Slate Projects; Demimonde at 17 Thurloe Place, opposite V&A
Great exhibition in a derelict house (once Margot Fonteyn’s); the paintings and sculptures hang and lurk amongst bare plaster and boards, baths, sinks and toilets, rickety staircases and holes in the walls. There are abominable snowmen, lifesize figures in some lead- like material with heads encased in Monopoly boards and more conventional painting, examples below. I like the big ones by James Collins and the slightly Chantal Joffe-ish one below (didn’t get the artist’s name). It’s only on until the 18th January and it’s free, so must be seen. The venue is unheated, so gloves and woolly hat required.
James Collins
Demimonde, ??? is this your picture???
Adventures of the Black Square, Whitechapel Gallery
I was lucky enough to get a ticket to the private view for this survey of geometric abstraction 1915 – present and so was able to see the works in the context of their natural Fellini-esque audience. Several retro figures who looked to have arrived from the set of la Dolce Vita, with accents to boot. Favourites as follows:
Clay Ketter
The wall cracks are photographic, not actual. Like the last standing wall of a demolished house, with the “ghosts ” of rooms, doors, joists left sketched on it.
Sophie Tauber-Arp
Love that blue – it’s a tapestry, by the way.
Ivan Kliun
Associate of Malevich, obviously.
Jenny Holzer
A touch of Oiticica (who is also here).
Liu Wei
Like a gigantic barcode, in red and turquoise.
Loads of delicious stuff, and assistants patrolling about wearing giant circular and triangular mirrors. Famous names: Oroszco, Palermo, Alys, el Lissitsky, Trockel, Pape, Clark, Moholy -Nagy, Malevich (of course) and plenty of others. Now, what is needed is a parallel exhibition of expressionist abstraction.
The Poetry of John Cooper Clarke – Ten Years in an Open Necked Shirt
It’s up there with Ginsburg, Auden and Plath. Although Cooper Clarke lacks the unique perspective on nature of Ted Hughes or the erudition (and casual anti-semitism) of Eliot, he has his own kingdom of the urban back-street:
The fucking pies are fucking old
the fucking chips are fucking cold
the fucking beer is fucking flat
the fucking flats have fucking rats
the fucking clocks are fucking wrong
the fucking days are fucking long
it fucking gets you fucking down
evidently chicken town
With beautiful illustrations by Steve Maguire, Vintage pbk, £7.99.
Three liquitex on card life drawings to finish:
Blackpaint
15.01.15