Art Show: Candice Breitz

Music is a universal art form. Most of us like certain music genres or styles over others. We also admire, fancy and love our stars. And some of us go above and beyond, and start looking like their idols and mimicking their behaviour. That's what Candice Breitz has captured in three photographs of monumental scale on the ground floor of The White Cube in Mason's Yard. The three groups of devoted followers are Iron Maiden, Marylin Manson and Abba.

At first, i was taken away by the beautiful arrangement of these group portraits, but when looking at the details it triggered fast-moving thoughts and memories: about my own stint in heavy metal gangs during adolescene as well as saturday night tribes, and our desire to belong to a group in general. More than any other art form, music seems to provide a framework for an identity, as these enthusiatic fans look pretty much like their idols - theme and variation.

Moreover, these sub-cultural identities often define themselves through mutual exclusion and aversion, think mots versus bikers back in the 70s. This phenomenon is mirrored by one beautiful detail in the Iron Maiden work: a woman wearing a typical heavy metal uniform comprised of jeans and leather vest cluttered with stickers and patches of her favourite bands and other attitude-bearing pictograms, and the one on her right arm says "Saufen gegen Goth" which means "Binge drinking against gothics" - these deeply melodramatic-depressed-looking disciples of marylin manson are hung on the opposite wall; what a genius juxtaposition!

Downstairs is a 25-screen video piece, and if the photos haven't already made you smile, this will make your day. Instead of listening to John Lennon himself, you see 25 hardcore fans singing his anthems, but each left to their own devices. They listen to the songs via earplugs, and sing alongside his voice - but you can only hear them, one by one, filling a screen on their own, 25 of them in one row, individual yet synchronized, well almost - what a gigantic and hilarious cacophony. Very funny.

To actually watch people "giving everything" in front of a camera looks like worshipping to their god: some are in pain, some look like they just entered heaven, and all that moving limbs and shaking heads, not to forget the pulling of spectacularly weird faces is comic relief and results in a rare atmosphere for a commercial art gallery - wild laughter, open and loud.

The next moment it makes you think how YOU look when passionately singing in the car at 7am in the morning on the M25...

Until 28 Aug 2007 at White Cube | check a short video on http://tinyurl.com/28dkbg

Art Show: Insider Art

There is an urban myth that true art can only be achieved when minds and hearts are distressed, surpressed, and pushed to the limits. In the spirit of that stereotype (which is often devised by collectors and curators as a means to keep their artists poor) one should ask the question wether truth in art can be better accomplished by artists living in dodgy studios, or inmates of prisoners, mental clinics and immigration detention centres.

For all the different reasons of this world, their neccessity to think about the world is a result of the forced time they have available, timed with the pain of realising what they have lost, given up, traded in or fucked up. Hence, this summer show at the ICA displays some pieces where that pain punches you head on. For instance, somebody has painted hundres of ugly and menacing faces lurking behind him - victims that haunt him or other inmates that want to take revenge...for what?

Others are more subtle while some are even witty and funny: a game, devised to be played by new entrants in a prison as a means to learn the "the way we do things around here" is loosely based on Monopoly, but instead of expensive streets and landmarks you have different wings and visitor centres.

My favourite piece is a large embroidery work that has about hundred names with year tags next to it cluttered around the canvas (yes it does look a bit like copying Tracy's tent) but then these names are also accompanied by icons ranging from gothic faces, pigs, red lips, crosses, dolphins etc. Only when you see one sexually explicit depiction, you start to wonder what the story of this inside (or rather outside?) artist is all about - mind you the names are a mixture of female and male, and the artist is a woman.

Coincidently, I got a DVD today with little animation movies of ideas for future architecture - and one is called "Creative Prison" by Alsop. His idea to transform prisons into places where people unleash their creative potential is based on the statistic that the shocking number of 80% of ex prisoners fail after 2 years in this country. If prisons were more accomodating to inmates to be productive while serving a sentence, then they would better re-socialse and integrate afterwards, because they could apply for jobs with newly acquired skills and certificates.

Moreover, there are not many other places in this country for working class male (unfortunately the majority of inmates) to show any form of feminine emotion, and painting your hopes and fears as well as talking about it when you are awarded with one of the Koestler prizes (the basis for this exhibition). In this light, you should not focus on artistic craftsmanship, but the aspect of identity and possibility.

And never forget: there is always a - if admittably very small - number of inmates in prisons or mental clinics, that shouldn't really be there, not genuine criminals with a long history of violence, but people that somehow got onto the wrong track, did that one mistake and got caught, went to the wrong demonstration, or even got sentenced without any evidence of their guilt like so many in 21st century detention camps - and one of them could be you and me; and how could we possibly survive if not through artisitic expression, just like Koestler, a writer and the founder of this prize, who was wrongly imprisoned for three months during the Spanish Civil War - apparently for civil unrest.

