Art Show: Fiona Tan - Bon Voyage

Not as comprehensive as her 2005 Oxford show, but still worth going to keep track of her recent development. Fiona Tan's works engage the traditional dialectic between the claim to objectivity of unprejudiced witness and the personal travelogue as the search for the subjective. She draws on photographic and filmic footage and combines the two in expanded film and video installations.

Crossing the threshold of early 20th Century missionaries' and travellers' reportages, which served to reinforce the sense of 'place' of Africans and Asians in the colonial hierarchy of power, Tan interlinks personal and social formations of identity. The centrepiece in this show are projected vintage photos of Japanese girls (looking all the same) at one end of the room and the same photo of one single girl (looking the same as all the others) with voice overs on the other end.

Yes, it sounds boring at first glance, but once you have accepted its banality, it can get quite exiting in terms of broader conceptual questions regarding socio-geographical identity.

Frith Street Gallery, until 28 October, 2006

Art Fair: Zoo

Last year I was disappointed by Frieze - this year I thought I'd learn from my mistake and don't see the mainstream craze but sneak into the alternative stuff. Puhh, how shall I put it without hurting anyone: edgy and up and coming doesn't neccessarily translate into quality.

Sorry, crap, was out in 20 minutes. Spotted Uncle Saatchi though, the third time in 4 years. He was busy on the phone giving instructions to somebody, so I couldn't ask for collecting advice (Joke!) Being a small micro-scale collector myself for about 15 years now, I find the (commercial) art world more and more annoying and frustrating.

Concert: London Soloists at St John's Church

What to do with a solitary Saturday evening while your fiance is visiting friends & family in USA for Thanks Giving and your mates are out on dates?

Going to a concert at St John's church on Smith Square and listen to the finest young musicians this city has on offer at one of the most picturesque and pre-christmassy churches at stone throw away from Westminster Abbey. On the menue was Mussorgsky Night on a Bare Mountain, Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto and Dvorak Symphony No.9 (From the New World) - one of my all-time Top 5 symphonies.

I made charming contact with an older lady who was honouring her son playing the oboe, and after two hours of distinguished behaviour and acustic delight, I drove home. No I didn;t take the regular rout along the embankment. I rather meandered through the Georgian Terraces of Pimplico and then Chelsea - while my baby was in the (her old) new world.

http://www.londonsoloists.com

Art Show: Leonardo Da Vinci

To cut through the crap: this might be a once in a life-time chance to see some of the most famous and history making drawings as originals, so go - but close both eyes and shut down your connoisseur's minds amidst this disastrous kind of curation and presentation. £10 per time-slot ticket for a single smallish room cramped with dozens of works is a joke to say the least. The V&A museum is not exactly short of space, is it. However, to see the ink with your own eyes that documented one of history's most radical inventor and inventive artist puts you in a state of silent awe and (sensuous) goose bumps.

V&A, until 7 January, 2007

Art Show: Miniature Worlds

The main reason why I pilgrimaged to this Southbank art space is to see Tessa Farmer's fairy cosmos again. She describes her work as ‘a tool to realise imaginative possibilities that might otherwise linger unseen, just beneath the surface'.
These tiny fairies and hell's angels are created from plant and tree roots and their scale is determined by the insect wings sprouting from their backs. Of course the most natural question is how on earth are human hands capable to produce something that small (we talk milimeters rather than centimeters here. But I guess the most important question is what the hell is going on here? Cute death? Do insects secretely rule the world and Tessa's fairies are the translaters into humanoid information which she in turn scales up through her own person...

I can go back again and again, I have no logical explanation why I am so in love with these pieces - apart from knowing that when she was in the New Contemporaries exhibit in the Barbican in 2004 the then installation cost £4K, and I seriously intended to buy it until I realised that it was (still) to much dosh for someone like me. Today she is worth three times this amount...recently picked up by Uncle Saatchi.

