Comments at the ready

Being slagged off on the internet is so strange. Cathedral of Shit is a rather bitchy art blog that I enjoy reading. The anonymous author found some random online piece I wrote the intro (not interview) for Dazed in 2009 I think for some sponsored section and proclaimed my crapness. To be honest I would never have imagined they knew of my existence.

This is not the first time this has happened to me - The Guardian online is my favourite location for public humiliation. I always wonder if people would actually be like this in real life. 'Hi nice to meet you. You're shit'. Charlie Brooker wrote about it all once.

The Cool School

Speedy trip in Miami looking at Soho House site which I'm curating.... had the great pleasure of hanging out with Michael Genovese, Jim Drain and Diego Singh. Then off to NYC to The Standard where they have amazing art films on loops. The Cool School, a documentary about the Ferus Gallery in 50s/60s LA is on, and I cant stop watching! Even though its 1am and I so should sleep. Ed Keinholz (one of my favourite artists ever). Wallace Berman. John Altoon (who hung out with my parents back in the day). Barney's Beanery. Too bloody interesting!

In Transit

BTW off to MIA and NYC tomorrow. The life in transit continues... Crammed a crop of exhibitions yesterday. Rebecca Horn's kinetic piano sculpture 'Concert for Anarchy' at Surreal House at the Barbican and Evan Holloway's totem of heads with flashing light noses at The Approach both of special note.

Thought I'd belatedly post this. When I was at Basel in June Juliette Blightman did a performance installation at Hotel Gallery - getting a local tarot reader to give reading of art punters referencing Jung's interest in the Tarot whilst based in the city. I was one of the first to get a reading and Ossian Ward amusingly wrote a little thing about it in the Art Newspaper the next day...

Bring Your Own Beamer

I went to BYOB in an arch under a railway in Berlin to see a chaotic and fun group show co-organised by Rafael Rozendaal. It was a cool concept - artists just stumbling up with a projector and blasting stuff on the walls and ceiling.

Back to Blighty

I'm coming home soon (though sadly only for a couple of days). At the end of the current trip in Berlin these are the things that came up and got me excited

1) A Steven Shearer book purchased at Koenig (pictured above)

2) Standing four rows from the front of Stevie Wonder - the best concert of my life



3) Dan Graham 'Rock My Religion'

Paul B Davis

I like Paul B Davis' work.
There's an interesting piece on him here.
and you can watch his Bobby Brown film here

The Devil Within

I bought an blues album which may be the best buy of my life. Voodoo Blues: The Devil Within. Its incredibly cheap but almost every song makes me tingle. Like Howlin Wolf singing Evil. Bad Blood by Champion Jack Dupree. Elmore James doing Sinful Woman. The soundtrack to my next two weeks in Berlin.... (The irrelevant but rather fascinating photo taken from this piece in Vice)

Imperial Bedrooms

I had insomnia the other night and I read the whole of Bret Easton Ellis' latest novel Imperial Bedrooms in a few hours. 3am was the ideal time to consume it. I've been waiting for this book for years. The follow up to Less Than Zero has no 80s retroness to it. It is completely contemporary, and sour, and cutting, and true, and violent. One of Ellis' best and probably the book of the year. It had touches of Chinatown, Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles, Los Angeles Plays Itself, Mulholland Drive but also cheaper stranger more hollow things that I wont try to write down.

Trash Humpers

Harmony Korine's latest film Trash Humpers is on show at the ICA over the next couple of days. I think rather than film it really is an artwork with a heavy nod to Paul McCarthy. The visual side of it - as it was shot on VHS - is briliant. There's a section towards the end where he just edits together shots of nightime suburbia with this eerie twang of lights and electricity that gives me shivers. You can also download ringtones from the film which are dark as hell.