Theatre: Boeing Boeing

As much as I am a contemporary arts man, I am not exactly a theatre man by the same token. And I could - or should. My cousin Eva heads up the music production at the mighty Globe on the Southbank, but when it comes to Shakespeare versus an intense 2-cast blackbox play at the Bush theatre I would favour the latter - sorry sweetie.

More shockingly, I have only been to a West End show once...in five years - and that was upon request of my visiting parents. However, my partner got free tickets for Boeing Boeing, and that is where at least one end closes to my cousin: she wildly recommended me to see this production when Marc Rylance, the then artistic director and head actor at the Globe, departed his venture after 10 years to embark on a mainstream production, yes, this one. (he is not there anymore but his successor was fab to say that upfront)

So, what is it all about?

Revisit the 60s, when flying was considered not a commodity but luxury for a very few, and being an air hostess for a venerable airline granted you C-celebrity status and a lucrative affair with the tanned pilot (B-celebrity) if that was your cup of tea. In Boeing Boeing, however, the air hostesses are all engaged to Bernard, a successful architect living in Paris, and to be precise, he has three of them. He manages this love rectangle with meticulous attention to detail, by studying their flight schedules, changing his diet, and of course, all the taste swings in his swanky appartment.

It all goes smoothly until one day his old friend from school shows up - the exact opposite of the cool elegant playboy, and becomes, you guess it, witness of a day gone wrong: storm over the Atlantic brings the American from TWA back on the wrong evening, and the Italian gets another day in transit, all when his German favourite is supposed to fly in for the night.

What happens then over the course of the next 2 hours is a one big laugh caused by wicked humour, lots of banality jokes, and a terrific performance from Gretchen, the Lufthansa Eagle, who encapsulates the intense drama queen to a T. I have not laughed at my own cultural stereotypes so loudly in a while. And of course, Robert, the dorky shy friend, is being dragged into juggling these three hotbeds, together with the annoyed and cynic house keeper.

The piece is very retro, and predictably posed some questions in my head afterwards: were that the good old times my parents were talking about, when flight schedules were stable (stale) for years, when a lot of jobs triggered a romantic fascination in people, like being a sailor in the 18th century, all before the efficiency squats of huge management consultancies strip all roles and tasks bare of any (inefficient) fun parts. On a side note, an air hostess isn't even called that way any more, but I guess we call them flight attendants more for reasons of political correctness. Fine, but the glamour has gone as well: there is a sarcastic German term for it nowadays coined "Saftschubse" which literally means 'Juice Pusher'. That doesn't suggest IT Girl, does it?

Photography: Edward Burtynsky

On my way to Photo London I popped by Flower Central in Cork Street to admire some well known and some new work of one of my favourite artists: Ed Burtynsky. His prints of man-made landscapes and, more recently, the visually probing insight into contemporary China, are epic and monumental: large scale images of quarries, rubber piles, shipbreaking businesses in Bangladesh and 10.000 people assembly lines like your eyes have never seen it before. His style makes you almost smell all the toxic waste, and it is the details in the pictures that makes you grasp the scale of the sites inspected, like the house-size caterpillar trucks appearing like ants in the gigantic landscape of a quarry.


There are not a lot of photographers that combine "need-for-change" ethos a la Gore and Moore with immaculately crafted high-end aesthetics. And as far as I know, Ed doesn't digitally post-produce like Gursky does.

Until 2 June at Flowers Central, West End

Photography: Andreas Gursky

Duesseldorf 1992. A photographic exhibition absolutely blows my mind: three students of the famous "Becher Class" (boring yet world-famous photographs of gas and water tanks) at the Kunstakademie show their prints in a cutting edge gallery. Thomas Ruff, Thomas Struth and Andreas Gursky.

This time not only marked a generation change amongst the bue chip names of the Duesseldorf art scene, but also a paradigm shift from painting towards photography.

Back then, this medium was considered highly speculative and I remember that the price for some 'smaller Gursky prints was around £1000-2000 in Deutschmark value back then. Damn I didn't have the money to get one - I could buy a little flat for it today. For investors (which I am not - I still collect only nitty gritty pieces of young or historically insignificant artist every now and then) Gursky might be the world's most expensive living photographic artist, but for me he is just a 'local' icon (I am from Duisburg originally, 20 miles north of Duesseldorf).

Since then I have always been exited to see Gursky prints in full scale across the world. To my total and utter delight, he currently has a double exposure in the West End displaying almost a squaremile of photographic sensation (ok, I am slightly exaggerating here) and I am sure I will go back for further contemplation. Try and locate the manipulated details in the Formula One Series at White Cube...

