The Silver Library

Washed Out Album Artwork

2011-07-17T16:03:00.008+01:00

I don't normally post about anything music-related but I was so struck by the beautiful photography in the cover art for Washed Out's new album that I'm making an exception.

Within and Without is the debut album by 28 year old Atlanta based songwriter and producer Ernest Greene (below), AKA Washed Out. Greene first came to prominence in the summer of 2009 after posting a handful of bedroom recorded tracks to his Myspace page from his family home in the tiny city of Perry, Georgia. “I’d been writing music on my own for three or four years to that previously”, Greene explains, “mostly as a way to experiment with songwriting processes. Those were just the first I ever shared.”

I think the reason these pictures had such a strong impact on me was because I saw them at the end of a really stressful (and unexciting) day. Floating in the sea or holding some one close seemed like the perfect escape. A quick search on YouTube revealed that the music fits the images perfectly - as it should.

The album cover says it all. Impossible not to enjoy.

I love the 80s mash-up video for 'Olivia'...

Their track 'Hold Out' is also a favourite...

You can download a Washed Out remix for free from his blog. The artwork for this download is completely different to the photos for his album cover, but I love it just as much.

Washed Out is currently on tour and I'm going to see him at Scala in London next month. Scheduled dates below:

July 20, Rome, Italy @ Future Island@Bibliotechina

July 21, Bologna, Italy @ Vicolo Bolognetti

July 22, Padova, Italy @ Giardini Sospesi

July 23, Hyeres, France @ Midi Festival

July 24, Barcelos, Portugal @ Milhoes de Festa

July 29, Naeba Ski Resort, Niigata, Japan @ Fuji Rock Festival

August 4, Berlin, Germany @ Festaal Kreuzberg

August 6, Amsterdam, Netherlands @ Bitterzoet

August 7, Paris, France @ Le Nouveau Casino

August 8, Manchester, UK @ Deaf Institute

August 9, London, UK @ Scala

August 12, Hertfordshire, UK @ Standon Calling Festival

August 13, Dublin City, Ireland @ The Grand Social

August 18, Groningen, Netherlands @ Noordezon Festival

Brenda Moon 1931-2011

2011-04-06T15:25:00.009+01:00

Yesterday The Independent printed an obituary for university librarian Brenda Moon. I know only two other women with that surname - one works at the Fine Art Society and the other hangs in the Tate Britain: a portrait of Mrs Ernest Moon by Sir William Blake Richmond, painted in 1888. Four-letter-surnames rock.

In the obituary, Sheila Cannell mentions that Moon served under Philip Larkin at the Brynmor Jones Library in Hull.

'[Larkin] wrote a poem, "The daily things we do" which he laid on her desk in February 1979 on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the library's opening. He had also written, at her behest, a poem about libraries, "New eyes each year", which was produced for the same occasion:

[Private poem]

The daily things we do

For money or for fun

Can disappear like dew

Or harden and live on.

Strange reciprocity:

The circumstances we cause

In time gives rise to us,

Becomes our memory.

[Public poem]

New eyes each year

Find old books here,

And new books, too,

Old eyes renew;

So youth and age

Like ink and page

In this house join,

Minting new coin.

I thought these poems were so wonderful I ought to post them on my blog. You can read the full obituary here.

Libraries are such wonderful and special places that librarians have always seemed a little bit magic, to me at least. When I was at Goldsmiths College there was a wonderful librarian called Althea Greenan, who had run the Women's Art Library there since 1989. She was an incredibly inspiring woman and I still think about her.

I've already blogged about libraries a little bit, but if you want a 3-D hit then I recommend buying Leslie Geddes-Brown's book - a beautifully illustrated guide by a self-confessed bibliophile. For online browsing you can't beat Bookshelfpor n.com. Here's a photo of the largest library in Latin America, Biblioteca Vasconcelos in Mexico City. Borges would approve!

Steve Martin: An Object of Beauty

2011-04-04T17:17:00.012+01:00

I read an interview with Steve Martin in The Times just before Christmas. He is a well-known art collector and is frequently profiled in art magazines. His latest novel, An Object of Beauty, was published last year to mixed reviews.

The Times' Giles Whittell writes:

His collection [of art reference books] grew into a substantial library that he has plundered over the last two and a half years while researching An Object of Beauty. One result is a series of slightly clunky art history digressions dotted through the book, punctuating a more accessible series of sex scenes featuring his alpha female, Lacey Yaeger.

Has anyone read this book? In general, I find that art-related novels can be very disappointing. I really struggled to finish Danny Moynihan's Boogie-Woogie... in fact the only one I can remembering enjoying is Siri Hustvedt's What I Loved. And man did it make me cry!

Siri with her husband Paul Auster

If you've read An Object of Beauty please leave a comment and let me know what you thought. My shelves are groaning with unread books and I already spend far too much on here. Thank you!

My favourite Pablo Helguera cartoon

2011-01-30T22:50:00.002Z

Pablo Helguera is a New York-based Mexican artist who had a series of cartoons on the corridor walls of the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City last year.

When I saw this it made me think of my wire-haired daschund cross, Juno, back at home in the UK. the cartoon translates as 'Who made arte povera in the living room?'. A very familiar scene!

Authors reveal which locations inspire them

2011-01-30T22:16:00.004Z

The photographer Harry Cory Wright teamed up with famous authors to discover the locations that inspire them. Geoff Dyer chanced upon these tennis courts at Cartwright Gardens, which he describes as 'an idyllic, completely urban oasis'. Check out the full selection in today's Independent on Sunday.

Just in time for Valentine's Day...

2011-01-28T12:21:00.002Z

A couple of years ago I posted Terence Blacker's article about Match.com and Penguin's new dating initiative. It seems that bookish types like to stick to their own - or at least make an informed decision based on a potential partner's reading tastes.

New dating site Alikewise.com allows you to do just this. But it doesn't have to be Proust - or, heaven forbid, Paulo Coelho - anything goes, from politics to cookery to yoga.

You can search for people via the usual criteria (location, sexuality etc) or simply by favourite author. Some of the best relationships I've ever had have been with men who never strayed beyond the ScrewFix catalogue, but I understand the attraction in going on holiday with some one you can swap books with. In fact the more I think about it, the lovelier this idea seems.

Libraries of the rich and famous

2011-01-25T11:04:00.002Z

Flavorwire.com has created a guided tour round the libraries of such rich and famous folk as Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Oprah Winfrey (pictured) and Greta Garbo.

Karl Lagerfeld’s impressive collection of titles are stacked horizontally rather than vertically but it appears there are hardly any books at all on Kelsey Grammar’s shelves. Perhaps the actor, best known for playing the psychiatrist Frasier, has shrink-wrapped them. The tour – guaranteed to inspire 'libris envy’ – can be found here.

Via The Sunday Telegraph

Le Pavilion des Lettres

2011-01-17T10:05:00.002Z

Le Pavilion des Lettres is the first hotel specifically designed for book-lovers to open in Paris (round the corner from the Elysée Palace). Each of its 26 rooms corresponds to a letter of the alphabet and is devoted to a particular writer.

French authors, naturellement, loom large - Flaubert, Baudelaire and Zola inter alios - but there are plenty of writers from other lands including Shakespeare, Kafka, Yeats and Tolstoy. Depressives should probably avoid the Virginia Woolf room or at least take extra care in the bath.

Via The Sunday Telegraph

A little trip to NYC

2010-11-21T20:24:00.013Z

I have just come back from a jam-packed long weekend in New York. There were three priorities - check out PINTA, catch up with friends, and do a little stock sourcing for my online boutique.

A couple of hours after I arrived I had to be at The Americas Society on Park Avenue for the PINTA launch party. I spotted a couple of familiar faces but left after listening to the panel discussion between artist Pablo Vargas Lugo and curator Jasmil Raymond. Before escaping I had a quick look at the current exhibition, a fabulous show demonstrating how Mexican modernist painters have influenced contemporary artists.

The following morning I went to Gagosian to see the new John Currin show. One of my favourite contemporary painters, Currin creates subversive portraits that take influence from Old Masters and 20th century pin-ups. Below: Hot Pants, 2010.

I also poked my nose in at the Picasso show downstairs (which transferred from Britannia St earlier this year) and Mark Tansey's small but impressive exhibition. I then walked to the Met to see the John Baldessari show, Pure Beauty... which was slightly underwhelming. It's quite brave to call a show that when David's Death of Socrates hangs in the room next door! I wandered around the Jan Gossart exhibition and then through the Greek & Roman sculpture rooms on my way out.

After a bumpy cross-town drive I arrived at Pier 92 for the PINTA preview. This was a new location for the fair and I thought the quasi-industrial space worked really well. The fair roughly coincides with Latin American art sales at the the bigger auction houses and the evening reception was packed out, perhaps boosted by the strong results from the sales the week before.

Argentinian Manuel Ameztoy (represented by Ginocchio & Vautier Projects) filled the far end of the hall with his acrylic-on-mylar suspended sculptures. As soon as my eyes had adjusted to these technicolour mobiles I was dazzled all over again by Bolivian Sonia Falcone's light installation at Salar Galería on the other side of the room.

There was a beautiful work by Uruguayan Marco Maggi at Josée Bienvenu Gallery (The Window, 2010, above) made from nearly 300 slide mounts cut with surgical precision. One of the more exciting discoveries, for me, was the Paris-based Galerie A.L.F.A, run by the very beautiful and charming Aude Lamorelle, whose stand was filled with drawings by Uruguayan Ricardo Lanzarini, including Recorrido, below, made from ink and pencil shavings.

London-based Pablo Leon de la Barra supervised the selected projects booths. An excellent public program kicked off on Thursday afternoon, including a fascinating panel with Carlos Basualdo of Philadelphia Museum of Art discussing museum strategies for collecting. I had a interesting chat with art advisor Ana Sokoloff afterwards - a connection enabled by my tutor at Essex, Professor Valerie Fraser. It turns out Ana had spoken at one of the university's Latin American art symposia in the past... Colchester to Manhattan... the world's getting smaller!

This wrapped up my time at PINTA and left me the weekend free to catch up with friends. During a shuffle around SoHo on Saturday morning, I came across one of the most beautiful boutiques I have ever seen: De Vera. Owned by Federico de Vera, the space feels like a jewellery designer has taken over the Sir John Soane museum. Necklaces, earrings and bracelets are made from coral, Tahitian pearls, Indian beads, Venetian glass and Victorian jet - and the results are breathtaking.

Rabbits make their own Booker Prize selection

2010-10-15T15:49:00.006+01:00

Found in the Londoner's Diary:

A north London housewife held a rival event to the Booker awards, by feeding the six shortlisted titles to rabbits Audrey and Harrison. Their progress can be seen on YouTube. The book they most enjoyed gnawing won the Bunny Booker award. Owner Carol Muskoron says the favourite was Tom McCarthy: “The rabbits seemed to be positively devouring his book.”

Here is the video of Audrey and Harrison picking through the pages of winning entry The Finkler Question.

Personalized bookshelf drawings

2010-09-22T11:19:00.006+01:00

Another reason why I love Etsy: you can now commission a gouache and ink drawing of your favourite books. This is a lovely idea, particularly after a morning trawling through very uninspiring wedding lists at JohnLewis.com. I'm going to ask the happy couple to list their favourite books instead.

The drawings, by American artist Jane Mount, can feature up to 16 books and are usually completed within three weeks. See a selection of ideal bookshelves here.

Star studded cast start filming epic TV adaptation Any Human Heart

2010-09-12T21:44:00.002+01:00

William Boyd's four part adaptation of his best-selling epic novel covers a life lived to the full and a myriad of historical events seen through the eyes of one man. Oscar winner Jim Broadbent (Iris, Longford) heads up the all star cast as the older incarnation of Boyd's literary everyman, Logan Mountstuart. The much admired actor plays the fictional writer through his final years: London in the '70s and '80s, the abject shame of poverty, unlikely heroism and his not-so-serene old age in '90s rural France.

Matthew Macfadyen (Frost/Nixon, Criminal Justice) takes Logan through middle age from the thrill and heartache of true love and the birth of his first child to scandal in the New York art scene in the '50s and '60s, via the horrors of war. Newcomer, Sam Claflin (The Pillars of the Earth) embodies the idealism, vitality and naivety of the young Logan, where his lust for life and women truly begins as a student in Oxford and then Paris in the 1920s.

Logan also has encounters with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor (Tom Hollander, Gosford Park, In the Loop and Gillian Anderson, The Last King of Scotland, Bleak House); Ernest Hemingway and Ian Fleming (Tobias Menzies, Rome, A Very Social Secretary).

The women in Logan's life are many and varied; newcomer Emerald Fennell plays the young writer's wife, Lottie, Hayley Atwell (The Prisoner, The Duchess) plays Freya; Logan's mistress and the love of his life, Natasha Little (The Boys Are Back, Mistresses) plays third wife Alannah and Kim Cattrall (Sex and the City, My Boy Jack) takes on the role of older Logan's glamorous lover Gloria.

Other cast in the ambitious four part serial include: Julian Rhind-Tutt (Green Wing, Stardust) playing revolutionary John Vivian, the older versions of Logan's two best friends are played by Ed Stoppard (Brideshead Revisited, The Pianist) as Ben and Samuel West (Margaret Thatcher: The Long Walk to Finchley, Cambridge Spies) as Peter. The cast also boasts a number of Britain's hottest upcoming talent including; Freddie Fox, Hugh Skinner, Charity Wakefield and Lydia Wilson.

Source: Channel 4

I write like....

2010-08-30T21:36:00.006+01:00

Aspiring writers are now able to buy a computer program that compares a sample of their literary efforts against a database culled from the books in the Gutenberg Top 100 and Wikipedia's list of bestselling titles.

As that would suggest, the results are amusing but hardly accurate. Is it a good thing to be told you write like James Joyce? On the other hand, Margaret Atwood, who is in the database, had a go and was told that she writes like Stephen King. Cut and paste your text at http://www.iwi.me/.

Source: Telegraph

One to watch: Anna Ricciardi

2010-08-02T11:32:00.005+01:00

A friend of mine put on a great show this weekend - La Perruque. The exhibition introduced recent work by five London-based international artists. Cecile Emmanuelle Borra, Roberto Ekholm, Neil McNally, Adrian Navarro and Anna Ricciardi.

In the spirit of Michel de Certeau's writings around cultural practices and relationships, the artists selected recent works that looked towards a shared sensibility, one which De Certeau describes in the French term la perruque. By way of small diversionary practices that speak of delinquencies, trickery and transgressions, we are invited to challenge the delineations that give status to the 'proper', the 'scientific' and the 'formal'.

One of the group is the highly talented Anna Ricciardi, whose work is invested in a visual language which encompasses 'trash' culture. Her explorations of narrative often act as a central point for referencing this subject, along with themes of temporality and performance. Her work features sculpture, painting, performance and text.

