“I am known not to like sports”
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This week
💦 vampiric billionaires
💦 ignorance is chic
💦 Hibernation’s over, Philophiles <3
Events
It's Autumnal and we’re sick and tired of no one ever taking the initiative to revive Celtic Pagan festival Samhain, which traditionally takes place on November 1 to mark the “darker half” of the year. Oh well… Thursday is the day to save that Oyster balance for, with 5 stellar events happening across London. Our pick is maverick filmmaker Diego Marcon (one of the few men deemed worthy of presentation by Cecilia Alemani in her 2022 Venice Biennale x) showing a new 35mm film at Sadie Coles’s Kingly Street space. Little is known about this mysterious new work, other than the promotional image which consists of an animated mole, accompanied by a press release that simply reads:
16 + 21 + 12 + 9 + 19 + 3 + 15 + 3 + 1 + 19 + 1 + 5 + 14 + 15 + 14 + 5 + 19 + 3 + 15 + 13 + 1 + 9 + 21 + 19 + 3 + 9 + 18 + 5 + 4 + 9 + 3 + 1 + 19 + 1 + 19 + 1 + 9 + 6 + 9 + 14 + 9 + 18 + 5 + 16 + 15 + 9 + 14 + 5 + 9 + 7 + 21 + 1 + 9.
We’ve been practising our girl maths ahead of the opening x
🧊 31 Oct | 7pm–1am | EPOCH II: Revival of Celtic festival Samhain, ICA [Charing Cross] | £15
🧊 2 Nov | 6-8 pm | Diego Marcon: Dolle, Sadie Coles (Kingly St) [Piccadilly Circus]
🧊 2 Nov | 7:30pm | SET Film Festival: The Language of Sounds (short film festival screenings, Q&A), Set Social [Peckham Rye]
🧊 2 Nov | 7pm | Harry Lawson: Millwall on the Screen, Chemist [St John’s]
🧊 2 Nov | 7-9pm | The life & work of Nicola L. (book launch & panel), Camden Art Centre [Finchley Road & Frognal]
🧊 2 Nov | 6-8pm | Vincent Hawkins: Beyond the walls of one’s own making, Sid Motion [South Bermondsey]
🧊 4 Nov | 3-5pm | Community glasshouse unveiling, food, music & Edible Garden by Sean Roy Parker, Metroland Cultures for St. Raphael's Edible Garden [Stonebridge Park]
Hot Links
📞 “If I wanted to see things on a phone I would get a phone” – Full-time legend Fran Lebowitz talks to Esquire about her dislike of many things: long plane journeys, phones and geniuses, and how she can’t stop working. In case you were wondering, she’s not concerned about AI, mainly because she doesn’t know what it is. Ignorance is chic!
✈️ Ryanair, as a concept – In 2013 Michael Cronin gave us this anxiety-inducing article about what Ryanair means, culturally. The budget traveller in us is cringing at every mention of queues, lack of legroom and overweight baggage but the Marxist in us is proper riled up at the free market exploitation and rampant individualism. grrr
🧛🏻 “the multimillionaire who drained blood from his teenage son in a bid to extend his own life” – Spooky season is upon us: have you been pondering what it would be like to live forever? Ponder no more! Bryan Johnson does us all a favour and explains what it’s like to reverse the ageing process. Honestly, we’re not sure we have the patience – we struggle to keep up the skintellectual pretence as it is – so we’ll leave the inter-family blood transfusions to young Bry.
🍝 “My North Face is cooking me like I’m a ready-meal” – The White Pube present a deep-dive history of art on the underground. Raising the pertinent question ‘Why shouldn’t the Tube be beautiful?’ Zarina takes us on a journey from William Morris to Eduoardo Paolozzi to my name is lettie eggsyrub. Art is all around us!! We just need to stop and look :)))
Add-to-Cart
Everything is sooo hot and sexy about Phoebe Philo’s “A1” – the queen of Old Celine’s first drop from her ongoing body of [god’s] work. Join the club with the instantly iconic Mum necklace and signal to everyone that you’re on a salary of £50k minimum and may/may not have spent an entire paycheck on this one item. Why not! For those on gallery salaries amongst us, your best bet might be Ebay to dig yourself out a classic Old Argos version… Phoebe’s is available here, for a small sum of £3,200. Move fast: as the fashion heads have been wittering all day, HIGH DEMAND, LOW INVENTORY x
Parting Shot
There’s a boycott of art-world-holy-grail Artforum on the cards – as well as the potential collapse of the publication – after the shock dismissal of storied editor-in-chief David Velasco led almost all the commissioning editors to resign in solidarity. Kate Sutton, Chloe Wyma and Zack Hatfield all stepped down after Velasco was fired for publishing a letter signed by thousands of artists and art workers in solidarity with the Palestinian people and supporting a ceasefire. Artforum owner Jay Penske, who bought the publication in December last year, is said to not give a shit about freedom of speech and to have no shame in censoring criticism and undermining decades of editorial integrity. As Nan Goldin put it: ‘chilling’.