Andy Votel has an exhibition of record sleeves containing architecture at The Modernist in Manchester. Taking inspiration from his sleeve for Jane Weaver‘s ‘The Architect’ he has created a poster and book to accompany the show. The book features records from his own collection including plenty of his own designs with intimate details that will have most running to Discogs or Google to find out more. Both the book and poster are available from The Modernist and the exhibition runs until September.
Below is my copy of a super rare hand made copy of Jane’s ‘The Architect’ which features an alternate version of the original cover.
Exhibition
Very pleased to be a part of EPOD‘s first solo show after being a fan of his work for years.
Open @bsmtspace in Dalston on March 10th and running until the 27th.
I’ll be creating a live soundtrack during the private view 6-9pm on the 10th using my Quadraphon turntable, Ninja Tune Zen Delay and a brand new mixer I can’t reveal yet…
I’ve been making some further adjustments to the deck and hope to have them ready by March 10th
RSVP to [email protected] for entry on the 10th
Boris Tellegen – A PLAY THING
27 nov – 19 dec. Opening 26 november
Encore Alice, 91 Rue de Flandre, Brussels
https://alicebxl.com/exhibitions/a-play-thing
Marc Oosting & Boris Tellegen – Copy
20 nov – 15 jan. Opening zaterdag 20 november 15:00 – 18:00
Gallerie Vriend van Bavink, Geldersekade 34
https://www.vanbavinkgallery.com/exhibitions
In other Delta news, Boris and I have granted the Tasmanian wine maker Dr Edge the rights to use our cover image for DJ Vadim‘s ‘USSR Life From The Other Side’ on a range of wine bottles. The good doctor has done several collaborations with Robert ‘3D’ Del Naja already and you can find these wines here.
There’s a free Savage Pencil exhibition at Orbital Space for the month of September, that being the new name for Orbital Comics on 8 Great Newport Street, Covent Garden. There are T-shirts and prints for sale as well as prices on most of the artwork although they’re not cheap. It’s great to see the originals to the Nothing Short of Total War compilation on Blast First as well as several others and Edwin’s visual bite hasn’t dimmed in the last 40 years.
In the front of the shop there’s also a great display of Graham Humphreys‘ work for film and books, mainly dealing with horror or B movie content. It’s great to see the originals and most are for sale although some have already been taken.
A few days after seeing Damien Hirst’s new body of work, Mandalas, at the White Cube gallery in Piccadilly, I still can’t get them or their means of construction out of my head.
Firstly, they are incredibly beautiful, huge, immaculately constructed and for the most part a blazing set of complimentary colours that burst out at you like the best Op-Art. Whilst these hark less towards the obvious stained-glass window effects of his previous collection, Kaleidoscope, they still retain a religious edge in the use of the mandala and several spiritually-aligned titles.
The printed bumf from the gallery talks this angle up, pointing to the ‘highly patterned religious images that represent the cosmos or universe in Hindu, Buddhist, Jain or Shinto traditions’. They also refer to the works as ‘paintings’ when, really, the only paint used is the household kind used as a base in which thousands of real butterfly wings have been precisely placed. This is collage – not to want to split hairs – but when the body parts of thousands of dead insects make up the bulk of the show, realising this gives the works a second dimension that is hard to reconcile with their majesty. The skill with which these were constructed is mind-boggling (most probably without Hirst’s hand involved I’d wager) and as objects of precision, symmetry and craftsmanship they are hugely impressive.
The largest of the collection, The Creator, is a predominantly black triptych that achieves the opposite of the others in that, instead of radiating outwards, it seemingly sucks you into its star field or black hole-like mass.
The butterflies are of course mentioned in the blurb but no information is forthcoming about how or where they were sourced and one can only assume, in this day and age, that there was little ethical about their collection otherwise this would have been explicitly stated. Comments on a previous post I made during Hirst’s retrospective at the Tate Modern some years ago suggest that they are bred in Asia and then imported for this purpose but there is no info out there to substantiate this that I could find online. This poses a real problem when viewing the works, knowing that certain butterflies are becoming scarcer by the year, their importance in our declining ecosystem and the fact that they will now be sold for millions to collectors who will prize them in much the same way as a big game hunter would the pelt of a slaughtered animal.
