"No More Espresso Martinis!"
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Before we start; Anwar Akbur has gone missing. The much loved Sadie Coles HQ operations and publications assistant was last seen on Sunday 24 October in Hendon, London NW4. If you have any information please contact findanwar21@gmail.com.
This week:
💦 Borna Sammak pledges to avoid the rich
💦 Peachy perineums at TJ Boulting
💦 If you’re not dressing up as Jordan Wolfson’s Female Figure for Halloween, at least wear his creepy merch
Events, Oct 26 - Nov 01
This week, join Adrian Searle and James Lingwood as they remember Portuguese artist Julião Sarmento (who represented Portugal twice at the Venice biennale) at Pilar Corrias; Morain House, a new gallery in Bethnal Green, opens with a duo-exhibition by Jack Jubb and Lotte Anderson; and curated-shop/showroom Khalstead opens an exhibition with a hot list of young talent.
🧊 28 October | 5:30 pm (followed by opening 6:30 - 8pm) | Julião Sarmento: Arena | Adrian Searle and James Lingwood in Conversation, Pilar Corrias, 2 Savile Row, W1S 3PA [Oxford Circus] | Exhibition runs until 3 December
🧊 28 October | 6–9pm | Cõvco: Nexus in Paradise (Live), a new performance and immersive installation exploring themes of black futurity, mortality, rituals and isolation. Camden Art Centre, NW3 6DG [Finchley Road/Hampstead]
🧊 28 October | 6–8pm | Closing Party for FIGURE/S: drawing after Bellmer, Drawing Room, 1-27 Rodney Place, SE17 1PP [Elephant and Castle] | Exhibition runs until 31 October
🧊 28 October | Opening 6-8pm | Francesca Facciola: One Trick Pony, Carl Kostyál, 12a Savile Row W1S 3PQ [Oxford Circus] | Exhibition runs until 27th November
🧊 29 October | Opening 1-9pm, Performances 7-9pm | Free Form: a celebration of Black womxnhood, Arebyte Gallery, Java House, 7 Botanic Square, E14 0LG [Canning Town] | Book tickets for Live Performances here
🧊 30 October | 4–8pm | The future isn’t what it used to be, Lotte Anderson and Jack Jubb (two-person exhibition), Morain House, 223 Cambridge Heath Road, E2 0AL [Moorgate] | Exhibition runs until 12 December
🧊 Until 30 October | Online | Rebuilding Beirut With Pride (charity auction supporting the Lebanese queer community hosted by The Auction Collective, featuring the likes of Amba Sayal-Bennett, Hannah Lim and Billy Fraser)
🧊 30 October | 12–8pm | dirt & desire, group show curated by Anna Eaves and Ted Targett, khalstead.co.uk, SW12 9RT [Balham] | Runs until 21 November
Exhibitions
The Gaze, TJ Boulting, until 20 November. Information here.
Writer and editor Louis Wise has curated a magnificent group show exploring the act of looking - and primarily looking at men. Taking Giovanni Moroni’s The Tailor as its point of departure, the shows takes you on a journey punctuated by eyes - from The Tailor’s own inquisitive pair, to the defensive stare of a passing blue-collar worker captured by Sunil Gupta in 1976 - and then there’s the single eye peering downwards, past the sitter’s peachy perineum, in Christopher Hartmann’s Big Butt (Don’t look at me), 2020. With other works by the likes of Karlheinz Weinberger, Herbert List, Prem Sahib and Cary Kwok, this show is a reminder of the power behind a glance.
Hot links
💞 “70s sleeves like the Buzzcocks’ Orgasm Addict” - Comedian Stewart Lee throws himself into art criticism for The Guardian, musing on the recently ‘rediscovered’ surrealist Ithell Colquhoun. A brilliantly researched piece of writing, it was also a hilarious ride - perhaps because Lee felt that ‘Colquhoun and I, it seems, are trapped in the same cramped Ford Fiesta on Google’s algorithmic roundabout’.
🦾 Sexy Robot (Artist Ai-da) has been detained by security forces in Egypt! - Ai-da was detained ahead of her exhibition at the Giza pyramids by Egyptian security forces who considered the cameras implanted in her eyes to be a matter of national security. Fortunately for robot-fancier Waldemar Januszczak (‘My eyes drift down to her magnificent lips…’), she was deemed no threat to society and managed to make it to the opening in time for a glass of white and a gossip.
🍸 “No More Espresso Martinis!” - The syrupy caffeinated cocktail du jour (apparently invented because a model wanted something to ‘wake her up, then fuck her up’) is officially OVER according to Grub Street, with bartenders slating them as ‘the Aperol Spritz of 2021.’ spittle recommends joining the avant-garde and ordering a white port and tonic instead.
⚔️ “Caravaggio is long dead, as are his victims” - Teju Cole’s New York Times long-read on Caravaggio has been doing the rounds on Twitter again – and for good reason – as Cole proffers, ‘He was a murderer, a slaveholder, a terror and a pest. But I don’t go to Caravaggio to be reminded of how good people are and certainly not because of how good he was.’ The cancel culture debate knows no bounds.
💰 “It’s not about sex baby, it’s about capitalism” - Eloise Hendy gives her take on Sally Rooney’s latest novel, Beautiful World, Where Are You for ArtReview, drawing conclusions about the dangers of the cultural commodification of politics which is something all of us in the arts should be wary of (!!) – as Hendy quips, ‘In a neoliberal marketplace, “nonconformity” is an asset.’
🎭 A sugar baby, an army veteran and a finance fuckboy - these are just a selection of the fictional influencers that have been developed to go viral on TikTok with scripted storylines. The Vox has gone behind the scenes at FourFront, an agency that creates bespoke and fictional TikTok influencers. The platform promises ‘no cult content, no dark content, and every one of our characters is openly fictional’ which sends shivers down spittle’s spine.
🌊 “I am not trying to get busted, so that’s why it’s taking longer” - Once a market favourite, Christian Rosa has just been busted for selling forged Raymond Pettibon works :( After the story began to unravel earlier in the year, Rosa fled the USA, with the FBI in hot pursuit.
🤡 #juggalettesdoitbetter - Spittle has (finally) found rising-star painter and ghost whisperer Amanda Ba’s TikTok (@madamemao)! and it does not disappoint. Come for the New York art life, stay for the Japchae and dumpling recipes.
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Jordan Wolfson's - typically creepy - collaboration with the cult Los Angeles brand Online Ceramics is guaranteed to win you art kudos / best Halloween outfit prize this weekend! Find the (v limited) remaining stock available here for $90.
Parting shot
With magazines running ‘frieze diaries’ like nobody’s business, (including such sentences as ‘A rich-looking man in a suit remarks on the high quality of the Champagne, so I get a refill’ and 'promises of calmer aesthetic bliss to soothe my inner Courtauldian… who says academics don’t wear pink?' ) we strongly feel that artist Borna Sammak’s opinion is the only one we really care about.
Love,