"We are quirked, we are goated, we are bruh, we are bestie"

spittle

May 31

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L-R: Shamiran Istifan at Moarain House; Stonehenge gets a jubilee makeover; Salome Ploudenny at 122 Minories.

This Week

💦 Donald Judd-esque precise rows of single trainers, stuffed with nightmare-inducing abandoned baby dolls

💦 London’s answer to New York’s shed

💦 Stonehenge transformed to celebrate one of Britain’s oldest women

Events

Despite it being a three-day working week in light of the Queen’s Jubilee, with most of us holding our breath for the four-day weekend, *shockingly* the art world seems not to stop revolving! spittle are particularly looking forward to Nicoletti’s group show exploring the climate change emergency – followed by an afterparty in East London.

🧊 31 May | 6–9pm | Two Sisters (group show), Roman Road [Notting Hill]

🧊 1 June | 6.30–8.30pm | Publication launch of Bad Gays: A Homosexual History at Studio Voltaire [Clapham]

🧊 1 June | 6–9pm | Tim Stoner, Vardaxoglou (new space) [Tottenham Court Road]

🧊 1 June | 6–8pm | The Places We Go (Iona Hutley and Harriet Gillet), Soho Revue [Piccadilly Circus]

🧊 3 June | 6-9pm | In Dedication (Film Screening) The Koppel Project x We Exist London, VSSL Studio [Deptford]

3 June | 6–9pm | Free Spirits, Brockley Cross Pop-up [Brockley]

🧊 2 June | 5–8.30pm | Total Climate Part I, Nicoletti [Cambridge Heath] | Afterparty at A Glove That Fits (tickets available for £5 on door)

Exhibitions

Shamiran Istifan, Precious Pipeline at Moarain House, until 11 June, information here

Women wearing black, with long, dark hair follow each other in a circle. All eyes are cast downwards – each wears a nose job bandage. Hazily lit, their movement is hypnotic and the scene is dreamy. A sense of purpose and conviction pervades. Titled, ‘Trip to Jerusalem’, Shamiran Istifan’s video work foregrounds the sacrificial religiosity of a generation that is seeking out and paying for cosmetic surgery to combat a sense of alienation. The artist is Assyrian - Assyria being a historic region spanning sections of present-day northeastern Syria, northern Iraq, southeastern Turkey, and northwestern Iran - and the work in this exhibition speaks of the untold stories of members of the diaspora community who straddle decolonial dreams and western cultural hegemony. Lining one wall are a series of angels embroidered on metallic, cushiony fabric; elsewhere hang crossed ceremonial knives with love heart handles, rendered in luminous neon acrylic. Drawn into playful dialogue is a photograph of a white wedding dove, clutched by hands with long red acrylic nails. Hinting at the cross section of violence and romance, these works represent individual stories from Istifan’s family. While we aren’t told these accounts, we can sense both reverence and conflict emanating from the sharp acrylic and the chrome fabric, perforated and bound by embroidery stitches as it is. Istifan foregrounds aspects of the mundane - ‘ethnic’ rhinoplasty, weddings, acrylic nails - to explore the forces that produce a sense of alienation in her community. Forces that are, as Roisin Tapponi writes in the exhibition text, ‘ribboned tightly like a corset’.

POTENTIALS, curated by Arthur Poujois at 122 Minories, until 9 June, information here

