"bombard them with digital tomatoes"
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Read our latest column on Elephant magazine here!
This Week
💦 Mysterious new gallery in Oval…
💦 shame-driven culture wars
💦 Speculative hats and dystopian tops
Events
🧊 5 April | 5:45pm | Lost Dreams Panel: Exploring Grime, Youth Culture and the East End, Rich Mix [Shoreditch High Street] | £5-10
🧊 6 April | 6.30–8.30pm | Say Less, curated by William Pym, Herald St [Bethnal Green]
🧊 6 April | 6–8pm | Pam Evelyn, The Approach [Bethnal Green]
🧊 7 April | 7:30pm | An Evening in Studio (Studio visits with Jo Kitchen and Emmerly Elgersma) [Stoke Newington] | £30, including catalogue, drank by Top Cuvee and nibbles, or £15 with the code SPITTLE15
🧊 7 April | 12–6pm | Ghost-Like Traces, group show organised by Thorp Stavri, Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop [Latimer Road]
🧊 7 April | 6–9pm | not before it has forgotten you, group show curated by Caroline Drevait and Estelle Marois, Nicoletti [Bethnal Green]
🧊 7 April | 6–8pm | Nicola Gunnarsson: Material Girl, Loveday (*new gallery!*) [Oval]
🧊 7 April | 6–8pm | Michaela Yearwood-Dan: The Sweetest Taboo, presented at Cork Street Galleries by Tiwani Contemporary [Green Park]
🧊 7 April | 6–9pm | Silver Sunsets, Usual Business Gallery [Camden Road]
🧊 7 April | 6–8pm | Ricky Swallow: Sand in my Joints, Modern Art Bury Street [Green Park]
🧊 8 April | 6–8pm | Oliver Clegg: Tongue-Tied, MAMOTH [Euston Square]
🧊 9 April | 7–9:30pm | Eyes, Dusk, Phantasmagoria, 55 High Street [Hampton Wick]
🧊 9 April | 6–9pm | Nicholas Marschner curated by Sarah Emily & Harri Bell, Filet Space [Old Street]
🧊 9 April | 5–8pm | Eva Gold: The Lost Cowboys, Ginny on Frederick [Barbican]
🧊 9 April | 2–8pm | Harley Weir, Hannah Barry [Peckham]
Exhibitions of the week
Dressing Above Your Station: Fashion and Textiles in the Life and Work of the Artist Steven Campbell, virtual exhibition, until 26 June 2022, experience here
The Comme des Garçons space on NYC’s Lower East Side in the early 80s was 4,500 sq.ft. of poured concrete, inside of which was a long black table and a single rack of clothes. Unusually, this space was to become part of the story of a freshly graduated artist, Steven Campbell, who had moved to New York from Scotland with his wife Carol in a whirlwind. His work was so captivating that, almost immediately, he found himself with a gallery show, a review in the NYT and, to top it all off, a $10,000 credit note ($35k today) from CDG to buy anything he wanted from their store, in exchange for a painting. Steven’s work is whimsical, rich and loaded with meaning - coming across one is like waking up in the middle of a stage play; everything is coded, even - and especially - the clothing his subjects wear. This exhibition takes a close look at the fashion and textiles that appear in his work, and touches on the history of Scottish textile manufacturing as well as drawing links to the little known Scottish ‘casuals’ subculture. Uniquely, the objects in the show have been scanned to less than a millimetre using photogrammetry and are hosted at 1:1 scale in a virtual replica of Glasgow’s Tramway gallery, meaning that you can look at the works and clothes to a far closer scale than you ever would in a real museum. Log in and lose yourself in the works while listening to the beautiful Scottish lilt of Carol Campbell who provides narration. An exhibition for fashion heads and tech-heads alike!
Isamu Noguchi: A New Nature, White Cube, now closed, information here
Legendary sculptor Isamu Noguchi is known in the field for his radical playground design experiments that brought utopian modernist aesthetics into the realm of children’s soft play in the mid-century. Fast forward to his recent show at London’s White Cube and the playground vibe continued – but this time, for influencers. According to an anonymous spittle source, the exhibition became a hotspot for fashion influencers to strut their stuff in Gucci and Balenciaga’s latest offerings after the exhibition went viral on TikTok. Apparently, throughout the exhibition's run, sales directors were caught on CCTV battling with the iPhone 13-wielding scenesters blocking the way of Noguchi’s Akari lamps and jagged metal floor sculptures – just to give their clients a glimpse of what a lot of money can buy. spittle wonders if Noguchi would celebrate or decry the influencer-set spotlighting the work in a wholly new light?
Hot Links
👩💻 Calling all emerging art writers - In a once-in-a-generation turn of events, a permanent, entry-level art writing job has come up for grabs - courtesy of spittle’s (arguably) biggest competitor The Art Newspaper who are hiring a new Editorial Assistant. We’d like to see someone with a real nose for hot takes and true insight into the machinations of the art world take the reins of this role! + it’s the quickest way to get an invite to every London art party under the sun… go go go!
🌚 Who’s cashing in on the Shame Industrial Complex? – Delve into Gladstone Gallery Director Alissa Bennett’s first book review for The New York Times. Bennett reads a publication asking ‘[who] stands to profit from our ubiquitous shame-driven culture wars?’ From the Sackler family to supermodel Linda Evangelista and Bennett’s own Bailey’s-related anecdote - it seems shame is at the heart of more than we may realise.
👟 The elusive Tenant of Culture tells all – in an interview with Ross Simonini for ArtReview, Tenant speaks on how it is gaslighting to throw the word ‘ethical’ around in relation to fashion, the rise of the ‘pastoral nostalgia’ trend, and her post-punk practice of ‘upcycling garments’ to dissect fashion’s coded semiotics. Describing our infatuation with trends, she concludes ‘People desire what they can’t grasp yet… fashion acknowledges its own instability and employs that as a system. But somehow the idea of trendiness is looked down upon in art, which is concerned with autonomy and the individual genius’.
🦋 “Whatever will they bring out next? Drug-addict Barbie? Alcoholic Barbie?” – Madeleine Pollard explains a brief history of the tramp stamp, or as the Germans call it Arschgeweih meaning “ass antlers,” and why it’s back and better than ever.
🐷 “to be charming is to be a liar and a scoundrel”– Jago Rackham aka Ecstasy Cookbook, whose glorious Instagram posts unapologetically & deviously celebrate the gastronomical, has launched a substack, appropriately titled Greed. His writing is as delightful to read as his food looks to eat, so these longer-form entries are a treat. We’re hoping the newsletter brings more recipes and restaurant recommendations, too.
Add-to-cart
Check out Central Saint Martin’s new print shop to support some emerging talent coming out of the CSM art school! spittle is very into ‘Empathy’ by Gabriel Cautain – who is currently on the Photography; Practices and Philosophies course – which consists simply of a screenshot from the Wikipedia entry for “empathy”. Reminds us of the iconic Insta page, Depths of Wikipedia! Print shop available here.
Parting shot
Next in vaguely art-related meaningless content: we are confronted with the question ‘does tomato ketchup count as salsa?’ – which is not something that has previously occurred to spittle, although we definitely know the answer. Zoe Whitley, director at Chisenhale Gallery, raised that conundrum today after an – assumedly disappointing – croque monsieur at Le Pain Quotidien. With salsa this could have been a croc monsieur, with ketchup it’s nothing more than an expensive ham and cheese toastie.
All submissions are welcome at spittlesubmissions@gmail.com. Published on Tuesday mornings, click here to subscribe!
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