“my silly tender queries (on reddit at 2am)"
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This week
💦 an old copy of the Collins Guide to Roses
💦 Sport, homoeroticism, violence
💦 actual criticism !!!
Events
What a line-up this week eh?! With so much going on we’ll be running from East to South and back again like headless chickens. We’re especially excited for Ron Nagle’s solo across both Modern Art spaces, Julia Miauri’s first ever London’s exhibition at Workplace, and Justin Fitzpatrick’s solo at Seventeen… plus the Bloomsbury galleries have been strategising again and are aligning openings on Thursday – it’s gunna be a big one !
🧊 14 Nov | 6-8pm | Co Westerik: Centenary | Sadie Coles HQ, Davies Street [Bond St]
🧊 15 Nov | 6-8pm | Jatinder Singh Durhailay: Free Flowing Forms, The Artist Room [Tottenham Court Rd]
🧊 15 Nov | 6-8pm | Saccharine Symbols, Rose Easton [Bethnal Green]
🧊 15 Nov | 3:30-5:30pm | Melody, Movement & Migrations (Collective listening session, facilitated by Raheel Khan, Mehmil Nadeem and Harmeet Rahal) Goldsmiths CCA [New Cross Gate]
🧊 15 Nov | Bendt Eyckermans: Love Fulfilled, Carlos Ishikawa [Whitechapel]
🧊 15 Nov | Lucas Dupuy: Unison, Incubator [Marylebone]
🧊 16 Nov | 6-8pm | Ron Nagle: Conniption & Extraterrestrials, Modern Art, Helmut Row & Bury Street [Old Street & Green Park]
🧊 16 Nov | 7-11pm | Motor Dance Journal 2 Launch, Reference Point 180 [Temple] | Tickets here
🧊 16 Nov | 6-8pm | Julia Miauri: Yesterday & the End, Workplace [Oxford Circus]
🧊 16 Nov | 6-8pm | Zazou Roddam: Pop Inflection, Brunette Coleman [Chancery Lane]
🧊 16 Nov | 6pm | Justin Fitzpatrick: Ballotta, Seventeen Gallery [Haggerston]
🧊 16 Nov | 6.30-8.30pm | JJ Guest: The Other Team, OOF [White Hart Lane]
🧊 17 Nov | ? | LuLuPalooza (A night of music and performances in aid of Lulu Bennett’s transition fund) Ivy House [Nunhead] | £7-15 (non one turned away for lack of funds)
🧊 18 Nov | 4pm | Millwall in the Community. Hosted by Lions Food Hub and Millwall Romans FC. Readings by Orit Gat and Adam Heardman from the publication Millwall on the Page, Chemist Gallery [St John’s]
🧊 18 Nov | 5-8pm | Hamish Pearch: Smoky, Moth and Mike, Ginny on Frederick [Farringdon]
Exhibition of the week
Alex Margo Arden: Rock Paper Scissors, Royal Academy Schools, until 7 January, information here
Last year, describing Alex’s show at Ginny on Frederick, we said she ‘transformed the space into a mysterious auction-like car boot setup, continuing her eloquentl investigations into the history and contemporary significance of museological displays and civil decoration.’ Her show at the RA Schools looks different – a sparsely hung, kunsthalle-vibey, minimal-curator-chic setup appears. Yet, simple, easy, mundane – this show is not. Realising as an extensive, 7-year research project, Arden has investigated the mysterious case of Kenneth Halliwell and Joe Orton, a couple who died in the 1960s in an apparent tragic murder-suicide. Before this, the pair had been curiously imprisoned for stealing and defacing library books from Islington library – and it is this strange aesthetic moment that Arden has honed in on. One of the accompanying texts is wall-size and by Huw Lemmey (of spittle-fave pod Bad Gays fame). It is given almost as much prominence as Arden’s work itself. The story is way too complex to paraphrase (read it!) but describes how in a repressive sexual and social regime their lives can be understood as ‘chances, opportunities, and tragedies’. Exactingly purchasing similar historical books, Arden has (in a Linder-esque way) made weird collages – a monkey on an old copy of the Collins Guide to Roses, sexy male physiques on a copy of the novel The Steel Cocoon by Bentz Plagemann – that if found in a charity shop would leave many questions unanswered. Framed like expensive photographs, they appear like monuments to outsider forms of creativity that often don’t get due (or any) attention. Like the investigative work of Forensic Architecture, we are left learning a fascinating story but with no satisfying conclusion… We’re looking forward to what she has in store in her upcoming Margate show – apparently, she is invoking Margate’s mysterious cave paintings inside Quench, Lindsey Mendick’s gallery. In this moment, few are brave enough to take each project from scratch in an art world of signature styles and repeating individualised iconography; we’re enchanted and can’t wait to see what’s next xo
Hot links
⌨“On Reddit at 2am, I’m writing a novella-length post” – Adina Glickstein’s latest column is a romp through our tender textual residues, the carelessness with which we let them accrete online, and what this means for AI language models. One thing’s for sure, spittle could never be accused of throwing verbiage into the void……
🏫 Art x Private School <3 – Chris Hayes doesn’t pull any punches in this review (finally, some criticism!) of Johanna Billings’ Whitechapel gallery show, identifying some quite frankly shocking oversights which ‘profoundly undermines [the work’s] premise and politics... As inequality continues to soar, as art increasingly becomes a preserve of the wealthy, it is not enough to continue with the charade’. Ouch x
💪 “he’s emerged from his chrysalis, a swole monarch” – Vogue’s profile of helicopter pilot and ex-newsreader Lauren Sanchez, and her Fiancée, third richest lizard-man in the world Jeff Bezos, is… wild to say the least. Touching on space exploration, magical margaritas and Bezos’s “monster” gym routine, the article feels a whole lot like philanthropy-washing, BUT the photography by Annie Leibovitz imbues the whole thing with such an absurd quality that we can’t help but read on xx
🎵“This is annoying and something he apparently really did” – Emily Colucci goes off in long form for Filthy Dreams on Sofia Coppola’s new film, Priscilla, opening with a gorgeous consideration of P J Harvey’s Lwonesome Tonight, which we are now obsessed with.
Add-to-cart
Dear readers, as you know we normally sheath our claws and keep this section lighthearted and positive – BUT! after friend of the ‘sletter Freeze Magazine showed us the Marina Abramowicz Royal Academy gift shop wares, well, we couldn’t help ourselves… We’re with Adrian Chiles on this one: £35 for a pint glass is borderline criminal. And we know that institutions are struggling and gift-shop revenue can be a good way to rake in that extra cash etc but the concept of charging visitors £80 for a pillowcase “designed to bring the Marina Abramović method into your day-to-day life” has left us speechless x
Parting shot
Content creator @mayplaystv takes us on a stunning visual journey through all of the artworks featured on hit Nintendo game Animal Crossing. When Tim Berners Lee invented the World Wide Web this is what he meant.
xo