Art Show: Artists Anonymous - Drugs

What happens when you gaze at an image and then suddenly look away? You see an after image, but this time the colours are inverted.

According to wikipedia (on 22 January 2007, 23.20 GMT) "afterimages are caused when the eye's photoreceptors, primarily known as cone cells, adapt from the overstimulation and lose sensitivity".

The latter - overstimulation and loss of sensitivity - have something to do with the content of the artworks displayed in this new space in Vyner Street: drugs. Artists Anonymous is a Berlin-originated group of 'clean' drug addicts who have moved to London to show their fascinating art. It's a clever and playful idea on a serious issue, the impact of drugs, and the successful battle to get rid of them:

First, there is the painting (picture at top here), depicting a hallucinatory scene of drug-infested sex, nonsense, games, dreams and nightmares - through inverted colours. It feels cold, like being 'on turkey' (detox) or in the wrong movie, on the wrong party, the wrong side of life. Then, the painting is photographed (picture above), and the process of shooting on negative film refers to the afterimage turning yellow into blue and green into magenta etc - negative into positive. Now the figures seem to be made of real flesh, there is warm glow, it feels better. However, the content is the same. But since the negative also shows the image mirror-invertedly, the photograph now appears to be wrong side (if it had text in there you'd realize). Right or wrong? Positive or Negative? That is the question....that survivors of drug addiction can only assess and answer for themselves.

Having tried to help a friend at university getting clean from heroin and cocain, I got some painfully close insights into this matter. I truly hope for Maya and her colleagues that the afterimage remains their daily reality, and that their memory of surreal hallucinations remain afterthoughts on seeing the wrong coloursof life. (Well done, and good luck for the next five years and beyond!)

Art is better than any LSD! Vyner Street, E2

Art Show: Andrew Bracey - Freianlage

I love animals, preferably in free nature, rather than in a Zoo. That said, the Zoo plays a pivotal role in saving certain species from being extinct (think Panda) as well as educating humans about animals so that we take better care about our little (and big) friends.

Andrew's Freianlage is about Zoos and our relation to it. Just as observing social interaction of monkey tribes in their cages is like being shown the mirror of human behaviour (funny, sad, nasty, cheeky, egotistic, altruistic etc.), this well-curated show in this small space in Hackney exposes the imbalance of power in the battle for living space between our globalized consumer society and the billions of other species around.

His wall installation "Migrate" uses found objects, discarded, binned, thrown away, taken out of the consumer cycle, as a substitute for canvas or paper to paint birds in miniature scale. As a whole, a microcosm juxtaposing icons of nature (kingfisher, flock, robin etc.) with standard leftovers of the waste economy (cigarette boxes, screwed paper, plastic and other usual suspects). Looking at the individual piece, it is a sad yet motivated cry to mankind that battling for habitat is a zero-sum game - that our earthmates are loosing right now.

The monkey in the magnifying glass device, which looks like a robot from a car manufacturing assembly line, reminds me of the safari holiday quest: on the one hand there are the 'bad' types that leave a terrible ecological foodprint, on the other hand there are responsible tourists that understand and respect the animals' need for some remains of privacy, thus, only watching and filming animals from a decent distance with the help of this technological achievement.

My personal favourite is a tiger painted in oil on the tail end of a game dart - penetrated into a corner of the gallery walls. The arrow/dart missile is still the dominating hunting form for indigineous tribes in the rain forest across the globe - silent, efficient and deadly - just like the tiger itself who is known and respected as the king of the jungle, and only killed if attacking a human.

A real discovery! Until 28 January 2007 at Transition Gallery, E8

Art Show: Ricky Swallow

On my last exploration tour through Hackney, I found a couple of good shows in Vyner Street, the most impressive being Ricky Swallow's wood carvings. The sculptures of this Australian artist and Venice Biennale representative are a result of extraordinary craftsmanship. There are arms, shoes and other small scales pieces mounted on the wall or positioned on the floor.

