Tuesday 6 November 2018

Three months, Terms and Conditions, Inside Intel, Flow My Tears, new work and over 90 exhibitions

Oh no, it’s been 3 months! Such a long time… I’ve been severely slacking with this, I’m not sure whether it’s the lack of a studio or being too caught up in my own life and having to go to work at multiple jobs for money. I do have free days, I just don’t spend them writing all day anymore. I probably should… Either way, a lot has happened, I’ve seen a lot of shows and I’ve been in a few too. I have a pile of press releases to get through, such a huge pile, so the ‘reviewing’ will be mostly archiving, alongside talking about the shows I’ve been in and will be in, new work and general life movements.

So, reading back through the last blog post, I was just leading up to the exhibition I curated at Annka Kultys Gallery, has it been that long? The show went well, people who came really enjoyed it and the pictures look really crisp, of course. The whole experience was great, but it cost me a lot shipping the works back and forth. As always, I continue to learn and evolve from these things. I think from now on, if I’m asked to curate an exhibition, it would be helpful to write up a contract of sorts, having an agreement with the gallery or space, saying what I as the curator will do, and what the gallery will do for me, speaking about money and general bits and pieces. Also, just to have less people in my curated shows. Obviously more people = more people interested in coming, but my shows are always just way too busy with works. They work well, or hopefully they do, but the last couple have felt so crammed, plus shipping works is too expensive and always ends with me spending more money than I have. Either way, here’s some photographs: https://www.isthisitisthisit.com/terms-and-conditions-may-apply


The show launched issue 5, which was successful. People liked the book, the design, the essays, and most of them sold. I still have like ten left, so whenever they sell it’s like just extra money in my pocket, which is super nice, alongside being able to give them out to people I work with, as a nice gift. It’s not a lot, but it’s something. If you’re reading this and still haven’t read it, head here to buy it in print or just to read through the PDF: https://www.isthisitisthisit.com/issue-05
I’m currently working on issue 6 now, which will come out sometime next year. I’ve been a bit slow since this last project, which is okay, and I do want to take some more time to think about issue 6. I feel like the last couple, especially the most recent issue, have been a bit rushed and not my best work. I want to be more involved, and for them to be something I’m super proud of. Plus I don’t have a space to exhibit in yet, which I need before properly thinking of anything. So right now I’m collecting artists, get the artists, get the space. I think that’s how it works. Issue 6 focuses on the news, alternative facts and everything else current. More info here if you want to apply, open call continues until the end of November: https://www.isthisitisthisit.com/issue-06
Plus, I updated the isthisit? logo. It was long overdue, as I designed the first one very off handily, I called the platform isthisit?, I think that demonstrates how little I was thinking about the whole thing. So yeah, new logo, new issue, a hopefully revitalised platform:
What else? The piece I showed for the exhibition came out incredibly well, titled Abandoned Bag, and is now being shown a lot, currently at an exhibition in New York, which is very cool, and then it’ll be in a show in London next year, and hopefully in a few other shows too. Perhaps it will even sell at one point! Here’s the little text that goes alongside: Unattended Bag takes the form of a custom made handbag featuring slogans from a recent Facebook advertising campaign launched in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, whereby it was revealed that illegal data harvesting on the platform had occurred on a world-wide scale during the 2015/2016 United States presidential election campaign and the 2016 Brexit vote. The unattended bag, referencing the continued threat represented by unattended luggage in public and private spaces, contains a number of shredded newspapers accompanied by a 3D print of Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg’s head. The attached USB contains all of Bicknell-Knight’s Facebook data since joining the social media platform over 10 years ago.


I’ve continued to work on green covered sculptures, calling them Disguised Office Infrastructures, due to them being various office equipment, imagining them fitting in with the aesthetics of a corporate office attempting to ‘go green’, but in a faux, artificial way, with plastic flowers and artificial grass. I see these as small, supplementary works, pieces that are part of a larger exhibition or project, rather than works within themselves. Some of these were shown as part of the exhibition Inside Intel at Goldsmiths, as part of this big conference organised by the Centre for Investigative Journalism. I was exhibiting alongside some really great people, artists whose work I truly love, like Simon Denny, Yuri Pattison, Joey Holder, Iain Ball, Eva and Franco Mattes, etc. So it was cool, plus I got paid, so what else can you ask for? Here’s some pictures of the works and the show: https://tcij.org/inside-intel