Desigual Kiss Tour hits London

2010-07-21T10:23:00.002+01:00

The London Kiss Party is a free kissing party for you, your friends, your family... for one and all. Everyone's invited to come and kiss whoever they like, however they like.

Guilty Pleasures and Moshi Moshi will animate the event with special DJ sets. Take inspiration from the greatest kissing scene of all time, Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity. Video here!!

London Kiss Party
Potters Field Park (near City Hall)
6pm, 28th July 2010

ICA: Rushes 2010

2010-07-21T10:13:00.002+01:00

It's short film mini-season again at the ICA. For the next week they will be showcasing new filmmaking talent and professional alike. The annual thrilling and diverse short film programme includes live action, documentary, fiction, animation and music promos.

Rushes 2010
21st - 28th July 2010
ICA, SW1.

The Ilusionist by Sylvain Chomet

2010-07-14T15:51:00.003+01:00

The Illusionist is an animated film based on a 1956 Jacques Tati script, penned as a love-letter to his estranged daughter. The movie tells the tale of a magician fallen on hard times who captures the imagination of a young girl.

This is the latest film by Belleville Rendez-vous creator Sylvain Chomet. Click here for a video tutorial on how to draw from the man himself.

In cinemas now.

£20m interactive display telling the story of London

2010-05-10T18:46:00.003+01:00

Three hundred and fifty years of history have been brought to life in a £20million revamp at the Museum of London.

After three years of work, curators want to the attraction to become 'world class' ahead of the 2012 Olympics.

The five new rooms, called the Galleries of Modern London, contain 7,000 objects and trace the story of the capital from the Great Fire in 1666 to the present day. Prison cells, mummified cats, rich silk dresses, art deco shoes and classic Vespa scooter reveal what life was like for people across the centuries.

Visitors can stroll through recreated Georgian pleasure gardens where mannequins are dressed in period costumes and outlandish hats by Philip Treacy. You can also see a 240-year-old printing press, one of only six surviving, plus 19th-century lottery tickets. A guest book from the no defunct Cafe Royal signed by charlie Chaplin is a star attraction. a WWII war room with a suspended bomb has been designed to capture the devastation of of the Blitz.

The museum's director, Prof Jack Lohman, said: "The galleries breathe new life into the museum, bringing our story of the greatest city in the world right up to date. It's thrilling to see our ambitious and complex project realised." The new rooms, which make the museum 24 per cent bigger, open on May 28th.

Source: Metro

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2010-05-05T10:12:00.002+01:00

The Start, Newmarket, signed A.J. Munnings

2010-03-30T16:21:00.004+01:00

This beautiful painting sold for £524,000 at Bonham's last week.

The 'start' of a race, to Sir Alfred Munnings, was the embodiment of the power of the thoroughbred horse and the suspense associated with racing. Munnings reveals in his memoirs that it was 'the groups, the movement and the colour' that inspired him and never failed to stir his soul and creative vision. 'Each start was a fresh picture for me, as they have been, meeting after meeting, year after year'.

For my AS History of Art project (back in 1997!) I studied the paintings of Vincent Haddelsey, a wonderful painter who is most famous for his naif-style pictures of horses at racecourses or in the field. In 1965, Haddelsey travelled to Mexico to paint members of the Charros tribe. He took part in a rodeo and was as a result invited to become the member of a Mexican association of elite horsemen. In 1980, he went on a journey to Mongolia, where he studied and painted the Mongolian pony. It is hard to find proper images of his work online, but I came across this painting ' After the run' at the Bridgeman Art Library:

'Spare me the misery lit' - Orange Prize judge

2010-03-23T14:41:00.006Z

In an article published in the Independent last week, poet and Orange Prize judge Daisy Goodwin said she felt 'like a social worker' by the end of choosing the long list.

What was more, she said, some of these novels suffered from the curse of the bookclub – 'a story with an issue at its heart rather than a book you can’t put down'.

'There was very little wit, and no jokes. If I read another sensitive account of a woman coming to terms with bereavement, I was going to slit my wrists. The misery memoir has transformed into misery literature. There were a large number of books that started with a rape, enough to make me think ‘Enough’. Call me old fashioned but I like a bit of foreplay in my reading... I turned my face against them.'

Journalist Arifa Akbar goes on to list several works of quality fiction that feature misery at its centre: MJ Hyland’s This is How, in which the lead character is dumped by his fiancée, drops out of university and ends up in prison. Last October, Annie Proulx’s collection Fine Just the Way It Is supplied an unmitigated blast of pessimism, with such stories as 'Tits Up in a Ditch' about an unhappy childhood and casualties from Iraq. Eva Hornung’s novel Dogboy, published last April, was set in contemporary Moscow and dealt with homelessness – one lead character is a starving, abandoned four-year-old boy who wanders the streets and finds comfort in suckling the teat of a mongrel stray. One grim scene features the boy capturing and eating a rat. Lionel Shriver’s latest book, So Much for That, explores themes of illness, death, shattered dreams and emotional cruelty, but it does, for all its misery, have an uplifting ending.

ACAVA Artists' Studios

2010-03-16T15:58:00.004Z

ACAVA provides affordable studios for 430 artists in 20 buildings across London. For a full list of vacancies click here.

The collective art of doing it on the cheap

2010-03-12T14:24:00.004Z

Laura Stott has written a brilliant article in the Times about how small groups are building their own contemporary art collections, without having Charles Saatchi's cheque book at their disposal.

The Collective is a founding art purchasing group consisting of seven London households, who all pay £35 a month into a shared fund to buy original art to hang in their homes. The group’s ethos is to live with and enjoy all the works they own. Members take it in turns to sit on a buying panel that chooses and purchases the works which are then displayed in everyone’s homes on a six-month rotation.

Read the full article here.

I suspect this model of collecting will become increasingly popular. Reading articles like that always makes me think of Dorothy and Herbert Vogel. Herbert worked as a postal clerk with the United States Postal Service, and Dorothy was a librarian in the Brooklyn Public Library. Over the years they built a large and impressive contemporary collection on their modest income. Their focus is conceptual art and minimalist art and the collection contains nearly 5,000 works, which they kept in their New York City apartment.

In 1992, they decided to transfer the entire collection to the National Gallery of Art in Washington. In late 2008, they launched a program that will donate 2,500 works to 50 institutions across 50 states. In the same year, an award winning documentary about their story, Herb and Dorothy, was released. Christopher Turner wrote an excellent article about the Vogels in the Telegraph a couple of years ago - read it here.

Image: Lost Art Salon

Cornelia Parker elected Royal Academician

2010-03-08T15:30:00.005Z

British sculptor Cornelia Parker is perhaps best known for a number of large-scale installations Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View (1991) and The Maybe (1995) a collaboration with actress Tilda Swinton, at the Serpentine Gallery.

In tandem with projects like these she has also made an ongoing series of smaller works entitled Avoided Object, working in collaboration with numerous institutions including HM Customs & Excise, The Royal Armouries and Madame Tussauds. She has works in the Tate Collection and several public and private collections in Europe and the USA.

I remember seeing Parker's Thirty Pieces of Silver (1993) at Fatima Maleki's house a couple of years ago, suspended from the ceiling in a corner of a sitting room. It blew me away and to hear that Parker has been elected a Royal Academician is fantastic news.

“I resurrect things that have been killed off... My work is all about the potential of materials - even when it looks like they've lost all possibilities.” - CP

Famous literary drunks

2010-02-24T10:27:00.003Z

No wonder so many writers seek a means of escape from reality. Life magazine has compiled a fascinating rogues gallery of 40 literary drunks and druggies from Charles Baudelaire ('Always be drunk…Get drunk militantly. Just get drunk’) and Brendan Behan ('I only take a drink on two occasions: when I’m thirsty and when I’m not’) to F Scott Fitzgerald ('First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you’) and the poet John Berryman. All the usual suspects are included: Kingsley Amis (alcohol), Edgar Allan Poe (opium), William Burroughs (heroin) and Stephen King (cocaine). Hunter S Thompson has the best line though: 'I wouldn’t recommend sex, drugs, or insanity for everyone, but they’ve always worked for me.’ But then he did end up blowing out his brains.

Above is a photograph of Anne Sexton (1928-1974). Winner of the 1967 Pulitzer Prize for poetry, Sexton was a popular and respected "confessional" poet (and former model) who battled depression and substance abuse for much of her life. She committed suicide at age 45 by carbon monoxide poisoning, locking herself in the garage with her car running.

The full line-up can be found here.

Source: Telegraph

Literary classics in comic book format...

2010-02-18T15:09:00.005Z

Most of us are familiar with the inevitable anxiety that comes with seeing a beloved book turned into a movie, but some stories can actually benefit from a little cross-media reinterpretation. Amid the medium’s own rapid ascension toward highbrow acceptance, the graphic novel has proved a flexible format for literary adaptation, transforming texts into improved visual narratives without eliminating the reading process.

Now, with a spate of recently published and upcoming graphic adaptations making headlines — including Robert Crumb’s The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb and the sure-to-be-divisive Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Graphic Novel — FlavorWire recommend ten classic works that have been effectively translated into comic books. Check out the list here.

Source: FlavorWire

Saturday night's alright for fightin'...

2010-02-18T15:00:00.006Z

Urban Junkies had a little item about Scrap Club this morning....

Ever feel like going a little rock’n’roll, heaving the old (non HD-ready) TV out of the window and taking a baseball club to your ex’s car? For the angst–ridden, aggressive amongst you, Scrap Club could be the answer – turn up at this ‘Destructivist’ meet and take hammer, crowbar and bat to as many household objects as you like. It’s loosely based on art, but largely centered around 150 people’s collective rage against the (washing) machine.

If that's just not tough enough then why don't you head down to Margate Beach on 20th February to use artist Anthony Schrag as your human punch-bag? Schrag is interested in making a direct physical connection with his audience, even if it means he ends up pinned to a wrestling mat.

The Zimbabwean-born artist, currently based in Glasgow, has made a career producing work that celebrates physical challenge. Perhaps the most extreme manifestation of Schrag's work is his wrestling series, in which the artist invites all-comers to take him on in a single round of wrestling.

The fights will take place in a striped tent, which the artist is constructing in homage to Mr Punch. 'For me, Punch is the symbol of joyful disorder: the moment when we lose our heads and reject the drab order and bureaucracy of the everyday.'

Scrap Club
6.30pm-10.30pm Saturday 20th February 2010
Stamford Works, Dalston.

Wrasslin' by Anthony Schrag
2pm-4pm Saturday 20th February 2010
The Punch & Judy gazebo, Margate Beach

Source: Urban Junkies

'It doesn't matter because I win. I exist.'

2010-02-16T20:10:00.005Z

People used to tell Billy Childish that, one day, he would receive the recognition he deserved. The problem was they all tended to think that this would most likely happen some time after he had died. It wasn’t that he hadn’t made a name for himself — he is established in the minds of many as a moustachioed, compulsive creator of art (more than 2,500 paintings), poetry (40 volumes) and garage punk (100-odd albums and counting), who inhabits a nostalgic micro-existence in his home town of Chatham in Kent. Rather it was that the British cosmopolitan art world found him too “lumpy”.

He chuckles. “They’ve have always tried to portray what I do as ‘outsider’,” he says. “ ‘Wacky’ or ‘freaky’. They do it because they know I’m intelligent. They know I can argue my point, so they think it’s best to dismiss me before I do.”

Next week, though, a Childish exhibition called Unknowable but Certain opens at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. It’s dedicated to every facet of his output. After 33 years of painting, his work is being “recognised by a public body”.

A pocket biography will tell of his unhappy family life, his sexual abuse at the age of 9, his expulsion from Central St Martins School of Art, his lack of formal artistic training, his alcoholism. Now, at 50, a few missing lower teeth lend him a damp, gentle lisp. In his hallway is a map showing the location of V1 flying bombs downed in Kent. There are also almost a dozen hobnailed boots, assorted army helmets, boxes of health food and lots and lots of his own paintings, each, in the words of his fellow artist Peter Doig, “expert in its basic-ness”.

Art, to Childish, means materials, physicality, engagement and craft. People today — especially those young people caught up in the new nostalgia for activities such as the Women’s Institute, camping, knitting and so on — should find more in his work to sustain them than, say, the recent TV reality series School of Saatchi.

“The enemy for me would be someone like Andy Warhol,” he says. “I can understand why he might have thought it was a good idea at the time, but it’s become a model that people have used to propel artists into stardom and celebrity. Which isn’t the reason I got into art.”

There has always been a sense that Childish (born Steven John Hamper) quite enjoys having enemies, or at least, relishes a line in the sand. He famously co-founded the Stuckist art movement in 1999, to promote figurative painting and oppose conceptual art, only to quit the group 18 months later. He’s a sweet man who will wax eloquent about Buddhist principles but seems to have a knack of falling out with people (from his admirers Jack White and Kylie Minogue to his former girlfriend Tracey Emin, pictured right). Is he, at heart, a prickly sod?

He says he’s glad Damien Hirst is now painting “and meeting his limitation, which must be the most refreshing thing for him on God’s Earth”. He sips his tea and leans back. “Because when you meet limitation you meet yourself, ego is bounded and spiritual evolution is possible.”

Many people would argue that Childish doesn’t have to go far to meet his own limitations. That he “can’t paint” is one of the two big misconceptions he believes exist about him (the other is that he’s “motivated by bitterness”). But the reason he paints, and paints so much, is, basically, because he loves the process. “It’s making mud pies. It’s not an effort for me. People can’t understand that there’s not some huge effort that goes into being me. I’m actually one of the laziest people you’ll meet. If it was any effort, I wouldn’t do it.”

“But now the critics will have to look at what I do and admit it exists. And they can either slate it or say it’s good. It doesn’t matter, because I win.” He smiles. “I exist."

Unknowable but Certain is at the ICA, SW1 from Feb 17 to April 18

Check out a video interview with the artists here.

Source: Times

Crash @ Gagosian, Britannia Street

2010-02-12T13:25:00.005Z

Last night I went to the opening show of Crash, a major group exhibition which takes its title from the famous novel by JG Ballard.

Ballard's novels stand among the most provocative literature of the twentieth century, with his ominous predictions regarding the fate of Western culture and his insights into the psychopathology of the human race.

This exhibition is a response to the enduring cultural significance of his work, following his death in spring 2009.

The exhibition brings together works by artists tuned to the Ballardian universe, from his contemporaries such as Ed Ruscha, Richard Hamilton, Andy Warhol and Helmut Newton, to younger artists such as Tacita Dean, Jenny Saville, Glenn Brown and Mike Nelson.

