Mid Festivities Missive
December 28, 2005
It's all been a bit quiet, post wise, over the festive period. The birthday celebrations finally ended today - The day itself - With Burgers at Tootsies and Football. Not to mention more pressies - after my Christmas additions. Biggest and best of which was my Lucie Bennett screen print. I now have a large pile of books to read, including Banksy's Wall And Piece, John Peel's Margrave Of The Marshes, Mobius Dick, by Andrew Crumey, as well as a couple of cook books and some works on Video and Digital Art. Oh and my very own Chelsea shirt, complete with my name on it! Amongst other things.
But we're off away until New Year and then it's party time again. so I'll leave myself this note to go and see the National Portrait Gallery's New Photographic Acquisitions and hopefully I'll have time to add links to this post in the New Year. Have a good one every one. Now where's that suitcase...
National Portrait Gallery
28 November 2005 - 26
Jan 2006
Room 39
Admission Free
Included amongst this collection are Food writer, Nigel Slater,
photographed by Richard Ansett. Jason Bell's iconic portrait of
Coldplay, Amit Lennon's sympathetic portrait of John Peel with his
famous record collection. Mary McCartney Donald's portrait of P.J.
Harvey and Trevor Leighton's portrait of pop legend Kate Bush.
Put this post together using Performancing for Firefox - very quick and efficient!
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The Early Birthday Continues...
December 23, 2005
Thanks everyone for the "surprise" gathering [well I had a bit of an idea] at Inigo last night and - the pressies - Hope I didn't put a dampener on things by being ill! Nice Festive lurgy someone's given me... Nice place anyway, must go again when I feel better.
I've just noticed that the Plane trees on the street outside still have some leaves left on them - Wonder if that always happens?
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|  | Just listening to the M.I.A. album while I try to muster up the energy to go out and finish my Christmas shopping. UK's Missy Elliott anyone? Part of my drunken online shopping purchases from Rough Trade the other night - Dangerous past time that! Tom Vek, Tom Russell and Devendra Banhart were the others.
Toyculture.com has commissioned exclusive rug designs from some Internationally famous urban and fine artists and produced a bespoke limited edition range of 100% woollen rugs. They can be purchased online or in person from Elms Lesters Painting Rooms, 1-5 Flitcroft Street, London, WC2H 8DH. They ain't cheap mind. The one above is £1350
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Coalfield Stories
Photofusion
17a Electric Lane
London
SW9 8LA
I stumbled across the Photofusion Gallery, which I didn't know existed, and it's only a little way from me. To coincide with the twentieth anniversary of the end of the national miners strike and the demise of the pits, they are currently showing a selection of works from three of the Coalfield Stories landscape exhibitions, commissioned by Side Gallery. John Davies, Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen and Simon Norfolk have documented the post-industrial landscape of the Durham Coalfield area where the last pit closed in 1993. Sort of ties in with the Get Carter link the other day.
Infuriating little game for when everyone is back at work.
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Buon Compleanno To Me [A Week Early!]
December 22, 2005
 Sam took me to Antonio Carluccio's Neal Street restaurant last night for an early Birthday meal and tipped them the wink that it was my birthday. They obliged with this plate, complete with Happy Birthday, written in chocolate, and Italian!... with our two glasses of port on it. I guess I would have made life easier had I not ordered the cheese and they could have brought out a Tiramasu or something with a candle in it - But what the hey - It was a fantastic meal in a lovely restaurant with incredibly friendly staff. I had...
Anti Pasti - Carpaccio di manzo con insalata di porcini e grana [beef, porcini and parmesan]
Primi - Pappardelle con funghi e prosciutto san Leo [pasta, ham and mushrooms doesn't do it justice!]
Secondi - Fagiano Tartufato [that's boned pheasant roasted and served with braised savoy cabbage, chestnuts and truffle sauce to you]
Sam had Mozzarella di Bufala con Pomodorini al forno, something pumpkin like and Sella di cervo al forno [venison in a morel sauce].
A couple of wines that I can't recall right now and a selection of cheeses and port... which came served up on a plate complete with the Birthday greeting, as pictured... Ahhhh!
This birthday is going to last a while - Like all across Christmas!
There was a slight dampener to the evening - Caused by a crap cocktail barman in Freuds on Shaftesbury Avenue managing to throw an entire "Cheeky Monkey" over me whilst shaking it... Which meant that I smelt of bananas for the rest of the night! Did get drinks on the house though.
