Instead of making my usual pilgrimage to London I decided to head north this weekend to see a show by Lucy Harrison at Norwich Outpost. So for a third of the fare for the same distance I washed up in Norwich, literally it was tipping it down. Admittedly as far as getting your money's worth goes there are fewer galleries in Norwich (as far as I know its just Outpost now) but the shows there are invariably good. I was even moved to write a review as I really liked the books on show. Its a bit rambly and oblique but I've never wanted to write properly. Anyway I need the practice as, inexplicably, Josie Faure Walker at Space emailed me asking me to come along to ‘Schematic: New Media Art from Canada’ to write about it. I will probably fail miserably to think of anything to say, or hate it, or get in a mood and not turn up. We shall see.
In the studio I managed to make a sort of landscape viewer for the show of starscapes, landscapes and interiors I'm having with Andrew Vass in March. Its only in Sproughton which has to qualify as the middle of nowhere but I'm using it as an opportunity to put together a new body of spectacular work (I think that's the word). Some of the work is up on another bloody blog, www.shedchat.blogspot.com
I am recovering from a curatorial visit. Lotte Juul Petersen came round to the studio to select work for a show she is curating at Wysing in January. I had had a bit of a tidy up and set up a few video screens which created a pleasing cacophony (to my mind). Upon her arrival I proceeded to bombard her with stuff until she had seen everything I had ever made including photos of my dog, although that last one was an accident. She wanted a range of things old and new, broken objects and films and I found myself mentally balancing all the things I would need to reserve for San Francisco and Bedford and another little show I'm organising in Ipswich, and actually having to say no (rather inneffectually it turns out). I'm still making stuff for my transatlantic jaunt: TRYING TO COPE WITH THINGS THAT AREN'T HUMAN and I've bought a massive suitcase to cram it all into. I'm thinking about American films, making tiny giant alien machine creatures and buying up old matchbox track on ebay so I can race cars through the gallery in a sort of SciFi car chase movie. When I dropped Lotte off at the station for her three hour (sixty mile) train journey we were both a bit hollow eyed.
I've been collecting arctic/antarctic 'souvenirs'. Although strictly they are not and could never really have acted as souvenirs as I am sure they were not made for or sold to real ant/arctic visitors. Anyway this is the first, a delightful glass paperweight containing what I assume are a pair of seals (possibly)
I am returned once again from two days of London visits, meetings and strong coffee. On Tuesday I visited the Free Art Fair at Marble Arch. Hampered, as usual by my Gallery finding skills, it took two laps of the area to find all six of the converted shops hosting some lovely little shows. I must admit I didn't know much about the ethos of the Free Art Fair, although the clue is in the title, on the free catalogues, posters etc. When one of the invigilators asked me if I would be camping on Sunday I became quite flustered thinking it was some sort of urban code. This occurred in the 'Gallery' I enjoyed the most, it hosted a lot of painting and two conjoined plastic cups containing Bob & Roberta Smith's toenail clippings. It was the paintings I liked best especially Alex Gene Morrison's Erupting Head and Geraldine Brigid Swayne's Ancestor from Hell. Both left me with the feeling that I needed an extra name. Later, though I love painting (mostly I think for the reason that I've never made a good one myself) I felt a bit overloaded and guiltily walked straight past Sam Dargan's show at Rokeby. The purpose of my Tuesday jaunt was a meeting with Mark and Lindsay who are the young artists behind Refutation http://www.refutation.net/ I showed them the videos I had made with great trepidation (as usual). They seemed to like Small Stargazer a new film made by pointing the video camera straight into the lens of a 16mm projector. I've used this method once before but this version was sufficiently different to fit their requirements for previously unseen work. Needless to say unlike the rest of my stuff which I tend to bung up online willy nilly this one will remain secret until the grand opening event in November. On the train home an elderly man asked me to make sure he was awake when we arrived at Ipswich, the responsibility kept me tensely alert until he had left the train.
Wednesday was more of the same including a visit to The Future Can Wait at the Truman Brewery. The artists there seem fascinated by exoticism, sensuousness and pornography in equal measure – best group show I've seen this year.
I went with Hayley who was meeting Larry Achiampong to discuss some collaboration they are cooking up. Hayley is becoming some sort of Facebook arttart at the moment making friends with lots of Bigwigs – I am, of course, highly jealous.
I'm reading two books at the moment Susan Stewart's "On Longing" picked mainly for its title and E.E. 'Doc' Smith's "Masters of the Vortex" picked mainly for its cover. Flitting between "Neal Cloud… extrapolating his sigma curve by the sheer power of his mathematical prodigy's mind, sat appalled" and " …the realization of re-union imagined by the nostalgic is a narrative utopia that works only by virtue of its partiality…" I feel completely lost.
Yesterday I went to 'From the Picturesque to the Demolished' an evening of video and performance organised by Jon Purnell and Julika Gittner. On the way down I found myself suffering from ticket anxiety. It often happens on the Lowestoft line. I join it from a one-track abandoned station and often the guard fails to get round the train before he/she inexplicably abandons us at Ipswich. I then sit surrounded by threatening signs until we arrive in London. I know I deserve a ticket and will probably not be forced to pay a huge fine for defrauding National Express but it doesn't stop my fear as I explain myself at the ticket office.
I arrived at the Railway Tavern on time after a refreshing meal at Burger King (it was that or Subway) These were the only places to eat at the entrance to the 2012 athletes' village. The event start had been postponed because Arsenal were playing Hull on the big screen. Passions were running high. One vocal drinker had a huge accumulator finishing on Hull beating Arsenal so I sat where I could watch that and a showreel of videos. The art mostly lost out to the colour, noise and spectacle of the football although Victoria Melody's stroppy 'Bastard Bee' stood out.
I had intended to introduce myself to Jon but I wasn't sure who he was and by the time I'd worked it out the event was about to start and he was busy, and I had been conspicuously sitting around for so long that I felt a bit of a tit so I went to the bar for another pint.
The bar filled with a new clientelle of arty types, a woman fainted and an ambulance called. A young woman I'd met on the internet introduced herself (not as seedy as it sounds although I did manage to blush for the first five minutes) She showed me a new article in AN about The Black Flag Game which looked really good but the evening had started.
It was a friendly, pleasantly shambollic event with leaflets, speeches and presentations and a dodgy dvd player. The feelings for the loss of Angel Cottage were sincerely expressed and the work looked interesting but I missed the second half as my last train left at nine. As I ran out the door Sonya said she'd facebook me to tell me how it all turned out.
On the train home a woman sitting opposite me was trying to learn Hebrew and reading psalms. One line read: "My zeal wears me out"
