Ah so it’s been well over a month,
close to two months, since I’ve written here. The longer I left it, the harder
it became to write about. I have a bag full of press releases that have been
piling up, and a number of my own exhibitions and artworks to talk about. I’ve
been to Berlin for the Biennale, have a curated exhibition at Annka Kultys
Gallery opening in the next few days and finished my degree some time ago now.
I’m currently in the midst of finding somewhere to live in less than a month’s
time, and a new job too. It’s a distressingly busy time.
It’s been too hot to write, with the
heatwave in London and across the UK destroying my general drive to do anything
pro-active. Let’s begin by talking about my degree show, which finished so long
ago now. I think it went well, people who came liked it, but it did once again
reinforce how the degree show does nothing for you or your ‘artistic career’. I
know this, and have known this for a while, but still, both sad and good to
know. Here’s a few install shots, they came out very well and beautifully
crispy.
Here’s also a link to the
accompanying book, which I still have many copies of, PDF available here - www.isthisitisthisit.com/duty-free . In terms of
making books to specifically coincide with exhibitions, I think it may be a
lost cause, simply because it’s so modular and specific to a time, and if that
time is only a week then there’s no longevity with that. So yes, that’s why I
think I have many left, or perhaps that’s what I’m blaming. Perhaps it’s not as
good as previous book I’ve made?
For the show I made a few new works, The News was the video piece I developed
over a month long period, which I have submitted to a few things now and
written a nice, consistent text for:
A video piece utilising imagery and
symbols taken from 24 hour news channels depicting a continuous scroll of
ambiguous text concerning future and current states of politics, disruption and
incoherence. In the background imagery taken from the YouTube channel Dahir
Insaat plays, depicting a future fictitious animated warfare whereby a series
of turrets are activated by a drone. The videos produced by Insaat are made as
marketing tools, props to be used in pitches to wealthy governments and
military contractors. The text is made up of quotes taken from the 70s
Utopian/Dystopian science fiction novel 'The Dispossessed' by Ursula K. Le Guin
and the recent neo-liberal critical considerations from Byung-Chul Han's
'Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power'. The rotating
symbol is of Primecoin, a crytocurrency that takes it's form from the Greek
letter Psi, a symbol that’s been co-opted and utilised throughout history in
various commercial and corporate products.
I also made a few sculptural works, Islands was the layered aluminium piece,
taking various imagery from future experiences layered up.
Then Relic I was quite a throwaway piece, but one that I liked and
enjoyed producing, which has also been in two more group shows since the degree
show, which is fun. The work consists of a phone holder covered in artificial
grass, holding a carved out SIM card, a carved out Primecoin symbol. This is
fun, and something I’m already developing into other works in a series of
Relics from the past in the future, etc, I like that narrative, especially
being shown alongside the aluminium modular system, that I have a ton of now,
which will assumedly follow me around my entire life, cropping back up in
various installations and artworks until I eventually feel that the money
invested has been worth it.
My next curated exhibition is at
Annka Kultys Gallery, opening on the 7th August, in conjunction with
the next issue of the book series, issue 5, which is exciting, featuring work
by Addie Wagenknecht, Alyssa Davis, Bob Bicknell-Knight, Fabio Lattanzi
Antinori, James Irwin, Jason Isolini, Jillian Mayer, Lotte Rose Kjær Skau, Marion
Balac, Moises Sanabria, Owen Thackeray, Patrick Colhoun, Rosa Nuutinen, Shamus
Clisset and Tom Galle. It’s a nice list of artists, a lot better than I
originally thought, as I thought that I’d been too busy with Duty Free to think about this one, but in
reality it’s come together quite well. The title of the show is Terms and Conditions May Apply, taking
inspiration from the film of the same name that considers privacy and
surveillance in the digital age. It’s all about Facebook, data harvesting and
various other forms of physical and digital surveillance. Here’s the exhibition
poster, open from the 7th – 18th, open Wednesday –
Saturday for two weeks.
