Berlin Gallery Weekend

Although a small pond of frogs are hanging out in my throat, I'm still going to throw caution to the wind and do gallery weekend. All the openings are stupidly all on the same day.... My main recommendations are:

AIDS 3D and Evan Gruzis at DUVE Berlin (Evan Gruzis image above)

Hypernatural group show

Kristine Roepstorff at Peres Projects

Peter Doig curated painting show at Veneklasen

Isabella Bortolozzi art carpet show.

Piano sculpture and sex by Michael Snow at Klosterfelde

And I'll be popping by the big Hirst and Gursky shows for a bit of BIG art.

Bellmer and Bourgeois

A two person show of Hans Bellmer and Louise Bourgeois entitled Double Sexus opens tomorrow night at the Sammlung Scharf-Gerstenberg in Berlin. I did my university dissertation on Bellmer back in the day and am beyond excited about this exhibition.

Strong Medicine

Strong Medicine: Contemporary Vodou Art from Haiti opens Apr 28 in London.

Current Crush

I have highlighted lusts in the past so it felt about time again. I just finished watching Paul Newman in Sweet Bird of Youth, the 1962 film adaptation of the Tennessee Williams play. Its not half as good as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, but bloody hell Paul Newman is overwhelmingly attractive.

Top Ten

At dinner at Oliver Laric and Aleksandra Domanovic's place in Berlin last night we attempted to list our favourite artists. Bloody hard thing to do, so here's my attempt.

1 Cameron Jamie


2 Andro Wekua


3 Mike Kelley


4 Christoph Buchel


5 David Altmejd


6 Douglas Gordon


7 Seb Patane


8 David Noonan


9 Kerry James Marshall


10 Seth Price



I know I havent included any girls, though there are many I like. Just not as much as these above.

Emory Douglas

Steve Lazarides is amassing an amazing collection of political posters these days. He's currently working with Black Panther icon Emory Douglas on a new series of prints (the last two images above).

Sammlung Boros

I went to the Sammlung Boros on the weekend - a private collection open on weekends only. Normally booked months in advance but somehow i squeezed a spot in. Its in an amazing huge Nazi WWII bunker/air raid shelter, that was a fetish club in the 90s (something they proudly enthuse about - only in Germany). It holds a big collection of installations and sculptures by people like Anselm Reyle, Olafur Eliasson, Sarah Lucas and Katja Strunz but the real winner for me was the architecture.

Matthew Monahan, AIDS 3D

I know I'm in Berlin again because I'm spending too much money on books at Koenig. This time I got Matthew Monahan - Five Years, Ten Year, Maybe Never - a stunningly designed three part book from MOCA. I interviewed Monahan in the past for Dazed to coincide with his Stuart Shave show. His sculptures and drawings look extra amazing in this book. The first part is a series of black and white photographs like the pages of an old archaeological text book. Sadly no scanner with me so you'll have buy to see what i mean...

And if you're in Berlin tomorrow night Nik Kosmas and Daniel Keller aka AIDS 3D have a show opening where "merely decorative, self-contained electric fountain, the maternalistic life-force is perverted into what amounts to abject MILF porn"

Sang Bleu, Alfie, Bon Voyage

Watched Alfie last night for the umpteenth time - the original obviously. And only just noticed the brilliant soundtrack is by Sonny Rollins. My musical soundtrack while spending the next month in Berlin curating and drinking coffee.

On a more artistic note, I wrote a piece about the apocalyptic landscape in contemporary art in the latest issue of Sang Bleu - curating a selection of examples including work by Scott Treleavan, Seana Gavin and David Ratcliff. Its more of a muse than my usual piece. The mammoth two part book-mag (which also includes work by Wes Lang, Iris Van Dongen and Dionisis Kavilleteros) is for sale here.