Whilst I wasn’t personally physically repulsed by viewing them in the same way as I was by seeing Marcus Harvey‘s painting of Myra Hindley made from the prints of a child’s hand at the Sensations exhibition over 20 years ago, the mixture of beauty from so much death leaves a guilt that sours the experience. The wings are isolated, no bodies remain, which detracts from the reality of their source slightly but there is no denying that they are real as some flash almost holographically in the light as you move past them. Only nature and light can reproduce such vivid colours (which, ironically, will fade in time under UV light I’m told) – I wonder how they will stand up over time and whether those who have bought them know this and will display them accordingly.
If the best art should not only dazzle you with its beauty, skill, scope and technical ability but also make you think then, begrudgingly, I have to admit that Hirst has achieved all these in one way or another. While he has no doubt also made himself and the gallery a lot more money, he’s also made himself seem more like a dinosaur, out of step with our current ecologically caring times.
Last weekend I did the rounds of some current and newly-opened exhibitions in London, Stanley Kubrick at the Design Museum, Emma Kunz at The Serpentine and Mary Quant at the V&A.
I wouldn’t call myself a Kubrick fan particularly but I’ve always been drawn to the design and imagery in 2001 and A Clockwork Orange in particular and this exhibition doesn’t disappoint on those fronts with many examples of props, artwork and ephemera associated with the films on display at close quarters. Philip Castle‘s airbrush paintings and foreign logo designs are a treat as are the Allan Jones-esque Korova Milk Bar figures and Droog costume.
If you’re a Kubrick fan who hasn’t visited his archive I’d say there is probably everything you could want here. It was particularly nice to view Saul Bass’ concepts for The Shining poster up close complete with letters to Kubrick and the latter’s rejection comments.
Emma Kunz was a wild card, I’d never heard of her but seen the work online and decided to give it a go as I was nearby. Not hugely impressive technically and with little to explain what and why she’d chosen to make these drawings with the most perfunctory titles, I was a little underwhelmed. The art was very hard to photograph in the light of the Serpentine so don’t take these as the complete picture.
For Mary Quant I went for the packaging and graphics more than the clothes (although plenty were to my taste). The slightly confusing layout of the exhibits took some navigating if you wanted a chronological experience but the display design was excellent. I left wanting just a bit more than was on display and if this had been coupled with the content of the recent Fashion & Textlie Museum contents along similar lines then I think it would have felt more fulfilling.
The highlight of my recent trip to Paris to play at the Ping Pong 20th anniversary party was a trip to the Pompidou Centre to bask in the first major Victor Vasarely retrospective. A comprehensive overview of his work was on display, from earliest experiments through to his breakthrough op art achievements. Whilst a lot of his large scale work wasn’t present there were some 300 pieces to admire including paintings, sculpture, ceramics, prints, logos, textiles and more. The final room was particularly good with very low light and excellent lighting that picked out the paintings in a glow that seemed to make them radiate and become even more three dimensional. The level of skill and draughtsmanship on display was incredible and I’d highly recommend a day trip over before it finishes in May, the book shop at the end is something else too, take lots of money and a strong bag is all I can say!
I’m playing catch up after getting a new computer and all the hassle that entails so forgive me because this exhibition has already passed. Augustine Kofie‘s first solo show in London was at the Stolen Space gallery in East London this February. He’s already had work featured as part of group shows over the years but this is his first one-man outing. Shown are a selection of his collage pieces including details. These formed only a small part of the work as there were some newer pieces that seek to achieve the same effect as these but solely with paint. This was a new direction that I’d not seen before and, while technically brilliant, they seemed to lack something that these works contain. Maybe the layering, textures and grit is what I like in his work, the sampling of old material to build the structures he makes, but the newer painting held less for me than these assemblages. The show may be over but Stolen Space have a print available if you’d like a souvenir of his visit to these shores as well as some originals if you have deep pockets.
So, there’s a Rammellzee exhibition running right now in the middle of London at LazInc. until 10th November. Lots of 80’s and early 90s canvases from private collections, the likes of which have never been seen in the U.K. Overall (much like Basquiat) there’s never a full piece which I truly love but I love what Ramm stood for and all the stuff he strung together to make his world. Little details spring out and there were a couple of pieces with with his line drawings in that were nice (see further down).
Really though I went for the opportunity to actually see this stuff in the flesh, to see a largely hidden part of the more abstract end of graffiti that’s not really been documented. You can see him visually searching for things, he’s trying all sorts, even painting on a carpet at one point, and to see that was enough. Sadly no battle suits or letter racers but this is a pretty decent collection for free and I’m not holding my breath for the Red Bull Arts New York exhibition to come to these shores any time soon.