The upcoming issue is made up of
essays, interviews and artist features, here’s the full list:
Artist contributions from Aaron
Vergult, Addie Wagenknecht, Adrien Grigorescu, Alyssa Davis, Ben Sang, Bob
Bicknell-Knight, Bryant Girsch, Caitlin Dick, Dawoon Kim, Fabio Lattanzi
Antinori, Gideon Vass, Girls unawares™, James Irwin, Jason Isolini, Jillian Mayer,
Joe Whitmore, Katharina Joy Book, Lotte Rose Kjær Skau, Lukas Schmeck, Marion
Balac, Michaela Nettell, Moises Sanabria, Nadim Abbas, Nex (Claudio Guarnieri),
Owen Thackeray, Patrick Colhoun, Robby Toles, Romain Curnier, Ronnie Karfiol,
Rosa-Maria Nuutinen, Roxman Gatt, Samantha Harvey, Santiago Muedano, Shamus
Clisset, Stelios Ilchouk, Tamara Kametani, Teresa Hunyadi, Tom Galle and Trevor
Paglen.
Essays from Amber Clausner, Caitlin
Dick, Cansu Topaloglu, Chloe Patricia O'Neill, Jakob Rowlinson, Julio
Rodriguez, Mathias Jansson, Natalya Serkova, Off Site Project (Elliott Burns
& Pita Arreola), Phett Waivv, Vanessa Kowalski and Wade Wallerstein
Interview contributions from Bob
Bicknell-Knight in conversation with Helena Kate Whittingham, Caroline Elbaor
with Christopher Aque and Jameson Johnson in conversation with Chantal Zakari
and Mike Mandel.
Throughout the book an emoji scroll
pervades everything, floating through the various works and texts, bringing the
analogue surveillance into the present day data based investigations. The
physical copies will be arriving in the next few days, but for now here’s the
PDF to read, and a link to purchase a physical copy if you’d like to buy one - www.isthisitisthisit.com/issue-05 - www.dropbox.com/sh/om8csucfnlxfdfd/AACIKesP_lpmQh3DWN4MeT3Ua?dl=0
For the show I’ve produced a new
piece, as I think at this point I’m just going to grab as many opportunities as
I can, and if that means curating myself into my own shows, why not. I’ve
produced a new piece influenced by Mark Zuckerberg, the fall of stereotypical
news media and data harvesting, this includes a custom printed back with the
statement that’s been going around for a while, being advertised by Facebook
‘Data misuse is not our friend.’ Then there’ll be shredded newspaper inside the
bag, with a 3D print of Zuck’s head atop this pile of old news, with the USB containing
all my Facebook data.
Another piece that I’m making, not
going in the show, is continuing the Relic
series, covering a speaker wall mount with the artificial grass. I’ve got the
form down, but currently thinking about what it should actually be holding, as
it’s very much a holder, potentially the 3D printed blue shell from nearly two
years ago, that could work, although again, who am I making this work for if
it’s not for anything? For myself, I guess.
I’m also still wanting to get those
fake paintings produced, I have a few things coming up where I’ll get an artist
fee for an exhibition, so that might be when I can actually get these made. I
did another mock-up yesterday, which was fun, although when I actually
eventually get these made properly I think I’ll spend more time on the actual
pieces and less time on the mock-up of them in my fake studio.