I’ve also recently begun using bolts and old tech, accompanied by the green, unsure of where this will go, but for now I’m building these oddities, mushing them together and seeing where things go. Here’s an example:
I continue to make the fake paintings, putting them out there every so often. I’m very close to paying someone to make one for me. I kind of want to do one at least, to actually see whether it can be done and that it turns out well. Anyway, we’ll see I guess. I’m slowly refining what the content of these works are, going through a series influenced by a new video piece containing a bunch of news media, as well as taking further footage from the site that creates speculative animations for future products. I guess what I’m saying is, I’m still working out what to actually paint, as it’s more money than I can throw at a project right now, to simply have one made and it not to go anywhere. If I could actually paint I’d paint a bunch, I keep saying maybe I should try actually painting, with a projector and paints, or drawing with a lightbox, tracing images. What would be the point? Here’s some of the works: https://www.bobbicknell-knight.com/paintings





Recently I finalised a new video piece, or kind of finalised it. I’m still ironing out the details and thinking about whether or not I should continue working on it. It’s about 25 minutes in total, which is super long I know, featuring footage taken from a news channel on YouTube that converts news stories into animations. I went through the entirety of their catalogue, downloading the snippets that looked at new media technologies and automation. I’ve then put them together, with a fairly lucid soundtrack and fade ins, taking away the speech, and the context from the individual snippets. At the moment it’s fairly abstract, although there is a discernible code within the work, objects and people are assigned colours, you see different logos and ideas pop up, from drone warfare to surveillance states, but there’s no overt ‘this is what this is about’ type position. I’ve been thinking about adding a person speaking, speaking a script that brings all of this together, making this more obvious, but I’ll get to that. Here’s a little text I wrote for something else, but may have some mileage in this, it needs adding to of course to be viable for a 25 minute film, but it’s a good starting point:

A plane soars overhead, you lift your head, watching the chemtrails dissipate against the dusty red sky. It’s only condensation, apparently, or that’s what Wikipedia says. Either way, who worries about chemtrails anymore? If they wanted to infect the city they’d have done it already, and wouldn’t have thrown around the kind of coin that fuels jets to do it. Much cheaper to develop an app, hiring a small team of web developers would be far more effective. Better yet, why not set up a Kickstarter or start a GoFundMe, market it as something they need, something they can’t live without. Then who else can they blame but themselves?

You zoom in, switch to infrared and close your eyes, logging into the apparatus of digital pathways and virtual connections that enables you to navigate past the wall. An artificial blockade, developed by them to keep you out, away from the heat of the fire and fast flowing data streams.

Later, lying in the dust of your family home, black and white swatches infiltrate your eyelids, sulking in the midnight air, waiting for a pair of unregistered eyeballs to hover over them, activating the ad, earning revenue and a meagre amount of FiatCoin.

This is the beginning text for a curated project, but could work for this, a sort of speculative fiction, present but future, commenting on capitalism, automation and current trends without being too overt. Here’s the video too, at the moment you kind of allow it to wash over you in a way, or that’s how you’re supposed to experience it anyway: https://vimeo.com/295207131
I’m still thinking of how to install it, definitely within the aluminium structure that I still have a bunch of and have been using, but in what way? Here’s a vague digital sketch, but to build these things I need an opportunity, otherwise, again, it’s just throwing money at a project I have no idea will actually ever be shown. I’d like to use aluminium prints, slotted into the pieces, potentially with snippets of the different bits from the video, or perhaps different news sites associated with fake news? That could be fun… Kind of like a log or timeline of different websites popping up pre/post election, fuelling the fake news movement? Perhaps I could get that printed on vinyl, so you sit on the sites to watch the vid? Hmm… Either way, here’s the model I previously made:


Curatorially I’m moving forwards with issue 6, but I recently finished a curated project for Daata Editions, a platform I’ve really admired for some years now. The curated project is fairly basic, bringing artists onto the platform, in order to sell the work, in the form of an online exhibition of sorts. It was fun, although the first time I’ve properly worked with contracts between artists. Obviously I’ve done consignment and loan agreements before, but this was a little more than that. Anyway, it’s been a fun process, collecting all these artists with a large ish platform behind me. I’ve called the show Flow My Tears. It should be coming out in the next month or so, potentially at NADA in Miami, but that’s to be confirmed. The first part of the press release is the little fictional text above, with this being the next part, talking about some of the artworks and being a little more proper with the writing:

Flow My Tears is an exhibition of new and previous works by several national and international artists, including Shamus Clisset, Stine Deja, Bex Ilsley, Jillian Mayer, Jonathan Monaghan, Rustan Söderling and Thomas Yeomans. The videos and moving images are predominantly digital in nature, created using animation software and 3D scanning techniques, concerning ideas surrounding the cyborg body, conspiracy theories, ideological differences and enhanced memory mechanisms. The exhibition takes its name from the 1974 novel by Philip K Dick, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. Set within a dystopian police state where a totalitarian government has complete authority, controlling its population through vapid entertainment, material reward, and 24/7 surveillance, the book is a parable about loneliness and dissatisfaction within our hyper-consumerist world.