Jerwood Space, until September 2006

Photography: Dan Holdsworth

Dan Holdsworth's large scale photographies explore the limits of human knowledge. His extremely long exposures of the Arecibo Space Telescope (remember the movie 'Contact') document the movements this gigantic mirror that is listening into space is performing at dark.


Another stunning series is the Hyperborea where he captured the Northern Lights on Island. Filled with both time and timeliness, these photographs offer a window to another world, that feels literally alien to us mere mortals. You also see this in pictures of the European Space agencies, where the employees parking lot is framed by a rocket pointing to the main entrance. You feel like in a Bond movie, but this is real and the villain is not Dr. No, but probably you and I, not being able to grasp the many phenomena concerning the edge of space, and thus, reacting with further limiting aggression in our own little world.

National Maritime Museum, until 7 January, 2007

Art Show: Fischli & Weiss

Many of us know the 30 minute video 'The way things go' - the most inventive, bizarre and unique domino effect that humans could possibly create, where, based on chemical, mechanical and physical effects, household appliances and other gear sets themselves in motion in an empty factory hall. The sources of inspiration for this Swiss duo are endless, yet their art is shockingly mundane and plain in execution. However, what makes it stand out is this odd combination of aestethics and philosophy by two Alpenlaender Anoraks with a cheeky humour.You have to see it to believe it. However, you also should see this exhibition at Tate Modern, the best I have seen there since the Joseph Beuys Retrospective last year.The only major area of their work I haven't seen immediately turned into one of my favorites: an entire room full of little clay models, mostly left unfinished and unfired, capturing the most inportant events in human history filtered by the duo's own perception of what's important and what not, hence, the title of this microcosm 'And suddenly this overview' couldn't be more poignant. You see moments in technology, fairy tales, civilization, sex, religion, nature and entertainment, and the funniest in the latter category is the clay model of "Mick Jagger and Brian Jones going home satisfied after composing I Can't Get No Satisfaction"

Another room is filled by large scale photographs of flowers/plants and airports, beautiful and stunning. But perhaps the most intriguing room is "Visible World": three flat screens present an archive of 3,00 photos taken by the artists on journeys across the globe. It is not so much the material, but the curation and the way the images are fading into each other. Here is a lake. Now a boat emerges. Then the boat dissapears again, and the lake is joint by mountains in the back. Of course the boat and the mountains are not around the original lake, but another one somewhere else. Better than photoshop and digital imaging effects could ever be...

Don't miss it!

Tate Modern, until 14 January 2007

Art Show: Pierre Klossowski

"Claiming not to be a writer, philosopher, or even an artist, "but first, foremost, and always, a monomaniac," Pierre Klossowski (1905-2001) has long remained a cultish figure..."

When you enter the ground floor of the Whitechapel gallery and gaze at the ginormeous drawings and their three-dimensional sculptural elaborations, your first association might be 'this must have been De Sade's artistic dream - interpreted by Freud on LSD: Stags do business with Robin Hood looking women, young pageants make out with old ladies, and above all and through out the show there is an eerie non-explicit athmosphere of erotic violence. You don't feel as observing an act, but moments before it happens, when one might pause to give his or her rationale a chance to win over dark desires in the hope to withold yourself and not do it.

Oh, what? Do I sound weird? Well, I somehow feel surrealised by this double-bill of phantasmagic art.

Whitechapel, until 23 November, 2006

Art Show: Hans Bellmer

Yeah - Finally! An art show of this (of course) German Maniac. I was waiting for this opportunity for almost 15 years. And now the great Whitechapel locked away in the East End displays the etchings, drawings and photo documentations of his famous dolls.What's all my raving about? Well, for those who didn't come across this hidden champion of Surealism so far (no he was never as accomplished as Dalior Ernst) this is the real surealist stuff, kinky, horrible, boundless, childlike, erotic and just a bit C-R-A-Z-Y. So if you think the Chapman brothers were revolting (in the 1990s!!!) and you would like to see how somebody was 10 times more pushing the boundaries of taste and conventions, then go and see what this man created as early as the - YES - 1930s before he had to flee Hitler and his Nazi cronies as an "Entarteter Kunstler".