That may potentially be everything to
do with creation I’ve been up to, which actually hasn’t been that much due to
searching for a job and a new house, neither of which I’ve actually been able
to secure fully yet. Hopefully in the next few weeks something will happen, it
must I guess. Let’s move onto exhibitions then, which is sure to take forever,
so I will be running through them fairly quickly. As I have a very large pile
of press releases I’m just going to pick and choose at random, so be aware,
some of these may be from over a month ago, others from yesterday. Let’s begin
with all the degree shows perhaps? Starting with my own schools, Chelsea
College of Arts. I think there were about 4/5 works in total that I enjoyed,
nothing that I truly fell in love with, and a lot of terrible things, which is
always a shame to see. A few names that come to mind are Rosie Abbey’s three
screen video installation with super high quality editing focusing on
schools/business and the repetitive and random nature of these experiences,
Louis Newby’s two channel video taking Crash as an inspiration and tweaking
character roles, and finally Rosa-Maria Nuutinen’s large scale drawings of
cyborg bodies. Also, something interesting to note, a quite reactionary
response to my critique of the show on Instagram was levelled at me by one of
the students, a page long essay printed and stuck throughout the university, basically
labelling me as a misogynist who can’t see past their male privilege. It was
quite bleak, and most of it (in my opinion) was wrong, but it was an
interesting way to finish off three years of my life I guess…
I went to the Slade MA, which I have
completely forgotten about at this point, aside from fantastic work by Solveig
Settemsdal, creating a skin like structure by casting a sculpture of a dinosaur
at a public park.
I also visited the Royal Academy MA
for the first time, I don’t know why we never went there as a family when I was
younger, as its arguably one of the best final exhibitions. Anyway, a stand out
for me was Sung Tieu, showing a number of strewn bags and an incredible looping
sound work, basically working off ideas of abandoned bags and the US army’s
propaganda techniques during the Vietnam war. It was pretty great.
Goldsmiths BA and MA were visited.
The BA was okay, the MA was really great, crispy work. Yet again, however, too
many works to focus in on anyone. I’m just noting it down here to confirm that
I visited so that in the future I can look back at this.
I went to both RCA degree shows too,
sculpture was in Kensington and everything else was in Battersea. Again, lots
of forgotten artists, all my fault but annoyingly so. I must look back at my
Instagram stories…
I also went to Camberwell BA, again,
nothing loved, there’s just too much to write today to actually go in depth
with these massive school wide shows.
Finally I visited NUA (Norwich
University of the Arts) for their BA show, which was fine, lots of work with
overt and obvious influences, maybe that’s what happens when you study away
from London?
Did I go to any other degree shows?
I’m not sure… Potentially, but I think that’s all the big ones.
Let’s move on to normal exhibitions,
then we’ll talk about Berlin last.
Ezra Gray’s solo show at Emalin,
titled Joech God was kind of fun, lovingly crafted subtle drawings of places,
people and scenarios displayed on very clean tables made from plywood. It was
apparently about tennis, or more vaguely, about watching, your eyes following
your mouse cursor as it loads on the screen, or how your eyes slowly focus and
un-focus on certain subjects. It was quiet.
I went to Chalton Gallery for a duo
show from Samuel Capps and Diane Edwards, Exon Tide. It was fun, lots of
‘sci-fi’ work, work that wouldn’t look amiss in a 70s sci-fi film. It was
creating a narrative of some sort through these gloopy sculptural works, it was
okay, but felt lacking. I wanted more from the experience.
Petra Cortright at Nahmad Projects
with a solo show titled PALE COIL COLD
ANGEL was fine, not as nice or exciting as I wanted it to be knowing
Cortright’s work. Some ambiguous sculptures that felt like the ‘money’ side of
it, alongside huge digital prints and a nine screen simulation installation. It
looked very ‘nice’, but not what I wanted.
A group show at Rod Barton, Towards a Theory of Powerful Things, had
some incredibly crispy work in it. Very beautiful sculptures from Nicholas Riis
that I’ve seen online for ages now, if I had money I would definitely have
these in my house.
Joan Jonas at Tate Modern was okay,
if a little old, but I guess that’s the work…
YGRG14X: reading with the single hand
V (Eglė Kulbokaitė & Dorota Gawęda) at Cell Project Space was nice,
although more about the contributing performances than the actual exhibition.
