Friday 11th May: Walala at Land Of Kings Festival

This time last week, my local neighbourhood of East London was undergoing final preparations for its annual music festival "Land Of Kings".  The weekend event seeks out unexpected venues up and down the strip from Shoreditch to Stoke Newington to turn over into concert auditoriums, dance floors and performance spaces.  This year the catering angle stepped up a level with pop-up refreshments, including this thematic cafe by Camille Walala who transformed a greasy spoon into a cosmic diner.  In keeping with the festival's graphic identity by illustrator Colin Henderson this was the perfect match to link up with Walala's trademark Memphis style interiors. .............. 

"We only had 2hours to set up the all place as we got the key at 5 pm and we started to serve food at 7pm!

It's been a wonderful experience and I m glad i had A LOT OF FRIENDS who helped me to realise this project!!

I always wanted to have a greasyspoon, keeping the kitchiness of it + adding some of my patterns everywhere + Same menu but using nice ingredients!

I LOVE GREASYSPOONNNS!! 

For me they so important and represent the english culture that i love (Martin Parr style!)//...... I don't want them to disapear and I think that will be a good way to retransform them with a bit more colourful and graphic way!

so voila!"

After tripping out on some 3D mapped pattern projections at a Factory Floor gig in a giant Turkish banqueting hall in an original 1920's cinema .......... you could wander down the road for a burger and chips and transport you on set in something reminiscent of the canteen from Saved By The Bell............... that is the magic and mystery ride of The Land Of Kings......... well done everyone involved!!!

(All images from before and after the event, sent over from Camille by Petter Weilenmann- Higashi and Charlotte Law)

Weds 9th May: Jason Evans at Hyères Festival

One artist I think I know who will like the previous marble pour paintings is Jason Evans whom I share a love for all things colourful and cosmic.  Here is a vertiginous picture of the installation he has just been exhibiting at Hyères Festival whilst there to judge the photographic competition.  All images linked together for this particular showcase follow the theme of projects he has been commissioned and collaborated on over the last twenty years from fashion to album artwork.  To mimic the magazine pages that the shoots have appeared on, the photos have been printed on paper sheets and hung in a flat plan.  In trademark Evans style, he painted the walls of the gallery space in a hazard pattern, picking up on the tones of flower blossom from the flowers at Villanoailles (of which you can see one single stem in the corner).

To add to this panoramic that Jason has kindly sent over, I have photographed pages from his "Sunday Supplement" magazine which Caribou commissioned for their ATP festival curated at Butlins last year.  Jason worked with Alex Rich to edit images from his unpublished archive spanning street and still life pictures.   You can see the shot with green gloves included in the Hyères show (1st left) and many examples of his psychedelic shots that appear every day on his website "The Daily Nice".  If you weren't at Hyeres to enjoy the event, you can read a great review over on i-D Online with a portrait of Jason and Yohji Yamamoto taken by Terry Jones and watch an interview with Jason and the other exhibitors  here.

You can purchase "Sunday Supplement" by Jason Evans & Alex Rich here.

Tues 8th May: NYC incoming images from Rosy Nicholas - Holton Rower "Pour Paintings"

                            

Thanks to Rosy for sending these amazing detailed photos from Holton Rower's Pour Paintings at The Hole on Bowery......... here you can see her travelling companion  Chrissie Abbott tripping out on the cosmic canvas!

Holton Rower:  Pour Paintings 

The Hole, 312 Bowery, NY 10012   April 28 – May 26th

(video taken from gallery website)

Tues 8th May: NYC incoming images from Rosy Nicholas - Ryan McGinley "Animals"

Rosy Nicholas is in NYC for the Freize Art Fair and has kindly offered to be our foreign correspondent by sending over some imagery from her time there.  Up first is the latest solo show by downtown photographer Ryan McGinley "Animals".  This is very different from his landscape work where he travels to remote destinations to blend human form into the curves of nature's form.  For this project he took a different angle, taking a mobile studio on an excursion setting up at  sanctuaries, zoos, and rescue homes to capture animals in a controlled environment.  Candy colour Colorama rolls have replaced ethereal waterfalls and blurry motion shots have become static like the blue budgie, Sienna Miller portrait commissioned by Vogue. This is certainly an example of prop styling I haven't  seen before - a marmoset in a muff?!   I imagine this was much more fun than all the shoots I have done with stiff fixed taxidermy creatures from "Get Stuffed"! 
"Animals" runs till 02 June at 83 Grand Street, between Wooster and Greene. 
Concurrently, the 47 Wooster Street space is showing "Grids" - an additional McGinley solo show 

Monday 7th May: Damien Hirst at The Tate Modern

As I have mentioned previously, all the major galleries in London have been taking it in turns to open their most ambitious shows to date, to coincide with The Olympic games coming to town this year.  Here is the one that has probably had the most cash thrown at / invested in it with an all encompassing retrospective of Hirst's grand scale works at The Tate Modern.   I missed Sensation the first time round so for me it was actually a final chance to see these pickled pieces.   I trawled round the group of Gagosian's on the spot trail earlier this year so I'm all good for dots and I just had a dose of the pills at British Design at the V&A.   However I couldn't miss witnessing this landmark show as I always regretted bypassing Sensation, so I headed down to the Supermarket Sweep of art on Bank Holiday Sunday.  Although it was a shoulder to shoulder, push and shove through the sheep ....... it was probably the most fun time to go, just to see the faces on children in the butterfly room.  For all the high-brow conceptual fine-artists who I've heard snubbing this "soulless" life's work I would like to say this - its got nice colours and kids like it - can't be too much of a bad thing.  Maybe there could have been a ball pool next to the elevated beach ball and we could have all got in together for a mental half hour and forget our adult sensible sensibilities.  
However "For The Love Of God" ironically is the title of the crystal skull and the phrase that will pass your lips when you see the cue waiting in line down the Turbine Hall to see it................