Whitechapel, until 23 November, 2006

High Street: North Cross Road, SE22

Since my cousin has moved to East Dulwhich, I have become a real fan of this little bohemian enclave for two other reasons: Lordship Lane and North Cross Road for:
Shopping on the Saturday market and in the numerous bric-a-brac, interieur design and flower shops. My favorite is www.designsix.co.uk where I bought a glorious chest of drawer hand-made in Indonesia from mango wood. 10% of the profits also go to a Tsunami relief fund.2) After the shopping spree go for great dining and wining in idiosyncratic and fair-prized bars and restaurants such as...well, I am not recommending any restaurants as there are too many little starlets, just put your nose in the wind and follow your favorite smell. Have a closing drink at Liqorish!

Movie: Wal Mart - The high cost of low price

When I studied international marketing at business school, Wal Mart was invading the German Market in a "make em or break em" style. Deep inside, we all knew that this strategy was going to fail, but back then nobody was listening to us new economy kids in Cologne. So, we write the year 2006 and the behemoth has surrendered and is marching home - and we were right, he he.

That prompted me to finally see that movie about what's wrong with the Wal Mart business model. A lot! But the bigger picture is that of the corporation. Don't complain about fat cats, immorale values (e.g. to subsidise a profit machine like this with tax payer's money to only name one) and killing the little guy (independent local traders), unless you want to un-corporate Corporate America. The flaw is in the law.

Speaking of the devil, the movie "The Corporation" had the potential to make history, but unfortunately only the first 45 minutes are conceptually revolution calling followed by almost two hours of cineastic how-to-do-it enangelising.

However, the Wal Mart movie delivers what it promises and should become compulsary curriculum for all business and economy students. Definetively eye-opening and a milestone in critical documentary.

For those who are interested, the website www.truecosteconomics.org has an interesting call to action: to change the economic paradigm itself rather than fire-fighting the effects of the pre-vailing and harzarduous neo-liberal one. Or go back to the last remaining corner shop in your neighbourhood instead of Tesco Local.

Art Show: Surprise, Surprise

There is this magic triangle in the art market between artist, collector and gallerist/dealer. In the spheres of not-for-sale exhibitions it respectively is artist-viewer-and-this odd thing called curator. Beuys gave birth to the famous mission statement of "everyone is an artist" but who on earth transplanted this motto into curation?

Contemporary, the magazine has recently published a special issue on 'Curators' and there are now even university diplomas to be obtained. Where the point my generic rant? To be frank, creative curating on the edge of contemporary taste and discourse incurs some risk, and the ICA had a couple of hit-and-miss attempts too much to my liking. The only outstanding shows in the last two years were by Tino Sehgal, and coincidently (or not) there was no involvement of a curator putting together random stuff, because there was simply nothing to hang, place or install.

Also, a curator can only be as good as the material at hand, and maby here lies the problem: this exhibition shows pieces from very well-known artists, but not the usual stuff and that iss supposed to be the trick here. In general, the show dissapoints, as it is only an assembly of mostly mediocre stuff of big names. It feels a bit like detecting that your favorite art house actress has commited some sitcom-sins or worse, advertising sell-outs back in the 80ies.

However, there are some pieces that charmingly stand out, even though the critical question remains how much 'unusual' these are.

This very cleverly engineered optical-effect sculpture does have some essential Matthew Barney features (think prosthetic plastic), while my favourite piece, a perpetual-through-the-wall & red-coloured-water installation of Anish Kapoor somehow instinctively reminded me to the Marsyas commision in Tate Modern before I checked the name in the leaflet provided.

Perhaps the best 'positive' surprise in terms of unusual+good was Jenny Holzer's "Lustmord": 312 animal bones arranged on a table with engraved silver rings that made me think how archaic this world still is, despite human accomplishments like culture and creative curating.