Pilvi Takala’s The Stroker at Carlos Ishikawa was fantastic, basically two videos
focusing on the artist going into a business and asking people if they’re okay
whilst touching their shoulder. A hilarious premise, with many of the people
feeling incredibly awkward and disliking the touching. I’m unsure whether this
was truly ‘real’, as it was filmed so well, rather than an obvious hidden
camera scenario, but it was fantastic nonetheless. Go here if you want a teaser - https://vimeo.com/278149552
Joey Holder’s Acredo – The Deep Belief Network at Matts Gallery was good,
although the space is so small that it’s more of a solo experience, which
didn’t work so well at the private view. Also this was a touring show, with
other spaces that were much larger out of London having shown this work. I want
to see the full exhibition at a bigger venue.
Lawrence Lek’s solo show, Notel, at
arebyte was very ‘cool’ looking, basically an interactive video game and VR
experience depicting an immaculate hotel like space. It was an interesting
show, but it felt incredibly simple, simply wandering around this envioronment
in its perfection rather than being able to interact with the environment. It
was a really interesting concept but didn’t dig in enough for my liking,
although I do love his previous work.
Rafal Zajko’s solo show at Castor
Projects is very ‘crispy’, it’s definitely Castor’s aesthetic, the beautifully
made sculptures that make you inhale a little when you see them. Again, if I
had money I would buy these.
Tenderpixel has a lovely group show
on, titled Becoming Plant the show concerns lots of, you
guessed it, plant based or inspired works, lots of liminal objects and lovely
ceramics. Paloma Proudfoot is currently in 3 fantastic group shows in London,
it’s pretty extortionate, she makes very beautiful work.
A duo show at Auto Italia, Sister said to Satan: my diary is too hot
for you with Josefin Arnell, Margaret Haines was interesting, their videos
are quite obscure and could definitely be described as worrying, young people
making themselves throw up on the pavement whilst giggling, a 40 minute video
documenting one of their grandparents undergoing a religious journey of some
sorts. An interesting install I would say.
White Cube has a boring summer show
on, lots of work, lots of old work. Yeah? It’s called Memory Palace.
Assembly Point had a quick, very big,
group show, basically turning their space into a showroom of sorts, a place to
sell unlimited editions of work. It was okay, but was so overtly about selling
that it kind of engulfed me a little. When work is literally jammed up next to
so many other works, it feels so constrained, less about the substance of the
work and more about the physical attributes. That’s obviously fine, but
ultimately not interesting to me, someone who doesn’t have the money to buy
these things. It was called Every Thing.
Jessy Jetpacks at Union Gallery was
fun, occupying the in between space in my mind between a full on painting show
and one that I love. It was primarily one video piece, full of purposefully bad
green screen and lots of clips taken from Jurassic Park. It was fun, but there’s
a point where you/I have seen too much badly made green screen to last a life
time. These things are not hard to achieve, and I don’t like the aesthetic produced,
but that’s just me...
Terraforms at The Concept Space,
organised by Kristian Day, was nice. A very selling orientated show, incredibly
commercial, which is fine and this wasn’t actually detrimental to the
experience. Although perhaps having the show explained to me, the links between
the works, by Kristian, helped. Lots of mythical monuments and pastel colours,
it was very fitting and just worked well.
Aftermath at Tate Britain was dull,
of course.
Shape of Light at Tate Modern was also
pretty dull, unsparingly. Whenever it’s like a 100 years of a thing until the
present, it’s always like one work from 2010 – onwards. There is never anything
mildly contemporary.
There was a very lovely, succinct solo
show from Charlie Godet Thomas at Lily Brooke Gallery. Lots of looping works,
caught up in their own endlessness, work continually moving and subtly sitting,
torn pieces of paper becoming incredibly present, the use of ply wood having a
relationship of sorts with these small scraps, the subtleties were lovely and
poignant.
