In praise of publications

I have been addicted to magazines since I was 11 years old. I buy around three a week or so. Which is obviously insane. The number of independent and interesting publications on the shelves of Do You Read Me?, Artwords and ofr are ever growing. This is my top ten for those searching for help whilst navigating shelves (which I've tried not to make too biased...)

Kaleidoscope
Hands down the best art magazine out there and the only magazine I collect and keep rather than cut up for the scrapbooks. Brilliant design, content, writers and art, art, art.

Twin
I'm super proud of this baby. Bi annual hardback book I do all the art for - I've done major 10 page features on Tauba Auerbach, Josephine Meckseper, Kerry James Marshall, Cameron Jamie among many others. Its pretty much 50% art in here!

The Gourmand
I'm not even into the whole cool food thing but this magazine makes me want to be. Smart, leftfield, beautifully designed, and even makes you a little hungry.

Printed Pages

While Its Nice That rests in piece, the smaller sweet printed pages is filling the hole left behind for interesting graphic, design and illustrative creativity.

ANP Quarterly
God I love this publication. Even though the free, oversized mag is more sporadically produced than it once was its still always a complete, original joy. Aaron Rose

junk jet
This collaborative art, architecture, new media publication is always worth it for the content - great articles that stick in your head like glue.

Cos magazine
It is free in shops, its design is immaculate and they even get some kick arse interviews.

Anonymous Sex Journal
If you want to cry with laughter, hubris and sympathy on the tube home this is the publication for you. The third issue is just out. Buy it while you can.

The Gentlewoman
This biannual has done a great job making a fetish out of smart as a whip women, with a touch of the uptight glamour of Fantastic Man.

Sleek
Kevin Braddock has done an incredible job editorially turning this baby around. Who else would let me do an entire feature and portfolio on the male nude?

Acne Paper
It's. Just. So. Beautiful.

Also regularly purchased are: AnOther, Apartamento, Arena Homme Plus, Artforum, Art Review, Bazaar (UK), Dazed, foam, Frieze, Interview, Jalouse, monocle, Vogue (esp the French edition).

Update Update

Lots of writing out and about at the moment (gosh whenever I write that explaining update delays it makes me cringe and think of this Cory Arcangel project!!)

So here are 10 things I have written and seen and recommend to all - aside from The Book of Hearts which has made appearance at Grand Central Station, Artwords and Scribbler (as well at the Observer magazine and Independent online)

1 I was turned on by these exhibitions: Gauguin at Ordovas, William Burroughs at Photographers Gallery, Stephen Willats at Raven Row, Cecile B Evans online AGNES piece for the Serpentine, Christian Jankowski at Lisson and the incredible Heath Bunting piece 'Skint' in the Contemporary Art Society show at Whitechapel

2 Interviews with Simon Denny and Nate Boyce respectively for Postmatter.com

3 Cover feature interview with Bjarne Melgaard about his Gavin Brown show for the Man/Boy issue of Sleek

4 The Return of Paris for Artsy

5 Top 10 Girls on Show for Dazed Digital

6 How art is getting to grips with on and offline space for Artsy

7 My Dazed Q&A with Ed Atkins now online

8 Piece on my September show at V1 Gallery included in issue 1 of Riposte

9 Issue 9 of Twin magazine on shelves with interview I did with Kerry James Marshall, pieces on Philip Lorca di Corcia, Nicola Tyson Copenhagen art scene and a curated exhibition project from Henry Kinman.

10 Interviews with Camille Henrot and Collier Schoor in the girls rule issue of Dazed

Image Tales of Paradise: Gauguin installation view, Photography by Mike Bruce at Ordovas 

Summer Breeze

This is what I have been up to and publishing in the past few weeks:

My Basel Top 10

A big interview and feature on Bruce High Quality Foundation in the latest issue of Sleek (issue 38)

The new bright red issue of Twin (issue 8) containing a ten page interview with Cameron Jamie - a real exclusive - as well as profiles on women behind the scenes in the art world, profiles of artists including Nicholas Deshayes, Raphael Hefti, the writing of Paul Kneale, and artists project from Paul Pieroni, SPACE Studios and Rhys Coren

And I went to Copenhagen for the first time to wander around and conceive an exhibition for September, where I enjoyed Roman Liska at IMO Projects, Tal R at Bo Bjerggaard (pictured above) and Troels Carlsen at V1 gallery.

Extra! Extra! read all about it

I've got quite a lot of chunky pieces on the newstand's this month so I thought I'd share.

My first piece for the brilliant ANP Quarterly (Vol 2 No 7) with a large piece on the work of Keith Arnatt - you can read it online too here!

A massive six page piece on the rise of abstraction in the March issue of Dazed - which includes interviews with Bob Nickas, Jacob Kassay, Niall McLelland, Keltie Ferris, David Ostrowksi and Alex Hubbard.