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Carter Is Brutal
December 21, 2005
 I was glad to see The Tower in Colliers Wood included in Channel 4's Demolition series - And it's apparently topping the polls! I used to live in the shadow of it and it is an eyesore. What I found worse though was the almost continual vortex of wind that seemed to whip around it. I'm all for Brutalist architecture but this is extreme brutalism!
The only trouble with these concrete structures is they don't appear to age too well. I don't mean they look dated just they don't weather well. They look tatty. As far as I can tell, peple have objected to this building since it was built about 40 years ago but what makes it worse is the fact that it is now empty. The cost of demolishing it would be fantastic though. It sits over the Northern Line and there are shops and a school around it. So what happens if it finishes top of the poll?
Still, if it saves Gateshead Multi-Storey Car Park [famous of course for being the location where Corrie's Alf Roberts gets thrown from in Get Carter] - It seems unlikely that it will though - So much so that I'm thinking of going up to take some shots of it while I can, in the New Year. There's a whole lot of other stuff I want to do up there as well - Oddly enough, Rob [The GingerDJ to you!] posted an image of another of Owen Luder's [multistorey architect] work - The Tricorn Centre, that used to be in Portsmouth but has already been demolished. The image is from a postcard produced by the Caravan Gallery.
The Caravan Gallery is a mobile exhibition venue and visual arts project run by artists Jan Williams and Chris Teasdale who are on a mission to record the ordinary and extraordinary details of life in 21st century Britain. Eager to examine clichés and cultural trends, they are particularly drawn to absurd anomalies and curious juxtapositions, typical of places in transition and in the process of reinventing themselves. They don't have any dates for where they will be in 2006 yet - but keep an eye out for them.
A couple of things via Things - The Pi Project - mathematical music. Mmmm... Also the Bogus Tribute To Douglas Coupland Blog. They also mention Andy Rosen's Punk Photos that have been mentioned all over the place but are well worth a look.
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Saucy Sand Sculpture And Breitz Clips
December 17, 2005
 Found this saucy sand sculpture at flickr.
And I shot this at the Candice Breitz Installation at the White Cube Gallery back in September - It's not good quality and only short - Done on Canon S40. Not a video camera. There's another here as well.
Categories: Music, Art, London,
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One For Next Year
December 16, 2005
 Three abstract painters, spanning three generations of art, tied by a shared concern: how can an initial, decisive act define the final work?
For each artist, works begin rapidly, spontaneously, but are ‘completed’ through various labour-intensive painting processes.
This exhibition contrasts the late Patrick Heron, one of Britain’s greatest 20th Century artists, with American artist Jonathan Lasker, internationally successful since the 1980s and rising star Katie Pratt who, in 2001, was the youngest ever recipient of the Jerwood Prize, the UK’s most prestigious painting prize.
John Hansard Gallery
University of Southampton
Highfield
Southampton
SO17 1BJ
14 February – 8 April 2006
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More Urban Artistry And Richard Pryor RIP
December 15, 2005
 Richard Pryor managed to pass away without my noticing at the weekend. In fact I might have still been none the wiser had this image by Hutch not appeared on my Netvibes* page.
Hutch has work at Grafik Warfare's Exhibition, Still Living Life, at Hoxton Works. It doesn't say how long it's on for but viewing is by appointment by the looks of things...
Hoxton Works
128 Hoxton Street
N1 6SH
e-mail info@hoxtonworks.co.uk or call Ellie 020 7012 1600
Check out Failed Rock Star as well. A sort of Offline/Online magazine!?!? Issue 4 [Winter 2005] is on sale now, via the website. It's an A5, black & white, hand-made, hardback book. Plus 50 individually numbered and hand stamped digitally printed A5 cards, in both black & white and full colour, featuring the work of over 40 artists & writers. All presented in a screenprinted canvas bag. It's a limited edition of 200 and will cost you £10.
* yet another bit of Web 2.0 stuff I've been trying out this week - I think I'll really take to Calendar Hub as well.
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Back To Lowlander!!!
December 14, 2005
 Whoops... Accidently wandered into Lowlander again yesterday evening. Purely as a reward for a succesful Christmas shopping trip of course. Thought I'd try a bottle of the amusingly named Kwak beer, which said it came served in a stirrup glass. That seemed innocent enough to me... until the barman plonked this thing [right] on my table!