Until 10 September at the ICA

Art Show: Thomas Demand

I guess it needs a fellow German to NOT photograph mind-boring stuff like empty town hall stairways, photocopiers and office desks, but to re-create these artefacts and places 1-2-1 from cardboard and paper - of course with the notorious meticulous attention to detail and perfectionist engineering - AND THEN to photograph THAT.

And it goes without saying that you fall into his trap at first encounter, until you are wondering about the dorky beauty of these random objects and spaces instead of the expected eerie emptiness that stuff like that would create if the photographs were capturing real things.

You are then asking yourself: But why? All this effort...what's the point? Well, it makes you better really see how boring and sense-numbing much our daily world is and how odd such a thing like a p-h-o-t-o-c-o-p-i-e-r is. Yes, say this word ten times while looking at the picture and you'll get start thinking about the bug in the matrix or check the glass table in your home is really that or.


I left with the notion that maybe we humans, that apparently inhibit all these spaces, might be only "paper-tigers" ourselves.

Until 20 August at the Serpentine Gallery

Artistic Theatre: Fuerza Bruta

I finished work. Hot home. Picked-up my fiance. Drove to Chalk Farm. Met friends. Had no idea what to expect apart from "this is not your normal theatre experience. How so? Well, there is no stage a start and things will be moving around you.


What followed then was 60 minutes of audio-visual + kinaesthetic magic. Yes, I felt like Alice in wonderland. Might a lot of people discredit its sensationalism as been there done that or well it was more circus than theatre. What the hell, I felt purely entertained for every single second and my jaw was dropping lower and lower with every change of scene.


Phantasmagic!

Until 31 August at the Roundhouse

Art Show: Bill Viola

Love/Death - The Tristan Project: Usually I become bored by the "more of the same" approach as this often thins out artist's creativity.

However, there are magic cooks of aesthetic ware of which you just cannot get enough of their spice, and in case of Bill Viola it is this monumental, ultra-slow motion video art that illuminates the 4 elements earth, water, fire and air as well as the usual suspect facial expression of people, projected at a pace that you assume to be better than sleeping pills.

Yet all the pieces at numerous Bill Viola exhibitions I have seen - and this includes a city-wide one-man show back in the 90ies in Frankfurt - make people seemingly stick to the wall to watch a whole loop even if that takes 50 minutes.

This is the opposite of 'what the hell' video art where you enter a dark room and leave after 7 to 60 seconds saying to your own high-brow that is screaming it wants to be a floor lower: "I know this might be an important piece of art, but hell I cannot be bothered to digest this here and now"

This stuff is just beautiful, erotic, deep, captivating and just excellent. And for the high-brows who need to grasp the intellectual decomposition of the leitmotif, go and see Wagner's opera.

Until 2 Sep at Haunch of Venison and St. Olaf College on the Southbank. The latter has the more opulent pieces in my opinion.

Art Show: The Art of Climate Change

Not even Bush denies it categorically anymore. Polar caps are melting and so forth. But how does large-scale and long-term transformation look like?

This show at the Natural History Museum has sent a bunch of artists to a cluster of Swedish Islands up in the Arctic Sea to discover the given topic in their way - and the result is great. The work displayed is critical, beautiful and most important relevant: it catches your attention and makes you think, like Gary Hume's Hermaphrodite Polar bear.

At a first glance it makes you laugh because the title is kind of cute or funny in reference to the comic-style painting, but when you read that growing trash and their chemicals battle this majestic species to fight against the threat of extinction by undermining biological reproduction, then this assumed tongue-in-cheek turns into a rather nauseous lump in your throat.

My favorite piece was an installation though that consists of a weird mechanism that can send your audio-visual senses into delirium, yet it captures best what our pre-conceptions of nature are: that we think it doesn't change rapidly, but slowly and invisible. Stay a while, study the movements and you'll understand the undercurrents below the surface that don't make it into the daily news.