My favourite is 'Younger than Yesterday', a skull that grows barnacles out of its vessel. Both outstandingly beautiful and disturbing at the same time. Swings and balances. Giving and taking. "The deterioration of the skull's former life becomes the root from which the barnacle's macabre decoration pushes forward and flourishes." It definetely invokes some scary thoughts on brain tumour and the notion of getting older.

What a shame that the gallery rep on the day was very uncommunicative - otherwise a nice conversation could have blossomed...(post note: as happened at the current exhibition:-)


Until 21 December 2006 at Modern Art

Art Show: Carsten Hoeller at Tate Modern

The annual turbine hall craze. Mass gatherings. Corporate Sponsorship (Unilever Series). Big Names. Monumental Scales. Art Experience. Free Entry. Media Hype. Or, in Joseph Beuys' world: a social plastic.

All installations I have seen so far in Tate Modern's Turbine Hall (Anish Kapoor Marsayas 2003, Olafour Eliasson's Weather Project 2004, Bruce Nauman 2005, Rachel Whiteread and now Carsten Hoeller's Slides) were installations that facilitate social interaction, self-assessment and geo-whatever (physical, psychological, economical, historical...) contemplation. The latter refers to the unique scales, concepts, forms and materials of these site specific commissions. They were all interesting. The white sugarboxes a bit boring. The 'sun' was magic. But the German's slides are different.

Rather than seeing or hearing, you can touch them. Finally something for the kinaesthetics amongst us. Moreover, a form of interaction and experience with art that is forbidden in most of the art shows that you will ever enter in your lifetime. Like the forbidden fruit in paradise - I have once been kicked out of the Abteiberg Museum in Germany's province because of daring to touch a specially surfaced part of the museum's white wall (oi - minimal art...!). And for a hands-on experience, what could be better than the slides? They are action, they look great (the craftsmanship make them appear to be requisites of a science fiction movie), and they tickle our mischieveous desire to be kid again and to play. And how handy that you have to accompany your off-spring for safety reasons. Excuse me, could I borrow your son please?


And even for the spectators, who choose not to take the burden of queueing away their Sunday afternoon for a 10 second episode of accelerated happiness, it is a spectacle. Being an observer and assessor of family dynamics, fashion trends and social behaviour, in an art palace like that, with no entry fee, good light to capture the scenes by camera, that's pretty priceless. And here, I think Hoeller's piece continues where the others ended (maybe Eliasson came closest); it is a happening, a social plastic, and everyone is an artist for a day, part of a masterplan: to make art more accessible, understandable and enjoyable for a wider audience.

For those who know me, I have nothing against conceptual art or other hard to digest forms of creative expression, but I do loathe some of these high-brow art farts dominating the magazines (writing) and biennales (curating), master-of-the-universe investor-collectors, star-gazing Frieze groupies, and the ridiculous art market that is more inflated than the global property bubble. Therefore, Hoeller's art is a funny yet smart piss-take on the whole scene itself: this hilarious circus | zoo | kindergarden called 21 century art world.

Until 7 April 2007 at Tate Modern

Art Show: Susanne Treister - Hexen 2039

I have discovered Susanne Treister at Frieze 2005 and immediately fell in love with her series of conceptual waterlolours and drawings based on the NATO Supply Classification system. Who on earth would have known that an organisaiton such as this geo-political military aliance would have a number code for literally everything on this planet, the stuff above is labelled as no 3805 - Earth moving and excavating equipment. I wasn't primarily impressed by her style of painting (even though its good), but by the simple fact how unusual her drive and talent is to challenge us, the average citizen, to question the world we live in; it makes you think what the hell is out there.


This winter, the artist has a multi-site exhibition going called Hexen 2039: 'New military occult technologies for psychological warfare - a Rosalind Brodsky research programme. Yes, it sounds nuts. But it's brilliant! Not only is she taking on an alter ego - in the future - but the whole thing is a fantastic 'phantasm'. The complex drawings and diagrammes (a bit like those of Mark Lombardi) are based on combining interesting and often unknown facts about subjects such as the Metro Goldwyn Mayer film company, Radio Towers, The London Science Museum, Mussorgsky's music Night on Bald Mountain, Rasputin, as well as urban myths about Freemasonry, the MI6 and The German Walpurgisnacht where witches (hexen) fly on brooms on the 1st of May.