Not too many people stared but it's a bit of a chore getting the glass in and out of the wooden base and the last bit foams up and comes at you like a mini "yard of ale". But it's no laughing matter. This beast is 8% abv. and not to be toyed with! Nice liquorice like flavour though.
Unfortunately I hadn't planned ahead carefully enough and had already eaten, so had no need for any of their fantastic double Dutch chips with garlic mayo... Next time, next time.
I've just created a new XML feed at Feedburner which merges my updates to Flickr and Del.icio.us with my latest posts - I'll stick a link to it somewhere on right in due course.
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A Game Of Tag
December 13, 2005
Trying out TagWorld and Meebo this evening - TagWorld is MySpace but a whole lot more user friendly and not quite so overrun with kids yet - Bit slow and clunky and not all that happy in Firefox but worth pursuing.
Meebo is browser based access to your IM account from any PC - But as I'm new to stuff I'l have to wait until I have a bit more experience all round with that - Like have someone else to talk to on it, other than Jake!
These community sites are all well and good but take up a lot of time keeping things fresh and up to date...
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| Both are in beta but look as though they might get big - or a lot bigger, as TagWorld looks as though it has in excess of 180,000 users already. Still looking good with Writely but I can't get the EverNote webclipper to work with Firefox 1.5 though. To truly complete my Blogging arsenal. Still better stop now - Need strength for the BIG Xmas shop tomorrow after Amazon were as crap as they usually are of late and I had to cancel a £250 order because all the stuff they said would be delivered in 24 hours is on fact due between Dec 21 and Jan 9! |
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Top 10 Albums 2005
December 12, 2005
Hey! I've just blogged this using Writely - A lot more control over blog layout and at last something that prevents me from having to add the target="_blank" tag to my links manually!!! Fantastic. Excuse the constant updates to this post but I've finally ironed out the anomolaies like the align left and the large gap between date and body - Not to mention the table needing the "class" added to it. I'm happy now!
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Blue
December 11, 2005
We saw the Blue Man Group [get over to their site and make your own art] last night. What a bizarre event that is! Definitely worth the experience. A lot better than I had expected and totally indescribable. The few pints we had at Lowlander may have helped a bit of course! Shame Lowlander's website isn't a little more educational given the range of Belgian and Dutch beers available. A few links to the variety of brewers would be good at least... I've found that Artois Bock have a site though. We liked that one!
Shame we couldn't have called Kerry and Rob earlier and got them along to Santa's Ghetto, which they would have loved, but it would have spoilt the surprise as Rob thought we were all elsewhere. I'll be going back to Santa' Ghetto after I've improved my aim - Knock three milk bottles down and win any piece in the store. I'm more likely to buy something instead I think.
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Grouper Grotto
December 09, 2005
 Santas Ghetto is an exhibition that features new "rubbish drawings" by Ian, works by 3D, Banksy, David Shrigley, Jamie Hewlett, Gee Vaucher, Stanley Donwood, Sickboy, Chris Cunningham, Anthony Micallef, Space Invader, Paul Insect, Simon Munnery, and many more... there was a similar thing last year in Charing Cross Rd. I believe... Open daily from 10am - 8pm.
[9pm on Thursdays, 5pm on Sundays]
1st December - 24th December
9 Berwick St, Soho, London W1.
Despite not having completed any videos yet I have been looking at the options for when I do. The Greatest Journal seemed a good bet to start with, but looking around it seems an absolute waste of time - just a bunch of kids posting rubbish off their mobiles and the odd bit of crap porn. Google Video Beta may be better, but I haven't looked at it much.
The advantage The Greatest Journal had was the code to paste your vids into a web age of your choice. With Google there is of course tagging, which Greatest Journal is sorely lacking, and it obviously aims to go down the TV archiving route. there are TV clips on Greatest Journal but they aren't official... Google, you can be assured, will be a lot more mature than Greatest Journal in the long run.
Today though I happened across Grouper - Which looks to be aiming to be in the Flickr league. Another option that's only in Beta, but with a lot more homework done before its launch. It doesn't seem to view too well in Firefox or Flock, with neither of them being able to find the correct plug-in to view the video's.
Best then to install the Grouper app and do everything from there. You can compose your own "Groovies" [shame they didn't call them Groupies!] within the app, from stills, movies and audio, with a few zoom/pan style effects and publish them to the public or specified friends in private groups. You get your own Profile page as well and any shared vids come complete with code for others to put them in their web pages or wherever they want to use them.
