I’ve Been Single Too Long: Yearnings of an Overheated Imagination

I’ve Been Single Too Long is a shadowy, dream-like 3-minute short film directed by Shane Davey, which was commissioned for a special showcase at the Tate Modern Museum in Britain.  Whether a declaration of yearning or an admission of an overheated imagination, the title of Davey’s single-shot film offers an insight into the scene that’s being played out before us.  Arising from his bed in the early morning, a listless young man wanders through the rooms of his house and into a hammock in his back garden. All the while, the young fellow is seemingly oblivious to the many young women, wearing only their underwear, who are seductively lounging about all around him.

I’ve Been Single Too Long: Yearnings of an Overheated Imagination

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1. Influence over the production of art internationally.

2. Sheer financial clout.

3. Activity in the previous 12 months.

Above are the three criterion where the entrees of artists, collectors, gallerists, curators,  auction houses, politicians, museum directors, foundation directors, critics, talkshow hosts, and websites are ranked. A panel of international experts making the selections published yearly for the ArtReview Power 100 in the November issue of ArtReview magazine. Basing from the results, the most influential figure in the artworld in 2009 is a WHITE MALE ** (no surprise there) the diagrams of Profession, Gender, and Nationality below clearly shows that the people who dominates the Art Industry are the “WHITE AMERICAN MALE GALLERIST”. Its really hard to be a minority in every single sector of the world’s industries, in the top 10 alone, a Mexican Female “Julieta Aranda” of e-flux.com shared the #8 spot with a Russian and an American Male, #9 spot goes to a White Female, the rest of the top 10 including the #1 spot goes to the White Men (4 White Americans and 5 White Europeans), 94% of the list are Caucasians, Asia and South America is 6% combined on the Power 100. This numbers means a lot of things, the shakers and movers of the artworld are strongly dominated by one Race and one Gender in the history of the world, who will be the next Pollock? Warhol? Picasso? (all white men) as an evidence, the most powerful artist in the world now according to ART REVIEW MAGAZINE in 2009 is another caucasian male in the name of Bruce Nauman, a contemporary American artist from Fort Wayne, Indiana. Although the leader of the “most powerful” nation in the world at the moment is a “half-White”, like any other industries (Fashion, Architecture, Politics, Media, Web, Finance,  Real Estate, Medicine, Science, Literature, and Religion) Art is of no exception, is it just a mere universal coincidence that the White Man decides what is”art” and its price tag? or am I just dangerously naive?

**a future article you’ll find here in Dangerously Naive.

Profession 2008/2009

Gender

Nationality

______________

1. Hans Ulrich Obrist

Category: Curator

Nationality: Swiss

Race: Caucasian

Gender: Male

Last year: 35

- Founder of the Museum Robert Walser.
- Curator of the Migrateurs program at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris for contemporary art.
- Co-Director, Exhibitions and Programmes and Director of International Projects at the Serpentine Gallery, Kensington Gardens, in London.

______________

2. Glenn D. Lowry

Category: Museum Director

Nationality: American

Race: Caucasian

Gender: Male

Last year: 3

- Director of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City.

______________

3. Sir Nicholas Serota

Category: Museum Director

Nationality: British

Race: Caucasian

Gender: Male

Last year: 4

- Director of the Whitechapel Gallery, London.
- Director of the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford.
- Director of the Tate, the United Kingdom’s national gallery of modern and British art in 1988.
- Awarded a knighthood in 1999.
- Chairman of the Turner Prize jury.
- Driving force behind the creation of  Tate Modern, which opened in 2000.

______________

4. Daniel Birnbaum

Category: Curator

Nationality: Swedish

Race: Caucasian

Gender: Male

Last year: 13

- Principal of the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main.
- Director of the exhibition centre Portikus, Frankfurt.

______________

5. Larry Gagosian

Category: Gallerist

Nationality: American

Race: Caucasian

Gender: Male

Last year: 2

- American art dealer who owns the Gagosian Gallery chain of art galleries.

Locations:
- New York City (Madison Avenue, West 24th St. and 21st St.)
- London (Britannia and Davies Streets)
- Los Angeles (Beverly Hills)
- Rome
- Athens

______________

6. François Pinault

Category: Collector

Nationality: French

Race: Caucasian

Gender: Male

Last year: 8

- Billionaire French businessman who runs the retail company PPR.
- Forbes List of billionaires (2008) he is ranked 39th in the world, with an estimated fortune of US$16.9 billion.
- His holding company Artemis S.A., owns Converse shoes, Samsonite luggage, Château Latour, the Vail Ski Resort in Colorado, and Christie’s auction house, Executive Life (now Aurora Life) in California.
- Owns one of the biggest collections of contemporary art worldwide.