Shamus Clisset’s new animation I Wish I Could Talk to Ponies confronts the artists relationship to New York City and the ongoing effect that the destruction of the world trade center in 2001 has had around the world. In the years since, the very real and impactful events of 9-11 have been remixed and diluted through throw-away meme culture and conspiracy websites, abstracted beyond recognition and away from any meaningful reaction. Within the work, two birthday candles atop a birthday cake burn ferociously, while balloons endlessly scroll in the background.

Within Stine Deja’s new video series, Hard core, soft body, you’re introduced to reimagined human forms, flesh and technology combined into hybrid beings, grotesquely beautiful visions of future prosthetics, edging ever closer to the technological singularity. The constructions make familiar sounds and subtle movements, housed in a literal ‘grey area’, referencing lab like environments and in-between spaces.

Bex Ilsley’s series of short moving image works, Telepresences, depict the artist embodying various emotive characters and personas. The title refers to the use of virtual reality technology, whereby the user has the ability to control objects and participate in distant events, transporting themselves into different bodies and altering their characteristics, digitally escaping into the net.

In Jillian Mayer’s series of video works, DAY OFF, we watch as an unnamed protagonist engages in a fully immersive virtual reality video game. He is completely disconnected from the world of the viewer, oblivious to the environment as well as the viewer's physical presence and gaze, trapped in the virtual world.

Jonathan Monaghan’s Earthly Delight combines religious iconography with modern forms of neoliberal consumerism. Within the work, a computer animated golden serpent wraps itself around an organic grocery bag, slowly squeezing until a rosy red apple rises from the bag. The apple splits in half, revealing a futuristic weapon beyond comprehension, firing at the snake and protecting the produce.

Eternal September is Rustan Söderling’s 18-minute digital odyssey, delving into the origins of the internet and the physicality of virtual networks. As the viewer you’re taken on a journey, traversing through submerged office buildings and swampy waters, accompanied by humming servers and YouTube tutorials. A short accompanying video, In The Zone, circles a lone figure in an abandoned and overgrown industrial landscape, whose face and head are adorned with various past and present objects, from cigarette butts to iPhone cables.

The focus of Thomas Yeoman’s new video work, Trooping the Battle Ensign, focuses on an animated version of the Transgender Pride Flag, adorned with the slogan and rattle snake found on the Gadsden Flag, an early revolutionary American flag that’s recently been co-opted by the Tea Party. The flag waving is an emblem of government failure to protect rights or provide basic assurances to disenfranchised people, throughout history and during the current complicated political climate. The work imagines the reconciliation of opposing groups and the co-option of enemy signs, slogans and symbols, a strategy utilised by punk culture in the 1970s.

Here's a little trailer I made for the project, with snippets of the different works and a nice overlay. I like it, hopefully the artists do to: https://vimeo.com/298142472

I’m also in the midst of making some more sculptural works, finally using these bolts that I’ve been wanting to use for ages, commonly used when installing signs and notices in various institutions and office buildings. They’re such a nice material, which will kind of force materials together, attached to the wall, for this new series of works. They’ll be a layer of printed aluminium dibond, with a screengrab from the film mentioned above, then a lanyard with either ‘delegate’ or ‘volunteer’ that’s wrapped around the print, then an RFID blocking plastic card attached to the aluminium, plus potentially another aluminium print. The print speaks about the death of old media and news, with new ways such as the animating of news being made to combat the lack of interest in printed media, with the lanyards speaking about authority, the texts being reminiscent of the kind of cliched nature of They Live quotes, or akin to them. The RFID cards for me are symbolic of how technology continues to develop, and with those developments people who want to interfere or take advantage rise to the surface. So, the rise of emails meant that emailing scams became prevalent, now with the prominence of contactless cards criminals use card readers to electronically steal money from you by nudging up against you. One step forwards, two steps back. Here’s a model of how it will look, I’ll have two of these made within the next few days, once those prints arrive:
What else? I recently got a hold of some blinds, which I thought might be cool for drawing on or something. I then drew the Psi sign on one, it looked okay, but not too great. I have two, so if this one is now ruined I have one more to actually do something good with it. Something to do with privacy and change. I like the work I did with the Psi symbol, and the idea of changing ideologies and symbols, but will have to properly think of a way to use it well. If only they made hand held printers that could print directly onto material. I’m sure they do, maybe? Either way, that’s something to think about.
So yeah, in my own practice that’s what’s happening, plus curatorially too. In terms of shows, I have the current one in New York, Total Power Exchange. I was in a terrible open call show at PS Mirabel in Manchester in June/August. That was just crap, solidifying my disinterest in applying to random open calls, then there was the Orbit UK Art Graduate Show in August. That was fine, but super random and pretty dull, then Inside Intel, which was in October. The a screening in October in Japan, which is fun but doesn’t really do anything aside from something for my CV. Upcoming I’m in a group show this month, curated by Jake Major, a friend of mine who still studies at Chelsea. His first curated show. I’m exhibiting an updated version of Colleen and Joshua, made about two years ago at this point. It’s a fun work that I think kind of holds up. That’s being shown in the aluminium structure, with the MDF seat that has printed emojis on top.