Antony Gormley delivers good stuff as most of the time, wheras Siobhan Davies' Endangered Species - an extremely filigran and subtle holographic video piece took me by surprise and changed my perception of "available space".

-> until 3 Sep 2006, free entry, Natural History Museum, SW7

Art Show: Around the World in 80 Days

When Phileas Fogg and Passepartout committed their money and honor to this extraordinary bet starting in Victorian London, England was at the height of it's Empire. In 2006 more nationalities, ethnicities, languages and religions are found in London which (and not NYC) is the most exiting and challenging melting pot in the 21st century.

The ICA is playing with the outward gesture of Jule Verne's novel by taking an inward perspective into assessing the myriads of different backgrounds of London-based artists which is great as a curatory concept and commitment to diversity - unfortunately (to my taste) it doesn't deliver on the walls of both locations (ICA and South London Gallery).

I couldn't help but thinking that this was on of the more boring "theme" exhibitions of recent and the only piece that made me feel the entrance fee was well spent was Mona Hatoums admittedly fantastic marble floor installation making up the 5 continents with what must be tons of crystal clear marbles.

Once you dared to touch one marble in a lesser observed corner you realise that they are not glued to the floor or so but simply arranged according to the continent silhouettes and that one wrong move (you have to negotiate your way around) could shake up the formation. It made me think of the fragility of the temporary aspect of contemporary boarders with its sometimes massive geo-political implications.

Having seen her retrospective in Bonn last year I have to say it's still not even one of her best pieces though.

-> until 16 Jul at the ICA and South London Gallery

3D: New London Architecture

What makes London different from NYC, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Chicago, Dubai, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur? It's lack of a distinct and dominating skyline.

Instead of cubic miles of concrete glass and steel it seems to harbour the worlds most persistent and ample cluster of low rise period buildings with styles named Palladian, Georgian, Victorian or Edwardian.

It's beautiful-no question about it, but is it sustainable and economic? And why on earth are Londoners so resistant to anything that's higher than St. Pauls? Why does the Gherkin built by local breed Foster receive more acclaim abroad than at home?

This exhibition is primarily delivered through a mega scale 3D model positioned in the middle of the premise around which you can walk and glimpse at the "new stuff" in shiny white plastic cubes such as additional towers in Cnary Wharf and the transformation of the Battersea Power Station to and International Trade & Convention Centre. It feels a bit like Lego for adults, however, it is an excellent and precise model of London with all it's existing and proposed architectural landmarks.

This magnificent centrepiece is enriched by facts and figures per borough and graphic depiction of how this unique capital has grown over centuries.

Until 30 June 2006 at The Building Centre in 26 Store Street, WC1

Photo Show: Rinko Kawauchi

For decades Japanese Photography was dominated by alpha males like Araki epitomising the machismo culture of the land of the rising sun. In the last ten years a new generation of female artists have gained more exposure with the likes of Hermosa and Rinko Kawauchi gaining international reputation.

This exhibition gives a great insight into the work of the latter by combining several of her series which are revolving around nature, weddings and the little odd sensations of everyday (dull) Japanese life outside the big metropolitan areas. And it has a particular (Japanese) female connotation of intimacy and delicacy that is quite similar to that of Hermosa which I have also seen in many other lesser known colleagues while I was visiting Japan for a couple of months in 2001.

Kawauchi says: "For a photographer, it's a necessity that you can shoot stuff magically. Accidents are necessary, but after I take a photograph, it is not over. I work on it more." She suggests that the editing and presentation of the work is as important to the final image as composing and taking the photograph. All pieces are presented behind formalizes glass and there is always a feeling of just the right presentation size for a subject. Quite magical indeed!

As with most of the shows in this location: a perfect lunch retreat complemented by an 18 minute DVD loop showing an abundance of her seemingly endless footage.

The Photographer's Gallery, Leicester Square - until 9 July

Art Show: Day-to-day Data at Daniel Arnaud

An exhibition of artists who collect, list, database and absurdly analyse the data of everyday life.