So, if you're going to join in, try and do something constructive and put some time and effort into it - the last thing thing the world needs is terabytes of files of lo-fi vids of kids arsing about after a couple of Bacardi Breezers!
And look out for my first effort. It won't be much... Stop-frame, about 3 minutes, called 1-2-3-4. I've got a bit of a way to go yet! But I'll lay off the Breezers until it's finished!
Fancy that... Yahoo buy del.icio.us and the Guardian reports it before Tom Coates!
Actually, I take that back - I think he got there first! Phew!
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Underworld: Pizza For Eggs
December 08, 2005
 Underworld
Pizza For Eggs
Release Date: 7th December 2005
Food A Ready
Back In The Fears
Vanilla Monkey
Flatz
Ancient Phat Farm Coat
Play Pig
The gallery is made up of a selection of Karls photographs curated by Tomato's John Warwicker, who also designed the artwork.
Audio: 25' 08" [52mb mp3]
Gallery: 444 photos [html]
Cover artwork [pdf]
This is the second in the Riverrun series of releases.
DOWNLOAD ONLY £5.00 from Underworldlive.com
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Turner Shed Into Cash Quick!
December 07, 2005
 So, Simon Starling wins the Turner Prize for an installation that is basically an old shed, that he supposedly transformed into a boat, took to Germany, paddled down the Rhine and rebuilt to its original form.
Gosh! I once packed all my clothes into a suitcase, took them to Germany, wore them, packed them back up and brought them home again!
Primer has been released in the USA, so kottke reports. Wonder how long we'll have to wait for it here. It comes complete with a Directors commentary... I can't wait... I'm still scratching my head over bits of it!
Time to decide what I want to see at the Beckett Festival next year - I think I once sat opposite Beckett on a Piccadilly Line [I think] tube - I sat across from a white haired man, on the end seat, by the door. He appeared to be asleep. Then, slowly, he opened his eyes, leaned over and asked me [in a soft Irish accent] to wake him at Hammersmith.
This must have been the very early 80's and I'm sure I read that he was living around there then - Of course it could have been any old Irish guy, I don't even know if he had much of an Irish accent... but it looked very much like him to me.
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Mash Up The Machinist
December 06, 2005
 Just got around to watching Secret Window this weekend, which was good enough. Not sure how good it would have been without Depp but it was enjoyable enough in a Stephen King kinda way...
But last night we watched The Machinist, which has been sitting around here for about a month.
Apart from wondering how the hell Christian Bale managed to stay alive for the duration of filming there isn't anything too amazing about the storyline - You'll have seen most of it, in other films, before - the whole thing is a modern day Dostoevskyian nightmare, with nods towards Don't Look Now and a suggestion of an almost reverse Faustian pact [Who else could Ivan be?] - there are plenty of sign posts in case the plot gets too much for you. However, it is beautifully filmed [in Spain] and somehow the ending still leaves you a little surprised, mostly because there are so many obvious conclusions it could have come to.
Q-Unit: Queen and 50-Cent Mashup
Q-Unit is a mashup of 50-Cent and Queen, with tracks like This is How We Bite the Dust, Bohemian Wanksta and We Will Rock You in Da Club.Not quite the Grey Album but has it's moments and is bound to piss off a few people and that's what counts. But who first? The Queen camp or Fiddy's?
Found via Boing Boing at mashculture.nl
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Podcast Poll Platform One
December 04, 2005
Starting tomorrow Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkington broadcast the first of 12 x 30 minute Podcasts - So the Guardian Unlimited reports - Thats 6 hours they'll have to be funny for - Actually I suppose it only works out about 10 minutes each a week... Easy!
What is all the fuss over NME allegedly rigging the writers poll for the year to include the twaddle they've been paid to peddle for the past 12 months? I'm sure it must have been happening for years now! It only has a circulation of about 5 so who the hell is bothered - You shouldn't even be reading it if you are over the age of 15.
Platform One Artist Studio: Open to the public from December 1-18, 4-8pm weekdays and 11am-8pm at weekends.
Apparently there has been an artist studio on Platform One of Wandsworth Common Station for 8 years! It was set up by Gregory Epps and his partner Ema Mandicevska, after it was donated to them as payment-in-kind for a commissioned sculpture. The studio has been converted into a gallery, for most of December, where Ema or one of her colleagues will be on hand to discuss the exhibits.