Also this month, I think I’m in a quick show at Saatchi Gallery, which I think I’m in. Also potentially at another show at a smaller gallery, yet to fully know but we’ll see…

Then I have this Utopia exhibition in Slovakia which will be cool, called Utopus CSR +, Time for new utopia (?), that’s from December to March, showing a video and the hammer and sickle SIM cards. Then nothing until January, a curated show at Sluice in Hackney, showing the bag, then a show at Platform Southwark that same month. Then in February the group show GROUND ZERO EARTH curated by Yasmine Rix, a curator friend. That may have some money behind it, so potentially I’ll be able to make the paintings.

Then a couple of online things, in March I’ll be doing a thing for Cosmos Carl, basically a website that’s only links to other websites/artworks. I’d like to host something on the deep web, a work or project or something. I’ve admired them for some time. Then an interview I did about a month ago should be going up on the Conversation Project some time soon, plus interviews with Drool and Stimuli, although I haven’t heard back from them in a while, so we shall see I guess.

I think that’s everything to do with me, so, lots of group shows with previous works, but nothing super new, no solo shows or seriously fleshed out curated projects just yet. Hopefully this will happen at some point soon, hopefully! I just need a nice space. At over 3000 words in, let’s begin writing about exhibitions. Most of these will be long gone I’m sure, but as this blog is more for me as a reference and reflective process, who cares? If you want to see/read critique of mine, follow isthisit? on Instagram, where I document every show I go to and write a little, or big, critique of it: https://www.instagram.com/is_this_it_is_this_it/

Starting with Metahaven at the ICA, really nicely made videos, very long, but very full of content and super considered. I didn’t understand most of it, but the carpet was nice and I felt involved within it.
SURVEY at Jerwood Space, some nice works, Frank Wasser alternative newspaper was super nice, definitely want to email him about being in issue 6, plus nice work from Hazel Brill, Milly Peck and Chris Alton. Everything else was okay, kind of dislike Lindsey Mendick’s ceramic works, then always dislike work by Joe Fletcher Orr, a known misogynist/abuser.
The Metallurgical Ouroboros at Gossamer Fog was super nice, lots of great work, Rustan Soderling was in it, who of course I love and have worked with before. Yeah, consistently is key with these things, and Gossamer Fog has a continuously great program.
Inside Intel, the group show I was in at Goldsmiths, was really great, albeit forced in a lot, the same work could have been shown in a space triple the size. Still though, great art, great people, great everything. Don’t hate the space, hate the game.

HTTPS:// curated by IKO at Sluice was nice, a show focused around artists internet presence. It was nice, but felt slightly diluted. You could charge your phone and connect to the WiFi, with all the works purpose being to make you want to go to the artists’ websites. I like the premise.
Godai Sahara at GAO Gallery was nice, hand made soap (that you could take away) plus tea plants. What’s not to like? Plus, I work there, so am bias to an extent aha!
Jacqueline Humphries at Modern Art was actually quite good, paintings with basically code on them, made from screen printing and other techniques. There were some weird 3D printed bits attached to some of the works, but the ones that weren’t actually looked quite nice. They’re huge works, a lot bigger than any normal wall, so that’s kind of impressive I guess within itself?
Yunchul Kim at the Korean Cultural Centre was just very cool. Like, the works were super science and just very impressive as objects. As works of art, I was less interested, but they had a sense of wonder, similar to that of a kid going to the science museum and having their hair stand on end from putting their fingers on an electric ball. It’s that kind of excitement.
Artificially Intelligent at the V&A was good, lots of AI based works, and favourites from Fabio Lattanzi Antinori, although it was basically in a corridor, so felt super not part of the main activities of the V&A. They must have so much money, why can’t they get one person to invigilate?
Florian Roithmayr at Tenderpixel was okay, lots of plaster based works, making me think back to my plaster days on foundation, which you can see if you go far enough back on this blog. It did make me want to work in plaster again, just because of the ease, the ease of mould making and the smoothness of plaster. I should return to that, perhaps?
Tamsin Snow at Block 336 was super crisp, a very well made, slick animation of an office building of some sort, where you sat down on a lush carpet to watch. It was super crisp and just very elegant. There was text that came up throughout, kind of distracting from the beautiful nature of the animation, but it contextualised the work. Although, surely the press release does that for you?
Borbala Szanto at Matt’s Gallery was also crisp and nice, sculptures utilising universal objects, like plane belts, and wooden objects resembling certain objects and things. It was very ‘nice’.
INGEST / digest / excrete at [SPACE] was fine, not so memorable.
Sofiane Ababri at [SPACE] was interesting but I didn’t stay long enough at the opening to fully indulge in the work. Layered full of things that I’m not involved with; homosexuality and African American people.
CHOP LEISURE at IMT was good, very crisp work from Kara Chin, some lovely ceramic fish. It was fun but not amazing, would recommend, it’s a lovely gallery.
Anni Albers at Tate Modern was dull.
APT + ONE, a group show at APT Gallery, was perhaps the most salon hang show I’ve been to that wasn’t a salon hang. It was super weird and crammed and really unpleasant.