______________

7. Eli Broad

Category: Collector

Nationality: American

Race: Caucasian

Gender: Male

Last year: 10

- American billionaire who presently resides in Los Angeles, California.
- Known for his philanthropy and extensive art collection.
- Founder of the financial giant SunAmerica.
- Ranked by Forbes as the 93-richest person in the world, with an estimated current net worth of around $5.2 billion.

______________

8. Anton Vidokle, Julieta Aranda & Brian Kuan Wood (http://www.e-flux.com/)

Category: Website

Nationality: Russian, Mexican, American

Race: Caucasian, Hispanic, Caucasian

Gender: Male, Female, Male

Last year: Reentry (99 in 2004)

- Founders/creators of e-flux (eflux.com) is an international network which reaches more than 50,000 visual art professionals on a daily basis through its website, e-mail list and special projects, based in New York.

______________

9. Iwona Blazwick

Category: Museum Director

Nationality: British

Race: Caucasian

Gender: Female

Last year: 76

- Director of the Whitechapel Art Gallery in London.
- Head of Exhibitions and Displays at Tate Modern.

______________

10. Bruce Nauman

Category: Artist

Nationality: American

Race: Caucasian

Gender: Male

Last year: 45

- Contemporary American artist. His practice spans a broad range of media including sculpture, photography, neon, video, drawing, printmaking, and performance.

______________

11. Iwan Wirth
12. David Zwirner
13. Jeff Koons
14. Jay Jopling
15. Marian Goodman
16. Agnes Gund
17. Takashi Murakami
18. Alfred Pacquement
19. Peter Fischli & David Weiss
20. Mike Kelley
21. Barbara Gladstone
22. Steven A. Cohen
23. Dominique Lévy & Robert Mnuchin
24. Adam D. Weinberg
25. Marc Glimcher
26. Amy Cappellazzo & Brett Gorvy
27. Cheyenne Westphal & Tobias Meyer
28. Ann Philbin
29. Matthew Higgs
30. Matthew Marks
31. Tim Blum & Jeff Poe
32. Gavin Brown
33. Ralph Rugoff
34. Liam Gillick
35. Anne Pasternak
36. Dakis Joannou
37. John Baldessari
38. Isa Genzken
39. Paul McCarthy
40. Michael Govan
41. Eugenio López
42. Cindy Sherman
43. Ai Weiwei
44. Patricia Phelps de Cisneros
45. Annette Schönholzer & Marc Spiegler
46. Diedrich Diederichsen
47. Richard Prince
48. Damien Hirst
49. Bernard Arnault
50. Massimiliano Gioni
51. Amanda Sharp & Matthew Slotover
52. Joel Wachs
53. Victor Pinchuk
54. Udo Kittelmann
55. Marina Abramović
56. Michael Ringier
57. Gerhard Richter
58. Richard Serra
59. RoseLee Goldberg
60. Kasper König
61. Roberta Smith
62. Monika Sprüth & Philomene Magers
63. Germano Celant
64. Emmanuel Perrotin
65. Peter Schjeldahl
66. Beatrix Ruf
67. Okwui Enwezor
68. Nicolas Bourriaud
69. Karen & Christian Boros
70. Isabelle Graw
71. Maurizio Cattelan
72. Charles Saatchi
73. Jerry Saltz
74. Jasper Johns
75. Louise Bourgeois
76. Thaddaeus Ropac
77. Mera & Don Rubell
78. Thelma Golden
79. Sarah Morris
80. Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev
81. Anita & Poju Zabludowicz
82. Paul Schimmel
83. Jose, Alberto & David Mugrabi
84. Sadie Coles
85. Daniel Buchholz
86. Victoria Miro
87. Maureen Paley
88. Johann König
89. Nicolai Wallner
90. Maria Lind
91. Massimo De Carlo
92. Mario Cristiani, Lorenzo Fiaschi & Maurizio Rigillo
93. Rirkrit Tiravanija
94. Toby Webster
95. Long March Space
96. Nicholas Logsdail
97. Harry Blain & Graham Southern
98. Claire Hsu
99. Peter Nagy
100. Glenn Beck

(UK) They say the best way to know a city’s nooks and krannies is through its locals, I couldn’t agree more, Dangerously Naive’s favorite Londoner graced us with his favorite visionaries last week (http://naiveboy.com/2009/11/21/ten-visionaries-of-jaiden-jeremy-james-by-navo/), and today he’s giving us an exclusive personal first class tour of his favorite spots to be seen or be incognito in London Town.

