Art Sleuth

Everybody know Banksy has started something big.

Take his mate the alphabet fiend Eine, or old timer Blek Le Rat who was up long before Banksy but has been made a buyers dream through this surge in interest. They are all associated with Street Art, no longer a cool graffiti style but a Serious Artistic Genre.

What perhaps has particularly sparked this trend here in London, or the ‘gentrification’ of it at least is the fact that it has proved so popular with London’s rich art buyers most of all in the financial world. What more could a loaded Investment Banker want than a bit of trendy graffiti art hung in the loo. Cynical people might say; if he can’t be in a decent sub culture he can at least buy into it. Thats the word on the street anyway and I have my sources.

Look what’s been happening in these past few weeks. The Cans Festival last weekend. Which was bloody marvelous. The exhibition on at the Leonard Street Gallery, which showcases artists, all who have migrated from the underground art scene to the canvas. The opening of Blek Le Rat’s solo exhibition. London has become the platform to exhibit art that bridges the gap between what is on the street and in the gallery.

Steve Lazarides, who represents Banksy is hot on the trail for edgy art. Art that is defined by this gray area.

At the moment he is hosting the work of Miranda Donovan at the Lazarides Gallery, who on face value is right in the middle of this graffiti genre. Some of her pieces are quite poignant. highlighting social issues in the way Bansky does. Several of her larger works tackle gun and knife crime on the streets of London. Using ripped up newspaper articles on boys who have died as the basis for papier-mache collages. Below graffiti walls or pastoral scenes are painted in oil - making the obvious contrast between the picturesque English way of life and the reality of London’s streets.

Beyond this you really have to see Miranda Donovan’s work as a pastiche. Because in a way she has taken this current trend and turned it in on itself. In her other works she recreated mini versions of London street scenes, mini brick walls made out of plaster on to board, with pop out features like bollards, street signs, phone boxes and bus stops. With great swathes of mini graffiti on top. It is as if a hoard of leprechauns broke into a model village and graffed it up.

In others she uses Constable-esc country landscape scenes, daubed in graffiti. They scream Banksy! Three years ago! But apart from that it is an intersting exhibiton worth seeing.

Apologies for my absence last week. My trouble started on Tuesday when I managed to sprain my ankle on an escalator at Tottenham Court Road tube station. I’d like to thank the man who I grabbed onto in automatic response. He said he was perfectly happy for me to hold onto him. I think maybe he was being polite.

I did manage to hobble down to the Rokeby gallery last week though, to take a look at their current exhibition. I did feel rather granny-like, walking stick in hand. I had to stop myself cackling, “never-you-mind young man”, at random people in the street.

Biro drawings seem to be all the rage at the moment. Erica Eyres at the Rokeby, uses Biro to bring a sort of ‘cartoon-like’ satirical edge to her upfront portraits of women. I loved the way she moves between the fine strokes and intricate details of hair, for instance, to big caricature lips and teeth. All this with only the use of the humble biro. Downstairs her video, “ Imaginary girlfriend”, is bizarre and slightly hilarious. In an ironic way of course. Perhaps this is not what you are meant to think, it being art not comedy, but is there such a thing as comic art?

Also last week Artangel put on an evening of ‘Noise Art” or what was described by my art friend as “Nerd Art”. Grand Pianos were suspended from the ceiling of a huge basement, and pipes wired up to them so that they could hit the keys. The ‘plinky plonky sounds’ were accompanied by theatrical lighting and sound bites of famous speeches from 1920’s philosophers. After an hour and a half my friend reported that it finished with out much variation, and that by that time hunger had taken over her need for intense listening. (It was around dinnertime after all).

Other interesting exhibitions this week include both the East and West London Approach galleries who are exhibiting two artists who re-work the canvas as if it were a collage book. In a trompe d’oeil fly effect – re. Mr Verneer - combined with a contemporary style, Helene Appel’s minimalist canvases are incredible. What seems to be stuck on items such as lettuce leaves and masking tape are actually painted on in total realism on top of blank canvases. Also check out Martin Westwood’s work. No illusion here. It is actually collage, using all manner of bizarre items to create brilliant figurative pieces on canvas. Including a rabbits paw, nail varnish, a shoulder pad and shaving scabs on a commuters’ newspaper.