Or in her words, "This work uncovers or constructs links between conspiracy theories, occult groups, Chernobyl, witchcraft, the US film industry, British Intelligence agencies, Soviet brainwashing, behaviour control experiments of the US Army and recent practices of its Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command (PSYOP), in light of alarming new research in contemporary neuroscience..."

Most of the 'interventions' have been closed by now, but the matter of Hexen 2039 - mind reading and mind control - is discussed at the Dana Centre on 13 February 2007

Art Show: Gabriel Orozco

Remember the chess board-like texture drawn on a human skull in the Serpentine a few years ago. That was my introduction to one of Latin America's most prolific artist. For the opening of the new White Cube in St. James, the Mexican artist has applied the same technique - but on an exponentially larger scale.

There is only one "drawing" - called dark wave - that fills the biggest gallery room in the West End, and that is on the sceleton of a whale. The exhibition is called 12 paintings and a drawing; the paintings displayed on the ground floor are from his famous undertaking to "examine the range of permutations possible within a defined spatial and colour system based on circles.

Having seen whales in Samoa (a 60ft humpback) and others in South Africa, but from a distance, I got completely overwhelmed to be able to walk around the sculpture (takes about a minute at moderate gallery-strolling pace!) which makes you able to grasp its 'real' size. Monumental, given that this guy is of a similar tree of animal species, a mammal, like us humans. And when you stand underneath the hanging installation of this multi-ton construction of nature with a man-made graphic pattern drawn onto it, then even a Christian-turned agnostic person might easily recall the biblical story of Jonas and the whale in a moment of awe.

Unmissable! (it was until November 2006)

Art Show: Alien Nation

Happy New Year! After three weeks surfing and finding a wedding place in Spain, I felt the urgent need to consume art. With not much going on at the moment in the West End and being to having been too lazy to make the travel to Hackney, I decided to give it another try at the ICA despite moderate reviews. Well, pretty much everything WAS crap or at least confused, except one room, harbouring the space fleet of Hew Locke.

Remember Star Wars, Star Treck and all the others? To me, the most impressive moments were when a
massive fleet of hundreds of space ships showed up out of nowhere and headed towards a planetoid object to invade and crusade.

When you enter this upper gallery, you technically enter the Locke's space, however, his installation practically overwhelms you at a first glance and takes you as prisoner. To be perfectly honest, I had one of my rare moments, where I almost wanted surrender to the 7 tonnes (hello beuys...) of glint and twinkle amassed in this small room like left over Christmas decoration, and give up my room coordinates and beam me away. Boy, am I glad I didn't, but had a second, much closer inspection.

The fleet consists of 5 space ships, on average 5 foot long, 3 wide and 3 tall - they actually are quite big. More important is the materials they are made of: the applied plastic comes in almost every shape or form, mostly toys, often cut into pieces: dolls, swords, flowers, aliens, guns, insects, chains, dragons, crowns, golden pieces, silver shields, armour, hearts.

Not only is the concept great, referencing a "dystopian vision of the future, with its hint of colonial invasion and indiscriminate violence", but the craftmanship is SUPERP. Get this: every ship is let's say made of roughly 1000 individual plastic pieces, and Locke went to great pains of actually screwing them one by one - that is, well, 1000 holes drilled into plastic and screwing in onto each other. Once you realise that you are in awe. Those have taken months.

Above all, it's the eerie, cute, disturbing, fascinating and ridiculing combination of baby dolls steering spaceships while looking like Rambo-turned emissaries of the Spanish inquisition on their crusade to seize the abundant gold of Ankor Wat in the insect-infested jungle of 28th century Cambodia.

Really cool. I got mesmerised for almost 15 minutes, more time than I spent on the rest together.

Until 14 Jan 2007 at the ICA, Pall Mall