1. CLAIRE DE ROUEN’S BOOK STORE on charing x road for all the latest books and specialist magazines.

125 Charing Cross Road, WC2H 0EA London
+442072871813

Mon-Fri, 10:00–18:30; Sat, 10:00–18:00

www.clairederouenbooks.com

2. SOUTHBANK for my cultural fix it is definitely my favorite location in London with its mix of Bohemians for all kind of places from artists, to designers, to film makers. I love the BFI especially when it’s the London Film Festival and always check films out and the latest exhibitions they have, Tate Modern for my cultural fix of contemporary art. Haywood Gallery also puts on some amazing shows in recent months Warhol, Longo and Ruscha.

3. THE ROYAL COURT THEATRE, an amazing place for theatre the celebrates old talent whilst nurturing and embracing new. Each production is beautifully done and seems to question and challenge modern-day culture.

50-51 Sloane Square, London, SW1W 8AX, United Kingdom
+44 20 7565 5000

www.royalcourttheatre.com

4. PONYSTEP, a place where every and anything is welcome. Like boombox and those before it, Ponystep offers a unique clubbing experience.

www.ponystep.com/

5. JOINERS ARM’S, sleazy, cheap, testosterone overloaded and a place I would be lost without.

116-118 Hackney Rd, London E2 7QL, United Kingdom
020 7739 9397‎

6. FASHION RETAIL ACADEMY where I was trained by Philip Green the man behind TOPSHOP, I owe a lot to this them.

15 Gresse Street, London, Greater London W1T 1QL
020 7307 2345 /020 7307 2361

www.fashionretailacademy.ac.uk

7. SOMERSET HOUSE, I am at awe of its architectural beauty every time I see it, the new home of London Fashion Week and currently hosting the amazing Showstudio Exhibition.

Strand, London, WC2R 0RN, United Kingdom
+44 20 7845 4646
www.somersethouse.org.uk

8. INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART, always plays the best new arts films and has great shows on as well as a cute little bookshop.

Nash House
12 Carlton House Ter, London, SW1Y 5AH, United Kingdom
+44 20 7930 3647

www.ica.org.uk

9. SHOREDITCH, truly amazing location, home to the coolest people, hot spots and companies from the likes of Gilbert & George to Tracy Emin, as well as the home of Fashion East, Dazed & Confused Magazine and I-D Magazine. Boombox, Ponystep, George & the Dragon, Joiners, the list goes on definitely a place to visit and an even cooler place to live.

10. MY HOUSE, home is where the heart is.

http://jaidenjames.blogspot.com/

Related Entry: http://naiveboy.com/2009/11/25/didios-brasil-by-navo/

I’ll start with a loose follow-up to last post’s Marxism/liberalism issue. I finished reading Zizek and came across a brilliant quotation from Samuel Beckett’s ‘Worstward Ho’:

“Fail. Try again. Fail better”

In the context of Zizek’s book it is understood as ‘call to arms’ for Marxists to continue the effort to once more rise from the ashes. Time is important, as financial crisis opened the window of opportunity for radical change and for Marxists to try again – despite a probable failure. But hopefully a better one. I’ve put the quotation as my facebook status (without any context) and the reply I’ve got is quite symptomatic. A friend countered with corporate humour – Dilbert:

“If at first you don’t succeed, try again. Then quit. No use being a fool about it.”

I found it ominously intriguing. When Marxism says “Try again. Fail better.” corporate culture says: “Try again. Then quit.”

It may seem that the ‘Fail better’ part is defeatist and shows hopelessness of the situation. But it is not. As Dupuy says: ‘[a catastrophe’s] actualization – the fact that it takes place – … retroactively creates its necessity’. Therefore to be prepared and avoid another catastrophe we need to act as if it was inevitable. One needs to think beyond ‘now’. Interestingly, there’s a strong parallel with bushido – samurai’s code. The main tenet of the way of the samurai is to live as if one was already dead – nicely showed in Jim Jarmusch’s ‘Ghost Dog’. As a side note, Jarmusch in his other movies was inspired by Beckett. Coming back to bushido, dying without achieving one’s aims is regarded as cowardice and is therefore the worst sin. So while ‘Fail better’ is about constant reinvention and struggle, ‘Then quit’ is a call for immediate seppuku of ideas contrary to corporate capitalism.

Since Samuel Beckett seems to be a sponsor of this post I have to mention a brilliant commission for Tate’s Turbine Hall by a Polish artist Miroslaw Balka.

How It Is – a giant box filled with almost complete darkness. An absolute must-see, or rather must-can’t-see. Check out the photo and you’ll know what I mean.

