“lunch breaks by rare rhododendrons”
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This Week
💦 a butt-clenching mime performance from a Tate curator
💦 pubescent changing room awkwardness
💦 Goodbye to Ridley Road Project Space
Events
This week, we’re looking forward to screenings of Bianca Hlywa and Eleanor Mortimer’s films at VITRINE Gallery, Sin Wai Kin’s narrative-driven explorations of the human body, and Hilma af Klint’s prescient, beguiling and mystical works, before they move to their permanent home at Glenstone Museum, Maryland.
1 March | Flora Yukhnovich: Thirst Trap, Victoria Miro [Old Street]
2 March | 6–8 pm | Hilma af Klint: Tree of Knowledge, David Zwirner [Green Park]
2 March | 7:45–8:15pm | Bianca Hlywa and Eleanor Mortimer: The Heat Treatment (film screening), VITRINE Gallery x Kino Cinema [Bermondsey]
3 March | 6–8pm | The Soul as Sphere, Maximillian William [Oxford Circus]
3 March | 6–8pm | Forget Me Not: Paolo Bufalini & Allistair Walter, Fabbri Schenke Projects [Old Street]
3 March | 6–8pm | Sin Wai Kin: A Dream of Wholeness in Parts, Soft Opening [Cambridge Heath]
4 March | 6–8pm | Patrick Goddard: Pedigree, Seventeen [Haggerston]
4 March | 6–9pm | CAJU / KASHU / CAYÚ, Harlesden High Street [Harlesden]
Exhibitions
MELTDOWN, Ridley Road Project Space, now closed - along with the space 😢
A faggot bundled inside a pink garter; flowers nourished by KA sparkling black grape; a butt-clenching mime performance from a Tate curator; hearts etched with promised kisses; and spiky silver mechanics suspended in school shirts: the final show in Ridley Road Project Space’s back-to-back programme did not disappoint. Including works by over 70 artists, MELTDOWN celebrated this nomadic project’s links to the East London art (and party) community and beyond – functioning as an ‘experimental space of queer solidarity’ and a political gesture in the face of rising and discriminatory artist studio rents in London. Among standout contributions – including t-shirts by Gray Wielebinski and a floor-based graffiti painting by Natasha Rees – was a durational performance by Than Hussein Clark involving the staggered delivery of 1,500 white roses emblazoned with ‘Condolences 2022’ wrapping paper to the private view (full disclaimer, one bunch may have ended up at with a certain spittle contributor’s mum). We will miss RRPS’s weekly exhibitions operating outside of any commercial or institutional framework (and also the Glory and Queen Adelaide afterparties), but, hold the phone!, spittle hears rumours there may be more to come…
SEX, Moarain House, until 3 April
A lustrous lime-green floor, glossy-wet looking, greets visitors to Moarain House’s group show SEX. On the wall a glinting, beaten-metal cowboy hat hangs alongside a soft-looking latex lasso by Eva Gold, distracting exhibition-goers into almost tripping over Amanda Moström’s deep squat-inducing chunky bronze stools and Isabella Benshimol Toro’s freshly-dropped underwear, frozen in resin and scattered throughout the space. With titles like ‘Soft Serve Lob’ and ‘Butter Swing’ these pants – and the cringing exposure implied by their abandonment – are reminiscent of pubescent changing room awkwardness. They are situated meaningfully next to a huge rubber duffle bag by Gold which itself suggests the need for transporting personal yet industrial equipment (possibly clothes – perhaps drag) and therefore a different kind of exposure: the art/manufacture of display. From the back wall beam Moström’s recreated photographs of iconic ‘90s couple Carmen Electra and Dennis Rodman; legendary sugar daddy-baby pairing J. Howard Marshall and Anna Nicole Smith; and a person reading a book resting on another person’s butt crack. Turns out this last one is based on a Tom of Finland work – with the artist’s father providing the bum for the bum-lectern. Wry fantasy is everywhere in this show, with works that teeter on the brink of unacceptability, making them all the more deliciously erotic. Credit to curator Rose Eastham for this slick and sexy spectacle.
Hot links
🍊 latest developments in Califonian counterculture: Toxic Positivity. - What is it, where is it and how to spot it? Drew Zeiba delves into the hippe-coder optimism bubbles of tech’s new pioneers, for PIN-UP. From Burning Man festival to Bezos, transhumanist manipulations to the broken utopian dream of circular architecture, this is not such a happy-go-lucky read for those dreaming the Silicon Valley dream.
💋 “I say, ‘You’re a whore coming from a small village,’ but it doesn’t matter. It’s nearly impossible, because Penélope looks great even with a poor outfit.’” - Cult director Pedro Amoldovar and Penélope Cruz play dress-up for this W Mag interview, discussing their decades-long relationship, the colour red, and why he turned down Brokeback Mountain.
🪐 “Voices honeyed, whispering pearl milk, New Earth verses, where everything is different” - In his monthly column ‘The Downward Spiral’ Dean Kissick describes New Earth from literally no one’s viewpoint, but we are here for it. Framed as a parable/prophecy for 2022 it includes such lines as ‘they offered Aurelie pink lotus flowers to drink, so that she might vibrate more resonantly’ and ‘a faint silhouette of a city frottaged in the smoke’... A real treat, Dean, thanks.
🥵 Prosthetic penises and erotic thrillers - Contentiously juxtaposing Big Mouth (sexy ‘n joyful) with Euphoria (sexist ‘n retrograde) these New Yorker critics have a chat about The Death Of The Sex Scene in contemporary film and telly in a wide ranging discussion that touches on the chilhoodification of cinema, our ‘post-excitement’ zeitgeist and how finding older-to-old women attractive *isn’t* actually taboo.
🍗 “like: why not put butter chicken in a lasagne?” - The New Statesman profiles Jonathon Nunn of Vittles, spittle’s favourite food publication, whose substack covers everything ‘from serious reportage on exploitation in the chocolate industry to intelligent deconstructions of Salt Bae.’
Add to cart
MAGIC is the latest offering from Whitechapel Gallery x MIT Press’ collectable compendium readers on themes in art, visual culture and beyond and it looks like a keeper. Exploring ‘magical culture's tendencies toward secrecy, occlusion, and encryption’ through subjects such as the hexing of the president and atavistic self-care, we can’t wait to read the insights of spittle faves like McKenzie Wark, Ian Cheng, Zadie Xa, Jackie Wang and Aria Dean. Available here for £13.99
Parting shot
It looks like Gweneth Paltrow may be a member of Facebook’s Brutalism Appreciation Society? Gweneth’s declaration that she loves it because it is ‘not soft or easy to understand’ explains about half of goop’s inventory.
Love,
London’s beating ‘art <3 <3 <3 <3