An interview with Maureen Paley at her very private and very amazing seaside flat in Hove in AnOther

And the current issue of Twin is still on shelves - the blue issue no 7 - which includes features on Josephine Meckseper, Goshka Macuga, a brilliant curated project by Hanne Mugaas, and a portfolio of Paul McCarthy work among other things that I'm proud of.

The end of The Dark Cube

The show has closed - followed by a brilliant performance lecture by this year's Emdash award winner Cecile B Evans at the Palais de Tokyo, which was documented by Purple Diary. Her 'lecture' played with ideas of interpretation, association and the impossibility of things. She used The Dark Cube as an example - speaking on the show like a wikipedia entry before it collapsed on itself. It was the best closure to an exhibition I have ever experienced.

The show was also covered in the following places:

Interview magazine

Sleek

Twin

Dazed Digital - profiling Scott Treleaven

Purple Diary

And you can see some documentation here (thanks to artist-photographer-filmmaker David Ledoux)

Harry Burden 'Dirty Fucking Hippies' (2012) details

Antoine Catala 'Fantastique' (2012); Ben Sansbury 'Changing Change' (2012)

Scott Treleaven, 'The Body Electric' (2012)

 

Oliver Laric 'Chippendale Cube' (2012)

Clunie Reid 'World Without Images' (2012)

Thomas Dozol 'I Can Barely Hear You' (2012)

Scott Treleaven 'Walking With Thee' (2012); Jeremy Deller 'Did He Change Your Life?' (1994)

Juliette Bonneviot 'Stepanova/Popova/Adidas/Puma/Umbro/Reebok/Nike' (2012)

Kasper Sonne 'Untitled Carpet No 3' (2012)

Anne de Vries 'Trance Tracks' (2012)

Back

God what a month. Documenta (which I'll discuss after this... finally) then raced to Toronto with a dose of NYC in the middle. Then 3 days in Berlin and installing in the countryside. I am now FINALLY still for a little bit. These are the highlights from the past 5 weeks:


Seeing the Massacre of the Innocents by Rubens at the AGO in Toronto (above) : piles of greying dead baby flesh. Wow. Insanely good composition. Changed my mind from thinking he was dull.


Buying and reading a sea of books. Amongst the piles highlights were: the oh so lovely Scott Treleavan's black vinyl zine compulation 'THE SALiVATION ARMY BLACK BOOK'; Miranda July's It Chooses You (which I cried down the street after reading in 90 minutes straight); Laurent Binet's inspired HhhH

an incredibly interesting pamphlet book On Acid : A Field Guide (which was compiled by a reakAcid-Age; Michael Peppiatt's Interviews with Artists 1966-2012; Ultraviolet 69 Blacklight Posters from the Aquarian Age; 

A plethora of my articles are out at the moment. Issue 6 of Twin!!! With my interviews on Sara VanderBeek, Haroon Mirza (as well as pieces I commissioned on Javier Peres, SSION, a curated section by Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel); The Trip issue of Sleek with an 8 page interview I did with Rashid Johnson; a hilarious Q&A with Wim Delvoye in Dazed etc etc

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

Syncopated Melodies

The opening of SYCNCOPATION at Grimmuseum in Berlin was so great last night - I'm immensely happy with how it turned out. The show runs until October 31 but there are some online hints and interviews here and there for those not in Germania to get a feel of the show.

Dazed Digital did an interview with Levack and Lewandowski

It got a little mention at my other alma mater Twin..

And Whitehot magazine did a rather personal interview with me about the basis of the show with a good selection of images.

Twin Issue 2

Issue 2 of book/publication Twin is out now! I do the art for it and the issue includes an large feature on Tauba Auerbach, a curated project from Ken Miller on contemporary abstract photography, a stunning portfolio of photos by Scott Douglas of Louise Bourgeois with interviews about her from Tracey Emin, Annie Morris and Amie Dicke, a portfolio of cosmic inspired emerging artists and lots more. Buy it here!

Patane and Paper

I had the pleasure of going to Seb Patane's opening at Maureen Paley last night. He did a abstract occult music performance upstairs for half and hour, where everyone sat on the floor to watch men wearing weird masks stand against the back drop of Patane and friend in bee keepers hats playing experimental electronic music. Really enjoyed it. But especially loved the work downstairs. Appropriated images of Crimean war drawn on with pen, pressed flowers and abstract shapes, sculptural odes to modernism, an odd atmosphere. Stupidly forgot to take pics. But I did an 8 page interview with him in Twin.

----

Two great independent art publications arrived this week - ANP's latest issue in the post with Jonas Mekas on the cover and a very good piece on photographer Bill Owens by Ed Templeton; and issue 4 of Kaleidoscope picked up at the Klaus Weber show. Both are bloody great. I love paper.

Twin

I am the art editor of a very exciting new large biannual hardback publication launching this Thursday - Twin. Interview online (one of my favourite sites for one of my favourite magazines) interviewed me for it today. Stylebubble and style.com gave it a plug.
It's going to be very exciting publication - issue one includes art by Seb Patane, Ryan McGinley, David Noonan, Sam Griffin, Fiona Banner, Tauba Auerbach and many more.