Michele Abeles at Sadie Coles was fine, nice photographs in big, well made frames. Some of them had cameras attached, which I was kind of bored by. Like, why use cameras, it feels like you’re just throwing around your money, or your material budget anyway.
Cumulative Effect: Disability and the welfare state was very good, work about disabilities made by disabled people. Well put together, some good work and it seemed all very positive. Curated by Shape Arts.
Morag Keil at Project Native Informant was truly fantastic, a show of multiple doors, sesame street esque with lots of AI voices and motion activated videos. I can’t do it justice by speaking about it in this deluge of shows, so please do look it up for yourself. It ended a little while ago, but well worth visiting.
Charlotte Johannesson at Hollybush Gardens was fine, not that interesting, but tech based, so usually that’s enough for me.
Ben Jamie at Castor wasn’t totally my thing, abstract painting, but the press release was super nice and very well written, making me appreciate the work. That’s what the press release should do!
Erica Scourti’s show at Almanac was very good, actually intelligent work about AI, not over indulgent work about AI. I am a big fan of her work.
Maggie Lee at Arcadia Missa was surprisingly nice, subtle works about going to the club and music and nicenuss.
Naomi Fitzsimmons at Sao Roque was fun, focused on a new video about the proverbial Emily, a name that basically sums up every female office worker in the city. It was a fun, serious, well made piece. No press release, but the content was pretty obvious and easy to read into.
Miriam Naeh at Castor Projects was nice, well made sculptures peering and coming out of an assortment of plinths. I liked it, although didn’t really fill the gallery as much as I’d have liked them too.
Living with Buildings at Wellcome Collection was fine, very museum esque but nice to see work by Ilona Sagar again. She makes very nice work that I am a super fan of.
Tim Etchells at Vitrine was fine, neon text based work. Not so interesting.
Doris Salcredo at White Cube was bleak, names engraved in the floor, with water rising up and falling back in small puddles. The names were of refugees who have drowned in the ocean. Intense, and can’t really do anything more, just fully bleak really.
Chris Burden at Gagosian was extortionate, a meteorite holding up a Porsche. Super wanky.
Rachel Maclean at the Zabludowicz was fine, I should have loved it but in reality it just pushed the point even more that her work is pretty basic and super simplified. I love it, but it’s just so easy, not the way in which it’s made, but the bones and meat of the content. Yeah, not so impressed.
Cindy Sherman at Sprüth Magers was fun, nice to see new work from her. Multiple images of her, embodying classic characters, or duplicates of classic characters. It felt very disconcerting and odd, which the majority of her work is.
Moshekwa Langa at Blain Southern was dull, big paintings.
Downstairs though, works by Natalie Dray were super nice and crisp, evocative and impressive. Casts of branches and leaves that I was super into.
Evan Ifekoya at Gasworks was impressive, just because it was a literal installed wave that ran throughout the entire gallery. Very cool, very impressive.
Banu Cennetoglu at Chisenhale Gallery just felt like data for data’s sake, with no real insight into anything. Basically just presenting all video/image files from like 15 years of their life. Super dull and unthought out.
Mika Rottenberg at CCA was fantastic and well worth a visit, such a nice building and an amazing show.
Martine Syms at Sadie Coles was fine, I should have liked it but I wasn’t so into it.
Philippe Parreno at Pilar Corrias was another show where I was like, I want to like this, but it feels so cheap and about AI but not an interesting AI, an AI that’s just based on random ideas and not like deeply involved in something.
Yoshua Okon at Chalton Gallery was greatly bleak, really clever work looking at globalisation and immigration. Very good, and uncomfortable.
The Democratic Dish at Chelsea Space was so dull.
Taro Izumi at White Rainbow felt super random and just full of installation crap.
Rodney Graham’s lightboxes at Lisson Gallery were obviously super incredible and very clever, pretty much whole stories could be read into through this tableau of amazing content. Very clever and very impressive, I wonder how much they are worth?
Common Third at Copperfield was good, busy but lots of good work, and a really impressive wad of curator content about each of the works, which I do really respect.
Maude Maris at Pi Artworks was full of paintings of Barbara Hepworth’s sculptures. Really nice, impressive paintings, but not interesting.
Vanessa Billy at Assembly Point was crispy work about sci-fi futures. It was very ‘cool’ and current. With some super lovely well made glass and bronze objects, that I would love to have. So yeah, really nice, very stereotypical sci-fi, but really well done, so who cares?