SPACE had an odd performance night
on, titled Future Space, although the highlight was Jade Montserrat drawing on
the gallery walls, still pretty much shouting into the void, big long heavy
text. It was okay, just very heavy and unknown.
I’ve never been to the drawing room
until now, weirdly enough I only realised after I went why this was. Obviously
it was because they do exhibitions solely about drawing, I’m not sure how I
didn’t realise this. Anyway, the show, A Slice through the World: Contemporary
Artists’ Drawings, was fine. A highlight for me was saying David Musgrave’s
work, he was my tutor, and the more I see it, the more I like it. There was
also an accompanying talk between him and Alex Graves, an AI researcher. This
was also fun, continually adding to my knowledge of David’s practice. It would
be nice to have him in a show of mine at some point…
The Everyday Political at CGP London
was fine, featuring artists from the north of England. It was fine, very wordy,
lots of zines, lots of thought. It was fine, more interesting curatorially I
guess, or the writing surrounding the idea of the curatorial...
Use Your Illusion, a group show at
Herald St, was dull. No press release and full of paintings. Come on.
Objects in the mirror are closer than
they appear at the Royal Academy was good, featuring new collaborative work
between Debora Delmar and Sung Tieu. Lots of work about taking back the
artistic space predominantly being utilised by male artists, or in the past
having been used by male artists. The show featured multiple prints of the two
artists, naked and photographed on/around stuffed animals, as well as the space
being crowded in by long poles with car wing mirrors. It was fun, very twisty.
Tulani Hlalo at Outpost Gallery was a
very simple, and very tight, solo show featuring new sculptural works and a
video. Work influenced by her Zimbabwean heritage, and her connection to that
through moving to the UK. The work felt right and ‘correct’ in an odd way, just
very well done.
There’s a nice group show on at The
approach, lots of paintings and some very tight, quite beautiful, drawings by Caitlin
Keogh. Just very nice and aesthetically pleasing.
Mission To Touch The Sun at Enclave
was okay, yet again it felt like it worked, but as opposed to Hlalo’s solo
show, this group show felt like it ‘worked’ but wasn’t necessarily good. It
just felt like something was lacking, unsure what…
Now, let’s move onto Berlin! I went
primarily for the Biennale, quite a while ago now, but let’s try to remember...
There was only three spaces in total, so kind of weak compared to DIS’ extravaganza
two years ago. First up was KW, with my favourite coming from Dineo Seshee
Bopape, consisting of an orange room full of rubble and artificial drips going
into buckets and vegetables being grown within contained spaces. It was good.
Luke Willis Thompson’s controversial
piece from Chisenhale was there too, I’m still unsure about it, especially
after watching a very weak interview between him and the director regarding the
piece. If you’d like to read more about it, head here - https://artreview.com/reviews/online_review_aug_2017_luke_willis_thompson/
The next place for the biennale was
the Akademie der Kunste. Outside was a fantastic piece, basically a fake
wall/monument, made to look like a ruin, by Firelei Baez. Very cool.
Mario Pfeifer’s amazing video work
was the highlight, a piece concerning citizen warfare and an assault on a
refugee. It felt like Forensic Architecture but better, not telling you what to
think but giving you the facts and allowing you to decide for yourself.
ZK/U was fun, although very few works
again. I was a big fan of Heba Y. Amin’s work, which was basically the creation
of a new fictional state, the merging of Europe and Africa. Very cool and
incredibly well researched.
Then saw an Alicja Kwade exhibition
at Neuer Berliner, a series of letters that the artist copied then sent to a
series of graphologists, people who analyse hand writing. It was a very clever
show.
Hamburger Bahnhof was very big and
long. Great to see a few important works like Pierre Bismuth’s Jungle Book
series, Liu Ye with fantastic small paintings of consumer bunnies next to one
of Barnett Newman’s fuck off huge painting. That curation was really clever and
tight.
