and situations encountered not in actuality but as an observer and then lived out within our heads. The most powerful and easily accessible escapist experience for most people is provided by film – 90 min slices of someone else’s life. I decided to keep a diary that listed all the films that I watched (I had to see the beginning and end for them to register).

This could be seen as one of those hugely un-scientific arbitrary exercises that artists indulge in. But as with any other recording of everyday events the choices that I make in watching one film rather than another says something about me and probably defines me at this moment as much as anything could. I selected one image from each of these films. This provided a further indication of what it was that drew me in and kept me rapt. These images then became small-scale paintings that make up the series Film Diary.

Heart Throb

I'm currently putting together a show called Sehnsucht which opens this week at JT Project 09. It's about what could be described as the dark secret that we all hold inside, the thing that just to think of is thrilling.

My work for the show is a series of paintings of a brooding young man. They are made from the same image and although initially they may appear to be identical they all have their own hand made foibles. The series is called Heart Throb and some of the names of the individual paintings (of which there are 10) are Byron, Elvis, Shelley and Jim Stark.

Writing this description is complicated. I want to reveal the name of the image that inspired the series but to do this feels like a betrayal of a secret and to betray the secret is to risk destroying the thrill.

Jayne Mansfield Day at the Chiswick Flyover

I spent a bizarre day in the middle of a roundabout in Chiswick last Wednesday. It was the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Chiswick flyover, which way back in 1959 was opened by Hollywood star Jayne Mansfield with the line 'its a sweet little flyover'.

I am a bit of a Jayne fan and recently made a series of paintings based on her life called The Inevitable End of a Love Goddess. The Mayor of Hounslow got wind of my paintings (thanks to the fab Alli Sharma) and invited me to exhibit them under the flyover during the commemoration celebrations. So aside from a little confusion around a couple of Jayne Mansfield lookalikes it was a really fun day with drinks, canapes, Imogen Stubbs planting a tree, ceremonial robes and a cute commemorative sign immortalising Jayne's words.

Arty Film 2

There is a new issue of Arty out this week featuring one of my Rosemary Woodhouse's Wardrobe paintings on the cover. I've also written a piece about the project which is all about the 50+ outfits that Mia Farrow wears in Rosemary's Baby. It all seems amazingly topical now with Roman Polanski's arrest in Switzerland - strange how these events happen.

It's Arty's second film issue - the first was Arty 6 back in 2002. It has all the eclecticism that you would expect from Arty and as well as Rosemary it features Film threesomes, Twilight, films depicting American presidents and lots more. It will be in the shops at the end of the week or you can buy it here

Incidentally I have just come across an Arty usurper online. It seems that there is a Brighton based magazine calling itself Arty. I have mailed them to let them know that we already use the name (they started last year, we have been around since 2001). Not quite sure what to do next... Anyone have any copyright advice they can give me?

Marlene

Thanks to Holly Johnson for reminding me of this fab clip of Marlene Dietrich singing Where Have all the Flowers Gone, which incidentally was a song that I remember my mum singing when I was growing up.

Have just tried to find the video for this again on youtube and it has gone! It is so fab - please let me know if you come across it anywhere.

Emma Puntis at Supplement

Supplement - a new space to me - is situated just off Hackney Road and has a programme of six solos exhibitions a year.  Last night I dropped by to see Wednesday's Child, a solo show byEmma Puntis. Emma showed a work in The Painting Room at Transition and kindly let me use an image of one of her paintings to accompany a short piece of text about The English Rose in the Beauty issue of Garageland. She was also in Jerwood Contemporary Painters 2009. This show contains a selection of varied new works including collages and works on paper. The work is in line with a growing trend in painting to use the minimal effort to create fluid works that sit somewhere between representation and abstraction. The stand out pieces for me were a painting of a teddy bear like face on what looked like a page torn from a magazine (complete with curled up corner) and a small minimally rendered water colour of a hand surrounded by empty space on a sheet of paper which was masking taped on to a sheet of grainy wood. 

Emma's work is generally focused on faces and the nicely written press release states that 'In our perception of the world the face exists as a unique and privileged site of visual coding, a singular site of communicative power in which the nuances and complexities of expression take on a vast significance. Puntis' paintings play on this significance in the way that recognisable features, such as the eyes, lips and nose remain identifiable yet contain a certain painterly ambiguity that leads them towards abstraction.' 

Galleries Online

I have been looking at gallery websites, trying to find ones I like to give me some ideas for updates I need to do on the Transition Gallery website. Mostly they are pretty bad but I did quite like Domobaal, and Crimes Town for their simplicity. Design wise Bloomberg Space and Chisenhale Gallery are pretty interesting. Also quite liked Artangel's although it is a bit too clever for its own good with all that complex moving graphics stuff. Oh and I only looked at galleries beginning with A, B, C and D as the whole thing got really arduous - so if there are any other goodies that I should check out please let me know.