A mere mile south of concrete-battered Waterloo is a nice little enclave of Georgian terraces and some bohos seemingly living around this 4 storey house that is part living space of the gallerist (who always opens the door personally) and part exhibition space.

I was naturally attracted by the shows title and I am happy to have seen documentation of trolley abductors where attached tags identify location of lost or stolen trolleys at a local Tesco. Christian Nold's Bio Mapping device allows you to measure your levels of stress and excitement as you walk through the city. Devices will be available to borrow from the gallery on a drop-in basis throughout the exhibition.

My favorite though is the little video in the entrance area of Richard Dedomenici who walked along the boarder of inner London to gather the exact demarcation line of 0207 vs 0207 phone number prefixes.

For fans of conceptual art as well as for geeks and people with a curiosity for the obvious and the odd.

FREE entry; until 23 April at Daniel Arnaud Contemporary Art, Kennington
http://www.daytodaydata.com

Art Show: Tate Triennial 2006

I am sorry. Sorry for Tate Britain and sorry for the artists. Each participant might have his or her own qualities and importance, but the curation is numbingly boring and I swept through this show in less than 15 minutes as there was just nothing that truly caught my eye, mind or emotions. Or perhaps I was just tired and in a bad mood.

The Contemporary magazine has listed 80 biennials and triennials around the globe in its special issue on Curators last year. What all started with Documenta and is still being epitomised by the one in Venice got a bit out of control in my view and it is probably time to scale back. Beuys once famously proclaimed that "Everyone is an artist". But is anyone also a curator?

Less is more!

FREE Entry; until 14 May at Tate Britain

Photo Show: Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Surfing Penguines? Bear Babies dropped off on a tree waiting for mother? High End Snapshots of mother Nature? If that is your cup of tea then this exhibition in Kensington is your must see this year.

While my photography is more similar to that of Wolfgang Tillmanns in the way of quick and low tech snapshots of everyday life but without the consistency and quality of course, these showcased contestants here spend days and sometimes weeks in a row in tree huts and other hideouts with their expensive and sophisticated equipement waiting for the shot of their life. And the results prove them right and the patience has paid off.

And how hillarious the animal kingdom can be? Just look at that deer being trapped while fighting off a competitor even though his "damn I got caught look in his face suggest a slightly different activity...

Great for a lunch break or as part of a whole day trip with your family.

FREE Entry; until 23 April at the Natural History Museum, SW7
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/index.html

Art Show: Page 3 Girls at Fabrications, E8

I went to Hackney today to document E8 as part of my new London post codes project when I came across this little space on Broadway Market. Some 50 to 60 Page Three Girls water colors on paper with different grades of abstraction and naturalism and hung in a grid make a provocative yet pleasing installation.

An invisible statement is expressed through a conceptual and ‘aesthetic-political’ pricing system putting value tags along definitions like ‘ugly wet’. Jody, the artist told me that she wants people to pay up to £200 for the rather beautiful pieces with realistic brushes while the more dodgy looking papers with freak-like faces or lack of personality details can make it home from £40. I am happy to have picked my favorite piece first...

In my view, this work is a well-done sarcastic take on an infamous institution of British popular culture uncovering a macho-driven fetish of British men that has somewhat outstayed emancipation waves and feminist agenda of the 21st century as well as the abundance of free and 24/7 accessible erotica of the internet. Maybe this series makes you start wondering: Who are these ‘sexy bodies’ anyhow? But be careful: They might even have a personality!

This show officially opens on Thursday evening, 6th April and lasts only until Sunday afternoon.

The space is opposite of My Life in Art on Broadway Market which feels like an artisan enclave in E8 that is not yet imperatively hip as Hoxton but still has a rather work-in-progress feel with butcher-cafes, art spaces to rent and little bookshops. For lunch go to La Vie en Rose at the corner and eat the Filet which is delicious!