The Hope pub is nearby and not bad MAP
I've just put this blog together with a combination of Firefox/Sage Newsreader and Evernote and a very efficient combination it's proving to be. Just paste the results into blogger... i still wish I had something that automatically added the target="_blank" tag to my links though!
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Iguana Girlies
December 02, 2005
Hope to get to see The Night Of The Iguana by Tennessee Williams soon.
The London stageshow stars Woody Harrelson. I really enjoyed the Film, directed by John Huston in 1964 which starred Richard Burton. I haven't seen it for years but remember it being very intense, on a par with Whose Afraid Of Virginia Woolf. In fact it was on the set of Iguana that Burton, met Elizabeth Taylor, although she isn't in the film. Deborah Kerr is.
It was whilst looking for a copy to rent from Screen Select that I happened across this series of DVDs by Illuminations. Illuminations publishes videos and DVDs which can be bought from their website, museums and bookshops. I was particularly interested to see that they have a DVD of Iain Sinclair's London Orbital which I am currently reading. There are a lot of other interesting titles as well.
I keep reading stuff about Acid Drops and Sugar Candy, which is an exhibition currently showing at the Transistion Gallery in Hackney and at Fosterart, 20 Rivington Street, London EC2.
Fortified by sweets and alco pops Acid Drops & Sugar Candy deconstructs Christmas time overindulgence with a show of small paintings and drawings by over 40 contemporary artists. Their acerbic little pearls delve deep into saccharine sweetness and pull out the inevitable dark depression that this annual seasonal excess brings. So it says here!
It's a bit of a mixed bunch - Some of it is pretty juvenile [or should I interpret that as Naive?] but Paul Murphy's Girly Playing Cards [above] are good - He's also know as Catfunt on Flickr. A man whose photographic style can only be described as drunk!
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Fair And Fall: In No Particular Order
December 01, 2005
I don't know how long the BBC will leave it up for, but for some reason there is a video clip of Mark E. Smith reading the Classified Football results on BBC Online - And being a bit lippy to Ray Stubbs... John Peel would have been proud!
Milton Keynes Gallery
19 Nov 05 – 22 Jan 06
Pae White: In No Particular Order
Admission FREE
Exhibition supported by The Henry Moore Foundation
Milton Keynes Gallery presents the first solo exhibition in a British public gallery by Californian-based artist Pae White. Her artistic practice shifts effortlessly across differing genres and media, from fine art and product design to urban planning and architecture, typography and graphics, and this will be reflected in her new and recent work at MKG.
So all the blurb says - looks interesting enough to me - Not sure if it's enough to get me to Milton Keynes or not though!
"White’s work is often low-tech, comprised, for instance, of repeatedly made cardboard cut-outs, delicate wire constructions, suspended mobiles or evocative ephemeral wall paintings made direct onto the building’s surface. Central to her work is the playful exploration of space and light within a specific architectural setting, resulting in a visually engaging experience".
This is putting me off a bit now - these press releases can work two ways!
"Is colour old-fashioned? Not for multimedia artist Pae White. In recent years the Los Angeles-based artist has become an influential name for a new generation of artists exploring colour and space. But like most things, the original is better than the copycats. In her pieces, colour blends and fades in and out like sun through the LA smog. White’s work is vibrant, varied and seems to literally glow".
Another thing I'm in two minds about after looking at what's on show is the... London Art Fair: which takes place at the Business Design Centre in Islington from 18-22 January, 2006. There will be 100 leading galleries showing, what they class as, the very best of Modern British and Contemporary art with work of exceptional quality from across the last 100 years!
Emerging artists are represented alongside "museum-quality" work from masters of the last century. I've looked at some of the stuff on the website and I'm not convinced, but may still go as I've never been to the London Art Fair before so I feel I ought to give it a go once...
At least it isn't in Milton Keynes.
There is a specal offer of buy two tickets for the price of one when you book before 13th January. The advance ticket price is £10 plus 50p booking fee. Just call 0870 126 0218 or visit London Art Fair and quote LAF33.
Opening times
11am-6pm Wednesday 18 January
11am-6pm Thursday 19 January
11am-7pm Friday 20 January
11am-7pm Saturday 21 January
11am-5pm Sunday 22 January
Ticket Prices
£10.00 Tickets in advance
£12.50 Ticket on the door
£8.00 Concession in advance
£9.00 Concession on the door
£20.00 Five-Day Ticket
£20.00 Preview Evening
Free Children under 12
£10.00 Catalogue
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