Ominously called the House of Pain, and nothing to do with the Irish hop-hop band, Rousson has created a shed constructed out of individual canvases.
Most of the canvases are paintings done in the typical style of a different iconic artist, Picasso, Warhol, Pollock etc. Fontana, for instance has a slash through it, which ironically creates a smiley face. Or they are a painting which someway depicts the artist’s character or stereotype. As Rousson explained, taking drugs or having affairs with their models is the stereotype these artists have.

The blurb to the exhibition states that Rousson, ‘ironically debunks’ these modernist artists, ‘casting them as self-obsessed bricoleurs’ (‘DIYs’?? to the non-cheese brigade) ‘who’s great works echo the “low” aesthetics of amateur home improvement projects.’

But if this is really what Rousson has set out to prove this is not an aggressive enough a way of presenting it. It comes across as more of a pleasant pastiche, and Rousson’s own painting style is submerged within his subject’s style making it difficult to see whether the imitation is his own progression of the style or a direct take-off.
I overheard someone mentioning that ‘House of Pain’ could mean ‘House of Bread’ which the stable at Bethlehem was referred to at some point. This is going a little far for a collective collage of modernist paintings, some vaguely soft porn, but still, a nice idea.

The house has a slightly underwhelming appearance, and the concept is a little vacant, but still, perhaps this is the whole idea.

For anyone out there who is looking for arty things to go and see in September….

Don’t Miss

HOMELESS GALLERY 13th-15th Sept (weekend) three day event in the basement of Shoreditch town hall.

A spontaneous and free to all, exhibition of photography and related media.

Organisers have told me it will be a chilled out party atmosphere. Dj’s to play during the duration of the event.

The idea is that everyone (within the photography’s interest) will be able to hang their work there. So if you are a keen photographer, participate! There is no theme and no curator. A democratic event that offers an alternative to a carefully curated shows in a white clinic spaces. Here the presentation and interaction with the author is as crucial, Everyone will have to choose their own place and choose how to present it. It will be more an experience of a creative atmosphere, photographers can share ideas and an experience of an exhibition. All is in the hand of the artists!.

Photographers already set to participate include Jerwood prize winners and those who exhibited in the Photography’s gallery earlier this year.

Hanging will happen on the 12th (which is Friday). Saturday will be an opening/party/private view opened to all. Sunday and Monday will be still on. Participants will have to sign a registration form and agree to the terms and conditions.

Dates are: 13, 14, 15 September. Posters and flyers will be distributed around Shoreditch.

DATES AND LOCATION

12 - 15 September 2008

Friday 12 September, 10am - 9pm: hanging of the exhibition
Saturday 13 September, 12am – 10pm: open to public, private view 6-10pm
Sunday 14 September, 12am – 6pm: open to public
Monday 15 September, 10am – 8pm: open to public, take down exhibition 5-8pm

http://www.polishdeconstruction.org/node/225/

Basement Gallery
Shoreditch Town Hall
380 Old Street
London EC1V 9LT

This event is linked to Polish Deconstruction (see link to the right

Don’t miss

SEVENTEEN GALLERY’s new exhibition of Susan Collis’ work if you like minimal what are they REALLY trying to say, in a state of construction ‘de-instillation’, art.

10th Sept - 18th Oct - Preview on the 11th. 17 Kingsland Rd, E2

Don’t Miss

SPACE. Thomas Raat. 12 Sep- 26 Oct - Preview on the 12th. In ‘MUMU: Malice and Misunderstanding’ Raat explores the belief structures surrounding art manipulating them through plagiarism and prankster behaviour.

On a large black plastic sheet held together with tape, Raat constructs an anti-neonist pamphlet, its text lifted from an anti-neoist internet site. Large monolithic ‘T’ shaped sound sculptures play KLF music backwards. 101 black and white plastic paintings have been lifted from a neoist internet site and reconstructed in the gallery
space.

129-131 Mare St, Hackney.

Don’t Miss

Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chararin - The Day Noboday Died. PARADISE ROW. In June of this year Broomberg and Chanarin traveled to Afghanistan to be embedded with British Army units on the front line in Helmand Province. In place of their cameras they took a roll of photographic paper 50 meters long and 76.2 cm wide contained in a simple, lightproof cardboard box. In response to each of these events, and also to a series of more mundane moments, such as a visit to the troops by the Duke of York and a press conference, all events a photographer would record, Broomberg and Chanarin instead unrolled a seven-meter section of the paper and exposed it to the sun for 20 seconds. The results - strange abstract passages and patterns of black, white and variegated hues - all modulated by the heat and the light - deny the viewer the cathartic effect offered up by the conventional language of photographic responses to conflict and suffering.

