My Top 50 Living Artists

There was no reason to make this list but its so hot I cant focus on work so I did it anyway - my current favourite 50 living artists not necessarily in order...

1 Rashid Johnson
2 Cameron Jamie
3 Josephine Meckseper
4 Kerry James Marshall
5 Wolfgang Tillmans
6 Mark Leckey
7 Janett Cardiff and George Bures Miller
8 Danny McDonald
9 Alex Hubbard
10 Mike Nelson
11 Raphael Hefti
12 Sterling Ruby
13 Steven Shearer
14 Jeremy Shaw
15 Thomas Zipp
16 Haris Epaminonda
17 Andro Wekua
18 Steven G Rhodes
19 Seth Price
20 Pierre Huyghe
21 Thomas Hirschorn
22 Friedrich Kunath
23 Marlene Dumas
24 Cory Arcangel
25 Jim Shaw
26 Jeremy Deller
27 Oliver Laric
28 Leigh Ledare
29 Tauba Auerbach
30 Antoine Catala
31 David Ostrowski
32 Steven Claydon
33 Sylvie Fleury
34 Josh Smith
35 Scott Treleavan
36 David Noonan
37 Paul McCarthy
38 Christopher Wool
39 Haroon Mirza
40 Ed Atkins
41 Eli Cortinas
42 Douglas Gordon
43 Cindy Sherman
44 Sture Johannesson
45 Jonathan Meese
46 William E Jones
47 Cecile B Evans
48 Susan Hiller
49 Paul McDevitt
50 Christoph Buchel

 

Images: Top Left Leigh Ledare, Double Bind, Collage on white, mixed media, silver gelatin prints, assorted print media, Silver gelatin prints, magazine, newspapers and personal and found photographs, Top Right Pierre Huyghe Frieze Projects 2011 commissionBottom Left Rashid Johnson, Our People, Kind Of (2010), Bottom Right Cameron Jamie Infante (2011) Glazed ceramic, steel
44 x 23 x 20 cm, 

Writing out this month

I have some pieces out at the moment I'm really proud of. A massive portfolio and feature on the new male nude, a Q&A with Jeremy Deller and an exclusive interview with Cardiff and Miller in the current issue 35 of Sleek.

While in Dazed I've done a Cult VIP feature on Bernadette Corporation to coincide with their show at Artists Space

Coming soon, I've got some exceptionally exciting things lined up in Twin and especially the November issue of Dazed that are still making me smile...

Buy Junk Jet

Junk Jet N°5, the net.heart issue, is hands down the best publication of the year. Editors Mona Mahall and Asli Serbest deserve a round of applause. The small book-zine has brought together essays and imagery exploring all things art slash internet. I've flagged a couple of these essays in the past - Artie Vierkant's impressive 'The Images Object Post-Internet' and Natalie Bookchin and Alexei Shulgin's 'Introduction to Net. Art' (1994-1999) - but there are lots of other pieces preserved between these pages which were fresh to me. Texts by Brad Troemel, Will Brand, Aureliano Segundo and Nicholas O'Brien which are thought provoking, awesome, inspiring, insert a superlative here... As well as artworks by Hanne Mugaas, Ben Vickers, Mike Ruiz, Constant Dullaart, Nicholas Sassoon, JODI, Parker Ito etc wrx. Immensely rereadable. I wish I had made this book.

Home Invasion

Oliver Basciano quoted me in an interesting piece about the relationship between the artist's studio and the gallery on Art Review online. Made me think about weirder image imagery about domestic spaces...

Cameron Jamie's apartment wrestling images above from his zine 'Rugburn'.

Javier Pinon's armchair rodeos


Gregor Schneider's very strange interior installations (check out the video section of his site in particular)

Burning Up

After spilling boiling water and burning myself this morning I thought of some of the good images of burning i've seen in recent years.

Sarah Pickering above.

Yo Okada



and Tom Ellis' Daylight Fireworks, which he's recreating at Port Eliot Festival at the end of the month

The Specials and monochrome

Looking at the Glastonbury footage this year - remembered why I love The Specials so much. For a week watch here and be happy that their music hasnt aged at all and Terry Hall is still one of the best lyricists of the century. The whole two tone graphic look made me want to highlight some of the most interesting artists I've seen playing around with monochrome recently:

Scott Treleavan


Seb Patane


Jannis Varelas

Basic Basel

Just back from my first Art Basel (four countries in five days - venice, london, paris, basel.... ouch). Volta and Liste the other big fairs also rocked.

What i like: Andro Wekua. I loved Andro Wekua (above) before but even more so after I saw his intense, dark installation at Basel with mannequins, a disturbring film, a couple of lit chairs and an odd wall and window. I even bought a book Wait to Wait on his work.