Crash @ Gagosian, Britannia St WC1. 11th February - 1st April 2010

Image: Triple Exposure (1), 2001 by Ohn Hilliard and Jemima Stehli

2009's oddest book titles

2010-02-11T09:11:00.004Z

The nominees for a favourite literary award — The Bookseller Diagram Prize for the Oddest Title of the Year — have been announced. With over 90 titles submitted this year, the long list consists of the 49 oddest titles as determined by Horace Bent, the Bookseller diarist who oversees the award.

Since its creation in 1978 at the Frankfurt Book Fair, winners have included Oral Sadism and the Vegetarian Personality (1986), How to Avoid Large Ships (1992), and Living with Crazy Buttocks (2002).

Source: Flavorwire

Other Criteria's Valentine Picks

2010-02-11T08:55:00.003Z

You’re dating an arty type, but get the distinct feeling a home-made paper-maché heart just won’t cut the mustard this year. Check out Damien Hirst's publishing company Other Criteria's arty Valentine’s picks for the culture vulture in your life – choose from Damien Hirst pill cufflinks, Danny Moynihan’s History of Erotic Photography, Gary Hume’s Two Roses and John Isaacs love ring cushions.

Source: Urban Junkies

Matthew Barney @ Sadie Coles HQ

2010-02-09T08:42:00.002Z

This new show features drawings related to the American artist's 'Ancient Evenings' performance project. Based on Norman Mailer's symbolic and erotically charged noel of 1983 reimagining ancient Egyptian mythology and ritual, the operatic performance piece is structure according to the seven stages the soul passes through after death.

It transposes the central myth of Isis and Osiris into a contemporary industrialised dystopia: the opening installment in 2007 supplanted the entombed body for the battered Chrysler that also featured prominently in Barney's film Cremaster 3 (2002).

Encased in self-lubricating plastic frames, Barney's highly intricate drawings variously allude to masquerade, mythology and the cycle of death and reincarnation. Diagrammatic and textual elements underline the drawings' allegorical nature, such as the five-cornered polygon labelled 'Five Points Make a Man', a Byers title derived from Leonardo's Vitruvian Man. Several of the works also contain alchemical ingredients - gold, silver and copper leaf and bright blue Lapis pigment.

The show also features working storyboards for the Ancient Evenings project, installed in seven freestanding cabinets and consisting of photography, clipart, drawing and collage. Like the drawings, these form a conceptual analogue to the performance.

This is Barney's second show with Sadie Coles HQ. Coles started out in the art world as a gallery director for Anthony d'Offay, opening her own gallery in April 1997. She made her name by being one of the first champions of Sarah Lucas (one of the original YBAs), and now has some of the scene's hottest properties on her books including 2005 Turner Prize nominee Jim Lambie, figurative American painter John Currin and the late Angus Fairhurst.

Matthew Barney @ Sadie Coles HQ, 69 South Audley St W1
27th January - 7th March 2010

Giacometti stands tall

2010-02-05T19:30:00.007Z

A sculpture by Alberto Giacometti has become the most expensive piece of art sold at auction. The life-sized bronze work L'homme qui marche I (pictured) sold for £65,001,250 - yes, really - after just eight minutes of bidding at Sotheby's. The previous record was Picasso's Boy With a Pipe, which sold for £58.4m in 2004.

This really is a record. Dealers expected the sculpture to go for around £40m and apparently there were audible gasps, then laughter, as the piece went above £50m. The new owner hid his identity behind an anonymous telephone bid.

This sale demonstrates an extraordinary leap in prices over such a short timespan but it should be noted that while records were broken with L'Homme Qui Marche, a small Giacometti bust that followed it in the same sale actually failed to sell.

Source: Independent

Awkward Stock Photos

2010-01-30T21:49:00.002Z

One of the reasons posting is so enjoyable is because I get the opportunity to find exactly the right image to express what I mean. But in the process of finding the perfect picture it's inevitable you will come across some real howlers. The kind folk at Awkward Stock Photos have compiled the worst of the bunch.

This is the place to visit if you've ever needed a picture of a child's face emerging from a banana, a terrapin strapped to a rocket, or a large number of multi-coloured condoms hanging on a washing line to dry.

Via Metro

Write or Die - a new evil program

2010-01-30T21:27:00.004Z

If your new year's resolution was to finish that novel / blog / finish with your boyfriend via email but you lack the willpower to do it, why not download Write Or Die, the (evil) genius program?

A metaphorical gun to the lazy writer's head, if you stop typing or drop below your preset number of words per hour, it starts deleting what you've written so far. Other features include a forced full-screen mode so that you can't get sucked in to surfing the internet until you reach your goals.

Considering I need to churn out 80,000 words by 2013 for my PhD this seems like quite an attractive idea.

Masochists can download the program here.

Via Grazia

Join The Silver Library on Twitter!

2010-01-30T21:12:00.004Z

I finally set up a Twitter account. Please follow us if you can!

The Wapping Project Bookshop

2010-01-30T20:42:00.003Z

The bookshop is the latest addition to the remarkable Wapping Project. Set in a tiny greenhouse surrounded by bamboo and clovers it is full of wonderful titles from limited edition art and design books to children’s tales, cookery books and a collection of contemporary magazines, all displayed in metal cages. During winter an antique wood-burning stove warms the shop’s park bench while come spring the bookshop spills out into the tumbledown garden allowing customers to read their newspapers while settled in the sun.

On Thursday evenings performers dream up tales helped by the audience. This year journalists Rosie Boycott is co-hosting '5x15' (five speakers, 15 minutes each) nights in London, where adventurers, philosophers and artists share true stories about their personal passions. Forthcoming readers include Martin Amis, Jackie Kay, Jeanette Winterson and Edna O' Brien.

Bookshop opening hours: Friday – 5.30pm to 10.30pm; Saturday – 10.30am to 10.30pm; Sunday – 10.30am to 5.00pm. Contact Lydia Fulton for more details.

And this is why I've been away...

2010-01-30T20:34:00.007Z

A few loyal readers have very sweetly been pestering me to update The Silver Library. Well, the librarian is back, and I owe you an explanation. I've been busy launching an online boutique - Juno Says Hello. We sell vintage cocktail dresses and have a fantastic selection of frocks in all sizes. We operate from a studio in Clerkenwell, London but we deliver all over the world.

Please join our sister blog here or follow us on Twitter to keep up to date with sales and promotions.

Thanks for being so patient y'all.

15 fabulous books about books

2010-01-30T19:37:00.005Z

Is there anything better than to read a book... about a book, or books, or bookshops, or author, or the pleasure and processes of reading, or collecting, or being addicted to books? The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett, one of Abebooks.com 's bestsellers in 2009, was the latest addition to the long list of books about books (or in this case a book thief) to capture the attention of bibliophiles. With classics like Fahrenheit 451, The Haunted Bookshop and on 84 Charing Cross Rd on this list, you cannot go wrong.

Image: Kreugan

See your life story on stage

2010-01-13T14:58:00.004Z

Evening Standard readers are invited to share their life stores in just 100 words - a whole life in a condensed form or describe one moment that is particularly pertinent.

The winning entry will be performed alongside Bette Bourne's story - Soho legend and pioneer of gay theatre - as part of an Evening Standard reader evening at 7pm on Wednesday 10th February at Soho Theatre followed by A Life in Three Acts at 7.30pm.

Readers are also invited to nominate the living actor they would like to see perform as their on-stage character - the production team will do their best to make this a reality!

To enter visit standard.co.uk/offers - closing date for entries 31st January 2010.

The Fine Art of Flattery

2010-01-11T14:32:00.003Z

Peter Aspden reviews Gordon Burn's collection of writing on the YBAs:

There is so much that is irritating about this collection of writing on contemporary art by the late critic and novelist Gordon Burn that the project nearly sinks entirely.

Burn, who died this year at the age of 61, adored being part of the Young British Artist scene, cavorting with its louche stars and ascribing spurious philosophical importance to its often paltry work. His writing is deft and erudite, to be sure. Yet the flaw of these always lively essays is that he is simply too close to his subjects.

The foreword by Damien Hirst and David Peace is blighted by sycophancy and Hirst’s disingenuous populism: “I just loved what he wrote about me. Because there’s so much shit isn’t there? With art writing ... People who have swallowed dictionaries.” But Burn was no punk writer. His range of references was wide and sophisticated: he zips from Don DeLillo to Walter Benjamin, clinching the argument with a reference to reality TV.

Sex & Violence, Death & Silence is punctuated with reproductions of various billets-doux to Burn from Tracey, Damien and the gang. With each blowing of a kiss, we mistrust more and more Burn’s ability to keep a distance.

His relationship with Hirst is both the heart of the book and its intellectual core, and the author is too shrewd not to recognise the dangers of their friendship: his ears “burned”, he says, when he read a description of Roland Penrose as “Picasso’s lickspittle”.

Yet Burn does little to correct himself. He finds charm in just about every move Hirst makes, recalling tenderly his “coaching” on how to take cocaine, and seeing improbable profundity in Hirst’s glib epigrams.

Burn’s ebullience, rare in a critic, is refreshing. But only up to a point. Some of his judgments are baffling. In an essay on Francis Bacon, written just three years ago, he concludes that “post-Nauman, post-Hirst, post-Chapmans”, the painter’s work seems “overcooked, shouty, despairing and fetishising of death in a dated way”. Really? What would he think today of Hirst’s pallid homages to Bacon?

He contrasts American Pop artists (“among the first to understand the desire of consumers to change their lives through the purchase of clean, manufactured commodities”) with the YBAs’ interest “in the dirt that accrues beneath the laminated surface of shiny things”. This is so off the mark it beggars belief. Had he never seen a Hirst spot painting? Or the type of person who bought them? Burn scarcely talks about the extraordinary relationship between Hirst and the art market, by far the most interesting thing about the artist.

But the articles on the YBAs are thankfully only half the story. Burn is much better on the earlier generation of British artists, David Hockney, Peter Blake, Patrick Caulfield, where his criticism is less complicit. The irony is that it is Burn’s other writing – Somebody’s Husband, Somebody’s Son, on the Yorkshire Ripper case, Happy Like Murderers, on the mass killers Fred and Rosemary West – that offers the true insights into the themes of sex, death and silence occupying this slight-by-comparison volume. Unembarrassed about the fascination we have with the mechanics of mortality, he wrote about it in a far more nuanced way than his artist friends.

Burn was by all accounts a vibrant presence; his best work hums with authenticity. It is easy to see how he was drawn by the energy that has surrounded Britain’s liveliest art form for the past two decades. But he was less infantile in his explorations of humanity’s darkness than some of his subjects.

Burn loved contemporary art because, as he says of Andy Warhol, “the excitement of being a modern person was still coursing through his veins”. He was in love with newness, and needed his mind to keep moving, like a shark.

Source: FT.com

What's been cooking...

2009-12-11T16:57:00.012Z

I've neglected The Silver Library for a while... very naughty as some of the most interesting stuff goes on in winter, but I've been busy with the launch of my online boutique, Juno Says Hello. We went live on Friday 27th November - and although I'm a long way from sitting back and sucking on the bonbons, I can at least dedicate a bit more time to things that were beginning to get overlooked.

This post is going to be a mishmash catch-up of all the clippings and notebooks scribbles I have accumulated over the last two months.

First of all, I hate coming across something that would have made a great post, had I blogged about it on schedule. This was the case with the Durham's Lumiere show a couple of weeks ago. The above image is taken from an installation in the Botanical Gardens - a breathtaking exhibition in the style of old-fashioned son et lumière spectaculars.

Another event I was determined to blog about on time (but missed) was the ArtBarter London auction. The idea was to help cash-strapped art lovers being invited to bid for works in exchange for anything but cash via a 'swap shop'. Browsers could submit an offer for each item, from anything from fixing a boiler to second hand goods, and the artist decided which proposal to accept.

The online gallery featured established and up-and-coming artists and included contributions from Tracey Emin, Gavin Turk, Gary Hume and Boo Saville, although the works were offered anonymously and bidders did not know whose art they were getting until they bought it.

The idea was the brainchild of London curators Lauren Jones and Alix Janta. 'We've got a couple of chefs coming who could cook an artist dinner. Some people might have a holiday home they are not using, or there might even be a plumber who could offer their services'.

As far as proper exhibitions go, the best shows this year were recent visits: Glenn Brown at Gagosian and Grayson Perry at Victoria Miro. Brown's evocation of images - from Rococo to Mannerist, Expressionist and Surrealist - are highly disturbing. Star Dust, 2009, is pictured right. Grayson's Walthamstow Tapestry is phenomenal. I'm embarrassed to say that, even though I only live a 15 minute bus ride from Victoria Miro Gallery, it was the first time I had visited the space. It is simply amazing, and I urge anyone who lives in London to make the trek up to Wharf Rd N1, regardless of who is showing. The other show from this year that really sticks in my mind is Raqib Shaw at White Cube.

Another highlight was listening to the formidable Diana Athill discuss her memoirs, Somewhere Near the End, at Foyles Bookshop on Charing Cross Rd. I keep getting lovely invitations from The Book Club, a club on Leonard St but just haven't had the time to check it out. January will be different - things are quieter at work and if the central heating situation in my flat doesn't improve, I'll take every excuse not to hang out at home. So back at the coal face for TSL...

Have a brilliant Christmas and New Year!

In the Bleak Mid-Winter...

2009-11-16T11:45:00.004Z

Today is a freakishly sunny day for London in November, but don't kid yourselves: winter is coming. Seasonal Affective Disorder is kicking in and we're only weeks away from the relationship meltdown that is New Year's Eve.

One of my fave websites, AbeBooks, has compiled a list of desperately bleak books. There is nuclear fallout, the Holocaust, government oppression, poverty, mental illness and the savage nature of humanity itself. Still feeling sorry for yourself?

The Road, a heart-breaking novel of unending post-apocalyptic horror including cannibalism and violence, easily topped the list. Suckers for punishment are now able to enjoy (endure) the movie version of McCarthy's novel, released in cinemas earlier this month.

Bizarrely, there are three Oprah Winfrey Book Club picks in the list - The Road, Elie Wiesel's Holocaust novel, Night, and Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye - a novel of racism, incest and cruelty. Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged has undergone a massive revival over the past 12 months with many critics relating the book's collapsing society to the world's current economic woes - it is also one of five books on the list published in the 1950s (along with Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four from 1949). Was the 1950s really such a depressing period for authors?
On the Beach by Nevil Shute is a true product of its time. Published in 1957, this end-of-the-world novel reflected the nuclear arms race of the period. One of the book's many bleak themes is government-sponsored suicide in the face of radiation.

Sylvia Plath's own suicide shortly after the publication of her semi-autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar, adds a depressing note of realism to the list. Her book continues to resonate with readers today - and has even inspired a 'literary tattoo', as seen below. Get a manicure, girl!