Rokeby gallery:
http://www.rokebygallery.com/

Artangel:
http://www.artangel.org.uk/pages/aboutus.htm

The Approach:
http://www.theapproach.co.uk/exhibitions

Woolley good art.

Apologies for my tabloid strap line. I couldn’t resist.

The David Risley gallery is tucked neatly away on Vyner Street, which has become a little hub of gallery activity since a ‘rash’ of galleries popped up there from the mid naughties onwards. And I swear it is gathering speed. If you want to open a trendy gallery space you could do worse than the Vyner Street area these days.

Charlie Woolley is a relatively young artist who now lectures at the London MET. He likes to play around with the on-screen image, text and typeface and technology. His work is an exploration into the world of photographic possibilities, by extending the way the image/text reaches us. In the series of photographs and film stills in this exhibition, pixellated explosions and half-illegible images are bluntly pasted together in hazy and manipulated formats, with imaginative results.

In his series of housing photographs, which make up part of this exhibition, he uses bits of low-resolution images, which are blown up so we are left with mainly the pixellated pattern and little of the actual picture. These are cut into building shaped silhouettes and pasted onto random landscape backgrounds, creating a mixed media touch.
And a sort of eerie effect.
It is like the house used to be in the picture and it has now been removed. A negative space. Something reminiscent of Racheal Whiteread’s work perhaps?

What is so effective in these works is this sort of half reality, which is created by the bizarre juxtaposition of photo-on-top-of-photo.
The houses are mid–way from disappearing before our eyes like Doctor Who’s Tardis or a ”Beam me up Scotty” special effect from a 70s TV show.

And what’s more I think they would go perfectly in my minimalist kitchen I am going to get. Which will contain only contemporary art. And a dishwasher.

His other series of images, frankly labelled ‘War-porn’, have the stamp of a pop art mutation with some heavy subject matter thrown in. The most mass-produced product is the television right? Through it we are probed with images of war and sex. Here Woolley distorts film stills with these themes and also explores the colours and patterns you can create from the trippy effects that taking a photo of a film screen can create. A sort of recycled image if you like.
The manipulated, dog-eaten, amateur feel, gives these photos their beauty.

Also by Woolley in this exhibition, showing that he is not all serious subjects and insightful messages, is “ Home of the Blues”, which is a nice pun as it is an electric guitar-and also - shed. Yes that’s right a shed which is also an electric guitar. As you do.
I know all those rocking gardeners will want one. Shall I let Alan Titchmarsh know? Perhaps not.
go see: http://www.davidrisleygallery.com/

Passing a building site on the way to work the other morning, a builder shouted at the top of his voice, “ I chose not to choose life, I chose construction!” Expecting a wolf whistle, I was slightly taken aback.

Odd to subvert the Trainspotting catchphrase for such purposes I thought. But it worked well. It got me thinking, as my mind often does, on art matters. Artists in particular.

How many artists live for their art these days? Actually suffer to produce serious art. Who is the tortured artist of today? The Jackson Pollock, alcoholic killed in car crash style artist who rocks the art world and then ends it all in a big bang?

Who? Bansky? No – for a start he is anonymous, plus he has sold out. A street artist with a dealer? Surely that just cancels out all of his original creditability?

Ok then we have Hirst - with a wife that goes on housing programs about her lovely ‘beach-themed’ houseboat on The Thames. Rock and roll baby!
Reportedly putting up his own bid for his diamond skull to get people interested?
A pure example of how the art world is over saturated with businessmen right now.

Gilbert and George. Brilliant. But a Major retrospective in the Tate means they have entered the canons of art history now. like all artists this acceptability means no with the times, ‘the zeitgeist’ has flown out of the building. Boring in other words, or what ever you want to call it.

Tracey Emin? Sarah Lucus? Do something crazy please!

Where have all the art nutters gone!?
Don’t worry the Art Slooth is on the prowl.

.