What does this work have to do with Beckett? It’s titled ‘How It Is’ – the title taken from Beckett’s novel as according to Balka they share a similar sense of minimalism.

I have taken these shots on a recent walk along Thames and was thinking of temporal inconsistency – breaking away from ‘now’, not only in the context of a catastrophe – at least not a world-threatening one – but more prosaically in the context of peeing.

Peeing is, of course, very important when you walk a lot and the ever-present issue is ‘where?’. I always have reservations before walking into a pub/restaurant to pee. Even if I have been there before. Assuming you have the same, I find it interesting that we struggle to break away from ‘now’ and feel it’s not appropriate to use a toilet without being a customer ‘now’. But what if you’ve been a customer before? And probably will be one in the future? I think we struggle to see ourselves in the totality of time and put too much emphasis on ‘now’. So in a radical spirit I say: let’s stop! Past actualization and future probability means we have paid our toilet dues and will continue to pay them in the future! Let’s take our moral reservations and flush them with vengeance! In my personal call to arms I say:

If you have ever ‘Failed’ your bladder because of misguided morality fuelled by limitations in perception of time ‘Try again!’. As if you knew next time you’ll ‘Fail better’.

This is the true way of the walking samurai.

Why music won over sport

Ben Sigston began training in the fresh mountain air of North Vancouver, he became a national team cyclist with a university scholarship and a World Cup win and then everything changed. His other love, music, moved to the forefront of his life and he has been pursuing it with the same fervour. I recently had the chance to sit down with Sigston and discuss his ongoing passion for his music.

I briefly touched on what lead you to a music career, can you expand on why music won over sport?

Its funny, I think I always loved music and I just grew up in a musical household so that was the big influence for me. I started playing drums when I was really young and took piano lessons. Sports were super intense and it just got to the point where it was too much work all of the time. I burned out a little bit, so music seemed like a nice thing to do, just kind of a perfect segway and a natural evolution for what I was doing.

What else influences you? I’m not sure if this is an influence but the art you have on your EP is a painting by Holger Kalberg, a locally trained artist, any intention there?

I just love all art. One of my favourite places I’ve ever been in the world is the Tate Modern in London. I went with my girlfriend and she’s a bit of a history buff and I just find that stuff so inspiring….any kind of art basically. With using Holger’s painting for my album cover it was just such a cool concept…he’s on the up and up artist from Vancouver, he’s actually a German fellow who’s lived here for 10 years. He also teaches part-time at Emily Carr. He’s awesome, his art is amazing…it’s beautiful and structured and I love it, so it seemed like the right choice to make instead of putting my face on the cover.

So you have an EP now, where can people get their hands on it? Are they downloading it?

Yeah this is the conundrum. It is available on iTunes and e-music, anywhere digitally. I’m thinking of putting it up on my website, I’m definitely giving away a couple of songs from it…just giving people incentive to visit the website. And you can always buy it, the interesting thing is even if you’re purchasing on iTunes they still take 30 percent of it, no matter what you do they are doing something.

How do you feel about music downloading or file sharing?

I don’t know what the repercussions are going to be about that. Obviously the music industry as it is kind of collapsed, but at the same time there’s all these different business models and concepts that people are coming up with to monetize music or even just to make themselves more commercially available. It’s interesting, I was in Winnipeg about a month ago at a conference and they had a couple of different speakers there who were talking exactly about this. There was one guy from the UK who had a company called Glue, it’s an online database for musicians. What happens is they post your music for free and anyone who likes it can get it for free. But out of that free situation you get their information, their email addresses and where they live. And that’s what everyone values now is information, so with this company any show that you are wanting to play or any country you are wanting to go to, you can tap into this resource and you can see how many fans you have…So that was one concept, giving music away for information.

What role does the internet play?

Its so funny, I’m involved in this music development program right now and they’re so focused on online presence whether its through a website you need to be tweeting and MySpace and its so much stuff and its not what any artist wants to spend they’re time doing, or anyone I think…but it is a social phenomenon and there is incredible power in the internet to get your stuff around. Definitely for myself I’m putting a lot of focus in that. It’s maybe a quarter of time doing artistic stuff and then three-quarters of your time doing your social networking and working it basically.

Is touring the main thing you need to do as an emerging artist?

