"Ghosts of My Life tucked into a bed" - it's all too much
Thank you for sharing this! Going to try and catch Kwak Kyung-tae's show before it ends.
Not exactly under the radar, but I finally went to the Giacometti x Mona Hatoum exhibition at the Barbican and loved it - beautiful and haunting. (That’s the limit of my art-writing skills.) If you haven’t seen it yet, I’d highly recommend!
Last thing - beyond happy to see a shout out to perfumer/DJ extraordinaire and kindest soul David!! Love a little reminder of how small the world can be.
I know, I'm obsessed with THAT particular book tucked into a bed…it's so adorable.
Thank you for the reminder about the Barbican's Giacometti series…I saw the Giacometti x Huma Bhabha one over the summer and it was so great to see their works juxtaposed! I'll have to stop by the Barbican again soon for Mona Hatoum
Also—David IS indeed a tremendously kind and olfactorily gifted soul! I have one of his perfumes and I'm going to be extremely sad when I run out
always so inspiring to read your words! also got really excited by the perfection cover - i haven’t seen this one before but i thought it captured the messiness and dimensionality of the protagonists’ lives beyond the flat facade they put up quite well
thank you Jeffery! and yes—I think the Tillmans photo is SO perfect for the the story Perfection tells…this kind of hazy, dreamy, lo-fi, low-budget aspirational life project…
thank you for reading! I am tbh not always the best about leaving my normal work/home/work/home routine…so writing this was also a reminder to ME that I need more months like this 💌
Re: the Tillmans, a very sad thing that happened to me last month was, I found a freezer door just... lying on the street, with all its various circuitboards and such intact and exposed. I couldn't justify bringing it back to my apartment, but I didn't think to even photograph it! The next day it had been taken or moved elsewhere.
I would also like to note, as someone who had a Magnadoodle as a kid (the youngest photograph I can remember posing for is of me holding the Magnadoodle), that those Megasketcher drawings are next level just from a draftsmanship perspective. Such detail!
love how the works you've explored here start speaking to each other when written about together, making your post a sorts of curated art exhibit too :D thanks for the new windows!
thank you for reading! and tbh that was also a really delightful surprise for me too—just realizing that there are unexpected themes running through these 5 exhibitions
I love Nihaal Faizal's work!!! Reliable Copy has got some really excellent books — I'd recommend Flexing Muscles or Sculptor's Notebook if you ever come across them irl
Loved this... ceramics - the feel, the look, the shape -- and books and art. Life doesn't get much better. Many thanks for your generosity in sharing your experiences and thoughts.
I still have in my computer notes a sentence from Peter Schjeldahl's little piece in the New Yorker about Pontormo's "Visitation": "The lovely anecdote nests in a riot of raiment in colors rarely seen together: dark olive, pinks dreaming of magenta…." That phrase "pinks dreaming of magenta" has never left me.
It's hit me recently that I need to reorient myself when it comes to art in London - I just don't take the time to, what with work etc, but the art was one of the reasons I moved here! So anyway this post was usefully timed, thank you. Writing lovely as ever.
Art writing - that exact Schjeldahl book included - is one of the things I turn to when I'm in a reading rut. I think it's so hard to do well that the good writers are so so good that they can often jolt me back to some alertness. Also find the same with books about craft and especially the material side - I have bought 10+ books on things like wood and clay over the past year and am now looking for woodwork and pottery classes as a result! Definitely one of those cases where reading directly makes you engage more with what's going on once you put the book down.
"Ghosts of My Life tucked into a bed" - it's all too much
Thank you for sharing this! Going to try and catch Kwak Kyung-tae's show before it ends.
Not exactly under the radar, but I finally went to the Giacometti x Mona Hatoum exhibition at the Barbican and loved it - beautiful and haunting. (That’s the limit of my art-writing skills.) If you haven’t seen it yet, I’d highly recommend!