Movie: Syriana at the Electric Cinema

If you check the review comparison on the guardian online you can see that most of Britain’s newspapers are giving it an 8/10, and with the Sun, FT, Daily Telegraph and the Express these pundits are from the conservative spectrum. On the other hand, The Guardian and The Independent give rather weak marks, which is surprising for this demanding and brave political project.

To say it straight away: I think it’s a great polit-thriller and cannot wait until it’s released on DVD. What makes it refreshingly different from the recent name-and-shame yet valid celluloid attacks from the left-wing a la 9/11 Fahrenheit and The Corporation is it’s lack of accusing Bush and his cronies, or neo-cons in general. The cast is top-notch with many familiar faces to make following the plot at least possible.

What makes it so compelling in my view, is that Clooney & Co. try to make patterns transparent, but they don’t really succeed - and that is exactly the winning momentum. Because the global system dynamics of oil, money, politics, corruption and consumption is too complex even for well-informed people to be fully understood and digested - and that’s why it’s lack a dominating character, but makes a realistic assessment of rather structural leadership and systematic corruption.

After 2.5 hours in the comfy leather sofa of my favorite London Cinema in affluent Notting Hill, an eerie feeling is creeping up my mind: as long as you, I and we all together, drive cars, use plastic bags and all other things made of oil, there will be corruption (official and unofficial) and terrorist attacks (by islamist groups as well as intelligence agencies).

While watching the credits, I compared the movie’s quintessence (delivered by the career-hungry attorney) to that of the principal-agent model of modern corporations: In Syriana, we the consumers are the principals, and we mandate the politicians, the boards, the middlemen and everybody else involved to be the agents that act on our behalf, and that is to provide us with abundant supply. And that is often high-risk, politically and economically as well as personally. So the characters want the respective reward according to another grand model called Risk equals reward. And how do the participants try and cut out their slice of the pie? Correct, through corruption! And why? Unless we revoke our vote, it will not change because the incentive is too low. The corrupt analyst made 80 millions...and got away with it!

And that is a striking point, but it seems to be too disillusioning for some liberal critics. Of course I want those people being put to jail, but it’s the way this unbundled globalized economy works - until we change it...through a new mandate.

Art Show: Deutsche Boerse Photo Price at the Photographer Gallery

1. Photography Gallery in Great Newport Street is a visual retreat during lunch break.
2. This prize is pretty understated and always well curated and of consistent quality
3. My favourite piece is Yto Barrada, Factory 1 - Prawn processing plant in the Free Trade Zone - Tangier. It is a very powerful record of Globalization and why we can afford delicatessen in abundance these days. You just wonder what social price has to be paid in countries of processing...
4. Phil Collins larger-than life video blow-ups of Turkish folks in Istanbul performing karaoke is hee-larious! Multiple accounts of wanna be stars not being cool actually, while some quieter talents reveal the story of their life through dramatic facial expressions, and please wait for the two brothers...if you ever wondered how you looked like having been forced to do karaoke, this piece has unwanted wit and joy - for the observer!
5. Alec Soth should get the price for his depicting rural and poor Mississippi land. The series is very consistent, and shows the grim side of lost and forgotten America, but also weirdly beautiful idiosyncrasies of its settlers. And it hits a contemporary American nerve.

until 22 April at 5 & 8 Great Newport Street, WC2H 7HY Tube: Leicester Square

First Drafts - Experimental Choreography at the ROH

I was invited to this welcoming different event by Steffen, whose friend Mayumi Hotta, Dance Notator for the Royal Ballet, opened the evening with her piece “Spring Day” (imagine a girl gracefully performing on a piano while her partner is playing it...) Over the course of one hour we saw a tango-inspired piece about courtship-love-friendship and other either delicious or funny compositions.

Looking at the guys on stage, we had to accept that lifting female ballet partners up in the air all the time does have an impact on your triceps, but then, who of us regular guys would want to squeeze our ‘rescue belt’ into one of those arse-to-toe grey legging pants anyway.

