Stik exhibition London

You've probably seen his minimalist graffiti around London. The little stick figures, very little information, so much expression. I'm a massive fan.

Turns out he's having an exhibtion, going for another week, at Lava Gallery, in Carnaby Street, only until the 4th of June.

Not to be missed.

LAVA Gallery
1.11 Kingly Court, Carnaby Street,
London, W1B 5PW

Dirt at the Wellcome Collection

Squirrel ragout, breat milk ice cream. This blog just gets creepier by the minute. I guess it was inevitable, since I'm the weirdo in charge.

Everyone knows I like to go on about how ridiculous our contemporary germophobia is, what a massive symbol it is of our alienation from nature, the historical roots of this massive hysteria, and the fact that people in India are quite ok with cow poo.

I once licked the handle of the 73 bus just to prove my point. I think Priscilla still has nightmares.

So hurray! The Wellcome collection are beginning a new expo on Dirt, and our relationship with it, that I'm massively excited to check that out.

It's called "Dirt, the Filthy Reality of Everyday Life".

Here is a little exerpt from one of the videos.

Shocking sociology, right up my alley.

Modern British Sculpture at the Royal Academy of Arts

The most beautifully curated show in ages, at the Royal Academy of Art. Most highly recommended.


The exhibition traces the evolution of sculpture in the UK since the beginning of the 20th century. It kicks off with a room of sculptures from the British Museum juxtaposed to modern works, demonstrating the importance of the influx of foreign references to the formation of a new vision for sculpture in the 20th century. It finishes with a cleverly titled "Sculpture as Image" room, adorned with Koons and Damien Hirst (like a really good one, before he sold out and became and advertiser).



Image courtesy of John Riddy/© Tate, London 2010/© Barford Sculptures Ltd/Anthony Caro

And whilst in Piccadily, stop by Fortnum and Mason and pick up some green earl grey, will you darling?

Infos
Modern British Sculpture, 22 Jan–7 April, 2011
Royal Academy of Art
Burlington House
Piccadilly
London W1J 0BD
www.royalacademy.org.uk

Some weird kind of kinky for Valentine's?

The Natural History Museum is having a rather unique show on the mating habits of animals, with some videos starring Isabella Rosselini interpreting the mating habits of several animals.

Here, the duck. A long way from David Lynch, yeah? Actually, maybe not so much....

London Art Fair

Well hello blog. Long time no see. I've been living it up on the hyped shores of Bali, you see. No time for pesky little blogs like yourself on my holiday.

Now, now. Don't make such a fuss. I'm a fickle master, but I can be fun (on occasion).

I'm going to kick things off for the year with the London Art Fair, happening next week, 19 to 23 of January, in Islington.



This is the largest British art fair, and as it enters into its 23rd edition, we can expect to encounter over 100 galleries pluggin their stuff to over 23000 visitors.




Tickets are available online, at the fair's website:

http://www.londonartfair.co.uk

It's on Upper Street, so afterwards you can hit The Afghan Kitchen, a little gem that is sure to feature soon enough on the London Cheap Eats section...

See? All better now.

Infos

London Art Fair
Business Design Centre, 52 Upper Street, London N1

The Afghan Kitchen
35 Islington Green

Frieze Art Fair

It's a bit of a late post, I guess I needed a bit of time to digest all the information, and figure out exactly what I was going to say. Contemporary art fairs are a tricky one for me, at least. There is all the excitement, the people flying into town, the parallel events, the whole fanfare. There are myriad well clad hip and intellectual people frolicking amidst some of the best art works of our time. But the whole spectacle left me a bit depressed. I know, it's a cliché. But is this really art? And if so, what does it say about our times? The endless rows of paraphernalia, each a concept, an idea, an ethereal vision, but also an object, a thing, traded like all other things. Stacks and stacks, row after row, of things. Of stuff, really. Defeated by its own mercantile futility.

That’s just me, being a party pooper, I know. An inarticulate one at that, so many more well versed and competent people before me have dwelled on these questions with greater propriety and depth. The fair was wonderful, and everyone was raving about how this year had been much better than the last, and lots of great deals were being made, and how wonderful it was for the city to have such a lively art fair.

This year, as opposed to other years, there was a great deal more figurative painting being shown. Lots of objects and sculpture. And very little video. Perhaps these are trends that are rooted in a natural transition in the history of our art and society, or perhaps curators were just playing it safe because of the economic crisis. I admit I’m too ignorant to know.

But hey, I had a good time, took some cute pics for the blog, and had a beautiful stroll around Regent’s Park in its full autumnal grandeur.

Anish Kapoor at Kensington Gardens

Cute little picture gallery from The Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/gallery/2010/sep/27/anish-kapoor-kensington-gardens-sculpture

Bordelique fantastique, Les Ballets Trockadero sont magnifiques!

Had a right old ball at the Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo at the Peacock Theatre last friday. The all male cast of classically trained dancers is spectacular, and they actually stayed en pointe the whole show. Incredible.

The big star is certainly Robert Carter, or "Olga Supphozova", who can bring the audience to hysterics with just the flicker of a false lash. Her rendition of the white swan in Swan Lake was unforgettable.


But perhaps my favourite thing about the evening was that I left really wanting to go the ballet again. This is a respectful spoof, one that honours the tradition while taking its jabs. I leave you the hilarious "Dying Swan".



The fall programme at the Sadler's Well/Peacock Theatre promise a few other good shows. I am particularly looking forward to Mathew Bourne's reworking of Cinderella:

http://www.sadlerswells.com/show/Matthew-Bourne-Cinderella

There is also a major exhibition at the V&A on the "Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes", which I'm really not going to miss.

http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/theatre_performance/diaghilev-ballet-russes/

The Royal Ballet will also be performing Gisele and Swan Lake come winter time at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, which is great, considering I now can't WAIT to see Swan Lake again....

http://www.roh.org.uk/whatson/index.aspx?eventType=3&period=2&page=0

Sally Mann at the Photographer's Gallery

If you're looking for a bit of a breather from the crowd in Oxford Street, the Photographer's Gallery is a fantastic place to visit. It's also a great place to visit per se, in which case you can just skip the madness on the High Street. It's 16 Ramillies Street, to be exact.

This is the main UK space dedicated to photography, and has hosted exhibitions by big shots like Juergen Teller (fashion), Robert Capa (photojournalism), Sebastião Salgado (documentary) and Andreas Gursky (contemporary art).



In addition to the exhibition space, there is also a cute cafe, a bookshop, and a place where you can buy prints, from the couple of hundred quid to the couple of thousand quid.

I popped in the other day to catch the Sally Mann exhibition, called "The Family and the Land". This is a collection of pictures of her family, landscapes, and corpses (sic!...or sick!!). A bit of a pell mell job, but her technique is positively stunning. She uses antique cameras and a wet-plate collodion process. I m not good at explaining the details, but this results in images that are extremly detailed, and with almost material luminosity. The effect is eerie, poetic.

Images courtesy of http://www.photonet.org.uk/

You MUST run to see this, as the exhibition ends on September 19th, and the gallery is set to close for quite a while for a major revamp.