Last thing - beyond happy to see a shout out to perfumer/DJ extraordinaire and kindest soul David!! Love a little reminder of how small the world can be.
I know, I'm obsessed with THAT particular book tucked into a bed…it's so adorable.
Thank you for the reminder about the Barbican's Giacometti series…I saw the Giacometti x Huma Bhabha one over the summer and it was so great to see their works juxtaposed! I'll have to stop by the Barbican again soon for Mona Hatoum
Also—David IS indeed a tremendously kind and olfactorily gifted soul! I have one of his perfumes and I'm going to be extremely sad when I run out
always so inspiring to read your words! also got really excited by the perfection cover - i haven’t seen this one before but i thought it captured the messiness and dimensionality of the protagonists’ lives beyond the flat facade they put up quite well
thank you Jeffery! and yes—I think the Tillmans photo is SO perfect for the the story Perfection tells…this kind of hazy, dreamy, lo-fi, low-budget aspirational life project…
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. It has been a hermetic autumn and this is an excellent reminder to leave the house and find some wonder.
thank you for reading! I am tbh not always the best about leaving my normal work/home/work/home routine…so writing this was also a reminder to ME that I need more months like this 💌
Aah I’m so happy that you got to see Nihaal’s exhibit!! He’s a dear friend. So cool to hear your perspective on it!
omg amazing! the internet is such a small world—I loved his work and was so happy I got to stop by (all thanks to Maanav, who told me about it)
Re: the Tillmans, a very sad thing that happened to me last month was, I found a freezer door just... lying on the street, with all its various circuitboards and such intact and exposed. I couldn't justify bringing it back to my apartment, but I didn't think to even photograph it! The next day it had been taken or moved elsewhere.
I would also like to note, as someone who had a Magnadoodle as a kid (the youngest photograph I can remember posing for is of me holding the Magnadoodle), that those Megasketcher drawings are next level just from a draftsmanship perspective. Such detail!
The freezer door sounds like an amazing and enticing find…please photograph the next strange/great object you find on the street…
I was also amazed by how GOOD the Megasketcher drawings are. They're so precise! The shading and the perspective…
love how the works you've explored here start speaking to each other when written about together, making your post a sorts of curated art exhibit too :D thanks for the new windows!
thank you for reading! and tbh that was also a really delightful surprise for me too—just realizing that there are unexpected themes running through these 5 exhibitions
I love Nihaal Faizal's work!!! Reliable Copy has got some really excellent books — I'd recommend Flexing Muscles or Sculptor's Notebook if you ever come across them irl
oh! this is so good to know—am very curious about the press now; hopefully I'll come across one of those books soon
Loved this... ceramics - the feel, the look, the shape -- and books and art. Life doesn't get much better. Many thanks for your generosity in sharing your experiences and thoughts.
thank you, Constance! and I agree…what is the point of consciousness if not to direct it towards beautiful and fascinating artifacts in the world…
Can't wait to go to London and spend the whole day exploring exhibitions!
Thank you for sharing this great virtual tour :)
thank you for reading! I feel very lucky to be living in London now and experiencing all this
I still have in my computer notes a sentence from Peter Schjeldahl's little piece in the New Yorker about Pontormo's "Visitation": "The lovely anecdote nests in a riot of raiment in colors rarely seen together: dark olive, pinks dreaming of magenta…." That phrase "pinks dreaming of magenta" has never left me.
It's hit me recently that I need to reorient myself when it comes to art in London - I just don't take the time to, what with work etc, but the art was one of the reasons I moved here! So anyway this post was usefully timed, thank you. Writing lovely as ever.
Art writing - that exact Schjeldahl book included - is one of the things I turn to when I'm in a reading rut. I think it's so hard to do well that the good writers are so so good that they can often jolt me back to some alertness. Also find the same with books about craft and especially the material side - I have bought 10+ books on things like wood and clay over the past year and am now looking for woodwork and pottery classes as a result! Definitely one of those cases where reading directly makes you engage more with what's going on once you put the book down.