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: 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

Photography: The Hitcher by Chris Coekin

Chris Coekin spent 5 years hitch hiking around the UK, picturing himself standing at the road side with cardboards in his hands, as well as documenting road deaths and other relevant topics. For this type of photos he used a disposable camera, while he shot the portraits of the kind and trusting drivers with a more sophisticated equipment, and the results look distinctively different.

Coeking achieves something magical: you start to wonder who these people are - the one in what 50...or even 100 - who actually picks up a complete stranger. I started to analyse the faces, the make of their car, any other evidence of class, background, the jobs they might have been driving to, or from, as well as their age and potential interest.

And then you ask yourself the "why question" - What makes some people to share their "moving castle" with somebody obviously handicapped in his mobility, while hordes of others drive by thinking...well...what do we think when we see somebody displaying a cardboard for a ride? I have taken hitchers when surfing in Cornwall, mainly because I felt sorry for them, and also because I thought I'd get some valuable tip offs in return (I actually did) Then I had situations where I wanted to but didn't have any space. However, I also often don't give a damn, don't I...

The photographer gives away some of the motives why people picked him up, but thankfully, but he only does this every now and again, giving you enough food for thought while leaving enough room for further guessing and wondering.

A selection of the cardboards used to write down his desired destination is mounted in a grid formation on the third wall of the cafe space. This well structured approach is an effective ironic take on the rather inconsistent hit-and-miss approach of hitch hiking, where you probably do not get from A to B in a predictable and orderly fashion, assumably more lateral, often via C and D.

At the Photographer Gallery until 2 Sept

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

Photo London

Being a very visual person, I have always, and will always love photography. Doing a bit of photo stuff myself for now 4 years, I also had an additional hat on this time. Whilst I won't and don't want to be an artist in the first place, it becomes more and more exiting to locate my own portfolio inbetween the different positions. It feels a bit similar to the tribute acknowledgements on music albums or quotations in scientific publications, that I have certain photographers that I deeply admire, and wonder to what degree these sources of influence impact on my own stuff or not.


Anyhow, some of my favourites are present in the Old Billingsgate Market, starting with Stephen Gill. The museums guard above is a typical representation of conceptual series by Stephen Gill, who captures people getting lost in central London, pictures bill boards from behind, or photographs the silent guards in museums. He often boarderlines between conceptual sequence and documentary style. My favourite cycle is called Hackney Wick in which he saves current socio-cultural netherworlds for future generations, who will only know this area as Olympic grounds (that will have pushed these East London urbanspheres away.

The picture at the top is Susan Derges, who specialises on photograms. These prints are direct results from light hitting photo-sensitive metal plates - there is no camera involved - and the sensation is that the prints are 1:1 in scale, meaning if you see a 2-3 meter print of water splash, that is the size of the metal plate this artist is driving and carrying to Oceans, lakes and rivers, often exposing them at nightime. This process results in the sharpest and most detailed photoworks around.

Another favourite of mine, Massimo Vitali, who has a knack for aperture almost blending out texture and colour of water and sans, thus, focussing on masses of tourists in bikinis and swimshorts. His work really shines through when seen in large scale.

Therefore, go until 3 June at Old Billingsgate Market

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.

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

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

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: 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

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

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

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: 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

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.