This weekend The Independent published it's own list of Winter reads... although its recommendations were much more uplifting. Highlights include Roberto Bolano's epic 2666, Scott Schuman's The Sartorialist and Selina Hastings' biography of Somerset Maugham. Books still make the best Christmas presents.

A Brief Guide for Professionals

2009-11-15T18:06:00.003Z

Even with addiction you can see the funny side. This week, Rapt the charity that takes 12-step recovery for addiction into prisons, has launched 19 Raptures - 19 health education and self-help leaflets written by the likes of Will Self, Tracey Emin and Sebastian Horsley, among others, to give their own personal - and amusing - take on the pitfalls of addiction.

Emin's guide, entitled A Brief Guide for Professionals ( a rewrite of a leaflet for addiction counsellors), describes a catastrophic night of her own 'professional drinking'. There is a wonderful moment when her toe gets caught in her crocheted rug and she trips over some lamb hearts she was having earlier for supper. Such insights into the life of our most fashionable artist.

Source: Independent

Everybody's favourite tranny potter

2009-11-15T17:38:00.003Z

Turner Prize-winning artist Grayson Perry goes from strength to strength. This autumn he exhibited his largest work to date, a monumental tapestry that is three metres high by fifteen metres long.

Designed specifically for Victoria Miro's architecture, The Walthamstow Tapestry runs the entire length of the top floor exhibition space, alongside a number of new ceramic works.

Charting man's passage from birth to death, the tapestry (below) is peppered with leading brand names such as Sony and Louise Vuitton. Perry is a great chronicler of contemporary life and this work is an absolute masterpiece. The show was an extended an extra week due to popular demand and I'm so glad I managed to catch it before it closed.

Grayson was in the news recently talking about how he was inspired to create a pot after watching open-heart surgery at one of Britain's top hospitals.

He recorded the drama at Harefield hospital on a pot called Urn for the Living which was auctioned off last month to raise money for research into cardiac procedures.

There's an interesting little video of Grayson here (not dressed up Clare, his alter ego) talking about the importance of being unique and different. I saw him at this year's Frieze and his outfits get more and more eccentric. The strange thing is, when he's back in his 'normal' clothes (often biker leathers) he manages to look unbelievably masculine and attractive, which is a pretty hard trick to pull off!

The Museum of Everything

2009-11-12T10:51:00.003Z

Tucked away behind Regent's Park, housed in a former dairy and one-time recording studio, is a new gem of an art space. The Museum of Everything houses what founder James Brett calls "Unintentional Art" - that is, art created for passion and personal exploration, rather than as a professional pursuit. The art is weird, wonderful, and frequently, mind-bogglingly bonkers.

Brett, a British film-maker, has been collecting Unintentional Art for the best part of a decade, and his collection, along with others, will make up the space. 'This art is visceral and detached from the mainstream. I think think it has great appeal, now that the formal art market is so commodified,' says Brett, who has invited artists who curate pieces from his collection and add their own finds. Ed Ruscha, Paul Noble, Annie Morris, Idris Khan, Jarvis Cocker and others have keenly undertaken the mission.

The Museum of Everything
Sharpleshall Street, NW1

Source: Vogue

Claudia in the clutches of modern art

2009-11-12T10:25:00.010Z

Inspired by the art-loving supermodel, a host of names have produced works for the latest edition of Harper's Bazaar magazine.

Among the most striking are a series of pictures by Jake and Dinos Chapman, who directed their first magazine photoshoot as part of the project.

The brothers present her as a 40s style heroine fighting the forces of evil - with a bit of lingerie and light bondage thrown in. 'It's important I tie her up personally,' says Dinos. 'This is my biggest triumph. It's every boy's dream to tie Claudia Schiffer up'.

The images are currently on show at the Colnaghi Gallery on Old Bond Street.

Source: Evening Standard

Archival Sound Recordings

2009-10-26T12:51:00.003Z

One thousand hours of archive recordings of leading figures from Salman Rushdie to Quentin Crisp are going online for the first time.

The British Library is making available more than 880 tapes of conversations collected at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in the 1980s on subjects including literature, philosophy, fashion, film and many more.

Listen to Jacques Derrida and Geoffrey Bennington in conversation, or Matthew Hoffman interviewing J. G. Ballard about his book, 'Empire of the Sun'.

If that's all too heavy duty there is a superb selection of birdsong. Check out this link to listen to the dawn chorus from coniferous woodland in Loch Garten, Scotland.

Shelter's House of Cards campaign

2009-10-24T20:43:00.004+01:00

UK homeless charity Shelter has commissioned 52 artists and designers, including Vivienne Westwood and Damien Hirst, to create a card each. On the left is Rankin's striking contribution.

In tandem this initiative is an integrated TV ad campaign featuring Radiohead's track 'Videotape' and a voiceover by actress Samantha Morton, who experienced homelessness before she became famous. The campaign focuses on the vulnerability of people affected by repossession.

Cards cost £70 for an A5-sized pack. Buy online here.

Make your own Hirst / Emin / Banksy

2009-08-30T14:46:00.005+01:00

The folks at iartistlondon have designed the world's first affordable masterpiece DIY sets. Urging customers to 'free the artist within' these kits enable you to make real contemporary works of art from the comfort of your own home.

Products include Damien Hirst's For the Love of God (contents: plastic human size skull, 8601 crystal beads, glue, paintbrush, tweezers, silver paint, instructions) as well as several Banksy stencils and, for the more adventurous, a kit to help you reproduce Marc Quinn's Self (contents: PVC blood bag, alginate, plaster bandages, cotton, face cream, disposable gloves, silicon swimming hat, band-aid, instructions). Old-school Blue Peter fun and at £20 a pop perfect for those saving their pennies for Frieze.

Mens Suits @ Chiltern Fire Station

2009-08-30T14:23:00.008+01:00

I have to admit I'd never heard of Seattle-born artist Charles Ledray until a couple of months ago, but as soon as the ArtAngel behemoth takes some one under their wing publicity (and success) is guaranteed. Ledray has been commissioned to make an installation from hundreds of different elements in a range of different materials: men's clothing - suits, shirts, ties, gloves, display racks and stands, laundry bags and fluorescent lights, especially adapted to a miniature scale.

This mise-en-scene is a sculptural equivalent of a still life - a three-dimensional tableau which engages with the theme of the memento mori. The work took three years to complete and is Ledray's first major presentation in Europe. I loved this show and highly recommend it. There is something very spooky about seeing so many tiny clothes... within minutes of arrival I started thinking about the shrunken men who might fit into them. And then I had a visual of the midget in the red cape from Don't Look Now. It was game over after that and I had to leave, but the strangeness didn't end there: Chiltern St is one of the freakiest places in London. There are no fewer than five shoe shops catering for women and trannies who want high heels in sizes 9-14. The boutiques don't even bother with euphemisms - who the hell wants to carry a shopping bag that says 'Magnus' or, worse still, 'Elephant Feet' on it?!

MENS SUITS @ The Fire Station, 1 Chiltern St. W1
11th July - 20th September 2009

The Book Club Boutique

2009-08-15T11:54:00.004+01:00

The Book Club Boutique is London’s newest literary salon and Soho’s only free weekly spoken-word book club. It was created by poet and raconteuse Salena Godden and her partner-in-crime Rachel Rayner in the cosy basement bar of ‘Dick’s Bar’ at 23 Romilly Street. Together they programme a different event and bookish theme each week, inviting the cream of both page and stage, with Salena as the resident poet and hostess. The salon brings poets, authors and book lovers together to hear new and established writers, spoken word acts, and eclectic music in an informal speakeasy environment. There is dancing, merriment and mingling over cocktails and a different DJ every week.

I met Salena back in her Salena Saliva days when she would perform as part of ska-punk-breakbeat duo SaltPeter. She was raiding my car for beer (in a nice way) at a festival in Cornwall. And talking of festivals... some one emailed me this recently. Very funny.

Book Club Boutique @ ‘Dick’s Bar’ The Green Fingernail, 23 Romilly Street, Soho
Every Monday from 7pm. Free Entry

Tattershall Castle in Lincolnshire becomes contemporary art venue

2009-08-15T11:37:00.007+01:00

This Lincolnshire 15th century medieval castle, owned by the National Trust, will be transformed into a spectacular contemporary art gallery.

Built in 1434-46 by Ralph Cromwell, Lord Treasurer to Henry VI, it will now host the 'House of Bling' exhibition. The artists have been commissioned to produce new art works inspired by the building's history. Each artist will work within a specific area of the five-storey monument including the cellars and surrounding grounds.

Artist Sarah Price is a Chelsea Flower Show silver medallist and will be designer of the botanical garden for the 2012 Olympic Park. She has been has been selected to create a secret wild garden in the castle grounds. Over the centuries, Tattershall Castle fell into disrepair and ruin but was rescued and restored in 1912. Price's garden is inspired by the period when the castle was abandoned and overgrown. The show will also feature work by artist Geraldine Pilgrim, founder of Corridor, a group who deal in performances installations. Below is a photograph of her 2007 work at Belsay Hall. That is basically how my flat looks after the weekend.

House of Bling @ Tattershall Castle (National Trust). Tattershall, Lincolnshire.
11am-5pm, 8th - 23rd August 2009Saturday 8 August to Sunday 23 August 2009.

Dear Undercover Economist...

2009-07-22T08:02:00.004+01:00

Tim Harford is the genius behind the FT Weekend Dear Economist column. He has an amazing talent for using economic theory to answer questions ranging from "Will more money make me happier?" to "I'm looking for The One. Is he out there?", though my personal favourite is "How do you turn 'f*** all' into 'something'?" from a frustrated painter in West Norwood.

A collection of Harford's favourite columns from 2003-2008 will be published on 6th August. His notes from the introduction describe how even at best the economist can seem a remote figure: infinitely rational, untroubled by indecision or weakness of the will, a Spock-like creature too perfect to be able to relate to mere human concerns. At worst the economist can look like a social naïf, if not an outright sociopath; a man (or occasionally a woman) who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

At least such is the traditional image of the economist. Dear Economist is not, it would be fair to say, as sympathetic as more traditional agony aunts. He is blunt. He is rude. He loves jargon. When confronted with a woman who enjoys the dating game but worries that she might leave it too late to settle down, Dear Economist offers not a shoulder to cry on but a frank explanation of optimal experimentation theory. When a dinner party guest wonders how much to spend on a bottle of wine, Dear Economist ignores the Good Wine Guide and reaches for the Journal of Wine Economics.

You can buy the book online here.

Image: Fran Monks

Dark little fairy stories

2009-07-18T22:31:00.009+01:00

Artists and storytelling go together like peas and carrots, but it's tricky to find a show that really illustrates how closely the two are intertwined.

Telling Tales is a new exhibition at the V&A dedicated to revealing the link between fantasy and contemporary design.

The show is divided into three sections: The Forest Glade, The Enchanted Castle and Heaven & Hell. Some of the best pieces on display are the twisted creations of design collective Studio Job. If I had a limitless budget (and a very understanding husband) I would decorate my entire house in their furniture. Joroen Verhoeven's sublime Cinderella Table would look perfect in my dream kitchen. Sebastian Brajkovic's love-seat (below) should feel intimate but actually reminds me of messy conversations with inappropriate lovers.

The Heaven & Hell section is particularly interesting... a gelatinous pool of blood on the floor loses all violent undertones when you read the artist used the exact amount of blood conjoined from two human bodies. Suddenly the work is about connection, rather than loss. A series of post-apocalyptic furniture designed by Dunne & Raby brings humour (of sorts) to nuclear holocaust.

The exhibition leaflet quacks on about the difference between art objects and design works. This is not necessary. The difference is simple: design has use of any kind. There is, however, an excellent series of events accompanying the exhibition, including workshops and talks. Check out the calendar here.

Over in WC2 the Courtauld Gallery has a show dedicated to artists and storytelling, curated by the students on the Courtauld Institute's MA course. The works on display range from nineteenth-century illustrations to contemporary video art, demonstrating how our enduring need to tell stories has been an ongoing source of fascination for artists. The show brings together work by artists such as Walter Crane, Oskar Kokoschka, Paul Gauguin, Paula Rego, Gillian Wearing and Tracey Emin, to address issues such as truth, memory, loss of innocence and sexual awakening.

Telling Tales @ V&A Museum, South Kensington.
14th July - 18th October 2009

Once Upon A Time... Artist & Storytelling @ Courtauld Gallery, The Strand
25th June - 26th July 2009

Image: Kelly McCallum's taxidermy sculpture with 18-carat gold maggots @ Telling Tales

Fashion photography sets for sale

2009-07-18T12:02:00.006+01:00

SHOWstudio.com was founded on the idea of showing the process behind the creation of fashion imagery - and there is now a retail space (part live studio, part gallery) where the public can purchase part of this creative process and indeed part of fashion's history.

For the first time, the SHOWstudio will offer for sale some of the spectacular props from iconic photographic shoots and catwalk shows, including a miniaturised Victorian greenhouse and oversized cherries created by Simon Costin for a Tim Walker campaign with Coco Rocha; the illuminated dollar-sign from their 2003 project SHOOT; a Union Jack customised by John Galliano for Nick Knight's 2001 portrait (above left); and that stuffed Bengal tiger seen (alongside its very real counterpart) in Nick Knight's imagery for Alexander McQueen PUMA footage.

Check out all items for sale here.

SHOWstudio SHOP, 1-9 Bruton Place W1, open 11am-6pm Tuesday-Saturday)

Kit Williams & the golden hare

2009-07-18T10:31:00.012+01:00

Masquerade is a children's book published in 1979, written and painted by Kit Williams, left, which sparked a worldwide treasure hunt by concealing clues to the location of a jewelled golden hare, created and hidden somewhere in Britain by the author.

The book featured fifteen exquisite, detailed paintings illustrating the story of Jack Hare, who seeks to carry a treasure from the Moon (depicted as a woman) to her love object, the Sun (a man). On arriving at the sun, Jack finds he has lost the treasure, and the reader is left to find its location. The treasure had to be discovered through the visual clues in the book, and Williams went as far as sealing the jewel inside a clay casket specifically to foil metal detectors.

Williams said that the treasure was "as likely to be found by a bright child of ten with an understanding of language, simple mathematics and astronomy as it is to be found by an Oxford don."

The solution to the Masquerade puzzle is both elaborate and elegant: in each painting, lines should be drawn from each animal's eyes through their longest digits to a letter in the border. The resulting letters form individual words, revealed either by anagrams or by applying the order hinted at by the Sir Isaac Newton painting, right, in which all of the creatures of the book are represented as puppets hanging in a line from left to right.

The hare was buried in Bedfordshire, close to a cross dedicated to Catherine of Aragon, at the furthest point cast by the shadow of the monument at noon on the Vernal equinox.