St Matthew’s Hall, 2 Wood Close, E2.

Don’t Miss

Evren Tekinoktay at THE APPROACH, E2. A slightly pregnant man, her last exhibition here was good. An artist with depth.

6th September - 5th October 2008

Don’t Miss

at the TRUMAN BREWERY in September:

Ben Frost - Crapitalism. Pop art, street art combo in exhbition by artist who once faked his own death. 26th to 30th September. Preview on the 25th.

Sonia Blair - Playing with myself- 26 September – 5 October 2008. Preview on the 25th.

An exhibition of new paintings and drawings by Sonia Blair on childhood, memory and self-sabotage, on show.

Dray walk Gallery, Truman Brewery
(by entrance to Sunday Upmarkets)
Hanbury Street
Spitalfields
London, E1 6Q

Don’t Miss

THE BIG DRAW - Free festival combining artists and scientists exploring what it means to be human. Good for kids. In association with UCL uni. See http://www.thebigdraw.org/

include illustrator Steven Appleby drawing in response to the live music of beatboxer Nathan ‘Flutebox’ Lee, and workshops where participants can draw graphic scores for the premiere of a new choral work that will then be performed by members of the public together with Exaudi, one of Britain’s most exciting young new music groups.

The Campaign for Drawing, UCL and Bow Arts Trust present ‘Drawing on Life’, 26-28 September

Waiting Dogs - Thijs Groot Wassink

Laura Wilson - Liquid gallery (croquet anyone?)

Clear as Mud - Ed Hathaway, David Bracegirdle, Nicholas Middleton, Daniel O'Reilly and Marianne O'Reilly

Betoney May - Moustache Booth

Huggable furry bollards, paintings on brick walls and a trail of chalk writing on the pavement greeted visitors at Hackney Wick station last weekend.
Hackney Wick has always had an adventurous side to it, being the home of many a banging warehouse party over the years. These days it’s the art that is bringing the area its’ quirky character. Dumped fridges could be art instillations, who knows?

The Elevator Gallery is part of a large warehouse and is accessible via a cranky industrial lift. Displaying a group show of emerging or recently graduated artists in a mixture of medias, works included Tom Bradley’s condensed grand piano, a precariously compressed version of the instrument that has one singular key playing a solitary note. It almost came a-cropper (Tracey Emin’s last show stylee) when it wobbled uncontrollably as someone lent over it. Ooops!
Natalie Sanders’ work, Playground was a group of television boxes simultaneously playing videos of adults on playground swings and rides, making personal experiences of play into a general pattern reflecting natural human impulses.
Waiting Dogs by (how did I know??) Dutch artist, Thijs groot Wassink, introduced us to the strangely addictive pursuit of watching dogs left by their owners outside shops. Two projectors put facing into one corner at feet height (or rather dog height) documented two dogs at a time getting over excited at passer bys, pining for their owners or looking like they were completely cool about the whole situation until their tails wag uncontrollably when their owner returns. I shall thing twice before shopping for trainers while leaving my dog outside from now on.
Thick globules of paint built up on the canvas to create the oil paintings by Andrew Hladky were made using cocktail sticks creating a densely corrugated surface almost like looking at craggy moon from airplane distance. Stand back and the paintings become organised into conventional seascapes or landscapes. Paintings you could ponder over for hours.
Mother Studios, a rabbit warren of artists’ studios, that takes up most of the large warehouse the Elevator gallery sits in was open for all. Next door to Elevator, Rebecca Feiner and Amedeo Felix were having their own opening party, and I have to thank Rebecca yet again for delicious cheese! The painting of Center Point by Felix is striking, see his site in my links.

Moving down a couple of roads, The Liquid Gallery had opened as part of the mini ‘Up your Alley’ community festival, with a group show Space Invaders. An entertaining exhibition with a crochet game ready to be played, and video clips of the most hilarious take on a poncey man, possibly art critic? - Something that Art Sleuth likes to champion as an art form - called, Clear as Mud, by some of the resident artists. The still shots show the man making “ ” hand signage, sneering as he speaks and using buzz words in garbled Mr Bean style language playing over the top.

Next to the video was several hilarious questionnaires you could fill in including “how Hackney Wicked are you?” and another for the ‘Social Networking Department’ asking you such questions as “if you had to eat your own hair what sort of seasoning would you put on it?”. Brown Sauce being the obvious answer. Beneath was a shredder to put your questionnaires into - a comment on our bureaucratic regime?