‘The hours between dog and wolf, that is, dusk, when the two can’t be distinguished from each other, suggests a lot of other things besides the time of day… the hour that comes down to us from at least as far back as the early Middle Ages, when country people believed that transformation might happen at any moment…’ Quoting vagabond and queer novelist Jean Genet’s text Prisoner of Love as a teaser for his exhibition, Arthur Poujois’ ambitiously-curated group show explores transformation in two guises: materials and play with light and surface, alongside the subversion of figurative icons – both human and symbolic. Taking over a pandemic-abandoned EAT store in the corporate hotspot Farringdon, Poujois eloquently staged a gothic – and somewhat sinister – exhibition centred on sculpture as an expanded form. Lichen – an organism that arises from a mutualistic relationship between algae and fungi – crept in a crevice on one wall, growing like ivy in a living piece by gardener-cum-artist Isla Rae-Smith; while French artist Salome Ploudenny’s contribution consisted of Donald Judd-esque precise rows of single trainers, stuffed with nightmare-inducing abandoned baby dolls. Poujois’s own contributions, consisting of kaleidoscopic mini-stained glass windows, brought the sacral architecture technique into the cyberpunk nu-gothic 21st century, much like Harry Appleyard’s 3-D printed totem pole of distorted heads and bodies. spittle was particularly enamoured with friend of the ‘sletter, Daniel Burley’s, bewitched dagger-like wall-pieces that seem plunged out of some kind of mediaeval videogame, somehow simultaneously resembling both birds and bondage – spittle was intrigued to learn they formed portraits of his Whitechapel studiomates: Sophie Spedding and Tom Hardwick-Allan. Cheers Arthur, and to more all-sculpture shows in the age of figurative art - because, alas, the dominating trend toward neo-surrealist painting cannot last forever. As Genet indicates, transformation might happen at any moment…

Hot links

🤑“We are quirked, we are goated, we are bruh, we are bestie” - For The Baffler, Will Harrison psychoanalyses the fabled Dimes Square area of New York, in his words with a ‘reputation as a playground for the ultra-rich that supposedly doubled as a mecca for transgressive thought and politics.’ Beware the hagiographic, he insinuates, for we are living in a corrupt age, ‘of shibboleths and passwords.’

🗡️“a neat, violent crop of the goddess’s face from Sandro Botticelli’s Venus and Mars” - 50 years after John Berger’s Ways of Seeing was released, frieze contributors reflect on the cult art school classic that serves as ‘a blueprint for interpreting how images old and new structure our understanding of ourselves and how we want to be seen.’

🍃“It’s not just about plants; it’s about seeing movement, having change, hearing sound, and smelling smells” - Thomas Heatherwick’s Tree of Trees living breathing sculpture structure has been unveiled outside Buckingham Palace for the Platinum Jubilee. Dubbed London’s answer to New York’s Shed – the sculpture holds 350 trees in suspended plant pots… like a less-glitzy Christmas tree for the summer. spittle hates to predict that – post the 2021 Marble Arch Mound of Doom – public support will be lacking…

💿“how to sing whistle tone like mariah carey” - When asked to name her top three art or photography books Shariman Istifan just recommended this Youtube video, and we’re here for it.

🏰“An ancient monument whose function is now completely unknown, projected onto Stonehenge.” - In more jubilee-related monument news, one of Britain’s oldest cultural sites has been ‘transformed’ to celebrate one of Britain’s oldest women. 7 images of the Queen, selected to showcase her broad interests, will be projected onto Stonehenge over the coming days.

Add-to-cart

Ithell Colquhoun’s 1977 Tarot deck incorporating surrealist semi-automatic techniques has been re-released by Fulgur Press and remains a unique and enigmatic contribution to Western esotericism. It includes an essay by Richard Shillitoe that explores Colquhoun’s relationship with the taro, and Colquhoun’s own explicative text ‘Taro As Colour’. Read more in a write-up for elephant that concludes how the artist ‘highlights the dangers that strike women who choose to transgress the social order.’

Parting Shot

It must be pretty common for the admins of celebrity fan accounts to get messages intended for the celebrity themselves, but how often do admins of celebrity fan accounts get messages from international-superstar-curator-at-large Klaus Bisenbach?! Klaus was trying to get hold of… Lana del Rey (he misses her and he’s moved to Berlin). A reminder for us all to double check the recipient before we press send.

London’s beating ‘art <3 <3 <3

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