Thirty years after the book was written the author has broken his silence to call for the owner of the jewelled amulet, which was eventually sold to an anonymous overseas bidder at a Sotheby's auction in 1988 for £31,000.

The book has been out of print for 20 years yet there remains a small but dedicated subculture of treasurehunt obsessives, see photo left. The enthusiasm was too much for Williams to endure, and he vowed never to get involved in treasure hunting again. In 1984 the author wrote another puzzle book with a bee theme; the puzzle was to figure out the title of the book and represent it without using the written word. This competition ran for just a year and a day and the winner was revealed on the live TV chatshow Wogan.

Now living in Gloucestershire, the artist's most notable recent work is his Wishing Fish Clock that hangs in Regents Arcade in Cheltenham.

The (Alain de) Botton Line

2009-07-17T23:31:00.005+01:00

The Independent's excellent Friday arts diary notes that the writer, Alain de Botton - who was once one of the founders of the modern day literary salon (of sorts) called School of Life - said that he only hit on this idea after an illuminating conversation with Kylie Minogue's father (who is also the pop star's manager).

He found himself sitting next to Mr Minogue at dinner, talking about the current state of affairs for Kylie, pictured above, when de Botton realised the future of literature was in live performances. "I happened to meet Kylie Minogue's father. I asked 'how is business' and he said it fallen by 60% because of internet downloads. "But we have started to make it up with concerts," and he predicted the same thing for books. "What writers should do is what musicians do, start a new revenue stream". He said the future was in the "live" element, which really made me think, maybe there's a community for books rather than it being a solitary thing." Thus the School of Life was born.

OK, now all that C&P guff is over let me tell you this: I've been to a couple of Kylie concerts (amazing) and AdeB's shop is on my corner. A half-way house has been available for years: the superb Book Slam. Through this 'literary nightclub' I've heard Will Self, Dave Eggers, Hari Kunzru, Mil Millington, William Boyd and danced to award-winning musicians. Get down to Powys Square for the next show. Tickets available here.

Playboy wins rights to lost Nabokov novella

2009-07-13T23:20:00.006+01:00

In a symbolic marriage of high culture and low-brow titillation that recalls its glory days, Playboy is to serialise the final work of the Russian-born American novelist, Vladimir Nabokov, which has stayed hidden for more than 30 years.

The unfinished novella, The Original of Laura, will be published this autumn in what has been widely described as the literary event of the year.

Hugh Hefner's title won the bidding war this week to carry a hefty, 5,000-word excerpt of the novella.

Nabokov had a long and mutually agreeable relationship with Playboy, which serialised his 1969 novel, Ada, and also conducted a number of important interviews with him, in which he discussed some of the controversy that surrounded his most famous novel, Lolita.

However the jury is out on whether the author, pictured right, would be happy to see a chunk of Laura amid the magazine's usual fare of scantily clad women and celebrity interviews. His dying wish was for the uncompleted work to be destroyed by his heirs.

That was disregarded but the novella has been locked away since his death in 1977. Then last spring, Nabokov's son Dmitri decided to put the book on the market. Whether the move was inspired by a desire to allow the public to share the work or simply by potential profit is unclear. However, Mr Nabokov chose Andrew Wylie, a famously-predatory literary agent known as "the Jackal", to market it.

The novella tells the story about an overweight academic in an unhappy marriage to a promiscuous woman.

Playboy's deal to publish the serialisation on 10 November, a week before the book goes on sale, was the result of a lengthy courtship by the magazine's literary editor, Amy Grace Loyd, who resorted to sending several shipments of flowers to Mr Wylie.

"I was very persistent, as I often am, and I try forcibly to remind people of our literary history because it is very easy for people to dismiss us," she told The New York Observer. "I'm so glad all those orchids did not die in vain."

Source: The Independent

Make your next read a big one

2009-07-11T09:51:00.007+01:00

Some books are a sprint, most involve a few laps of your imagination but others require marathon-like endurance. Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace is legendary for its length but there are many other novels that require patience and stamina from the reader. Check out Marilyn powering through Joyce's Ulysses in the photo.

There is currently an online forum dedicated to helping readers finish David Foster Wallace’s sprawling novel, Infinite Jest. A kind friend bought me this 1,088 page behemoth for my 30th... and I'm afraid to say it's still waiting to be opened. Some things are just too big and scary!

AbeBooks has selected 15 massive books – all them heavyweight contenders for the title of longest novel. Between them the readers travel to Australia, France, India, Japan, Russia and America’s South. There are crimes and misdemeanours, winners and losers, lovers, turmoil and war, swords, economics and politics, and some confusing post-modernism – all in great detail. Plus they have supplied Twitter-style descriptions of each behemoth so today’s attention-challenged generation (that definitely includes me) can grasp the plot in 140 characters or less.

The list includes Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind, Victor Hugo's Les Miserables and The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. Check out all fifteen titles here.

Source: Abebooks.com

South London skulppchaarr

2009-07-10T23:00:00.006+01:00

Time was when car park rooftops in Peckham were used for raves and only raves. 2009 sees the third year of gallerist Hannah Berry's annual summer outdoor sculpture event on the 10th floor of a disused car park in SE15.

Artists include Awst & Walther, Tom Barnett, Hannah Barton & Xavier Poultney, James Balmforth, Tim Bouckley, James Capper, Bobby Dowler, Matt Holroyd, Molly Smyth, Theo Turpin and Jesse Wine.

Gallerist Hannah Berry is one to watch. The FT gave her last group show, To Paint is to Love Again (taken from the title of Henry Miller's book of watercolours) a fantastic review. She took over the Timothy Taylor premises on Dering St and rounded up eight of the best new (male) artists under 30. One of the collectors I work with visited the gallery the day after the review was published to try and snaffle a work by Nick Jeffrey - everything had sold.

The next Hannah Berry Gallery show will feature work by James Capper and Rob Sherwood.

God knows why you'd want to but you can also follow the car park event via Twitter. I've been reading too much Alberto Manguel... must remember that technology is not the enemy.

Bold Tendencies III
June 30 - September 30
Level 10, Peckham Rye Multistory Car Park, 95A Rye Lane SE15 4ST

100 sexes d'artistes

2009-07-10T22:34:00.006+01:00

French artist Jacques Charlier has been working on a series of drawings of artists' genitalia since 1973. Using caricature, he set himself the task of making imaginary portraits of the private parts of artists whom he considers to have been major figures in the 20th century since Marcel Duchamp.

Charlier was hoping the finished series would be shown as part of the collateral program at the 2009 Venice Biennale... sadly the organisers had other ideas. The Belgian artistic community came to the rescue and helped Charlier to put on a small show - on a boat moored at the Riva dei Sette Martiri in Venice - before relocating the show to Le Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels.

Artists selected by Charlier include Louise Bourgeois (a dripping spider web), Francis Bacon (a masked worm) and Jeff Koons (like a balloon animal). Seventy of the 100 subjects are still alive and most, when contacted, were not offended by the project.

The whole thing has turned into a bit of an anti-censorship campaign, and anyone who contacts the artist via his website wins a t-shirt displaying the motif of the genitalia of the artist himself. So that's your next party outfit sorted.

It's very hard to track down images of the actual works, so you'll have to have to settle for a photograph of Picasso leaving very little to the imagination.

How to make a modern art library

2009-06-23T23:48:00.005+01:00

MoMA had a great mini-exhibition last month in a small gallery in their education wing.

Rare items from the collections of Parisian doctor Camille Dausse and French poet Paul Éluard vividly demonstrated the range of Surrealist publications between 1924 and 1935. Acquired in 1936, this invaluable archive was the Museum Library's Committee's first major purchase - and the earliest endeavour in its long history of documenting contemporary art.

Highlights include literary foundations of the Surrealist movement - such as Arthur Rimbaud's Poésies, 1919 - and Max Ernst's surreal masterpiece, Une Semaine de Bonté. Created in just three weeks in Italy in 1934 as Ernst’s native Germany marched to the thump of the Nazi drum, Une Semaine de Bonté is a very bizarre collection of 182 collages where humanity is mixed with mythology and the animal kingdom. There are ladies with serpent wings and gentlemen with lion heads. Many of the dramatic scenes display death, distress, bondage, nudity and violence – all twisted from the expected norms of death, distress, bondage, nudity and violence.

Check out the full catalogue on the link below.

How to make a modern art library: Selections from the Eluard-Dausse Collection @ MoMA

Brant Art Foundation in Greenwich, CT

2009-06-23T23:30:00.006+01:00

After reading an interview with Peter Brant in The Art Newspaper in April, I decided to make the trip up to Greenwich to have a look. I was lucky enough to have a private tour with its director, Allison Brant.

Architect Richard Gluckman has converted the interior of the 1902 stone barn into three skylit galleries and a video room in which the Brants, or guest curators, will organise single-artist or thematic shows of around 40-60 works.

The inaugural exhibition, which continues until February 2010, presents around 60 breathtaking works made between 1978 and 2008 by Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Richard Prince, Jeff Koons, Maurizio Cattelan, Francesco Clemente, John Currin, Elizabeth Peyton and Julian Schnabel, amongst others.

Read the full interview with Jason Edward Kaufman here.

Image: Todd Eberle

Saatchi's USA show - Version 2.0

2009-06-23T22:47:00.008+01:00

Three years ago I went to a brilliant show at the Royal Academy: USA Today, a collection of new American art from the Saatchi collection. At the time, FT arts critic Jackie Wullschlager wrote that no one concerned with living art could afford not to look where he looked. Ms W has long been one of my favourite critics, so I was intrigued to see her reaction to Saatchi's current Abstract America show at his gallery in SW3.

"Works representing the weakest, dullest artists have doubled or tripled in number. With a single exception - Mark Grotjahn - the painters here cannot paint, draw or compose. Sculptures look badly made and puerile... Everything is big - mockingly too big for the empty subjects - and desperately retro. Sources tend to be photographs or computer manipulations... sculptures are vainglorious and vapid".

When I first read this review I was quite shocked - but when I saw the show everything made sense. It was a big disappointment, and seemed as dated as a Conran restaurant. I couldn't even find an image I liked enough to post with this blog, so I've used Josephine Meckseper's Pyromaniac print from the 2006 show.

Ms W sums up the situation perfectly: "Saatchi is turning art into a virtual encounter rather than the imaginative, transcendent, lived aesthetic experience it has always been. This is a loss that strikes not only at the heart of how we respond to art, but influences its making. I think this is what Saatchi means by “abstract” – abstracting art into non-existence so that a work becomes just a marketable commodity. Art cannot be made that way, and this show is a terrible warning of what happens when its practitioners try to do so."

Abstract America: New Painting and Sculpture
29th May - 13th September 2009
Saatchi Gallery, SW3.

The Architecture of Hell

2009-06-23T22:01:00.006+01:00

Dante's La Divina Commedia became an Italian bestseller in the 14th century and has remained at the heart of the Italian literary canon ever since. Artists such as Botticelli, Blake, Delacroix, Rossetti, Goya, Rodin, Dalí and Robert Rauschenberg have all illustrated the poem. Perhaps the most famous depictions of hell can be viewed in several paintings by medieval Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch - in particular The Garden of Earthly Delights (1503-1504).

Italian publishing house Mondadori has just published a 'luxury' collection of Albert Martini's illustrations of La Commedia, completed in 1901.

The poem is an allegory telling of the journey of Dante through what is largely the medieval concept of Hell, guided by the Roman poet Virgil. In the poem, Hell is depicted as 9 circles of suffering located within the earth, with the Inferno describing the recognition and rejection of sin. Three beasts represent three types of sin: the self-indulgent, the violent, and the malicious.

During his journey, Dante bumps into several pre-Heat magazine celebrities including Pontius Pilate, Cleopatra, Medusa, Emperor Frederick II and a whole bunch of pimps, politicians and thugs.

Of course, hell is a hugely popular theme with comics and cartoons. The Simpsons and South Park have all had at least one episode where the main characters find themselves in the company of Lucifer. In one episode of Family Guy Peter bumps into Hitler, Al Capone and Superman. This baffles Peter, but Superman explains that he was sent to hell "after murdering a hooker who made a joke about him being faster than a speeding bullet".

Check out World of Dante for a full list of translations, interactive maps, timelines and musical recordings. What took Dante 14,000 lines of poetry is condensed into one sentence by Jean-Paul Sartre: L'enfer, c'est les autres.

Image: Emily Black

New art history titles for summer

2009-06-15T21:58:00.007+01:00

MIT Press have just published two new fascinating art history books:

Out of Now: The Lifeworks of Tehching Hsieh is about the extraordinary performances of the Taiwanese-born artist during the 70s and 80s. During this period Hsieh realized five separate one-year-long performance pieces in which he conformed to simple but highly restrictive rules throughout each entire year. Projects included 365 days of solitary confinement in a sealed cell, during which time he punched a worker's clock in his studio every hour on the hour; a year spent without shelter in Manhattan; a year in which he was tied by an eight-foot rope to the artist Linda Montano and finally to a year of total abstention from all art activities and influences (harder than it sounds).

For many artists Hsieh is something of a cult figure. After years of near-invisibility, Hsieh has now collaborated with the British writer and curator Adrian Heathfield to create this meticulous and visually arresting documentary.

Another artist who has uber-cult status amongst many contemporary artists, is Martin Kippenberger (1953-1997). His life and works were inextricably linked in a remarkable practice that centred on the role of the artist within both the culture and the system of art. With his larger-than-life persona, Kippenberger cast himself as impresario, entertainer, curator, bohemian, collector, architect, and publisher; this was back in the days when in order to call yourself one or more of these things, you really had to have the experience to back it up.

Kippenberger collected art, set up clothing companies and nightclubs, and ran art-world scams. Nothing was sacred to this iconoclast except the right to satisfy his enormous appetite for life (and booze), appropriate anything for his art, and create continual chaos around himself. Martin Kippenberger: The Problem Perspective accompanies the first major US retrospective of his work at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.

This picture of a roided-up Skeletor attempting an upskirt with Sindy is EXACTLY the kind of thing I thought went on in my toybox when I was asleep.

E-books begin to make an impression

2009-06-12T23:37:00.004+01:00

Books are changing. The Kindle is an electronic reading device that first appeared in 2007. You can use it to download the latest titles from Amazon and even install a text-to-speech option so it can read aloud to you in bed.

Magnus Linklater wrote a brilliant article about the Kindle in the Times last week. He was responding to the news that Arnold Schwarzenegger, California's Governor, has announced that his state is about to phase out old school books and substitute the internet in classrooms from the autumn.

"For us, the assumption that the printed word has intrinsic value, stretching back to Gutenberg and beyond, is so deeply ingrained that it is impossible for us to imagine a school curriculum without it.