In the alley outside was a bizarre game that involved two people donning a mask and fighting each other with inflatable hammers. A sport for the brave.

Upstairs from Liquid, Top and Tail Gallery put on a diverse spread of art, starting with the psychedelic work of Reuben Sutherland using kaleidoscopes in peep holes, and a record being played seemingly just with rotating patterns on it – transforming into photos of tower blocks when viewed through a video camera positioned above it.
A series of incredible photographs by Jan Letocha showed travel images captured with a flair for detail and colour. Igor Borovikov sketches which could be called ‘dainty’ in their minute details, cramming a whole paintings worth of people and images into a tiny little sketch. The DIY moustache wardrobe, Moustache Booth by Betony May, gave ladies a chance to really see what they would look like with a full moustache (Ann Artist being the trend setter in this seasons’ must have) placed next to the boozy tea party, meant you could create your own moustache whilst sipping on a glass of vino. Very classy.

Unfortunately we missed all the excitement at the Wallis Gallery, turning up after Eloise Fornieles performance of The Rite of Spring, a dance to contemporary music of sexual and violent themes. While she listened to different music on her ipod.
From seeing the kitchen floor tiles smothered in fake blood and having spoken to one of the Wallis Gallery’s residents, it seems to have been a powerful performance. Comments please from anyone who attended!

Hackney Wicked festival was a great success, and I personally can’t wait till next year’s installment. It is a shame we have to wait that long. Can’t we have a Christmas Wicked?

Comments very welcome from anyone who went to any of the other events and galleries participating. Answers in questionnaire format please.

Look out for future report on Hackney Wick and the impending Olympics.

Fake Moon trajecory - Simon Faithfull

The Big Chill Festival has made the most concerted effort out of any festival to include a comprehensive and well-organised cultural program alongside the music. Stages in collaboration with the ICA and projects with the Roundhouse Theatre are new this year, comedy is central to their program and for many years they have had an Art Trail. And this year it was awarded a grant by the Arts Council.

Which is why, sent on a mission to inspect the art, Art Sleuth ended up going to two festivals in two weekends. Fine. Apart from an unfortunate camping location next to a bunch of 30-somethings who had clearly never been to a festival before and were making up for lost time by playing very crap house music loudly until 6am.

It is also unfortunate then that with all this efficient cultural programming there was little of what we would call ‘free-spirit’ about the whole thing, apart from the unscheduled Ibiza music in the campsite area. With the Secret Garden Party still fresh in the mind, which was a health and safety officer’s nightmare, but in a good way, it couldn’t compare.

The Art Trail was only open at night probably because most of the works were film or light based. The darkness hinted at a certain ambience, with the trail laid out in the woods - but it was almost too well laid out. There was no feeling of ‘stumbling’ across art in the woods, more of a feeling of being shunted round a museum exhibit. But perhaps this would have been different if you were there at two in the morning without crowds of people.

Highlights included the Fake Moon by Simon Faithfull, which made a path across the main stage each night and was visible from the art trail perched on a hill facing it. The angry house was a nice touch too. It got noisier and louder as you approached it. But they could have made it a bit angrier looking, as it was, it looked like something you could buy straight from Homebase to keep you lawnmower in.
‘Stable’ was a brilliant film by Kathleen Herbert documenting horses left to free to roam at night around the silent corridors of Gloucester Cathedral. At first the horses seem superimposed in the unnatural environment. Then you start to see that in their total grace and calm about the whole situation, grazing on the stone hallways and clopping up stairways, that their ‘monastic’ personality seems to fit well with the ethereal environment. Spiritual even, some might say.
Elsewhere there was the House of Fairytales associated with Gavin Turk and Deborah Curtis which included a puppet show which was a take on a Becket Play, swapping Duchamp, Joseph Beuys and Warhol for the main characters.
Juneau Projects’ interactive instillation was a great piece of theatre in itself, as it had been overtaken by children thoroughly enjoying themselves playing band instruments connected to a computer game in a sort of amalgamated version of Guitar Hero and Zelda. Incredibly harmonious as you can imagine.

The ICA was running the show in the Mixed Media tent on Sunday with a documentary on gipsy music donning colourful costumes, a random shouting woman that was not very captivating until people started getting involved with the shouting. The main act Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry doing ‘dub action painting’ while Adrian Sherwood laid down some heavy beats, was totally awesome. The paintings are going to be auctioned for Amnesty international so keep your eyes peeled.

Aside from the art Bill Bailey was absolutely hilarious. And as you will hear from anyone, The Mighty Boosh were a little disappointing apart from the Moon’s rendition of “99 problems but the Bitch ain’t one”. A healthy proportion of Dubstep and the incredibly chilled Leonard Cohen, who really is the dude, finished off the weekend nicely.