However, we agreed that this recurring event makes a good date for the following reasons:
1. You (the dude) won’t fall asleep after a long day of boring meetings only interrupted by “grabbing a sandwich” for lunch, because there is just too much action on stage to keep your eyes in ‘rapid follow movement’
2. It is very sumptuous and at times erotic which might give you inspiration for later (think a gorgeous girl doing the tango girl with an equally stunning lad)
3. Since he is always gay, you won’t have any competition from that side as we all know;-)

I will certainly go back next time to witness progress of the next Alvin Ailey or Pina Bausch.

Art Show: Any Warhol at Hauser & Wirth

Think Andy Warhol was a one trick pony only making campbell soup and Marilyn portraits?

Sure, this guy was one of the founders of pop art and his iconoclastic canvas work hangs in all museums and collections of name and fame, but in my opinion his photographic work is not only extremely exiting, it also reveals more of the real drama behind this maniac. If you survive more than one hour of the eight hour Warhol TV footage, than you get an idea why he considered buying tons of socks in a department store a spiritual event and why he is the king of pop, eh soap.

Being a teenager in the 80s, this decade is my key to adoring fame, dismissing America’s political system as corrupt but idealising NYC as the world’s capital, hero-ing John McEnroe and Sylvester Stallone and worshipping Madonna (then young) and Joan Collins (then already sexy mature).

This show contains 250 black and white photographs of the above named, Keith Haring, J-M Basquiat, Jim Carre, Ozzy Ozbourne, a hell of a lot of NYC-invented here mullets, transvestites and that I-wish-I-was-there mingling of eccentric art scene-meets- new age underground crowd that made SoHo and the Lower East side so legendary in the 80s.

You can hear, smell and taste the then scene, which Warhol captured in real life situations, much better and deeper than the ah so many celebrity photographers at the time who in turn became stars themselves (think Newton and Ellen Mark). Warhol was an elder-statesman at the time of most of the presented portraits - kind of post-pop NYC new wave soap...:-)

And as far as curating is concerned, the fact that his (self?) portraits are kept in the vault down in the basement, give the entire show this fascinating notion that in reality this ueber-star was pretty shy and often lonely. I did get goose bums! (Hauser & Wirth Gallery is located in a former Palladium-style banking building and fortunately makes use of all facilities, sometimes even including the ancient elevator. The gallery is worth a visit alone.

Art Show: Joseph Kosuth at Spruth Magers Lee

Don’t consider conceptual art as ‘art? Do you think ‘you can do this yourself’? Do you feel conceptual art is empty and cold?

If you answer one of those questions with yes, you should go and see Joseph Kosuth’s impressive show to turn your knowledge to the better as this is the most beautifully curated small-scale show of any conceptual artist in London ever (ok, to be honest I only know about the last four years, but still:-)

You will see his history making dictionary blow-ups from the 1960s, wall-filling neon tube installations and a ginormeous article print about the Lorena Bobbit cut-his-penise story.

Sprueth Magers Lee is an institution in the art world which I know from Cologne back then. And if you have any questions, please ask the nice woman behind the desk. If she is not on the phone she is actually up for a quick chat about the show and the art wolrd and does not give you that creepy feeling that she snobbishly looks down on you - as so many unfortunately.

until 13 April, 12 Berkeley Street, W1J 8DT

Art Show: Tino Sehgal at the ICA, London

This German hot talent is the best kept secret in contemporary art. Never seen his art? Don’t worry you can’t, you can only experience it!

“Coming from a background in choreography and political economy, Sehgal does not produce tangible objects or any form of material trace.” (ICA text).

If you are up for an instructed dialogue yet improvised human interaction that will leave you puzzled yet enlightened, the £2.50 ticket is a must for you. Somebody will pick you up at the entrance and from there on your pre-conceptions of what art is will be destroyed and re-built. For people who are looking for “progress” this show might be a link to a bigger picture.

Until 19 March, The Mall, SW1Y 5AH