I don’t know, I don’t think anyone knows, but it seems to me that’s the way just because there aren’t really labels anymore. A lot of people think that there are but their staff are 5 and 10 people…especially in Canada a label will have two people, so how are they supposed to do marketing for you when they have 2 staff? I don’t think its going to happen. So you have to be out there giving your CDs away or selling your CDs and playing in as many little towns as you can. For me being a singer/songwriter there’s these cool things happening…it sounds crazy, these house parties. You get these emails “hey man can you play a house party” and at first I’ve been like I don’t know about that, but sure enough there’s this place in Brandon, Manitoba that I’m going to go play at and they’ll have a house with 60 or 70 people and everyone pays some cash to get in…and it totally supports what you’re doing. So there’s these neat grassroots movements that are happening as well that I totally didn’t expect to have happen to me.

*If you want to find out more about Ben Sigston you can visit his website http://www.bensigston.com/ to check for upcoming shows and get a copy of his EP.

-Kirstin Ridout (BCIT)

Fellow Vassar and Cushing House gal pal Darice Murphy was in London this weekend!  She traveled from Madrid where she is studying abroad and it was lovely to be able to spend some quality time with her–she stayed over Saturday and Sunday nights.  Luckily, I was in prime London tour guide shape following madre/ma mère’s visit and showed Darice around the Londontown!  Her visit was also a great occasion to spend time with Annie and Jenna.

Besides seeing the sights documented below, we spent some time at the Tate Modern, danced Saturday night away at Zoo Bar in Leicester Square (to ridiculous 90s pop throwbacks while sipping on delicious cocktails), and watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix (clearly the best, and clearly tons of London references). All in all, a great weekend!  The downside: my bed will never be as warm as when I was spooning with my girl

Tate Modern illustrated by Os Gêmeos/photo krandlum, Flickr

Brazil has a long love affair with graffiti, from the omnipresent pichações – that frequently depict the name of the gang that claims that territory – to acclaimed art.

It all began in the 70’s, as a reaction to the censorship imposed by the military dictatorship. Even today, it frequently makes political statements. Check this pichação in São Paulo. It crosses the round logo of the powerful Rede Globo, the main media complex in the country. And shouts: “I hate the lack of culture on TV! “.

Alex Vallauri, the Ethiopian-born artist who died in1987, was probably Brazilian’s equivalent of Keith Haring, who gave graffiti Art status in the US. Not many of Vallauri’s graffiti survived, but his universe – inhabited by kitsch images, sexy women and high-heeled boots – inspired the new generations of street artists.

These days, the raising stars in the Brazilian graffiti  scene are Os Gêmeos (Otávio e Gustavo Pandolfo), two identical twins from São Paulo. They helped redefine the national style and are spreading their brand around the world. “The New York Times” describe their work as ococo, fantastic and epic. Last year they created a mural in the front of the Tate Modern museum, in London, together with another Brazilian grafiteiro, Nunca, and a few artists from other countries. Check this interview for some insights on their creation process.

If you want to learn more about Brazilian graffiti, visit this really cool selection on Flick. You can also find some interest content in this book Graffiti Brasil (Street Graphics / Street Art).

The Roasted Chicken Queen/Alex Vallauri

I had the great opportunity of visiting London for my third time this summer and one of the highlights of my holiday was a special exhibition @ the Tate Modern.

Tate Modern celebrates the centenary of this dramatic art movement with a ground-breaking exhibition.

That’s how the official site introduced the exhibition.

It was definitely the best exhibition I’ve ever seen in my life!

There were a lot of well-known paintings, sculptures and “words in freedom” by the most famous artists of that movement and I couldn’t ask for anything better as Futurism is my favorite Avant-garde (with Surrealism)!

HIGHLIGHTS:

1. Forme uniche della continuità nello spazio (Unique Forms of Continuity in Space) – Umberto Boccioni

Stendhal syndrome! One word… amazing!

2. Stati d’animo: Gli addii (States of Mind: The Farewells) – Umberto Boccioni

Brilliant!

3. Manifesto of Futurist Women

Really interesting to understand the role of women in that period.

Unluckily the exhibition ended on September 20 so this post is a bit useless now but I hope it made you curious to discover this amazing movement.

MaryG

When I first glimpsed this crowd of people dressed in back, I though it was a funeral march. Only then I realised these must be office workers chased away from their desks and meeting rooms by a fire drill or perhaps an actual fire alarm. Remarkably monochrome, the only colour in this scene came from the fluorescent vests of the fire wardens.

I was on my way to Tate Modern to see How it is, the current Unilever commission in the Turbine Hall. The massive black container by a Pole Miroslaw Balka reminded me of a crematorium. Walking in was felt to me like marching for a meeting with the death.