Get your butts down to Hackney this weekend!

Galleries have joined together to present Hackney Wick’s first contemporary art festival. Including Decima Gallery, Mother Studios, Elevator Gallery, Wallis Gallery, Schwartz Gallery, Top and Tail and The Residence.

Look out for an Art Olympic Games, an Art Car Booty Fair, live graffiti and a most current edition of all good art festivals these days it seems - a graffiti trail. Also a big old party at the end in the Lord Napier.

Check out the Hackney Wicked website in my links section for further info…

And expect some sleuthing going down my friends….

8th-10th August 2008

Hackney Wick

p.s if you go on the Saturday you should pop down to The Savoir Fayre @ Hackney City Farm from 11-4pm.

www.thegreenthingsavoirfayre.blogspot.com

PHOTO by Jael Marschner

Sweating on a plastic air bed inside a tent the same temperature as a pizza oven is not something the Art Sleuth does well. The heat wave this weekend was beating down in Cambridgeshire but we were not going to give up.

The SGP is probably the most picturesque festival you could go to, (it should be on a Carlsberg advert), as it is built around a pretty lake, although the sludge in the lake perhaps is not so pretty. N.B When I say Sludge I do not mean the stuff they grow cornflakes in.

The lake has a pirate ship on it, with boats you can use to get out there. By night the lake is somewhat of a magical experience of gorgeous fairy lighting and decorations everywhere.

Music is of a huge variety from classic folk bands to dance tents playing anything from glitchy house to dubstep. Slightly unfortunate was the rather haphazard program, which tended to say things were what they weren’t. Bassline, for instance, was actually electro-ish stuff, but really if you go just for the music you’ve probably gone for the wrong reason.

Saturday night was the crowd puller with the pirate ship burning down in a dramatic firework display surrounded by flame-throwers and fire lanterns. Grace Jones followed this on the main stage, living up to her Amazonian reputation by opening with “I’m a man eater,” in a crazy tubular outfit. Strutting her stuff in just a corset and little else for another of her many costume changes, her pert bum was on full display to the amazement of the crowd. 60 years old with the buttocks of a 20 year old body builder. Good going Gracey!

Nifty areas like a treetop games tent or a mud-wrestling pond give an alternative to the music and bar/venues. If you fancy watching a zebra wedding or competing in a giant game of twister, watching Hamlet acted out around your campsite or doing may-pole dancing by night, then this is the festival for you.

Seriously chilling out is also something the SGP does well. A cooling marquee with free popcorn, comfy sofas and David Attenborough’s soothing voice on the big screen is something of a lifeline after three days of your blood reaching boiling point in your tent. Perhaps a camper van next time?

Although most comparable to Bestival as a boutique festival and also in ticket price too, it does lack an accomplished music line up. However it goes some way to make up for this by the eclectic mix of artists and the ease at which you can stumble upon new music. Plus the lack of queues ( there is only about 12,000 festival goers making it one of the smallest festivals) and non-stop atmosphere makes this festival an incredible party garden. Let’s hope it is kept a secret!

Damien Hirst’s conceptual one liner is a tool that he uses to create work with a high selling value. A thin verneer that he uses to hide the real reason he creates art these days. He is like an aged rock star who keeps producing crap singles long after the other band members have given up. And it is all most probably fueled by a burning desire to expand the conservatory in his mansion to encompass a football pitch or something.

The news that Hirst has decided to cut out the middleman by exhibiting his work at Sotheby’s and therefore going straight to sale is no surprise to me.

According to the Art Newspaper (http://www.theartnewspaper.com/article.asp?id=8164): Sotheby’s Senior International Specialist Oliver Barker claims that the sale has “the wholehearted support of Damien’s dealers…who recognise his rulebreaking charisma.”

Eh hrmm. Does someone smell a dissected rat preserved in formaldehyde?

Bet the galleries ain’t too happy either.

What Hirst is doing these days is not art. It is making money. And possibly a little bit of a PR stunt too. Yes Hirst’s art was rulebreaking. But now it is money making.

It is also ‘old hat’, as my grandmother would say (possibly, although it could be so ‘old hat’ she might actually like it). I guarantee that this new exhibition will be a slightly jigged-about repetition of his other work. There will be little refreshing, original or exciting content about it. Okay okay, I might have to eat my hat (enough about hats). But this is my prediction.

The diamond skull that I viewed in a private setting alongside Jeffrey Archer, (woops name dropping again!) is a perfect example of this.