Dan Rees at Assembly Point was a lot less interesting, small abstract paintings, with the press release basically speaking about how radical abstract painting is because it’s not seen as interesting by institutions. Really weird and uber wanky. Maybe I missed something?
Gabriel Hartley Landscapes at Seventeen Gallery was boring, huge abstract paintings.
Whereas the group show accompanying the exhibition was really great, due to it being Frieze week they had a group show with all their represented artists, or at least most of them, which included Jon Rafman. I was finally able to see his 2016 video Open Heart Warrior, it was good, using a lot of footage from video games, lots of references to life and moving forwards. I’m still super into his work.
Antoine Catala at Marlborough Contemporary was amazing, just, amazing. Vibrating and moving silicone objects, paintings that morphed and sucked into each other. It was super impressive and just really amazing work. I’m so glad I caught it on the last day.
Strange Days at 180 the strand was good, lots of video work, lots of nice work from my favourites like Oliver Laric and Ed Atkins. Just very content with spending an hour and a bit in there, of course there was some works that I wasn’t so into, but who has the time or effort to write about that here?
All I Know Is What's On The Internet at Photographers Gallery was satisfying. Slightly dated? Yes. Full of my favourite artists? Yes. Am I complaining? No.
Jessica Vaughn at Emalin was great, really clever critics of capital, filming workers hands and other, similar content. Very good. I like Emalin a lot.
Flora at Corvi-Mora was fine, nice ceramics, but fine.
Janice Kerbel at Greengrassi downstairs was also dull, plus the prints were stuck on the walls with a staple gun that just looked so ugly. You can kind of see it in the pics.
From the Inside Out at the drawing room was fine, I only really went for Marie Jacotey, who I love.
Physarum Borax at Platform Southwark was fine, nicely curated and everything was placed well, with artists I like, but the actual conceit for the show; slime, is something I’m not so into. I know there’s more to it than that, but…
Transnationalisms at Furtherfield Gallery was fine, some good work, but yet again, as always is with this gallery, the concept always sounds better than the actual exhibition. Good conceit but not so interestingly executed.
Stuart Middleton at Carlos Ishikawa was pretty tame to be honest, I was expecting more from him, as I love his work. The drawings and wall mural were nice, and would look nice on my wall, but as artworks? Not so much.
Alan Michael at Cell Project Space was fine, lots of paintings of the same, anonymous couple, walking through the big city. It was pretty tame, a little too tame for my taste. Really well done paintings, but aside from that?
Dan Graham at Lisson Gallery was a little too involved in conceptual art for me. A little too much.
BOUND at Peer Gallery was fine, an all male group show. Not so interested.
Judy Millar at Fold was fine, a wanky press release talking about comic book art as inspiration. Where can I see that in this work?
Taus Makhacheva at Narrative Projects was clever, very ‘this is artwork about artwork’ type thing, which definitely has a place.
Josefine Reisch at Zabludowicz was fine, nicely made paintings from far away, but up close not so interesting.
Debora Delmar at Soft Opening was good, lots of typical office worker equipment and assemblage work, from coffee table chairs stacked up to shirt trousers stretched over canvas. It was good.
Tony Delap at Edel Assanti was fine, very nice looking object like paintings. Not my thing but nice. I would have them on my wall, but not in a show. It’s odd that that isn’t the same thing.
School of the Damned’s Class of 2018 exhibition at Sluice, Visions and Signs, was not good. Badly curated and a little like a jumble sale of artworks. Not so interesting.
Lawrence Abu Hamden at Chisenhale Gallery was fine, but felt very wanky. It’s too much to go into here, as my fingers are slowly getting tired of typing.
Kathleen Ryan at Josh Lilley was nice, lots of fruit based beautiful sculptures made with pins. Nice.
In The Company Of at TJ Boulting felt so overwhelmingly busy and not good, especially at the PV, which was mental.
Olga Fedorova at Annka Kultys Gallery was good.
And so was Jillian Mayer at Annka Kultys Gallery.
I also went to the MA exhibition at Chelsea, which was pretty consistently bad.
Ndidi Emefiele at Rosenfeld Porcini was dull.
Keith Farquhar at Cabinet Gallery was complicated and impressive, but also overdone and cliched, especially when using Amazon boxes as material. That feels very overdone at the moment.
Jesse Darling’s ART NOW at Tate Britain was nice, very solid works about disability and motherhood, I’m a – sort of – fan.
Gran Fury at Auto Italia was complicated and historical, as always.
Arc curated by Kristian Day at Herrick Gallery was nice, featuring some friends of mine, so bias.