The most fascinating new work is the one taken in North Korea. What an insight into the last Stalinist Regime on the planet.
Looks shockingly familiar in a way...Leni Riefenstahl...Berlin 1936...Olympics...history.

In my point of view, Gursky is simply the best social anthropology photographer, only rivalled by Edward Burtynski, who in a way is his environmental anthropolohy pendant (shipwrecks, quarries, tyre cemetaries etc).

Gursky mostly captures the mundane, but in the most monumental way. You must spoil your eyes to this!

Andreas Gursky at White Cube Mason’s Yard and Monika Sprüth Philomene Magers London, from 22 March to 12 May 2007.

My favourite Shops in London

Since I started posting on the London art scene, I often thought of posting my favourite top lists of best shops, galleries, artist's books, restaurants since food or shoes can be like a piece of art itself. Starting with a topic that is closely linked to art – commerce – you’ll find my 10 picks from the 40.000 shops in London below:

Koenig’s Bookshop
Having been a loyal customer for a decade to its Cologne branch (best art bookshop in the world hands down) I was delighted to find their little London branch in the Serpentine Gallery. Sunday morning 10am, a short stroll in Hyde Park before the crowds flock in, followed by the free exhibition in the gallery, and then the ritual of exploring and screening through this tiny space crammed with monographs and catalogues of current exhibitions around London with a sale section is in the back room. Serpentine Gallery, Hyde Park

ICA Bookshop
This is the best place in London for independent, artisan-led magazines and other underground-style periodicals such as Ken360, Greenwich Emotion Map, Daydream Magazine and other ‘secrets’. You wander what else is out there…
The Mall, West End

Bookshop @ Photographer Gallery
Not surprisingly, the best stop for publications on photography. You might spend hours. Great Newport Street, West End

Miller Harris
Tranquillity. Enthralling shop design. Charming sales person. Captivating scents. Miller Harris is a heaven for perfume aficionados, and the whole thing feels like a holistic art installation for your senses. Unique! Needham Road, Notting Hill

Jeffery West
Gents: Fed-up with assembly line output of yet expensive high street brands? Ladies: bored with ‘try-to-fit-in’ footwear of your beloved City Adonis? Jeffery West of Northampton make shoes for ‘Dandies’ as they say, but for me they are simply the most flamboyant shoes to turn a great suit into an artwork or a to get you into a fancy place with your jeans on. My favourite colour is “honey leather”. Classic shapes are Chelsea Brogues and pointy Budapesters. Piccadilly Arcades, West End

Nino’s
You can spend £75 on a decent Boss shirt and the chances are 1:10 you’ll see another one on the tube the next day. Or, you spend £100 on a limited edition shirt at Nino’s and you have a guaranteed one-off in your size for a particular colour. My favourite is a dark brown shirt with each button hole stitched in various colours. The Quality? You still look 9am even after dinner! They also have great cufflinks made from porcelain marbles and LEGO cubes. Quadrant Arcade, Regent Street

HG Walters
Voted the best family butcher by so-and-so association, I am endlessly thankful to only live a stone throw away. The display cabinet wants you to eat it raw on the spot, there are great cheese for vegetarians as well. It is not even expensive given that it is organic and local produce. Palliser Road, Baron’s Court

Stanford’s
London’s No. 1 temple for travel publications. But the geek in me comes back for the abundance of maps of everything in the basement. The detailed Landranger maps are invaluable to soul surfers keen to explore secret surf spots. Long Acre, Leicester Square

The Library
This men’s boutique in Chelsea sometimes feels like a test lab for Harrods and Selfridges. In the past, you could find Trunk t-shirts, Dries van Noten Jackets, Margiella jumpers or Dirk Schoenberger shirts at least a season earlier. The price tags can make you nauseous though. Brompton Road, Chelsea

Grace & Favour
A great ‘life-style’ store that sells candles as well as clothes. I got my favourite blazer there, an eccentric Gibson Jacket with 70s-style leather elbow pads and red and yellow lines crossing the tweed pattern. North Cross Road, East Dulwich

Art Show: Tino Sehgal at the ICA

The Trilogy - Part Three

Yeah - he is back. Not as clever as last year. Therefore creating links to the upper floor piece of his phenomenal first appearance in 2005.

"I have decided that this artwork is called 'success'." As suggested by the image above, this year's performance (is it really performance art, or more like a Beuys' Social Plastic where everyone is an artist - I don't know...) involves children. That's as much I wish to reveal. You need to experience yourself what it is all about: just sit down somewhere in the corner and observe - you will find inspiration, guaranteed!

Until 4 March, 2007 at the ICA, Pall Mall

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

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 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: 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: 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

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: 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