"My generation has a latent distrust [of the internet], somehow believing that there is an online conspiracy to mislead us with data that is distorted or even malign. You can see it from our body language. We tend to peer suspiciously at a computer screen, a disbelieving frown on our faces; the young lounge back easily, playing the keyboard like a concert pianist, manipulating the system with suave dexterity".

Last year Amazon sold nearly half a million Kindles - but they also shifted a record 17 million printed books. Random House publishers are also getting in on the act: their latest project brings together 10 of its authors making their new books available, unabridged, for digital download to phones, computers, PDAs and e-book readers. This is the first download list to feature books embedded with "rich media" content, such as video, pictures, music, games and computer apps.

Ian Hudson, a former president of the Publishers' Association, says it isn't an either/or situation. "The evidence is that e-books are creating a new kind of reader, one who wouldn't buy or read books in the traditional way at all. They don't stop to think about how the words get to them, only that they do". Cliff Jones pointed out in his recent article - also in the Times - that "this change in how people are choosing to read may spawn a new kind of writer, one whose work weaves together not just words and narrative, but a multimedia experience". He adds that the e-elephant in the room is the issue of digital rights: "When you can beam books from one mobile phone to another in seconds, writers are understandably jumpy".

I think I would struggle to feel I was curling up with a good book if it was hard, plastic and battery-operated, but electronic reading devices definitely seem to have a place in education if not yet leisure.

Nought venture, nought have

2009-06-12T14:06:00.009+01:00

Abebooks.com have just released their list of classic adventure tales. Other than one pretty major oversight - the exclusion of Sir Harry Flashman - its a fantastic compilation.

Smuggling, pirates, desert islands, rebellions, undiscovered regions, forts, spies and nature at its most brutal - plus lots of fights - are the stuff of old-fashioned adventure yarns. Many of the books on the list were published at the start of the 20th century, a golden age for adventure (because the world was actually like that to some extent), but the genre as we know it dates back to Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe in 1719. Hollywood has always loved these books because the plots put the characters in physical danger and there's bound to be at least one twist before the end.

Many of these novels were intended for children, but, like so many good books, were also adored by adults. Highlights from the list include The Four Feathers by A.E.W. Mason - hopelessly old-fashioned and lots of fighting; Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne - really a science fiction novel but Captain Nemo and the fight with the giant squids is part of literary history, and The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas - they just don't write revenge stories like this any more.

I've just finished reading a book (non-fiction) about Elizabeth Marsh, an 18th-century mixed-race Englishwoman who at age 20 was captured by Barbary pirates and narrowly fended off the Moroccan sultan's attempts to induct her into his harem. She married a British merchant, experienced luxurious high living and bankruptcy, followed him to India, where they remade themselves as colonial grandees, then suffered another bankruptcy. The author styles Marsh a female Candide batted about by world-historical forces.

Check out the full list here.

EDIT: The Lost City of Z by David Grann has had a glowing review in the NY Times. The book is about English explorer Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett and his adventures in the Amazonian jungle.

Punch Drunk @ Waterloo: leather pants & dust

2009-05-21T21:44:00.005+01:00

Last night I went to see the latest Punch Drunk performance - Tunnel 228. The company creates a theatrical environment in which the audience is free to choose what they watch and where they go. Last night was great fun but people have a tendency to get over-excited about these things. It was basically a rave missing a DJ. That's all!

Several artists had work on display (much of it excellent) but some of it veered into Bond villain interior design. Just I was beginning to get the hots for artist Petroc Sesti and his evil-lair-lobby-style sculptures... my friend told me she knew him and that he always wore leather pants. WRONG. No matter how sexy he looked in the catalogue. Polly Morgan also had work on display - and she just gets better and better. Kate McGuire's oversize feather infinity knot (pictured) made me think of swans and their ability to mate for life. Sadly, it also made me realize how the idea of spending eternity in the arms of another is usually relegated to fairy-tales. Or at least display cabinets!

But Spring is no time for cynicism - theatrical or romantic. I had a great time and it's always fun being told to wear a dust mask when you know (and they know) that you don't really need one. Check out the Punch Drunk performance schedule here.

Wolf t-shirt cult takes over the internets

2009-05-21T21:21:00.007+01:00

I have a hound - she may be miniature, but she's still a hound. She can howl when necessary, and as far as I'm concerned, that means she's got the wolf gene. The three-wolf moon t-shirt has become the top selling t-shirt on Amazon thanks to some inspired reviews. Some of them are magic (just like the t-shirt):

This item has wolves on it which makes it intrinsically sweet and worth 5 stars by itself, but once I tried it on, that's when the magic happened. After checking to ensure that the shirt would properly cover my girth, I walked from my trailer to Wal-mart with the shirt on and was immediately approached by women. The women knew from the wolves on my shirt that I, like a wolf, am a mysterious loner who knows how to 'howl at the moon' from time to time (if you catch my drift!).

I bought this item to wear on a camping trip, seeing as how it has wolves on it. Imagine my surprise, on our second evening, as I was on my way to our makeshift latrine, ...I saw wolves wearing t-shirts with people's heads on the front. They didn't have any pants, on, though. I couldn't tell what people they were on their shirts, although I think one of them might have been Mindy Kohn from The Facts Of Life.

Sometimes late at night, if I wear my wolf shirt to bed, I wake up to the sound of howling coming from my bellybutton region. Because this has happened several times, I feel very powerful, like perhaps, I've been somehow chosen.

Join the masses and buy one here.

Amusia: now you really can be tone deaf

2009-05-21T20:57:00.005+01:00

"Music affects me merely as an arbitrary succession of more or less irritating sounds" - Vladimir Nabokov.

I find it amazing that this quotation comes from the man who was responsible for one of the most enchanting opening lines in fiction.... "Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul." But there it is.

One might think that music appreciation, or lack of it, is simply a matter of personal taste. But recent research by psychologists and neuroscientists has suggested that the inability to make sense of musical sound - which often results in its avoidance - is genuine and biological. Individuals with congenital amusia cannot recognise tunes that would be familiar to the rest of us, do not spot notes that are 'out of tune' and may experience music as noise or banging.

In the same way that dyslexics fail to acquire the automatic mechanisms required to map sounds onto letters, up to 4% of the population lack the cognitive resources required to perceive and appreciate music.

At Goldsmiths College Dr Lauren Stewart is conducting research within the Department of Psychology on understanding those with amusia. Participate in the research and take the online listening test here.

Lorca / Dalí / Buñuel in Little Ashes

2009-05-07T14:22:00.005+01:00

Little Ashes is a film by Paul Morrison about the relationships between three of the most rebellious talents in the 20th century - the poet Gabriel García Lorca, artist Salvador Dalí and filmmaker Luis Buñuel.

The movie begins in 1922, when 18-year old Dalí (Robert Pattinson) arrives at university in Madrid. Salvador, who is determined to become a great artist, soon catches the attention of the university's social elite – poet Lorca (Javier Beltrán, pictured) and aspiring filmmaker Luis Buñuel (Matthew McNulty).

Together they form the nucleus of the most avant-garde group in Spain, leaders of a fashionable set who held court at the city's bars and restaurants, loudly declaiming provocative witticisms in the manner of the young and supremely confident who believe the future to be exclusively theirs (pace Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies). Lorca, indeed, had much to feel confident about, as an already published and acclaimed poet.

The Art Newspaper has described the film as "highly watchable" that focuses more on the melodrama of the characters' relationships, rather than providing an accurate historical document. They also mention the film is not as arcane as composer Osvaldo Golijov's 2003 opera "Aindamar", which ignored Dalí completely and turned Lorca into a woman.

Little Ashes is released nationwide on Friday 8th May.

Fashion designers and artists: another love-in

2009-05-07T14:03:00.004+01:00

American artist Spencer Tunick is best known for his installations of large numbers of nude people posed in artistic formations (see above). His latest project actually involves keeping the clothes on.

Esquire magazine has brokered a series of collaborations between artists and Savile Row designers, including Tunick with Richard James, Antoy Gormley with Aquascutum, and Jeremy Deller with Norton & Sons.

The designs will go on show at Somerset House in September.

Park Stories

2009-05-07T11:21:00.003+01:00

The Royal Parks have commissioned British literary giants such as William Boyd and Will Self to write short stories set in St James's and Hyde Park, among others. The authors will read excerpts from their stories in the park of their choice - check out the timetable here.

The books are on sale in the parks or online, £2 each.

Chelsea conversations: art in the recession

2009-04-23T09:40:00.005+01:00

Chelsea College of Art & Design is hosting a new season of lively discussion and heated debate. This season’s focus is on exploring intersections between art and politics, beginning with an ongoing online discussion on art in the recession.

Artists, designers, curators and other cultural practitioners are invited to kick start the discussion, and all interested parties to pitch in and have their say.

What can the arts sector expect to happen during the recession? Does it mark the beginning of the end for public funding of the arts? Or should government see the recession as an opportunity to reconfirm the importance of art and artists? What strategies should cultural practitioners and institutions adopt to support themselves and each other during this time? What effect will the downturn have on you?

Join the discussion online via their dedicated blog.

PUBLIC DISCUSSIONS:

The Art of Protest (5th May)

A discussion with three artists who, in different ways, are engaged with practice – based activism, or adopt what might be called ‘activist stances’ within their work.

Mark McGowan (artist), Yara El-Sherbini (artist) Guyan Porter (artist)

Left is Right? (12^th May)

Are the arts intrinsically ‘progressive’? Is there a ‘left’ consensus in the arts? If so, how do we explain the ‘art market’ and reliance on ‘free labour’? Where are all the right-wing artists / curators? What does ‘left’ & ‘right’ mean now anyway for politically engaged art / artists?

Claire Fox (Institute of Ideas), Emma Ridgeway (curator, RSA) and one other tbc

What is Engagement? Contesting ‘socially engaged practice.’ (26^th May)

‘Socially engaged’ and ‘participatory’ practices are increasingly attracting public subsidy and support, with some artists naturally seeing this form of practice as a positive way of engaging with ‘communities’ and others as a form of cheap social work. Three leading cultural practitioners discuss..

Ana Laura Lopez de la Torre (artist), Sophie Hope (curator), Dave Beech (artist)

All discussions are free and take place in the Banqueting Hall @ Chelsea College of Art & Design, between 6 – 7.30pm.

TO BOOK – please contact cpbookings@chelsea.arts.ac.uk clearly stating the name of the event and the number of places you would like to book.

Mark Rothko hits the stage

2009-04-21T22:58:00.005+01:00

The Hollywood screenwriter behind smash hits Gladiator and The Aviator is to host the premiere of his new play at the Donmar Warehouse.

John Logan, whose other credits include Sweeney Todd starring Johnny Depp, will stage Red, an account of the life of artist Mark Rothko, at the Covent Garden venue later this year.

A two-hander, it will feature Alfred Molina as Rothko in his first UK stage role since he appeared at the National Theatre 17 years ago. He stars alongside young British actor and Burberry model Eddie Redmayne, 27, who starred in BBC's Tess of the D'Urbervilles last year.

The play is a highlight of the new Donmar season, which includes Pedro Calderon de la Barca's Life is a Dream.

Public bookings open 8th June. Click here for tickets.

Source: thelondonpaper

Meeting of the macabre: four unmissable shows

2009-04-12T21:25:00.010+01:00

Our fascination with the grotesque is never going to disappear. Four sensational shows this spring explore the link between our imagination and the strange. First up is Klara Kristalova's show, Where the owls spend their days, at Alison Jacques Gallery in Fitzrovia. Donnie Darko meets a potter's wheel in this screwed up wunderkammer installation, featuring nightmare ceramics gracefully arranged on wooden shelves or inside stark cubicles. The scale of many of these sculptures is what makes the skin crawl - everything seems to have the distorted proportions of the red-coated freak in Don't Look Now.

Mythologies at Haunch of Venison is a breathtaking show taking full advantage of 10 large galleries inside the building previously housing the Museum of Mankind. The exhibition features work by Sophie Calle, Damien Hirst and - one of my personal favourites - Mat Collishaw, whose print, Insecticide, is seen on the right. His consumption of booze, drugs and women makes Keith Richards look like Val Doonican. Damien Hirst said to journalist Guy Kennaway: 'We all have to go to the edge sometimes to see what it's like, to know that it's there. Mat's the kind of artist that sits at the bottom of the pit looking up at all those falling in.'

Evoking the uncanny and extraordinary, as seen in historic anthropological and archaeological collections such as the Pitt Rivers, Hunterian and Sir John Soane's Museums, Mythologies traces a labyrinthine journey of discovery whilst invoking a sense of wonder and mystery in one very ambitious group exhibition.

On now at Hauser & Wirth is Berlinde de Bruyckere's major new sculpture inspired by the paintings of Baroque Neapolitan artist Luca Giordano. She revisits religious and mythological subjects, re-imagining motifs from art history and her sculptures deploy uncannily realistic materials — wax, wood, iron, wool, hair and the hides of horses — rendering her work life-like yet unnaturally distorted. Her new work (above left) is a wax sculpture of male figures, their disturbingly conjoined bodies forming a symbiotic dialogue with two pieces by Giordano, Saint Bartholomew and Prometheus Bound (both made circa 1660). These paintings each depict a muscular shackled male figure in the throes of torture, their strained flesh lit up against surrounding darkness.

A while ago I mentioned that one of my favourite books is José Luís Borges' Book of Imaginary Beings (A Handbook to Fantastic Zoology), a compendium first published in 1957 and containing descriptions of 120 mythical beasts from folklore and literature. In the preface, Borges states that the book is to be read "as with all miscellanies...not...straight through.... Rather we would like the reader to dip into the pages at random, just as one plays with the shifting patterns of a kaleidoscope". Well, the excellent campus gallery at the University of Essex has an exhibition of Francisco Toledo's illustrations for this very book, featuring watercolour and ink drawings of sucking pigs, sirens, stray dogs, seahorses, and so on.

Walking through these shows makes me feel like I'm stuck in the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale, or perhaps more accurately that Puck got there before me and tried to turn everyone's heads into donkeys. Unsettling fantasy at its best.

Opera Holland Park 2009

2009-04-12T19:38:00.004+01:00

Tickets are now on sale for this year's season at Holland Park. Performances include Puccini's La Bohème, Verdi's Un ballo in maschera and Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld.

The organisers have announced a large increase in the number of tables that are now available to book prior to your visit. Choose from the terrace, the picnic deck, the Dutch Garden Lounge or the mezzanine.

Picnics can be pre-booked and hampers include china, cutlery and glassware.

Tickets, menus and timetable here.

Wellcome Collection Supper Club

2009-04-12T18:51:00.005+01:00

The Wellcome Collection is a unique mix of galleries, events, meeting, eating and reading spaces, bringing to life Sir Henry Wellcome's vision of a place where people could learn more about the development of medicine through the ages and across cultures.