There was also an amazing installation of Daido Moriyama photos with a very personal photocopied document by the artist about why he takes photos that was sheer poetry.

I bought some work from Toronto's Katharine Mulherin! 3 found postcard hot stamped with the words 'Los Angeles' made by the Canadian artist Sandy Plotnikoff (in the style of the piece below)


I also am keeping a very keen eye on Yarisal and Kublitz, Stephen G Rhodes, Jay Heikes, Paulo Nenflidio, Alterazioni Video and Eli Cortinas.

The trip was improved because of the presence of Kris Latocha, Maureen Paley, Oliver and Florian, Alex Logsdail, Jose and the team from Team, Tobias Wagner, Jesper at V1, Kat from Printed Matter, Alexis Zavialoff, James Fuentes and the Rhine.

The Eurovision of the Art World

Although I did do some daily blogs on dazed digital at the Venice Biennale, I still have to sum up the 5 insane days at the best party ever created in the world.

Art highlights:
Mexico Pavillion - Teresa Margolles, floors washed with the blood of murdered Mexicans. You only realise while standing on it.
Russian Pavillion - Amazing work from Pavel Pepperstein, Andrei Molodkin, and the awesome Gosha Ostretsov (pictured above).
French Pavillion - Claude Leveque's black flags flying behind jail bars. Simple but powerful
The haunting Ukrainian Pavillion (and the amazing traditional music at their opening)
Grazia Toderi's two screen film piece in the Arsenale, layers of car and urban lights at night
The Arsenale sculpture garden - brilliant space, and a lot of laughter at Miranda July's interactive photo pieces.
Mona Hatoum's solo show at the Fondazione Querini Stampalia (photographed below); Distortion for some guerilla YBAs; Bruce Nauman's footsteps sound piece; Rauschenberg's Gluts at the Peggy Guggenheim; the light up dancefloor at Palazzo Grassi. The list goes on...

The biennale was particularly fun because of Freire Barnes, Neil Hamon, Ossian Ward, Matthew Stone, Paul and Michela (and amaretti tiramisu), Johnny Yeo, The Lovely Daryoush and Jonjo, Amst and Walter, Aaron Moulton, Robert Diament, Christian Jankowski and the gorgeous Jorinde, Thierry Bal; Paul Artkrush, Yorgo Tloupas, Hannah Barry, Tom Horan, Michelangelo Bandandi, Xerxes Cook and Erica, Craig Burnett, Anita Z and all at 176, Nicola and the Nero boys, and Kris Latocha.

Mati Klarwein

Stumbled online to a piece I wrote a few years back on Mati Klarwein

I curated a whole exhibition, 'Improved', in Klarwein's memory around 4 years ago. He would take fleamarket paintings and work on top of them. So rare to actually see any of his work in life, but i glimpsed this Tree of Life at Riflemaker's Voodoo show a few months back....

Beautiful Decay

One of my favourite sites beautifuldecay.com has given Creative Space its first review! Its a brilliant blog affiliated to the increasingly well done Beautiful/Decay magazine.

My book is plugged alongside Keegan McHargue's new book - an artist i've had the pleasure to interview for Art Review and Dazed in the past. I love his work.

Here's what they wrote:

“Creative Space,” takes a look inside the homes of of artists, creative directors, fashion designers etc. You know how dogs supposedly look like their owners? Well many of these artists works and aesthetics are (not surprisingly) reflected in their living spaces as well. For example, Wes Lang who draws from the detritus and relics of Americana kitsch and history within his artworks, lives in a wood paneled apartment in New York surrounded by his his grandfather’s shotgun, odd taxidermied creations and antiques with darker implications.

I could go on, but the book was a really fascinating voyeuristic peek. What I liked too, was that unlike many “house and garden” magazines, many of the artists houses were a bit unkempt, bits of clutter and empty beer cans and works in progress allowed to breath in the rooms, rather than some immaculate standard of perfection or wealth.

Nought to 60

I was asked to chair a discussion about art, fashion and music during the ICA's 6 month marathon of artists Nought to Sixty

A book of the project and transcriptions of the talks is just out - including me chatting away to Matthew Stone, Craig McCarthy, Christabel Stewart of Hotel gallery and Nina Manandhar.

It launches April 14

smoke and shadows

Graham Durward's solo exhibition is at Maureen Paley until April 5


Noble and Webster' s Wall of Shame is on show at 'Mythologies' at Haunch of Venison, Burlington Gardens until Apr 25

Post Paris enthusiasms

Cameron Jamie
Arguably my favourite artist in the world. His Hatje Cantz book is the best art book I have ever read.


Artus de Lavilleon
Artus' home is in my next book. He is one of my favourite people in Paris.