“Strange reveries swarming through the vegetation’s noiseless slumber”
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This Week
💦 Balenciaga SS22 collection: ready to divorce
💦 a seductive, leather-gloved, labyrinthine-take on popular unboxing videos
💦 the art world’s shocking debauchery.
Events
We’ve spent the last few weeks hibernating, hiding, resting and recuperating (with some self-isolation thrown in for good measure, too). Now, back and better than ever, a stellar line-up of events will be coaxing us out of the warm fug of our flats, and into the warmer (and well-ventilated) embrace of the gallery. We’re looking forward to Stephen Polatch’s dreamy paintings at Soft Opening, Allison Katz’s wild rice/cock paintings at Camden Art Centre, and Grotto, a group show curated by Chloée Maugile and Laurie Baron at Ridley Road Project Space.
🧊 12 January | 6–8pm | Cork Street Attack: Grey Organisation, curated by William Ling, The Mayor Gallery [Green Park]
🧊 12 January | 6–8pm | Steven Claydon: Lacrimosa, Sadie Coles HQ, Bury Street [Green Park]
🧊12 January | 12 - 6pm | Stephen Polatch: Clyde, Soft Opening [Cambridge Heath]
🧊13 January | 6:30–9pm | Sophie Ruigrok: today I feel relevant and alive, The Sunday Painter [Nine Elms]
🧊13 January | 10-6pm | RA Schools, Premiums Interim 1: Motunrayo Akinola, Max Boyla, Daniel Davies, Rachel Hobkirk & Oliver Tirré, Royal Academy Weston Studio [Piccadilly Circus]
🧊14 January | 6–10pm | Grotto, curated by Chloée Maugile and Laurie Baron, Ridley Road Project Space [Dalston Kingsland]
🧊14 January | 6:30–9:30pm | Allison Katz: Artery / Julien Creuzet: ‘Too blue, too deep, too dark we sank…’ Camden Art Centre [Finchley Road]
🧊15 January | 5–8pm | Tom Worsfold, Ginny on Frederick [Barbican]
Exhibition of the Week
New Contemporaries at South London Gallery, until 20 Feb 2022
The London leg of this year’s edition of the New Contemporaries exhibition opened at South London Gallery before Christmas. The show spans both gallery spaces and there’s some real-good work on view. Exhibition highlights include Aoibheann Greenan’s seductive, leather-gloved, labyrinthine take on popular unboxing videos; Sean Synnuck’s sculpture of a tooth getting a head start on spittle’s new year’s resolution (exercising); and Tom Harker’s eerie painting of a medieval dance of the dead on the side of a white van that’s crashed into a ditch. Horror was a strong theme, with stand-out works from Rebecca Parkin, Orsola Zane and Agnieszka Szczotka. We’re excited to see where this cohort heads next!
Hot Links
🪱 ‘We will all, at some point, become mouldy meat ourselves…’ - With a series of truly revolting photographs (I’m talking a close crop of maggotty tinned mushrooms) by London’s own trash-o-phile photographer Maisie Cousins, The New York Times commissions an anthropological deep dive into how we stomach living with digust.
🔒 The Museum of Bad Behavior returns - Alissa Bennett’s scandalous instagram account, regret counter, is alive again after being temporarily deleted by The Algorithm. The account is now locked – try and follow for insights into the art world’s shocking debauchery.
👹 ‘After wandering for hours like Dante on Clonazepam’ - Charlie Fox met Krampus, the Alpine Christmas Demon — the folkloric beast, a Gruffalo on a bad trip — scary face, goatish horns, shaggy fur — for a festive 032c article.
🤡 ‘The gallery goes so far as to describe Rhed as “the new Basquiat”, while another critic deems him an artist who “speaks for the millennial generation.”’ - Despite being neither a millennial, nor worthy of being mentioned in the same sentence as Basquiat, Madonna’s son (alias: Rhed) has gained some, er, traction as an artist. Thankfully Louise Benson is on hand to explore what Rhed’s true identity says about nepotism in the arts.
💙 ‘The plot of an already epic public performance of divorce has thickened’ - Kardashian Kolloquium is back with a ground-breaking piece of fashion/internet cultural theory for PAPER about how the media landscape itself is being manipulated by the Kardashian-West puppet masters into a backdrop for a new kind of [Balenciaga sponsored] product placement.
📈 Junior collectors with money to spare are showing off their algorithmically acquired taste, thinking they are archivists with collections worth showing off! - As our collective taste is continually flattened by social media feeds, the burgeoning second-hand market is ever more controlled by the algorithm. Interestingly, even those self-aware Tiktokers who make fun of trends like the Tabi boots obsession still buy into those trends themselves… spittle feels exposed.
Add-to-Cart
This week, Balmain and Barbie announced a new collection… This collaboration consists of the two brands ‘embarking upon a distinctly multicultural, inclusive and always joy-filled adventure.’ We love the editorial nod to our Barbies’ home-salon cuts here, complete with a sinister-looking pair of garden shears. You can spot us in a hot pink number in Miami this winter! Prices yet to be announced…
Parting Shot
This week, we treat you to two! x
Tracey Emin aptly talking about being ‘brilliant with money’ in the Financial Times. Artists the world over will be stunned to learn that the key to commercial success is, in fact, pretty straight forward:
News of Tracey’s plans for an art school in Margate didn’t go down quite so well with TWP who tweeted a scathing take. Ouch!!
Love,
London’s beating ‘art <3 <3 <3 <3