Art Show: Global Cities

In 2006 the glass turned half full - or half empty, depending on wether you belong to the species of confessional urbanites or new age country bumpkin. This year, for the first time in human history, half of the global population has chosen (or was forced economically) to survive in a habitat that is defined by speed, size, density, diversity and last but not least pollution and noise.

The great thing about this exhibition is the fact that it is so accessible, digestible. You are actually experiencing one of the displayed Mega Cities - London - either as a resident, or as a tourist during your weekend trip. And the smartly curated display does make you wonder and ponder a lot:

For instance about the densitiy issue. Think London is crowded? How must it be in Cairo then with about 35.000 - thirty five thousand - inhabitants per squaremile, which is nearly 10 times as dense as London (4.5K) You can really grasp this through this cleverly material-printed 3-D model above, the higher the topography the higher the density. BTW: The most densely populated disctrict in the world is Monkok on the Hong Kong peninsula, with an unbelievable 250.000 inhabitants per squaremile. One of the things you should experience in your life!

Also, even though I hear my native tongue nearly every day in Zone 2 (that is excluding all ze Jerman tourists on sightseeing) and the fact that there are at least five German number plates within 10 mile radius of my flat, I am always stunned to hear the latest immigration figures: 40.000 Deutsche call London their home, like me. That's the size of a so-called Middle Town, or one load at Stamford Bridge (Chelsea Stadium for non-locals or footie ignorants) However, the really striking statistic is the heterogenity of London immigrants. Ok, there are about 170K indians and another 85K from Bangladesh dominating a little bit, but other than that, there seem to be about 20-40 thousand from almost a two dozen of countries, which only mirrors the true cosmopolitan spirit of the Big Smoke. Go to L.A. and you have 1.5 million Mexicans, another quarter million from El Salvador and 150.000 from Guatemala, wheras the Germans stand at 25.000, and Brits bring it to 35K.

Speaking of Latinos, Mexico City is a monster in size and of smog, mainly driven by pollution from cars supported by a totally misled transport policy. In Mexico City, water is more expensive than gas. That is sick! Al you have another mission...Ken wanna emmigrate and become mayor...? When comparing cities like L.A. withg Tokyo on issues like puplic transport, the different styles of life couldn't be more drastic: only 7% of L.As population commutes to work on public transport (and it is mainly the poor) while a staggering 78% rides the mega efficient subway in Tokyo.

Apart from huge info-tainment walls, cubicles and videos, the show also includes art that addresses the subject matter. Richard Wentworth has made a site-specific video installation and some of Andy Gursky's large-scale photographies are on display. But the real winners are rather unknown artists: Nagoa Hatakeyama has photographed a 1/1000 scale 3-D model of Tokyo with the effect that it looks absolutely real, if clean and bar any humans or cars. The model itself contains thousands of buildings, and the texture actually comes from real photographies of the originals. This conceptual approach of a russian doll achieves remarkable aesthetical cleansing.

Then there is a weird vitrine full of every day objects and memorabilia constructing utopian city; quite impressive craftsmanship as well.

My favourite piece in the entire Turbine Hall-specific installation is a wall of photos by South African artist Kendell Geers documenting life in Johannesburg: the decay, tristesse and violence exuding 12 photos of inner city life should be shocking, but you have seen this before and heard the hideous crime stories and taxi wars. No, it is the 80 pictures from affluent suburbia that are truly disturbing, because most foreigners probably have no clue how much armed response there apparently needs to be (that is private companies protecting your property with guns and dogs) and that a multi-million villa actually resembles more a fully protected army camp in a combat zone with kilometers of barbed wires and electric fences. Very sad, but very much a reflection of the world order and safety realities in many countries.

I am glad I have lived in big cities like London, Hong Kong, NYC, LA, Singapore, Tokyo or just visited them, but somehow this Tate visit came at a time when we are thinking about moving a bit further out, bigger place with garden, getting a dog and doing more outdoors in the parks, forests and along rivers and ocean shores. It seems like I had my fair share of urbanity, but my glass is becoming half full - in favour of the country side.