LazInc. Sackville, 29 Sackville Street, Mayfair, London, W1S 3DX
The John Vernon Lord exhibition of Ulysses, Finigan’s Wake and Alice in Wonderland illustrations just started at the House of Illustration in Kings Cross. What I didn’t realise when I visited was that his huge 1966 masterpiece, ‘Beneath The Tree’ was also on display and it was breathtaking to see in the flesh.
The details visible in the original, not possible to see in the version printed in his Drawn To Drawing book, were many, from tiny messages written along tree roots to hidden numbers and miniature details in the shadows. Worth the price of admission alone to finally see this incredible piece which usually resides in the collection of the University of Brighton.
Orla Kiely can probably lay claim to having an item of clothing or home ware in most 30 to 40-something homes I’d wager. From the ubiquitous bags seen on every yummy mummy to the stem-printed jugs, jars, towels and bedspreads infiltrating kitchens, bathrooms and bedrooms in any discerning middle class household, you see her patterns everywhere in all sorts of shades. Personally I’m not into flowery prints but Kiely continues to thrill me with her never-ending range of retro-modern colour palettes and there’s just enough for a male fan like myself to buy for the home without it looking too feminine. Her current retrospective at the Fashion & Textile Museum in Bermondsey is chock full of two decade’s worth of designs, a total Orla overload.
I love her patterns, preferring the more geometric ones with autumnal colour schemes.
Entering the museum you’re confronted with huge flower prints and cases of bags, I couldn’t pull these off myself but love the pattern designs.
Next are several corridors with an explosion of Kiely products for the home including pattern design concepts (some still forthcoming) kitchenware, toys, stationery, mugs, wallpaper, luggage, books… You name it, it’s there with an O.K. pattern on it. In their colour-coded glory it’s quite something to behold, you want to steal it all but a whole house of this would be overkill.
The main room consists of huge versions of dresses, as if made for giants, guarded by life size rotating block models that shift outfits like a children’s mix and match book depending on their alignment. The oversize garments are offset by handmade dolls wearing the same outfits in miniature, lining the walls. This was an interesting concept in showing off a collection but it didn’t work for me after the complete overload of the previous corridors of kitchen and homeware. The wow factor was initially there but very little was contained in the biggest room on closer inspection, they’d crammed it all in the preceding space because they needed the height to show off the hanging frocks.
Last but not least is a wall of bags, followed by a photo retrospective of various seasons and styles. Kiely has a great eye for modernising old 50s/60s and 70s styles and colour combinations whilst continually reinventing key logos and patterns from previous lines. It doesn’t always work but her hit rate is high and the body of work has a definite personality and flow to it that makes it unmistakably hers. I came away only wishing she’d one day hit the late 60s and do her take on psychedelia and flower power, what a riot that could be.
One day last Autumn a mystery package arrived containing various Finders Keepers records and one very special, handmade 12″ of Jane Weaver‘s ‘The Architect’ single. One of an edition of 10, it’s a thing to behold; a test pressing hand-labelled with a paste up cover containing one of my favourite designs of last year (see this post).
Being one of the people urging the designer to make prints of one of his posters for Jane’s Manchester gig I was gutted when my copy got lost in the post over the Xmas period. Luckily a replacement is soon to be on its way. The ‘architect’ of these creations is one of my favourite contemporary designers, Andy Votel, who will be exhibiting some previously unseen self-initiated full size paintings / collages in Manchester from the 25th at Electrik in Manchester.
From the press release: “Writer, DJ, designer, broadcaster, label boss and anti-musician Andy “Votel” Shallcross displays a series of original personal works created, at home, in October / November 2017.
Based around contemporary “fakelore”, reducing influences of European science-fiction art, scholastic illustration, post-pop-art, Plakatstil and mid-century graphic design Andy uses simple methods of painting, collage, deletion and recontextualisation for these one-off, large format placards.
Adopting a recurring patchwork method found in all of Andy’s multi-discipline “magpaic” activities, the running narrative and aesthetic format used in STOP MAKING SÉANCE can be described as pictorial-anagrams, which Votel playfully refers to as Andygrams. Having designed over 200 record sleeves in over 20 years of his graphic design day-job these singular quick-fire situation-abstractions are not intended for large-scale reproduction or as communicative graphic-design thus retaining a freedom previously unexplored in Andy’s visual work and will be on display for short residency in Manchester, Gothenburg and Barcelona in early 2018.”
Check out this interview with Oi Polloi for more info and images
Just opened at the A22 Gallery in Clerkenwell is an exhibition supporting the British Underground Press of the Sixties book by Barry Miles and James Birch that collects the covers to all (big claim I know) the major magazines of the late 60s and 70s together. The exhibition features much more than just the magazines though with archive posters, badges, promo material and memorabilia collected together in a mass of psychedelic colour and badly registered print.
