“this is a world of rainbows and puppies”
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This week
💦 beige sludge and two meaty fillets
💦 serving new Labour conference materials circa 2008
💦 Crystals, camomile, Marina, and me
Events
It’s a week of new beginnings: South Parade open their new location in Farringdon, and Helen Neven opens her long-anticipated brand spanking new gallery, Neven, with a solo exhibition by Woodsy Bransfield - we can’t wait!!
🧊 26 Sept 6-8pm -Lotus Laurie Kang: In Cascades (book launch), Tenderbooks [Covent Garden]
🧊 26 Sep | 6:30pm | Remembering the Future: Exploring Time Travel Through Cinematic Storytelling (Workshop with Eda Sancakdar), Kupfer [Shoreditch High Street]
🧊 27 Sep | 6-8pm | Arlette: José, Rose Easton [Bethnal Green]
🧊 27 Sep | 6:30-8:30pm | Trevor Yeung: Soft ground, GASWORKS [Vauxhall]
🧊 27 Sep | 6-9pm | Ellie Pratt, South Parade *New Location!!* [Farringdon] 🚨
🧊 28 Sept | 6-8pm | Silvers in the Void, Mamoth [Euston]
🧊 28 Sep | Woodsy Bransfield: Hoping, Neven Gallery *New Gallery Alert* [Cambridge Heath] 🚨
🧊 28 Sep | 7-9pm | 1001 Nachts (Michael Murphy, Maris Rex, Oberon Parry-Ladler and Billy Crosby), 1 Acorn Parade [Queens Road Peckham]
🧊 28 Sep | 6–8pm | RM: A Story Backwards, Auto Italia [Bethnal Green]
🧊 29 Sep | 7–10pm | the body, dissolving, Studio Chapple [Deptford]
🧊 29 Sep | 7pm | Improv Jazz Night (with Finn Carter, Joe Maclaren and Luca Caruso), Zérui [Camberwell]
🧊 30 Sep | 6–9pm | First Edition curated by Billy Fraser (9 gallery collaborative exhibition), Collective Ending HQ [Deptford]
Special treat ~ 2 line reviews
Gray; Sylvie; Jack; Marina
Gray Wielebinski: The Red Sun is High, the Blue Low at ICA, until 23 December, more info here
Glamorous, neurotic 50s paranoia imbues the red velvet conversation pit in the middle of the gallery; above hangs a basketball scoreboard, tracking an invisible game… Playing with time, space and ideas, Gray makes worlds collide in this hotly anticipating debut institutional solo - a must see!
Sylvie Fleury: S.F. at Sprüth Magers, until 4 November, more info here
Probably the campest show in London right now, Sylvie Fleury has turned Sprüth Magers into a wet dream Barbie dreamhouse (if Barbie was a motorhead) filled with white faux fur, hunky truckers, chrome hub caps, slow mo champagne sprays, fuschia curtains and Prada stilettos. We want it ALL!
Jack Evans: Fear of the Dark at SOUP until 28 October, more info here
Jack Evans’ show at Diet Coke-plumbed gallery SOUP is giving full medieval-core with burning candle chandeliers, doors constructed from wooden floorboards and glistening cast iron wall sculptures. Sinister but sexy, just how we like it x
Marina Abramović at Royal Academy until 1 January, more info here
A shock jock whirlwind tour through Marina’s (and Ulay’s) boundary testing, passionate, pretty rad and dangerous – mostly nude – David-Blaine-eat-your-heart-out life and work, involving serious wincing, grimacing and adrenaline if you’re in the audience. Revel until you get to the crystals and camomile, and then find the nearest exit/giftshop x
Hot Links
⛓️“Poetically squatting in their writing shack” – As well as being a knockout artist and writer, Kathy Acker pumped iron too! Using exercise as a way to bypass language, Acker saw the focus on aesthetics over performance as a conceptual link between art and bodybuilding.
🍣“Tony P studies his salmon” – we have to admit, we thought he was a parody at first, but according to the Washington Post, that just makes us deeply cynical <3 our favourite deeply sincere, vibrantly masculine, 25 year old Bachelor in DC, Tony P, gets a profile!! Go Tony!!
🍽️“there’s nothing wrong with blasting some Lana Del Rey” – Friend of the ‘sletter Olivia Allen unpacks the recent ‘girl’ trend, a phenomenon that has seen everything from walks to dinner branded with the silly little epithet - and explores how reclaiming our girlhood is a complex reworking of today’s misogynistic, capitalist grind xx
🔔“Years, minutes; what’s the difference, really?” – Does it feel like summer has gone by in a flash? Like 2018 was only yesterday? You’re just like Mariah Carey, babe! From MTV Cribs to Botticelli and back again, Amelia Groom deep-dives into Ms Carey’s refusal to acknowledge time. The article features a playlist by Adam Farah-Saad, which we’ll have on repeat all the way until Christmas.
🥩“I just have to make sure things are being done right” – Anna Wintour receives the prestigious Lunch with the Financial Times interview and… refuses to eat! ‘I find it quite difficult to eat and to be interviewed, so I think I’ll wait, but please order something,’ she says. Shame, we heard they’d already made a steak and caprese-san-tomato especially for her…
☁️“even as a curiosity piece, it’s pretty tasteless” –i-D’s Barry Pierce reviews a ghost-written wartime romance by Eleven from Stranger Things (actor Millie Bobbie Brown). The book includes award-winning passages such as: “It was hot — the kind of heat that makes you long for the weather to cool down...”
Add-to-cart
Applying to residencies can be an expensive process – often with little or no feedback from the organisations in question – so it’s understandable why many artists become frustrated by the process. Squaring up to this power dynamic, artist Dani Marcel actually paywalled his application portfolio, requesting the same €50 fee that they expect from applicants… so so good. And now you can bag a copy for yourself: Reply Form, a new, unique open edition available from Kupfer, is available here for £78.
Also this month - Marcel is travelling on all 675 bus routes in London as part of his performance The World. Catch him if you can!!!
Parting Shot
Curator of British Contemporary Art at Tate Britain, Linsey Young, says what everyone thinks regarding Tate’s annoyingly childish font. On the poster for her upcoming show Women in Revolt! (which looks incred) she says ‘I’ll never stop complaining about Tate’s font and logo that serve new Labour conference materials circa 2008 and ruin everything…’ we feel ya Linsey. Tate, if you’re listening, it’s ok to rebrand x