Art Show: Mark Dion - Systema Metropolis

Mark Dion's environments are a bit like art for geeks: a taxonomy of species (mainly insects) and objects found in urban spaces like the Brompton Cemetary, Highgate, and the Thames. In the latter, his research teams find way more plastic bags, balls of all sorts and other waste, but also a dozen species of fish, including a sea horse! And the probes have been taken in front of Battersea Power Station, not Henley.

I do like these taxonomic, almost scientific apporoaches in the art world, being it Michael Landy's 'Breakdown' or Joseph Beuys' 'Wirtschaftswerte' - meticulously documenting, clustering, and clinically displaying whatever they chose to examine. Dion's projects have an archeological strand excavating living creatures as well as man-made objects from locations across the globe. His style of installation, however, reminds me of Damie Hirst's glass vitrines.

My favourite piece in this exhition is the stuff that he digged out of the Themse river, and put it into a translucent tent: you can see what's inside, including clay pipes from the 17th century, but it is all fuzzy and blur, just like the murky water where it rested for weeks or centuries. Only when you walk around it, you can gaze through a fine green moskito-like net, and out of a sudden the objects become clear and sharp - and, well, greener. A nice reflection of the fact, that the Thames is actually a clean river, ok, at least from Fulham upstream.

Until 2 September 2007 at the Natural History Museum

Art Show: Paul Chan

Paul Chan uses moving shadows projected onto Gallery walls and floors. Different objects move through the video surface at differnt speeds, and there is anything from abstract shapes and forms, to cars, trees, people, weapons, lines, dots, and flags

These clever immaterial installations cause many different associations in the spectator. Some samples: Genocide in Africa, Conquistadors versus Indians in 16th century Latin America, ghost ships, planes dropping bombs on cities, villagers watching bombs being dropped at them, bodies jumping down The Twin Towers, AK47 machine guns passing by as if they were feathers in the wind and so on.

However, your associations never get confirmed, it remains fuzzy and ambiguous. And that is the trick. It makes you wander what is out there, has been in the past, and will be in future - or rather is flying around you, painfully visible, or eerily unoticed.

Amongst all this dark visual poetry (the shadows are black after all) there was one thing that made me laughing out loud: I had the pleasure to observe three people either abruptly avoiding to trip onto the shadow projections, or being seriously warned by their anticipating partners "to be careful" as if they would destroy a fragile piece of art. Obviously, the formal and controlled space of a public gallery has ingrained the behaviour in many people to not touch art by all means, and if in doubt, to better not take a close inspection since the guard might strike a pre-emptive alarm. Watching folks when trying not to trip into an immaterial shadow on mere floor tiles, is quite a comical sight, believe me...At the other end, other visitors walked right through the picture, in established wave-into-the-camera-style:-)

Until 1 July at The Serpentine

Art Show: Anthony Gormley

Event Horizon - that title reminds me of a pretty scary movie from the late 90s exploring concepts of dents in space and memory journeys back and forth into your darkest past and greyest future. Event Horizon is Antony Gormley's latest environmental installation, scattered across the Southbank of London.

30 odd casts of his own body stand on roof tops of predominantly 60s grey concrete monsters. It is an exiting journey for your eyes to wander around and discover their location and juxtapositions with the surrounding urban landscape.


Whilst not really empathising with some by-passers' concern passed on to the police that "somebody is intending to jump off the IBM building" as reported in the press, I did have an eerie moment this morning that reminded me to these people's experience: when driving on the M4 westbound just before crossing the M25 at 5:30 am on a sunny Saturday morning, I saw somebody sitting on the edge of a pedestrian bridge gazing at the approaching traffic. He seemed to contemplate whether to jump or not (Of course I called 999 and they said they were aware of the incident and sent somebody - I hope it all ended positive...) In my mind I connected this scene with Gormley's installation that reminds us of the fragility of the human body, and the anonymity of urban life.


Inside the Hayward Gallery you find typical sculptures from various periods, all good and all thought provoking. The horrenduous and cold interieur of the gallery provides a menacing platform for Gormleys messages.