Walking toward the darkness was a powerful experience. The environment inside was paceful an quiet, the voices of fellow visitors muffled by the soft lining on the walls. The interpretation suggested that the piece should evoke the fear of unfamiliar but I found it soothing. Inside, I felt more like in a womb rather than a grave. Both these places are small and cramped, which is perhaps ajar with the dark vastness gaping at you when entering the piece, but it doesn’t take long to reach the back wall of the container, at which point the experience is cut short. I wish the installation was deeper.

The website is interesting. It’s a confusing environment with very little content (or maybe it was hidden and I missed it), raw and intriguing.

This autumn I was hugely privileged to be given a sponsored place on Pascale Petit’s Poetry from Art course at Tate Modern, courtesy of the wonderful London literature organisation Spread the Word. Over the past six weeks I’ve been part of a dedicated group of writers exploring poetry in relation to installations and artworks in the Tate Modern galleries, from Baldessari’s strange, pulsating Braincloud to Tracey Emin’s retrospectives in the current Pop Life exhibition. I’ve been writing poems in response to art for some time now, playing around with ‘ekphrasis’. As someone who’s done quite a lot of personal writing, I find it a particularly good way to step outside of myself and venture into new and often unexpected territory. The course has been a great way to develop this practise – Pascale has challenged us to approach poetry in new ways, responding not only to the artwork, but to other art-inspired poems and to each others’ stories and thoughts, as a way to feed our writing.

Tomorrow night (Monday 23 November) I’ll be taking part in a reading to celebrate the end of the course, in the Baldessari exhibition at Tate Modern. Here’s one of the poems I’ll be sharing, as a sneak preview…

Head Space
After Baldessari’s ‘Braincloud’

My grandmother hid her brain
in a cupboard, behind stacked plates.
She brought it kitchen scraps
fed it stories, gossip, TV facts
her daughters’ phonecalls, forecasts
foreign words, whole chapters
out of novels, recipes for love wounds
or smoked mackerel, once
an erotic letter, pulsing under breath.
Her brain inhaled these gifts
as moisture swells to raincloud.
Eye pressed to hinge, I watched
as, camouflaged within white china
it grew to the size of a sky.

You can read more about the event, and book tickets HERE although word on the street says it’s sold out.

And Just Who Did What to Whom? Surprise!!

Surprise is a 1 1/2-minute stylish short thriller directed by Ben Dodd, which was commissioned for a special showcase at the Tate Modern Museum in London. The film tell a very tragic story as it unfolds from the end to the beginning.  It’s a “Hitchcockian” dark film-noir, where a  vengeful romantic murder is not at all what it seems. The dramatically circuitous and shadowy film leaves you wondering about just who did what to whom…Surprise!!

And Just Who Did What to Whom? Surprise!!

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From the Visit London blog, London film festival season is on:

“London’s 8th Latin American film festival kicks off next week. The festival will show films from South American countries including Mexico, Chile, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina and Venezuela that often wouldn’t make it to the big screen in the UK. Special guests include awarding winning Argentine director Amat Escalante, the world-renowned Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón, and new Colombian sensation Jorge Navas. Screenings will take place at London venues including Tate Modern and the Institute of Contemporary Arts.”

Read more or visit the official site. The festival takes place from 26 November to 6 December.

Fresh olives for sale at Borough Market

A few weekends ago, my dad – a real foodie – came to town.  He’s not a big fan of shopping, so I panicked about what to do with him all weekend.  Then, in a stroke of genius, I decided to take him to Borough Market.

Borough Market was established around 1014, and moved to its current site next to Southwark Cathedral in 1755.  The market specialises in all sorts of foodstuffs, from cakes to carrots and everything in between.

There was a real buzz down there – we got there around lunchtime and were immediately hit by the smell of food wafting over from all directions.

Free Samples

The great thing about the market is the free samples available at the majority of the stalls.  Within minutes I’d had a taste of different types of flavoured olive oil, some cheese and some morsels of brownie.

All the food is fresh, and there are plenty of stalls to grab a quick bite to eat.  There’s a huge array of cuisines, including Turkish sweets, Greek wraps and the standard burger stalls (gourmet of course).

Selection of cheeses available at the market

Events to watch out for

This weekend, The Fresh Olive Company is holding a promotion on two new olives.  Check here for more details.

For those of you who, like me, love cheese, head down to a cheese evening on Dec 16 – make a start on your Christmas cheese shopping!

Not just food…

In addition to the tasty food, there are also other stalls selling their wares, including wines, beers and flowers.

And whilst you’re down there, why not check out some of the nearby attractions – Vinopolis, where you can book yourself on to a wine tasting tour; The Clink, one of the oldest prisons in the country; and the Tate Modern.

Nearest Tube: London Bridge

So she climbed the extra three stories to the twenty-fifth floor.  She took the stairs, as to not arouse suspicion.