Sprueth Magers had three solo shows
on, one from Kara Walker, which was dull, Andro Wekua (also dull) and Senga
Nengudi. Again, dull.
Andrew J Burford and Constantin
Hartenstein had a duo show called Mighty Good Men going on, about men having anxieties
and worries. It was nice and worked.
Kindl Berlin had an extraordinary café,
with a solo show from artist duo Taiyo Onorato and Nico Krebs, featuring a
series of videos where the work was filmed on 16mm film, with the sounds from
the films being produced in real time analogue ways. From a hammer hitting
various materials to a huge continuously moving sphere filled with tiny balls
sounding like the ocean or running water. It was very clever.
Berlinisch Galerie was okay, lots of
old work again.
Galerie Wedding had a really tight group
show on featuring work from Donna Huanca and others. My favourite piece was
from FORT, where the artist collective had filmed young children dancing in a
club, with techno music overlaid. It felt incredibly awkward and super creepy,
positioning these kids in this environment. Very queasy and very great.
Augmented Sunrise Beneath The Skin at
Grund was okay, a kind of basic group show speaking a lot of things but not
doing so much. A favourite was Claude Eigan’s flowers burying themselves in the
floor.
Tanya Leighton had a huge group show
going on, with no press release or artist list. So very much a group show. It
was fun though, picking out famous artworks and artists. Simon Denny had a
piece there, so did Cory Arcangel and Oliver Laric.
The final show was Philippe Parreno
at Gropius Bau which was amazing, a truly wonderful show that suited this incredibly extravagant
space so well. Just very enjoyable, there were floating fish, blinds
continually moving up and down, a rotating chair and algorithm/plant based
simulations occurring. All very cool and exciting.
So I think that’s everything,
literally over the past two months. God, that’s bleak. Up next is films and TV,
which I’m going to run through. Mary and the Witch's Flower was super nice and
very Studio Ghibli esque, like a light version of it. Not amazing but nice
enough, although very predictable.
Red Sparrow was fine, fairly violent
and just yeah (shrugging shoulders).
Girls Trip was not funny.
Love, Simon was really quite beautiful,
I’d highly recommend it.
I Feel Pretty, again, was not funny.
A Quiet Place was amazing, although I
will always regret not seeing it in a good cinema, where people don’t answer
their phones and talk throughout the entire film.
Rampage was fine, although I wanted
more of the rock killing huge animals, rather than just his gorilla friend
doing it.
Sherlock Gnomes was kind of fun.
Hot Summer Nights was crap, which was
a shame, as I do love Timothée Chalamet, although I think everyone does at this
point.
Anon was fine, not that exciting.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom was
fun, dinosaurs are always fun?
Avengers: Infinity War was very long.
Zoe was a solid AI inspired film, it
was very nice, romance as AI beings, etc. It’s a big issue right now, which I
am happy about.
Incredibles 2 was amazing, so content
and very much worth the wait, and so much better than the first one. It’s a
must see.
In terms of programs, I got very into
watching Love Island, binge watching the first two seasons and the one just
gone, season 4. It’s terribly trash but really does get you in its grasp when
you get into the characters and watching people talk shit for 40 minutes a day.
I finally got back into watching
Attack on Titan, which was of course great and still is.
Final Space, a new show on Netflix,
was very good, surprisingly so, one of those TV shows you don’t quite realise
is so good until you’re half way through watching the series, take a step back
and realise it’s actually incredibly clever and heart-warming.
I also watched Queer Eye, which is
very lovely and enjoyable, another true life like program. Very lovely and very
heart-warming.
Season 6 of Orange is the New Black
was very brutal and superbly true to life, very cutting and beautifully
cutting.
Annnd I think that’s it, it’s been a
long write up, so hopefully now I can get back to doing this weekly, although
it will probably be bi-weekly at least, due to having a job (or at least
searching for one properly) and having various other commitments like finding
somewhere to live and real world stuff…
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