Best in Show 2010

After a spending a year on a plane between London, Berlin, Miami, New York, Tokyo, Basel, Paris and Shanghai - here's my top ten exhibitions:

1 Rashid Johnson at Guido W Baudach


2 Mike Nelson's Coral Reef (recreated) at Tate Britain


3 Videodrome curated by Aaron Moulton at Autocenter, Berlin


4 Wolfgang Tillmans at The Serpentine


5 The Island from Los Angeles Nomadic Division in Miami


6 Oliver Laric's curated basement with work by Aleksandra Domanovic, Seth Price and Samuel Beckett at Seventeen



7 Aids-3D at A Gentili Apri


8 Ben Sansbury at Space Studios


9 No New Thing Under the Sun curated by Gabriel Coxhead at the Royal Academy


10 High Society at the Wellcome Collection

Negredo

Photographer, filmmaker and friend Jez Tozer got me on board to curate the art for a four part publication based around alchemical ideas. The first book in The Alchemy Series was titled Negredo and launched on Thursday to coincide with his new film for Showstudio.com The Raven.

In my curated project I brought together work by Boo Saville, Dennis Rudolph, James Aldridge, Stephen Dunne, Seana Gavin, Ilya Trushevsky, Harry Burden, Littlewhitehead, and BoChristian Larsson . Its really beautifully produced and worth searching out.

Postermat

If you're in NYC December 18 go to The Hole for the opening of Postermat. Kathy Grayson has gotten together around 200 artists to contribute (and a few writers, curators et al including... me!)
Though I'm not actually an artist I gave it a go - as you can see above. My sister Seana Gavin has also submitted a collage piece.

A Gif for Christmas

A bunch of screengrabs from the teaser for the Animated Gif Biennial. You can watch the piece in progress on the link. It reminds of when I was little and would try spend hours typing some binary programme I found in a magazine to create an animation for on my creaky BBC computer. My nerdishness astounds me...

Miami Top 5

Jim Drain 'Saturday's Ransom' at Locust Projects (esp the sculptures not pictured here)

The Island - the one day exhibition on a small desert island in the bay, where I was stranded for 3 and half hours with Michael Genovese (whose work is pictured here), and artworks by Jack Pierson, Naomi Fisher and Scott Campbell.

Paul McCarthy supersized abandoned toy photographs at Hauser and Wirth

Matt Lipps

Thomas Zipp at Harris Lieberman (check him on drums here

Oi

As much as I'm enjoying missing the snow, stumbling on this song reminded me how much I love London...

Missing in Action

I'm off to Miami tomorrow for the week of Basel chaos... I'm going to write a run down for Anothermag.com of what's on.

But before I go, I have to enthuse about Mike Nelson whose person and work I'm slightly in love with. I finally went to see Coral Reef at the Tate Britain (a recreation of his 1999 installation at Matt's Gallery). Its one of the best physically arresting, emotionally effecting, brilliant works I've ever seen. It gave me goosebumps. (Also worth a look is the great Clunie Reid show next door). I also bought the unbelievably cheap Mike Nelson ltd ed print pictured above....

Twin in triplicate

Issue 3 of Twin is out now! Includes a curated section by Hannah Barry, large Q&A with Mark Titchner, pieces on Sophie Calle, Gee Vaucher and other stuff. Its looking beautiful. You can buy it here

Five things to do in London

Rallou Panagiotou opening at Ibid Projects on Saturday.

Lars Lauman opening at Maureen Paley on Friday

Sam Griffin opening at Gallery Vela on Nov 25

Mary Barnes at Space Studios until Dec 18.


High Society at the Wellcome Collection until Feb 27.

Interviewed by Interview

Interview magazine interviewed me about Syncopation. My voice dropped when i was 21 not 10 but hey who's counting?

Three Things

My Trash Humpers unique VHS tape

Salem


AMP's show opening tonight

Kandors

I've waited three years for this catalogue and finally hurray its out. I saw this MIke Kelley at Jablonka 3 years ago and it blew me away. The hardback catalogue (which feels a bit like an oversized Tintin format) is out now. Picked up last week at my version of a crack den - Konig Books in Berlin.

Women on Top

I've been going through gallery lists and I'm shocked how few women artists there are represented. As a writer i'm always struggling to find ones to cover. I'm no better - my favourite artists they're all bloody blokes. So to refocus here is a list of my current top ten female artists (even though I know that putting this as a female only list just reinforces their marginality but you get the intention.)

Amie Dicke


Sophie Calle


Marnie Weber


Aleksandra Domanovic


Marlene Dumas


Eva Rothschild


Eli Cortinas


Annette Messager


Sarah Lucas (esp past couple of years)


Agathe Snow

Solo show of the Year: Rashid Johnson

Rashid Johnson's solo show at Guido Baudach has won the title - his solo show There Are Stranger Villages in Berlin blew me away. I could have sat and worshipped at the altar like pieces made of black tiles, visceral paint, shea butter, African Americana and a dose of pop for hours. I first discovered his work at 30 Americans at the Rubell Collection a couple of years ago and he keeps getting better. (I'm honoured that he's one of the artists in my next book out in April.)

Last Weekend of Syncopation

Some pics from the opening of my show which is up til Sunday.















Its hard to get a feel for the whole show (or the lots of people there) but here are some glimpses from the top:
Levack and Lewandoski (left), Mark Titchner (right); Cory Arcangel and Frankie Martinl Oliver Laric; Jayson Scott Musson; Ajit Chauhan; Matt Stokes; Jen Lewandowski in front of the Jeremy Shaw