And now my rant is over, back to the art.

cartoon: http://www.chrismadden.co.uk/

© Stuart Semple

A LOVER I DON’T HAVE TO LOVE
Acrylic, Paint marker & Household Gloss on Canvas
179 x 122 x 8 cmNote: all hand paintedNO silkscreen

© Nathan James 2008.  Super Duper Oil on Canvas

Stuart Semple has curated a group show aptly named MASH UPS that opened on Tuesday night with The Subliminal Girls playing indie rock and wine flowing in the Kowalsky Gallery, the DACS gallery space in Farringdon.

Showcasing young artists with a similar message of late-noughties anxiety towards mass culture, using a mish-mash of different media, their art ties in nicely with Stuart Semple’s neon pop-art revival paintings. Two of which are exhibited here.

The new artistic generation of today like all mid-twenty-odds are the generation teetering on the edge of the new ‘communications world’. As Semple explains, “this generation is unique as it’s the last generation that will remember before the home computer, mobile phone, music video, mass marketing and instant archive that is the internet.”

Casting a nostalgic eye on a simpler time, when lime green cycling shorts were all the rage, Nicky Carvell uses life-size cutout images of East 17 boy band supreme as the focus of her work. Poor Brian who’s tragically humorous act of running over himself by his own Merc is immortalized in her work Peace from the East (Brian ran himself over).
Here, posing with hand on goatee, with his oversized baseball hat Brian is laid flat on the floor half covered by a large asymmetrical shape distinguished as the car by a Mercedes sign.

Heartthrob Tony is the subject of another work, where he can only be described as having been disemboweled – that is if multi-coloured tubes descending from his mouth are his internal organs. Nice. Who knows maybe this is what his insides really look like?
Smash hits would probably have something to say about this if it was still going.

Elsewhere there are the spaced out digital videos from Adham Faramawy, the industrial collages of Piers Secunda and the ‘post’ pop art paintings of Nathan James. All have used neon colour, which is a noticeable trend for artists right now, especially used in paintings. It is as if neon paint had just been discovered, like when day-glow fabric was invented – suddenly everyone wants to use it. Certainly this must have a connection to the nu-rave fashion trend, although it is just about coming to an end (well certainly if you live in Shoreditch it must be) it is alive and well in contemporary art. And as a 80s’/early90s revival, nu-rave brings us nicely back to what this exhibition is all about.

Secunda’s work uses only molded household and floor paint. Here the chunky pieces, bright pink, green and blue, are hung up on what look like coat hooks. Suggesting the absence of a core substance - the bits of paint being the veneer to something no longer present, his work suggests loss, but also a release from the normal restraints of painting. Interestingly Racheal Whitread has some of his work in her collection and you see a connection between their thought processes.

Nathan James’s paintings have the graphic design details in some areas like Fiona Rae’s recent stunning work, with stylized portraits of pouting women (perhaps Koons?) and Lichtenstein-esc cartoon letters running in the foreground. Very now.

A group show which sings to today’s generation of retro loving cyber hippies.

MASH UPS

16 July - 12 September 2008
Post pop fragments and détournements
Curated by Stuart Semple

Monumental outdoor sculpture from the Hannah Barry Gallery.

Opening tonight (Monday 14th July- 6-8pm):

14 - 20 JULY, open daily 12noon - 6pm
Level 10 , Peckham Rye Multistorey Car Park, 95A Rye Lane SE15 4ST

Michael Allen, James Balmforth, Tom Barnett, Thomas Brock, James Capper, Nathan Cash
Bobby Dowler, Christopher Green, Oliver Griffin and Henry Stringer, Nicholas Jeffrey
Shaun McDowell, Robin Shepherd, Matthew Stone, Edward Wallace

Guys….

Gay Bingo the East End phenomenon which has been going for three years now (at the T Bar and Old Truman Brewery in Shoreditch) is doing an art influenced session this Saturday at the ICA.

Here’s what they say:

The ICA is delighted to present the underground extravaganza that is Gay Bingo. Hosted by cult drag performance artist and raconteur Jonny Woo, expect to be wowed with songs, dancing, fabulous gutter couture and, of course, lashings of bingo – aided and abetted by Ma Butcher on the number cruncher and DJ John Sizzle on the decks.

A very special art theme is the name of the game at this one-off spectacular at the ICA, with art influencing the music, performance and bingo calling. So dress up and be prepared for some fierce art attack competition from a very glamorous crowd.

Saturday 12 July 2008

Doors 6pm, Bingo 7.30pm until late

Comments below - please let me know what you think if you make it.