The attention grabbing bit though is the cloud-filled room that I suppose gives this fabulous exhibition the title Blind Light. Once inside the cube, you are really distressed and disoriented and do what everyone else seems to be doing: meanering around the glass walls from edge to edge until you reach the exit again, but when two opposing traffic streams hit each other you might loose track and sight of the secure pathfinder and off you go back into blindness. A very physical and psychological experience.

Until 19 August at the Haywards Gallery

Art Show: Boo Ritson - Hotdogs & Heroes

This is an unusual one: The photograph of a painting of a portrait - by simply adding the very artificial looking acryllic colours (paint has never looked so disgustingly plastic; for me a biting take on artificial aspects of American society...) Boo Ritson creates in intricate web of layers and cross-references.

The whole series 'Hotdogs and Heroes' is very conceptual, visually narrating an average day of a professional killer, who comes down to smalltown Nevada to 'do a job' suspecting the air hostess to be the frivolous girl in the bar last night, popping up his collar in the hope to not be reckognised.

Somehow, I immediately thought about Hopper's Nighthawks, and that these characters in this series here could be the a kind of off-spring story behind the famous picture, as if Boo intended to fill the infamous void that iconic painting left behind - 60 years later, as if small town Midwest hasn't moved on, well, it often appears to not have changed that much after all.

Until 29th April, David Risley Gallery, Vyner Street, E2

Artists Anonymous: Alice Straight to Video

We entered a fury cave labyrinth, the kind of installation that reminds you of childhood days. We joked and played around. I took this photo of hers curiously exploring what is in store to feed her exitement around the next corner.

After a minute or so she started to feel uncomfortable, claustrophobic and anxious. She asked the gallery girl for a sort of short cut to get out, cop out. I started to look at the video screens nestled into the white acryllic fur. It dawned on me relatively quickly. This was disturbing stuff - well, not exactly shocking given the first show of artists anonymous in Vyner Street exploring the traumatic side of 'drugs'.


The installation stations were mainly about sex, punch in your face with errected penises or a more subtle, morbid looking aquarium with undefinable gadgets inside. When I cam out on the other side, Katherine and Meghan were already engaged in a discussion on child abuse - the topic of this show. A terrifying corner of society, with no exit door for the victim who often get lurked into sugar-candied rabbit holes layed out by the perpetrators.

Later that day I found the press release on the collective's website and now it gets more shocking, especially being German myself: "In Germany one cannot prosecute against childhood sexual abuse after the age of 28...an infant who can or does not defend itself cannot be the victim of rape, merely of sexual abuse, even when sexual intercourse has taken place...Sexual abuse and Rape are both defined by specific occurrences...The mere memory that it was on Sundays when the mother was at church, is not enough...Germany’s leading organisation for adult survivors of sexual abuse, advises victims against prosecution, as it claims this is too traumatic for the victims..."

Incredibly important stuff. Disturbing content, encouraging format, strong message. From the outside this installation looks like a deconstructed pile of rubble, just like the life of the survivors.

Until 22 April, E2 9DG

Art Show: Karen Kilimnick

Well, this review is actually more about the Serpentine itself rahter than about Karen Kiliminck's interesting collection of mainly oil paintings and room environments, which refer to classic painting from the 16th to the 20th century. Granted, this is good and consistent work, and her installations such as table, chairs, fireplace, curtains, wood work on the walls and a painting depicting...eh... exactly this scene are nice food for thought, but do not exactly tickly my fancy.

However, this exhibition confirms (again) what a versatile space the Serpentine Gallery really is. Most of the rooms are purpose-changed to resemble gardens, stables, dining and ballroom of Tudor mansions. I wonder how many people who enter the Serpentine for the first time really know the installation and where the regular features of this 1934 original teahouse begin.

Other great end-to-end shows blending in artwork and 'work on the place' include Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset Welfare Show and Ilya and Emilia Kabakov Houses of Dreams. My favourite Serpentine show so far was Gabriel Orosco, and he used the space more like a couple of white cubes.

Perhaps, the key success factor for attracting 750.000 visitors per year is access: located in Hyde Park and free for all, it attracts figures from all sorts of life, ranging from sunbathers seeking a break to Charles Saatchi assessing the latest shadow projection of Tim Noble & Sue Webster. One of my all-time London favourites!

Until 9 April at the Serpentine

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: 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

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: 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