Andea Galvani at Ryder Projects was weird, neon based performative works that I wasn’t so into.
Thomas Yeomans and Candida Powell-Williams at Exposed Arts Projects was really good, new crispy lightboxes accompanied with digital symbols accompanied by very physical objects that looked incredibly heavy.
Shane Bradford at Union Gallery was dull, speaking about cults and things, but actually it wasn’t so interesting.
KNOCK KNOCK at South London Gallery felt over done and super cramped. The new space feels like tiny rooms with invigilators watching over you at all times.
I also went to Sunday Art Fair, which just felt very sad and dull. Not like Frieze, unfortunately I didn’t get to go to Frieze this year, I was working too much that week and couldn’t get any time to go, which was sad.
Jordan Wolfson at the 360 reality room at the Zabludowicz was just bleak. I don’t know why I wanted to see someone bashing in another guys head again. Pretty scarring.
Rosie Grace Ward at Camberwell Space was nice. Consistent, MDF based works that were nice, but perhaps a little too consistent for my liking. I’ve liked her work in the past, and will probably continue to do so.
Deptford X a while back was good, MA Goldsmiths had a bunch of things going on. I think my favourite work being made from the MA there at the moment is from Perce Jerrom, it’s very crispy work about Anonymous and masculinity. I really want to see a solo show from him soon, as it will be very good.
Laura Yuile’s solo show during the festival was fantastic, many household appliances that had been pebble dashed, common in new builds made for the rich. I’m a big fan of her work. A while back I went on a studio visit with her and she was saying how she used to take the pebbles from near where her studio was, on an island in London, surrounded by new builds and dizzyingly high skyscrapers.
Oh and I also went to the Turner Prize, which I disliked a lot more than I liked. It’s basically four video works, or video based practices anyway. As you walk in you are introduced to a lobby like area, with sofas and all the books associated with the selected artists strewn on this stupidly large square table. I wanted to like Forensic Architecture the most, as I loved their presentation at the ICA, even if it slowly became a little too much the more you saw. Anyway, the work at the Turner Prize was basically an expanded version of one of their previous works. A piece that obviously investigated conflict and death. For one reason or another I didn’t find this piece particularly interesting, which obviously makes you as a viewer feel terrible about yourself when viewing literal conflict. But then that’s what FA have done with this conflict, turned it into art. And some art is better than other art, so the utilisation of conflict and death, turned into art, makes it into art to be critiqued. So yeah, I like their work, but this piece wasn’t so interesting, and that made me feel bad, making me rethink the entirety of their practice.
Then there was Naeem Mohaiemen, whose work I do like. I was particularly into the fictional piece of work, that took an abandoned Athens airport as it’s setting, following around a middle aged man, apparently living in the airport for many years. It was incredibly well filmed, but ultimately I didn’t want to sit and watch for the entirety. It was so slow and plodding along.
Luke Willis Thompson continues to make work that doesn’t really concern him, utilising other people and ideas to make work about, which isn’t so interesting, plus there’s a lot of controversy surrounding what he does.
And finally there’s Charlotte Prodger’s piece, which was an overly long film shot on an iPhone, that felt very self-indulgent and tired. Filming the landscapes in Scotland, their bedroom. It was tedious and tiring. Some moments were subtly beautiful, but it was rare and I don’t particularly go for art that’s just about beauty.
The final show I’ll write about is the White Pube curated exhibition at Outpost in Norwich. It was a members show, where members submit via open call, then the curator selects work. I’m pretty sure there’s no open call details, so you just submit whatever work you as an artist deem to be good. So, the show felt incredibly bland, sanitised and just generally not that great work. The press release is all about them, with nothing about the work, just about how they selected the pieces, losing their phone and not being able to actually go to the show due to prior commitments. There was a showreel, which I always hate at exhibitions, like, what if you want to see one particular piece, then you have to watch through the whole thing? Plus no time slots, and no work details, just name and title. There was also a piece on its own video screen, so it felt like a weird hierarchy, between the works on the showreel and the video on its own screen. Yeah, just a not so satisfying show, that just felt super bland. Maybe it’s the work, maybe it’s the curation, who knows. All I know is that I drove for nearly an hour to see the show, and it really wasn’t worth it.