Supper Club is a monthly dinner party hosted by speakers from the worlds of art and science and catered for by the award-winning Peyton & Byrne cafe.

The next event takes place on Wednesday 29th April, when artist Julia Lohmann will discuss her new "living" installation in the Wellcome Trust windows on Euston Rd.

On Wednesday 20th May Angela Palmer will talk about her artwork resulting from a mission to capture air from the most polluted places and then the cleanest.

Tickets for Supper Club cost £25.
View menus and order tickets here.

Apocalypse 2012 - read all about it

2009-04-09T08:16:00.001+01:00

The end of the world can often be found at the end of our bookshelves. Post-apocalyptic stories have been around for a long, long time. Noah’s ark and the great flood is just one example of this ancient theme. The modern genre of post-apocalyptic fiction can be traced back two centuries to Mary Shelley’s The Last Man in 1826 but novels about surviving a catastrophe keep coming and many have been embraced by Hollywood.

The enduring Cold War tensions ensured these novels kept on coming but the last 10 years has seen notable novels like The Road by Cormac McCarthy, which won a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Global nuclear warfare, plagues, deadly viruses, comets falling from the sky, earthquakes, floods or simply an unknown disaster – take your pick and imagine mankind teetering on the brink. AbeBooks.com has compiled a list of the top 20 post-apocalyptic novels. Check it out here.

According to many serious and downright sensible people, the world is facing a huge crisis. In 4 years it's all going to go belly up. The mystical Mayans foretold that there would be no need for anymore dates after the 21st of December 2012 due to the fact that we would all be puffs of smoke, enjoying ourselves in the astral.

So, we have roughly 1,500 days left to make the most of things: paint a master piece, tie up loose ends, get married maybe... or even divorced. Basically, all the things you wished you'd have done if we explode in a religious-mumbo-jumbo-techno-fireball. So who's spreading these rumours and how serious should we heed these prophecies? If it's all true, what would you do? Watch this short film via Current TV to meet a few of the people who'll be spared, scared, prepared or just ...... nuts.

My weekend in Manchester

2009-04-09T08:15:00.001+01:00

Sadly the Hacienda is no more. I was there for the AAH annual conference, which surprisingly doesn't really involve too many exciting photographs.

It was my first time in Manchester and I loved it. The conference was great and a very nourishing love-in for all of us art historian geeks out there, but I was secretly holding out to find my very own Tony Parsons to fall in love with. Maybe next time.

I knew things were done differently up there when the Lord Mayor, Mavis Smitheman, welcomed us to the reception sporting the hairstyle you see on the right. When I ordered a small glass of wine at lunchtime, it arrived in a (full) half-pint glass. The bar snack menu didn't mess around with olives or nuts - options included a full plate of sausage & mash. It was delicious. Then I walked past an upmarket photography studio with a sign outside reading, "We can make you look human". Tell it like it is! My hotel was hosting an Engelbert Humperdinck concert... and it goes on and on. A very surreal weekend and I loved every minute.

I had a look around the Manchester Art Gallery and its stunning collection of Pre-Raphaelites. The city's biennial International Festival kicks off soon and performers include Damon Albarn providing the music for a new show from Punchdrunk Theatre Company, Kraftwerk, Rufus Wainwright (showcasing his first opera), celebrated architect Zaha Hadid, Lou Reed and Cuban-born ballet superstar Carlos Acosta.

Manchester International Festival
2nd-19th July 2009

Economic downturn hits artists - artists hit the auction house

2009-04-08T21:33:00.011+01:00

American photographer Nan Goldin, known for such works as her classic book The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, has sold off a selection from her personal collection of Italian reliquaries, skulls and deformed animals pickled in formaldehyde.

She has been frank about her reasons: "I didn't want to get rid of any of it but I'm completely and totally without money". Sad.

Other artists that have recently taken to the sales include the Julian Schnabel. The artist-director had to sell his prized Picasso to compensate for the non-sale of several of his luxury Palazzo Chupi apartments in Manhattan. Schnabel bought Femme au Chapeau way back in 1989. The nearly six-foot canvas painted when Picasso was nearly 89 mirrors Schnabel's own penchant for creating outsize works. It will be sold Christie's auction on May 6 and is estimated to bring $8 million to $12 million. Schnabel claims that the sale of the painting will take care of a loan he took out with Commerce Bank that used part of his art collection, including the Picasso, as collateral.

Fellow photographer Annie Leibowitz (pictured below) borrowed $5 million from a company called Art Capital Group last year and in December, she borrowed $10.5 million more from them. Her collateral didn't just include her homes but also the rights to all of her photographs. Considering Leibovitz's breadth of work, the hundreds of magazines and ad campaigns, this was quite an amazing move.

Art Capital Group is doing a tidy business in these uncertain times. The company issues loans of $500,000 or more at interest rates from six percent to 16 percent to those who have artwork worthy of making such a loan. It operates like a pawn shop; if you fail to pay and you lose your precious art. A Rubens hanging in the Art Capital offices once belonged to Veronica Hearst, the widow of Randolph Apperson Hearst. She mortgaged her art to hold onto Villa Venezio in Manalapan, Florida. She eventually lost the home in foreclosure.

Christie's and Sotheby's also offer loans for art but in those cases it is generally bridge loans for art that will be sold later at the auction house.Some choose to take a loan rather than sell, especially right now when pieces of art might be worth a good deal less than they were a year ago. Also borrowing against one's art collection can be a bit more discreet than a sudden sale.

Source: luxist.com

Home clubbing via the web

2009-04-08T21:23:00.002+01:00

Any nightclub event where long queues and over-zealous door staff don’t exist deserves to be a sell-out. And at Be At TV, the only limit is your lounge.

This online community launched last month and gives its members access to the world’s best DJs and music events – for free. Touted as the future of clubbing by the likes of Pete Tong and Groove Armada, it has the support of venues from Koko and Ministry in London to Ibiza haunts Pacha and Space.

Ray Smith, founder of Be At TV, which already has 250,000 members, says its free access will make it a hit in the recession, especially when the festivals arrive – it will broadcast Global Gathering, Exit and the Love Parade, as well as other big festivals yet to be announced.

If you have good speakers and a decent-sized telly, Be At TV is like being able to download a house party. As with any new online creation, the benefit is choice. One minute you can be watching last summer’s opening party from Space, the next catching Swedish House Mafia at Koko then arrive back at Pacha to watch people enjoy the final encore of Sander Kleinenberg. You can zoom in on the euphoria at the front of stage or guffaw at gurning clubbers. When the community expands, you’ll be able to tag people dancing at any global clubbing event and message them.

Better still, you can dig up old events that you were at, locate yourself on the site’s roving cameras, and fill in that two-hour gap when have no idea what happened.

Clubbing in your front room may not be the same as being carried on a wave of euphoria by a swarming throng. But if you’re throwing a house party and want more than your iPod playlist, it’s perfect.

Source: thelondonpaper

Watch before reading: book trailers online

2009-04-08T20:55:00.005+01:00

Usually just one to three minutes long, the best book trailers swiftly inform potential readers of what to expect. But unlike most movie previews, these trailers are often interpretive, rather than plot-focused; they spring from the imagination of their creators, as well as from the books they represent. Search YouTube and you’ll find thousands of examples.

With a little help from Facebook and Twitter, authors and publishers hope that these trailers will connect them with web-addicted demographics. To make them, some authors and publicists scout for talent among their friends, while others seek the paid assistance of production companies.

Because of their artistic bent, many book trailers are identified as short films “inspired” by a work of fiction or nonfiction. Sometimes they use voiceovers of an author reading from his or her book, with accompanying action. Actors in these films are usually friends, family, or people around the office at Random House or Penguin. Novelist Jami Attenberg appeared in her own conceptual book trailer for The Kept Man, created by a friend’s production company. The same company, Milk Products Media!, created a trailer for Sloane Crosley’s book of essays I Was Told There’d Be Cake, employing more non-narrative measures: stop-motion animation, finger puppets, and a catchy jingle. The video went viral, partly thanks to a nod on the New York Times Paper Cuts blog.

Neil Gaiman turned Blueberry Girl’s illustrations into animation, adding a voiceover and an ethereal score of cricket chirps and wind chimes to make his trailer. Wells Tower read while an animated Viking ship bobbed in the ocean, illustrating the excerpt from his collection’s title story, “Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned.” And pencil drawings reminiscent of childhood are sketched before our eyes as Stefan Merrill Block reads from his debut, The Story of Forgetting.

Source: FlavorWire

Bacchus drowns more men than Neptune

2009-03-18T17:02:00.010Z

All of us like a good yarn about boozy misadventure, and at the moment there is an excellent selection of titles to choose from.

Journalist Willie Donaldson was a piss-artist extraordinaire who inherited a substantial fortune in his youth which allowed him to support young writers such as his contemporaries Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes.

He soon found himself hanging out with Princess Margaret's set and tangled up in dangerous affairs. Donaldson ended up squandering his fortune on prostitutes and crack cocaine. In 1971 he travelled to Ibiza and spent his last £2,000 on a glass-bottomed boat; before long he was scavenging for food on the beach. Returning to London, he found refuge with a former girlfriend who was running a brothel on the Fulham Rd. However, it was to be his fictional correspondent Henry Root that made him a final fortune. Root's satirical lampooning of the wealthy, famous and influential was retold in numerous books, many still in print.

Biographer Alan Chadwick has written an engaging account of Donaldson's life, You Cannot Live As I Have Lived And Not End Up Like This: The Thoroughly Disgraceful Life and Times of Willie Donaldson. But Donaldson wasn't alone in leading a disreputable private life.

Tory party grandee Alan Clark may have preached family values but his extramarital dalliances (he seduced not only judge's wife Valerie Harkess but also her daughters), alongside withering assessments of colleagues in his three-volume diaries, ensures him political immortality.

Likewise, Fleet Street boulevardier Jeffrey Bernard (pictured below with his third wife Sue) was immortalised in Keith Waterhouse's play Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell, its title taken from The Spectator notice that appeared whenever he was too drunk to file his column. The best of the man and his work can be found in Reach For The Ground and Low Life: A Kind of Autobiography.

Some of the recent history's more entertaining journalists have been appalling drunks. This isn't a purely British phenomenon, either; American reporters are notoriously hard-living creatures. Jimmy Breslin, Ben Franklin ("Wine is constant proof that God loves us"), H.L. Mencken ("I've made it a rule never to drink by daylight and never refuse a drink after dark") and Ambrose Bierce, who rebuffed the pious abstainer as "a weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure". Many journalists publicise their sad, soused careers in memoirs and thinly veiled fictions. Ernest Hemingway, arguably the most afflicted war correspondent there ever was, wrote himself into his novel The Sun Also Rises as the shell-shocked lush, Jake Barnes.

Meanwhile, libertine the Earl of Rochester comes to life in all his debauched glory in James Willliam Johnson's biography, A Profane Wit: proof that the lives of sinners always make for better reading.

Image: Los Borrachos (The Feast of Bacchus) 1628-1629, Diego de Velázquez.
Sources: CJR and Metro.

The fine art of finding a husband

2009-03-18T12:19:00.004Z

Twenty three-year old art student Alex Humphreys has given herself three months to find the ideal man to marry as part of her final project.

After becoming disillusioned with casual dating she has interviewed 150 prospective suitors with the aim of producing a marriage certificate for college examiners.

"I wanted to do a big concept art piece for my final project and so I put the two things together. I'm serious about finding the man I wake up next to for the rest of my life and marrying him before my course ends in June", says Alex.

With that in mind she set up a website for her project and has attracted dozens of volunteers. Alex has also been set up by friends, tried speed dating and Internet dating. The initial criteria are simply that her suitor must be taller than her, male and with a sense of humour. If the boys pass this test then they are sent a questionnaire to assess long-term compatibility. Questions include "What was the last book you read?" and "Are you financially secure?".

At the moment Alex has a shortlist of five. "One lives in Chicago and says he is willing to fly me there for the wedding. Another guy is already looking at booking possible venues, which shows he is practical. I'm not doing this to make a shock statement or make fun of the institution of marriage, I'd just like to find the right man".

Source: Daily Mail

Sotheby's auction contents of Versace's villa

2009-03-18T10:00:00.004Z

Last month Christie's handled the auction of YSL's vast collection of art and artefacts; today Sotheby's are supervising the auction of the contents of late fashion designer Gianni Versace's Lake Como villa.

The collection from his New York town house was sold off in 2005 and included important works by Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Henri Matisse and Edgar Degas. It was the second time Sotheby's had sold furnishings belonging to the Italian designer, who was gunned down at his Miami Beach mansion in 1997. In 2001 art and furnishings from the Florida house were sold for £5.5m. Featured in the sale were several paintings by Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat. The artists collaborated on Taxi 45th/Broadway between 1984-1985 (below).

Today's sale features fewer paintings and much more furniture - a great deal of it consisting of etched glass, marble and opulent bronze pieces. Versace decorated the magnificent interior of yellow 19th-century Villa Fontanelle in the neo-classical and empire style, even furnishing his bedroom with two spectacular life-size pugilists by sculptor Antonio Canova (below). Versace once said of the villa, "The house in Moltrasio is a Proust house, whereas the ones in Milan and Miami are more Batman". The auction is expected to fetch £2m. Check out the online catalogue here.

As the first designer to reward his catwalk models with astronomical sums of money, Versace was credited with inventing the 1990s cult of the supermodel. Linda, Naomi, Christie, Kate, Cindy, Claudia... all now household names.

Keith Moon honoured with blue plaque

2009-03-08T10:20:00.008Z

Today at noon current and ex-members of The Who will unveil a plaque for Keith Moon at the site of the Marquee Club, 90 Wardour St.

Keith Moon is remembered as the world's most outrageous rock drummer – a star as famous for his drink and drug-fuelled pranks as for his innovative playing. He knew exactly how to stage a spectacular: his sets often ended in 'auto destruction' with bass drums loaded with explosives and clear acrylic drums filled with water and goldfish.

During one incident between Moon and hotel management, Moon was asked to turn down his cassette player because The Who were making "too much noise." In response, Moon lit a stick of dynamite in his toilet to teach the unsuspecting manager "the difference between The Who and noise."

Moon loved dressing up - often in drag - and would attend the meetings for the 70s drinking club The Hollywood Vampires in full papal regalia. He also provided the inspiration for Animal from The Muppet Show.

Before long his path to self-destruction began to take its toll: on the 1973 Quadrophenia tour, Moon took a large mixture of tranquilizers and brandy. He passed out onstage. Townshend asked the audience, "Can anyone play the drums? - I mean somebody good." An audience member filled in for the rest of the show. During an encore of a Led Zeppelin concert in 1977, Moon took the stage, grabbed the microphone, and began yelling barely-intelligible gibberish and profanities, before Robert Plant took the microphone from him and yelled, "Keith Moon!".

