“I smoke for my mental health.”

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Jayne Mansfield

This week

💦 recession chic

💦 inappropriate expenses

💦 beautiful homes put together by beautiful women x

Events

A quiet-ish one before the long easter weekend populated by only a few PVs, because let’s be real: what kind of collector is still in London by now? Enjoy your free evenings, cuties x

🧊 15 April | 6:30-9:30pm | Richard Wright, Camden Art Centre [Finchley & Frognal] RSVP here

🧊 15 April | 6:30pm | GARGLE, curated by Adult Entertainment, Sadie Coles HQ Kingly Street, [Oxford Circus]

🧊 16 April | 6-9pm | Princess Julia, Les Child and Sue Tilley talk Leigh Bowery, Tate Modern [Southwark] | Tix here

🧊 16 April | 6-8pm | Songbird: Raheel Khan, Mehmil Nadeem, Harmeet Rahal (Performances), Auto Italia [Cambridge Heath]

17 April | 6-9pm | Proscenium: Matt Petts, Xxijra Hii [Deptford]

🧊 20 April | 4-8pm | Flight Logs: Angela Anh Nguyen & Okey Ofomata, Harlesden High Street [Willesden Junction]

Hot links

⚽ “hustling over large balls from which many evils may arise.” – Despite calling it soccer (boooo American English) we were enthralled by Dan Hancox’s defense of rowdy football fans for Jacobin. Tracing a history from post-Hillsborough gentrification of the game, to post-covid ghost stadiums, Hancox makes the case for the fans, in their deafening volume, constituting the soul of the sport.

🚬 “Hockney reported to smoke up to a hundred cigarettes a day” – In light of David Hockney’s blockbuster retrospective that opened at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris last week, spittle-fave Louise Benson considers the significance (or refreshing lack thereof) of what she terms feelgood art.

🦊 “the fashion industry, cautious as they were at first, is fully embracing fur again” – Philip Pyle dissects why suddenly fur is back on bodies and runways – for reasons including the lipstick effect and 'recession chic' – for SQUAD. Pyle also reminded us of the iconic moment when “anti-fur protestors attacked Anna Wintour with a tofu pie… more of these incidents please x

💸 “The diva attended her community service wearing a $300,000 Dolce & Gabbana gown” –This super surprising long read in the FT dissects what went down with Naomi Campbell’s charity misspending, revealing a new player to us in the scandal, Bianka Hellmich, who allegedly stole Campbell’s identity in addition to the charity’s cash… a fab read indeed…

⛓️ “the machine would have to be sent to art school” – David Salle muses on how to make ai the perfect student. Embracing the disconnected, confused, postmodern tendencies of ai image generation, Salle tweaked results and coaxed his ai student into spitting out his perfect, postmodern pastorals (now on view at Thaeddeaus Ropac in London).

🎀 “I do think that we’ll see more beautiful homes put together by beautiful women” – spittle-fave Biz Sherbert (of Nymphet Alumni)‘s new column in AnOther is obviously fab, not least for these stunning images of Jayne Mansfield in her famously decadent Pink Palace <3

Add-to-cart

This BHW we will abso be sitting in the park reading spittle-fave Roisin Lanagan’s new fiction novel ‘I Want To Go Home But I'm Already There’ about two girls living amongst the rental crisis in London that one reviewer on Goodreads describes as an “absolute belter” and Oisin Mckenna says is “one of the best things I’ve read on the psychological horrors of private renting, and what damp, overpriced flats can do to our emotional lives…”

Available via Penguin Books, here

Parting Shot

Katy Perry has been givinggg us contennttt with this camp little space trip she and the girls have recently undertaken in the name of girl power. The ten minute trip led Perry to spontaneously burst into ‘Its a Wonderful World’ by poor Louis Armstrong, and to kiss the ground upon her return to Earth, cheered on by Oprah, select Kardashians and presumably Dr.Luke. As if the singer couldn’t possibly seem more out of touch with reality, her post flight interview opener was: “You never know how much love is inside of you, like how much love you have to give? and how loved you are, until the day you launch”, leading us to question, how can we arrange our own intergalactic launch date! How much does it cost to get your own snug blue suit and nip up to zero gravity for a hot 5 minutes? According to reports, to reserve a seat on Blue Origin requires a deposit of $150,000 and about 100 tonnes more CO2 than a long haul plane flight x stunning! Sign us up!

Much like the singer’s return to music last year, when her embarrassing single ‘Woman’s World’ was accused of being a “pandering and regressive pseudo-empowerment anthem, whose faux-feminist message rings false at every turn”, we can’t help but vom when Perry suggests this Blue Origin PR stunt is (pardon the puns) “about making space for future women and taking up space”. Speaking of surrendering to the universe (does she mean Jeff Bezos?), the “I kissed a girl” singer contributed a mortifying ramble to the record, saying, when prompted by the interviewer (“because you’re so good at putting words together Katy”) to describe take off and landing, Perry quips “the moment, I mean, it is the highest high”, concluding “this is *all* for the benefit of earth”. Gender equality, climate change… what pressing issue will Katy fix next! No cause is safe from Perry’s attempts to shroud her frivolous attention seeking in worthiness… or maybe this is all satire??