So, that’s all the exhibitions. A little over 90 in total throughout the past three months. Nearly one per day I think? It’s a lot, and has been a lot to write, hopefully it won’t happen again next time. Anyway, let’s move onto films and TV shows, beginning with Deadpool 2, which I wasn’t so into.
Extinction was an okay, I think Netflix film? It was fun, obvious but had some nice twists and turns.
Insatiable was kind of fun, a TV show about a young woman who goes from being overweight to underweight. It was fun but forgettable.
Skyscraper with Dwayne Johnson was of course incredible and stupid, terrible but great.
Killing Eve was a fantastic TV show about killers and the police, very good. Incredibly tight and impressive.
Disenchantment, the animation made by Matt Groening, was super dull and not so good.
Ocean’s Eight was fine.
Westworld season 2 was amazing, obviously.
Handmaid’s Tale season 2 was also great, but super bleak and that ending was so annoying.
Who is America? was an amazing TV show, exposing how mental America is.
Ferdinand was a nice animation, very PG but lovely.
To All the Boys I've Loved Before was a very fun, loving TV show about young love and niceness. I liked it.
BlacKkKlansman was amazing, obviously. As with all Spike Lee films it was incredibly obvious, but I loved it. I watched it in the cinema and people were deadly silent at the end, then clapped. It was thrilling and great, but deeply distressing.
Paradise PD was fine, not great.
Another loving, PG Netflix film, Sierra Burgess Is a Loser. It was very nice.
Next Gen was very enjoyable.
Mission: Impossible – Fallout was obviously amazing, although Tom Cruise will always be terrible.
Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan, the TV show, was actually very good. I was into it.
The Domestics was very fun, apocalypse style excitement.
Leave No Trace was amazing, very good, very distressing.
Both seasons of Atypical were super great, making you think about autism differently.
Everything Sucks! was crap, so much so that I stopped watching a few episodes in. Too PG!
Sicario 2: Soldado was a fun action thriller, but no way as good as the first film. It felt a little too cliched and tired.
American Animals was great, super tense and a lovely mix of real and dramatized.
Ant-Man and the Wasp was fine, fun but forgettable.
Hotel Transylvania 3: A Monster Vacation was fine, not fantastic but fine for an hour and a half. Sometimes animation can be amazing, other times it can just be super basic.
Eighth Grade was solid, young teen drama about being in school on social media. Young people are just fucked up these days it seems.
Craig of the Creek is an amazing TV show, focusing on a group of friends who hang out at this creek, where a whole society and various communities have built their lives. It’s a great example of excellent worldbuilding in films and TV.
Sorry to Bother You was a little crazy, I was kind of into it but it got super weird half way through. I enjoyed parts but overall, it took it to 11 in an odd, B movie esque way.
Maniac was a fantastic TV show, I really enjoyed it, multiple realities and a fantastic plotline. I would highly recommend it.
22 July was just so bleak and terrible, but an incredibly well filmed experience that needs to be seen.
Hilda was amazing, I fully loved this animation. I would, again, fully recommend it. It was just so lovely and great, focusing on a young girl growing up between the countryside and the city, full of monsters and oddities.
Apple & Onion was another fantastic animated series, really funny and one of the characters is voiced by Richard Ayoade, who we all love.
The Mindy Project is very light and fun, I’m into it, but it’s not overly exciting.
And finally, I’m in the midst of watching season 6 of House of Cards, apparently the last season. Obviously it’s now focused on Robin Wright after Kevin Spacey being fired, who is of course amazing as the new president. It’s what’s needed, and is very good, although this season feels less like actual politics and more like fun politics. In previous series it’s been too complicated to follow, this season it feels like a fun mystery experience, layered plots but easier to follow. Less involved in politics and more into other scenarios. Still great, but different.
So, I think that is it pretty much. I've been painfully tired and feel like I'm busy, but am I that busy that I can't continue with this blog? I hope not, as I like this blog. I don't want it to be a thing I did whilst going through education and stopped as soon as it ended. I like writing this, reflecting and thinking, rather than only having an Instagram account to show what I'm up to. Anyway, until the next time, hopefully on a more bi weekly basis from now on, but, who knows anymore? Maybe it'll be another three months? I hope not.

1 comment:

  1. It’s really interesting, looking forward to more updates and posts on the same.
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