The blue plaque will be unveiled just months after English Heritage ruled Moon was unworthy of the tribute. The move follows a campaign by fans of the drummer, who were angered by the refusal to acknowledge Moon's place in modern music's pantheon. Recollections of his drum-kit derring-do, coupled with trail-blazing examples of excess and destruction, cut little ice with English Heritage. However, the Heritage Foundation has brokered a deal with Westminster City Council to do the job instead. Expect a large crowd of die-hard Moon fans in Soho today.

A very creative attraction: why artists get all the fit birds

2009-03-06T12:46:00.013Z

There was a funny article in Metro the other day about why women are drawn to creative types despite their reputation as troublemakers. "I'm quite conservative", said victim Karen. "Artists represent new freedom and horizons. You think they will release your inner hippie".

According to new research, creative people of both sexes are sexually prolific, with twice as many sexual encounters from 18 years onwards as the general population. The number of partners increased with the seriousness with which they pursued their art.

Psychologist Ingrid Collins claims that the demand for alpha-male types is disappearing: "It is no longer survival of the fittest. It's survival of the wisest and perhaps the most inventive. We don't live in caves any more so, for women, some one with strong arms and a hairy chest isn't needed. Fittest is not the greatest mode of attraction". That's all very well, but given the choice I doubt that too many women would swap a Tom Selleck-style torso for a pasty frame. Any excuse to post this photo of Mr Testosterone holding a cordless phone at the seaside.

Love-struck Karen went on to warn others of the problems involved in dating artists: "You can't fight fundamentals. If you're a good girl like me who likes bad boys, there is a lot of arguing. I still want to go to sleep at midnight while he stays up all night. I like staying in country houses. He hates them so he sleeps in their gardens".

This research is interesting but doesn't tell us anything new. Poets, artists and writers have never had problems attracting women. Lord Byron claimed to have slept with 200 women in just two years; Dylan Thomas once said that he slept with women "because I'm a poet, and poets feed off life"; philosopher and legendary swordsman Jean-Paul Sartre was once quoted as saying 'I'm not so sure I didn't seek out women's company in order to get rid of the burden of my ugliness. By looking at them, speaking to them and exerting to bring an animated joyful look to their faces, I'd lose myself in them. To seduce, I counted on my power of speech alone". What's good for the goose isn't necessarily good for the gander: serial womanizer Pablo Picasso claimed he would rather see a woman die than see her happy with some one else.

More importantly, women seem to be much more willing to tolerate bad behaviour if there is some creative justification. It's almost an unwritten rule amongst artists' WAGS that any arsing about is symptomatic of an artistic temperament and not to be questioned. What do these women get in return? Speaking from experience, the relationship often taps into women's nurturing instincts: being told you are his driving force and muse is pretty intoxicating - so really it's all about egos for everyone.

Alex Sainsbury opens Raven Row Gallery

2009-03-06T12:20:00.004Z

Last Friday I went to the opening of a new gallery in the City, Raven Row. This is a major new non-profit art space funded entirely by British collector Alex Sainsbury.

The gallery has taken over two 18th-century Huguenot silk shops, and opened with a museum-scale show on the New York artist Ray Johnson (1927-95), a pioneer of "mail art". The exhibition was fantastic but the refurbished interior nearly stole the show - the 18th century panelling, tiled fireplaces and Rococo ceilings are all magnificent.

The Art Newspaper reports that another historical feature concealed from public view is 98-year old Rebecca Levy who occupies the top flat and who has lived in the building since 1925. As well as being one of the country's oldest sitting tenants, Ms Levy must also be one of the most fortunate, with her landlord confiding that "she pays us her rent in bagels and Maltesers".

The space will host up to five shows a year alongside a series of residencies, with accommodation on the upper floors for artists and curators.

There is a great interview with Mr Sainsbury via ArtInfo here.

Raven Row Gallery
56 Artillery Lane, E1.

London Word Festival 2009

2009-03-06T12:05:00.004Z

In the beginning there was the word… and three creative producers with an idea they were going to open the lid on some of East London’s oddest venues, invite down their favourite performers and throw on a bunch of shows mixing up poetry, music, theatre, comedy and literature.

Performers include Phil Jupitus, Bat For Lashes band member Caroline Weeks and Ross Raisin.

London Word Festival
7th - 25th March 2009

YSL art auction sets new record

2009-02-24T10:28:00.005Z

Part of the sumptuous collection of Yves Saint Laurent and his partner Pierre Bergé went under the hammer at the Grand Palais last night. Christie's are managing the 3-day sale of 700 works acquired over 50 years, including work by Mondrian, Degas, Klee, Duchamp and Picasso.

Billed as the art sale of the century, the first evening focused on Impressionist and Modern art pieces and made €206m, beating the world record for the biggest private sale on the first night of the three-day auction.

A Henri Matisse oil painting sold for €32.1m, a record price. An early wooden sculpture by the Romanian Constantin Brancusi, never before seen in public, fetched more than €29m, well above its expected price. Another record was broken for a "readymade" sculpture by Marcel Duchamp, a perfume bottle in its carton.

Today's auction will begin with old masters. Money from the sale will go to Bergé's charitable foundation and Aids research. Bergé decided to sell the monumental collection after Saint Laurent's death last year, and the rare auction has been compared to the 1987 sale of the Duchess of Windsor's jewels. At Paris's Grand Palais, Saint Laurent and Bergé's apartments were recreated to show the work.

Experts hoped the sale would boost confidence in the art market, which has seen the prices of contemporary works in freefall since the financial crisis. But Georgina Adam of the London-based Art Newspaper remarked that this collection was "an exception, because of the people involved. They are mythical".

The 1977 launch of YSL's Opium - which went on to become the world's best-selling scent - provided the designer and his partner with a serious acquisitions fund for paintings and sculpture. Stringent criteria were set: each piece had to come from a critical stage in the artist's development, it had to be in pristine condition and it had to possess an exceptional, documented provenance. The FT's Susan Moore compares their collection to Proust's madeleine.

Catalog and auction footage from the Christie's website here.

Source: Guardian

Yves Saint Laurent at the de Young Museum

2009-02-23T15:51:00.005Z

I was in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago and visited the de Young museum for the first time. Currently on display is the first major retrospective of Yves Saint Laurent's work in 25 years. The exhibition features 120 accessorised outfits as well as sketches, photographs and videos.

I've always loved Yves Saint Laurent's designs but since teaching fashion as a subject on the Irish CCEA exam syllabus, I've become borderline obsessed with his clothes.

Yves Saint Laurent was known for revolutionizing the haute couture tradition and laying the foundations of modern women’s wear. His couture designs were equally groundbreaking and reflected wide-ranging sources of inspiration. In Saint Laurent’s vocabulary, music, art, performance, literature and international cultures were just as significant as the new shapes he introduced.

For photos from the exhibition click here.

Yves Saint Laurent
01.11.08 - 05.04.09
de Young Museum
Golden Gate Park, San Francisco.

Eugenio Merino spices up ARCO Madrid

2009-02-23T13:42:00.006Z

The artwork attracting the most attention at ARCO (the Madrid International Contemporary Art Fair) this year was Eugenio Merino's gruesome sculpture. The artist has created a bobble-head Damien Hirst encased in one of the white display cabinets so favoured by the dollar billionaire YBA.

Titled For the Love of Gold (referencing Hirst's $100m diamond-encrusted skull, The Love of God), the piece was snapped up on the first day of the fair for $33,500 by a Florida collector.

Eugenio Merino has made it clear the sculpture is a 'joke' - although it remains a metaphor for the current state of the art world - but it is also paradoxical that if Hirst did kill himself his work would be worth even more.

Given the current economic climate, art fairs are not the bun fights they were only a year or two ago. There were, however, exceptions: Galerie Lelong and Arario Gallery both reported that sales at ARCO Madrid were much higher than those made at the latest edition of Art Basel Miami. Other galleries bucking the trend at ARCO Madrid included Haunch of Venison, whose director Adrian Sutton assessed this year's edition as 'incredibly strong, with sales much higher even than in 2008. We are really surprised by how strong this year's fair has been'. A key sale for the gallery was a video installation by Bill Viola titled Three Women (2008) for €190,000 to a private collector. I should mention that Haunch of Venison has just come out of a very interesting legal battle with HM Customs where the meaning of art was in dispute. Read the full article from The Art Newpaper here.

Satellite fair Art Madrid is now a leading Spanish contemporary art event, hosting 74 Spanish and international galleries. Taking place in the Pabellón de Cristal inside the Casa de Campo park, the fair provides a platform for up-and-coming galleries showing younger artists.

I posted about the impending backlash after Hirst's controversial auction last September. It seems that more and more people - collectors, dealers and other artists - are voicing their concerns about Hirst's methods and apparently insatiable thirst for cash. It might be that they're missing the point: ever since Warhol announced that 'making money is art, and working is art, and good business is the best art', Hirst knows he is playing an altogether different game.

Happy Valentine's Day

2009-02-13T02:13:00.011Z

This love bauble has a price: $23.6m to be precise. Jeff Koons' dazzling Hanging Heart set a record for any living artist at auction in November 2007.

If you find extravagant gestures are too obvious, there are plenty of art-related ideas out there for Valentine's day. Benevolent street art community, Beautiful Crime, are giving graffiti fans the chance to impress their loved ones by staging a mass canvas drop in London on February 14.

The inaugural ‘Valentine's Day MassARTcre’ will see pieces by the likes of stencil king Fark FK and his cohort Finbarr left on street corners across the capital. Ready to be picked up, dusted off and delivered to your significant other.

If walking around town in the freezing cold doesn't sound particularly romantic you could check out Valentine Storytelling at the British Museum, with a retelling of the mythical Babylonian love story of Tammuz and Ishtar.

For the anti-Valentine crew there's only one serious choice: the Hendrick's Valentine's Day Ball. Smiling is discouraged (there's a fine box) and you can enter the House of Onions to chop away and bawl your eyes out, before drying your tears on the crumbs at the deceased butterflies woodland picnic. Performers include Ophelia Bitz and Dickie Beau, who will recreate Judy Garland's saddest moments on stage. All rounded off with a live divorce signing. The theme is decaying beauty - my costume for the evening is RIP-unzel.

Cynicism aside, this February 14th is extra special: congratulations to my brother John for getting married in California last week, and to my best friend Ollie on her recent engagement!

Tranny Catwalk

2009-02-13T02:13:00.010Z

Prize-winning ceramicist Grayson Perry has an alter ego, Claire.

When he's not wearing patchwork dolly dresses, Perry favours the biker look. Very few men can do this - especially blond English men pushing 50 - but he manages to carry it off. In fact I'd say he's definitely one of the more handsome artists in town.

When Claire makes an appearance she can turn up dressed as a 19th century reforming matriarch, a middle-England protester, an aero-model-maker, an Eastern European Freedom fighter, or "a fortysomething woman living in a Barratt home, the kind of woman who eats ready meals and can just about sew on a button", describes Perry.

Art World magazine features Claire showing off her favourite outfits in this month's issue, styled as a fashion spread. Her garments include a felt coat with circus prints, a chiffon smock over a satin corset with Swarovski crystal-encrusted faux breasts and male genitalia, and a quilted print romper suit.

Material girl investments

2009-02-13T01:47:00.004Z

Marquee Capital is a niche asset management company specialising in celebrity memorabilia. They concentrate on Madonna, claiming that selected items once belonging to the star have increased 107-733% in value over the past few years.

A new exhibition of Marquee Capital's collection of film and stage costumes arrives at the Old Truman Brewery next week. Highlights include the black satin bustier featured in the "Open Your Heart" video and the hot pink dress from the "Material Girl" video.

The clothes will be displayed alongside photos, film props, magazines, videos and installations. All items will be auctioned later in the year.

Simply Madonna: Materials of the Girl
Old Truman Brewery, E1
Tickets from Ticketmaster

Come chek my gaff

2009-01-29T19:09:00.003Z

A group of artists known as the Da! Collective has been evicted from squatting in a £22.5m property in Mayfair.

They finally got the boot after advertising a series of art performances and events, including book-binding, role-playing and "labyrinth building".

When I was growing up, squatting meant sleeping bags in dusty Lewisham warehouses. These days artists have much more refined tastes - the collective's previous home was a Grade II listed £6.25m house on Upper Grosvenor Street.

Art Preview 2009

2009-01-29T17:49:00.008Z

The year started with the usual mad dash to catch the big winter shows before they finish - Renaissance Faces at the National Gallery and New Chinese Art (featuring special guest Julian Schnabel) at the pristine Saatchi Gallery in Duke of York Sq, but I was two days too late to see Tom Wesselmann's landscape steel-cuts at Bernard Jacobson... so frustrating when that happens!

In with the new: Alastair Mackie's fantastic show opened at the new-ish David Roberts Art Foundation space a week ago... a major exhibition of Gerhard Richter's portraits (including Ema, above) opens at the National Portrait Gallery next month... but the gold star goes to Tate Modern, which is staging two highly-anticipated exhibitions in 2009.

The first is Roni Horn aka Roni Horn, opening next month. This is the artist's first solo show in the UK and will feature a selection of glass sculptures and photographs.

The second is Sold Out: Good Business is the Best Art, a show that intends to explore the legacy of Pop Art beyond $71m Warhols, opening in October 2009. Going beyond ‘Pop’ as a style, the exhibition will foreground the ways in which certain key artists, since the 1980s, have created their own ‘brands’, engaged in self-promotion and co-opted marketing strategies. Among the artists represented will be Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons (Yorkshire Terriers, 1991, pictured), Takashi Murakami, Richard Prince, David Hammons, Martin Kippenberger and Damien Hirst.

With such a punchy title, Sold Out may well operate as the epitaph to the contemporary boom. The Evening Standard's art critic Ben Lewis recently wrote about how the market has hit a serious slump:

"The contemporary art boom is now over and some of the biggest names will collapse and the collecting efforts of the world's gazillionaires (Abramovich, Saatchi et al) will come to look like impulsive bets that went wrong. The Damien Hirst auction market has more or less collapsed and in the influential Baer Faxt poll, Richard Prince was voted the worst exhibition of the year in London and New York".

This new self-awareness seems to be of interest to smaller galleries, such as Patrick Heide, as well as the larger museums. Currently on show is Sale, curated by Martina Fortuni. This exhibition - operating as a kind of sociological experiment - is selling all works on display at half price; tackling the taboo of gallery prices as untouchable and of discounts as harmful to the artist's reputation. What does it mean when museums, galleries and even artists publicly acknowledge the consequences of a weakened financial environment? How can some artists thrive on branding exercises (cf. Koons, Hirst) while others dismiss such commercial ambitions as vulgar and distracting? These shows indicate a sea change for 2009.