Jeff Koons' Rabbit, Tate Modern, Bankside, Southwark, SE1

Even though she didn’t know the people who lived on those floors, she did not want anyone, familiar or not, interrupting.

Tate Modern, Bankside, Southwark, SE1

Her chosen route proved to be the most discreet option; during the ascent she did not see or hear one resident.

Tate Modern, Bankside, Southwark, SE1

As the stairs wound around above the final residential floor, they ended abruptly at a locked door. It was a compelling sight.

Takashi Murakami's Akihabara Majokko Princess, Tate Modern, Bankside, Southwark, SE1

It was a plain, white door; no different any other one. But it was doused in an ominous blue haze, which seeped around its edges. An electric blue.

Miroslaw Balka's How It Is, Tate Modern, Bankside, Southwark, SE1

A crescendo of noise had built as she went up the steps. A menacing hum enveloped her and each time she got higher it grew thicker around her.

Keith Haring tag, Tate Modern, Bankside, Southwark, SE1

At the very last step she tried the handle but the door didn’t budge. Warning signs littered the stairwell, yet were unable to prevent her from lingering curiously.

Bon, si vous avez suivi, au dernier post, je repartais en angleterre, mais forcement en arrivant, pas de scanner, donc total impossibilité de vous envoyer mes nouvelles aventures! Je vous ai donc fait une petite update

Erm , voila, je vous l’ accorde, c est un chouillas decousu comme note

Maintenant je suis de retour a Coventry, et Mon nouveau boulot a commencé! Vous en saurez plus tres tres vite !

Tate modern är också ett fantastiskt museum. I den pampiga entrén sitter skolklasser och tecknar av det hisnande perspektivet.

Från fiket har man en bra utsikt över sevärdheter och bedrövligt väder.

Museet är fullt av barngrupper. Det här gänget håller på att klä på sig. Kolla stilen!

Förstora!

Don’t Look Back
Radical Thinkers and the Arts since 1909

Thursday 26 November 2009, 18.30–20.00

On the 100th anniversary of the Futurism Manifesto, join critical thinkers Terry Eagleton, Simon Critchley, Kate Soper, Eyal Weizman, and chair Alberto Toscano in exploring a century of radical thinking and the arts – and debating what lies ahead. The recent Futurism exhibition at Tate Modern reminds us of an age when politics and aesthetics were densely interwoven in an explosive rejection of the past. This distinguished panel will assess the legacy of modernism to ask how today’s radical thinkers might understand the role of the arts at the dawn of the twenty first century and beyond.

Speakers:

Terry Eagleton is Professor of English Literature at the University of Lancaster and author of Literary Theory: An Introduction, The Illusions of Postmodernism and Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate.

Simon Critchley is Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York and author of The Book of Dead Philosophers, On Humour and Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction.

Kate Soper is a Professor in the Department of Humanities, Arts and Languages at London Metropolitan University and author of To Relish the Sublime: Culture and Self-realisation in Postmodern Times and What Is Nature?: Culture, Politics and the Non-Human.

Eyal Weizman is an architect and Director of the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths College, University of London and author of Hollow Land: Israel’s Architecture of Occupation.

Chair: Alberto Toscano, editor of Historical Materialism, lecturer in sociology at Goldsmiths College, University of London and author of The Theatre of Production: Philosophy and Individuation Between Kant and Deleuze.

In collaboration with Verso to coincide with the of launch of Set 4 of Verso’s Radical Thinkers series.

Supported by New Statesman

Tate Britain  Auditorium
£8 (£6 concessions), booking recommended
For tickets book online
or call 020 7887 8888

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Listen to a Londoner. This is a weekly post where people who live (or have lived for a while) in London answer a few questions about the Big Smoke. If you fit the bill and want to be interviewed, give me a shout at littlelondonobservationist@hotmail.co.uk. Always looking for new victims volunteers….

Daniel Higgott, 23

Danny is a sound engineer from Northwest London. He doesn’t actually work, just gets paid to travel the world. He thinks he is the master of the card game called Shithead, but often loses to a certain American girl who will remain anonymous.

LLO:  How long have you lived in London?
DH: 23 years and 10 months exactly.

LLO: Best place to escape the city?
DH: Hampstead Heath

LLO: How do you spend your time on the tube?
DH: Reading one of the free papers and/or listening to my iPod

LLO: Favourite London discovery?
DH: Brick Lane

LLO: Best place to spend a Sunday afternoon?
DH: The place is not important, but seeing my friends is, as it is my only day off.