Oz, International Times, Frendz, Gandalf’s Garden, Black Dwarf, Ink, cOzmic Comics and more all feature and it’s a wonder to behold. Some of the covers verge on pornographic and serve to remind of more anarchic and sometimes unsavoury times. The book is spectacular, highly recommended at £35 from Rocket 88 and is also available at the gallery with a deluxe edition containing vintage copies of original undergrounds for a silly money price too.
It’s taken me an age to post these because life is currently getting in the way in the form of moving and renovating a new home. The Pink Floyd exhibition, ‘Their Mortal Remains’ at the V&A Museum, is very much worth seeing even if, like me, Pink Floyd don’t mean much to you. I swore off them for a long while due to ‘Another Brick In The Wall Pt.2’ being no.1 for so many weeks as a child and finding myself utterly sick of it.
But the fickleness of youth only lasts so long and I found myself gradually checking back through their back catalogue, picking up the odd cheap LP here and there and finally realising why everyone raves about ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’. This exhibition highlights exactly what a forward-thinking, visually aware band they were, adapting as their fame and venue sizes increased, their sleeve concepts becoming ever more outlandish as budgets made pre-photoshop surrealist montage possible. The amount of artwork and props present attest to a group with a very strong concept behind each album, courtesy of the Hipgnosis team of course.
Starting at the beginning and travelling chronologically through their career we enter a time tunnel and emerge inside a version of the UFO club circa ’67 complete with pulsating liquid light ceiling, psychedelic poster gallery and films. Rooms concentrating of Syd Barratt, Wish You Were Here, Dark Side of the Moon and more eventually give way to a stunning display of Animals and The Wall-era stage props and art. The 80s side of things were less my bag but the concepts were now reaching gigantic proportion and are impressive as last bastions of the sort of excess that just doesn’t happen any more now that we can do all these things digitally. The final room with a surround performance of their reunion at Live8 was very moving and a perfect way to end this retrospective. Go and see if before it ends on October 15th!
Forthcoming exhibition and book from Rocket 88 publishing with a lovely looking book of all the UK British underground press covers and associated memorabilia including (finally) some of the underground comics of the era associated with them (CoZmic Comics, Nasty Tales etc.). Pre-order the book now and find out more at britishundergroundpress.com
There’s not much to say about this post really, I’ve posted about Franco Grignani before, quite recently. The Italian designer has been featured in a couple of exhibitions in London this year, the second of which has just opened. Just look at these images and then go and see this wonderful artist’s work, it’s on display at the Estorick Collection of Italian Art on Canonbury Sq. in London. The simplicity and precision of execution is simply breathtaking.
Chelsea Space at the Chelsea College of Arts in Pimlico has recently opened an exhibition looking at Oz, it’s obscenity trials and the counterculture magazines of the 60s and 70s that sprang up around it. Featuring every issue of both the Australian and British runs, posters, letters, films and all manner of ephemera from the estates of Richard Neville, Martin Sharp, Felix Dennis and many private collections of those who worked on it, it’s a lovingly curated selection by Cherie Silver who was minding the exhibition when I went last week and was eager to answer questions.
If you’ve never seen issues before then here’s a chance, there are some that can be looked through and one wall lays out the Magic Theatre issue, comprised entirely of a stream of consciousness collage. It finishes on July 14th and is free, usually open between 10.30-11am.
* I rather like the graphic above, subverting George Orwell‘s 1984 maxim, unfortunately they could never have foreseen the Big Brother they’d be watching half a century later.
Italian artist and designer Franco Grignani is the subject of a free exhibition at the M&L Fine Art gallery near Green Park in central London at the moment. The precision of the execution is breathtaking and there’s another exhibition opening in July which should have more of his design work.
After checking out the Barbara Brown retrospective upstairs (see previous post) I ventured into the lower ground floor of the Whitworth Gallery to see a selection of Lucienne Day textiles, flowers and plants being the overriding theme – just beautiful.
Just before I played my recent Selected Aphex Works AV set in Manchester recently I got the chance to nip out to the nearby Whitworth Gallery and see the Barbara Brown retrospective. She’s one of my favourite textile designers, embracing Op Art in her work for her 15 year run designing for Heals. The material was presented in huge rolls to stunning effect, it’s free entry and on until December, plus in the basement, there’s an equally beautiful Lucienne Day exhibition too (see other post).