LLO: Best museum or gallery?
DH: Tate Modern

LLO: Favourite market?
DH: Portobello

LLO: Best time of year in London?
DH: Autumn or Winter

LLO: Best place for a first date? 
DH: A stroll from Embankment, down through the South Bank, possibly stopping at a few nice pubs along the way.

LLO: What would you change about the city if you had the power to do so?
DH: I would fully air condition the tube, at any expense.

 Thanks Danny!

• Landshare

1. You

   landowner, grower or helper

2. Post a listing

   tell others where you are and what you are offering or looking for

3. Get responses

   use our mail system to receive and send messages

4. Have a chat

   and see what happens…

This simple graphic represents quite a complex idea about sharing land in london.

• The Tate Modern Interactive Map

London has a lot of sushi takeaway places. There’s Istu, Samarai, Wasabi and probably a few I’m missing. They’re all just ok (Itsu is my preferred), and as I’ve mentioned before, hit the spot for a quick lunch if you don’t want to pay £25+ per head for dinner.  Tsuru, however, is in a different league. Sure, it’s primarily takeaway, but the quality far surpasses any of the others I’ve been to.

I went here with a bunch of other Qypers for a sample of their menu and some lovely sake-based cocktails (apart from one with Japanese whisky) from Akashi-Tai Brewery.

We started out with some Chicken Yakatori – a slightly sweet, slightly spicy starter:

Followed shortly by some amazing Agedashi Tofu, Prawn Tempura and Gyoza Dumplings:

I’m always impressed by tempura in restaurants. I’ve tried once to make it at home. It’s difficult. I leave it to the experts. Big thumbs up to the tofu as well. It was perfect not-too-soft consistency.

The only slight disappointment for me was the Chicken Katsu Curry.

Everyone raved about this dish, but for me the curry sauce was lacking a little punch. It was still good, but probably the only thing that night I wouldn’t order again.

There was of course some sushi, which definitely beat out all of its competitors in terms of presentation, taste and quality:

And the cocktails? Gorgeous.

People really don’t order enough sake. It’s most likely because they don’t know what to order, which – in all honesty – is fair enough. However, sake cocktails are completely accessible and a fantastic introduction to the flavour of sake itself.

We tried the Kappa Saketini, a martini made with shochu and Akashi-Tai honjozo ; the Nippon-Fashioned, a take on an Old Fashioned made with a Japanese whisky and clementines; the Tokiwa Honeytini (Tokiwa shochu with Drambuie and honey; and the Ume Hot Toddy – a warm drink with Umeshu plum sake, shochu, cloves and lemon slice. My favourite had to be the Tokiwa Honeytini.

Only problem is Tsuru is way too far out of my way (South Bank behind the Tate Modern)! I’m barely ever over there, so I fear that until they open up somewhere closer, I might not make it back for a while.  However, if you live/work over in that area, definitely check it out.

The rest of my photos are here.

Back to work this week but its always good to see some shows to get the ol motivation going. We headed for The Sacred Made Real show at the National Gallery on Monday, an exhibition of 17th century Spanish paintings and sculpture. Savage stuff. Especially the polychrome sculptures, really reminded me of all those Sundays at mass as a young-fella bored out of my brains staring at all the Catholic imagery on the walls and behind the alter. I’ve never really considered these sculptures as high art before, maybe because I’ve never seen them in a museum or because I just associate them with boring Sundays in the 80s but  they are quite real and arresting.

And then across the river to Tate Modern, to see ‘Pop Life, Art in a Material World’. Such a shame they didn’t go with the provisional ‘Sell Out’ title. Anyway, it included much of the expected – Warhol, Koons, Hirst, Murakami blah blah blah but a few interesting pieces from the equally brash but a little less known Martin Kippenberger.

Its a bit of a visual shock to go from looking at Velasquez at the National Gallery to Koons’ larger than life porn photos at Tate Modern but I think the contrast heightened each show, bringing out both the best and the worst of their respective genres with both shows highlighting what people worshiped then and what people worship now. The National Gallery was dark and solemn, the Tate was as busy as Tesco’s with blaring 80’s music. I reckon I spent about 5 times more time in front of each piece at the Sacred show, whereas the energy in the Tate kept us shuffling along to the next piece and the next piece and the next.. 

The most striking similarity was between Gregorio Fernandez’s Dead Christ (1630) and Jeff Koons’ Dirty – Jeff On Top (1991). Both are relatively real, of similar size and depict quite shocking imagery with strong religious symbolism. Fernandez’s Christ died for our sins, Koon’s shagging self-portrait represent Adam and Eve after she’s eaten the apple but feel anything but guilty. Bring on the sin, hell yeah, high 5’s all round!