We Like This Too

Friday, 9 July 2010

GUN METAL BIRDS

We like Fiona Banner's "Harrier and Jaguar" currently standing proud at Tate Britain. Epic, graceful, dangerous. Banner describes the pieces as prehistoric birds. If you do one thing this weekend, do this.

The Surreal House at the Barbican

This is the only photo we got (of Rachel Whiteread's Black Bath) before we were told off! Which doesn't normally stop us. But this time we thought it would be nice to not see an exhibition through a tiny lcd screen for a change. The Surreal House is quite an ambitious project we thought, bringing together various artists and filmmakers of the last 80 or so years and twinning or teaming them if you like with architects and architectural concepts in such groupings as Mad Love, Femme Maison, and Theatre of The Domestic. Each of these occupies its own space, and this was one of our favourite aspects of the show - the way the organisers have divided up the Barbican Gallery space into odd shaped rooms whose geometry is actually quite disorienting - presumably to drive home the overall message of the show. Our favourite bits included Jan Svankmajer's films (including the amazing Jabberwocky) in the Haunted House area, Rachel Kneebone's tortured and sensual ceramics in the Mad Love area, Rene Burri's photos of the Le Corbusier's ruined Villa Savoye in the Divine Concrete area, the looped footage of a burning house from Andrei Tarkovsky's The Mirror, and Paul Thek's tower of Babel log cabin. Overall we really liked the show, which, rather than churning out the usual suspects of the Surrealist movement, instead revealed the surreal aspects of others such as Louise Bourgeois, Sarah Lucas, and Jean-Lu Godard, and for me at least, breathing new life into what can sometimes seem like a bit of a cliche. Well done.

Thursday, 8 July 2010

Bricks through Selfridges windows shock!

Look at all the lovely white painted bricks going through all Selfridges new windows! Nice and minimal and oddly cool looking - we wanted to just lie down on the floor of these today for some relief from the midday sun.

Inside/Out at Showstudio Shop

At once beautiful and grotesque Showstudio Shop's current exhibition Inside/Out features work that explores the relationship between the aesthetic of beauty and the reality of the human body. We especially loved the work of Arianna Page Russell - blessed/cursed with extremely high skin sensitivity, she need only scratch her arm to create a lasting red mark. For this, she photographed herself wearing temporary tattoos from photos of marks made on her body. We did a double take, thinking at first they were real. We also loved Marilyn Minter's film of purple lips repeatedly devouring what looked like green slime. It's these seldom seen views of the human body that are at once alluring and repellent. Looking forward to the next one Showstudio guys. Thanks for having us.

Puke On Gaga by Nick Knight and Ruth Hogben

Terence Koh's The Little Arrow of Silver Lodged in my Heart in Getting Bigger - note the sculpture must be hung so that its mouth is at the height of Terence Koh's heart

Marilyn Minter

Carson McColl and Nick Knight - Saint Black

GHOST STORIES

We like Ghost Stories, the marvellously scary play currently showing at The Duke of York theatre. First seen at The Lyric, Hammersmith to a rapturous (if terrified audience, Ghost Stories is written by WLTT favorite League of Gentlemen's Jeremey Dyson. As one would expect of a gentleman that writes with a novel turn in wrongness the script is woven with a thread of tongue in cheek darkness. Andy Nyman who was the masterful co-creator of Deren Brown's stage productions took on the dual role as of co-writer and leading actor. Nyman plays a sceptical paraphyschologist who leads the audience through what appears to be an academic seminar seeking to disprove evidence presented by a series of anecdotal ghost stories. As the stories unfold a heart stopping, house of horrors vibe takes the audience on a nail biting journey, punctuated with a series of cheap but blood curdling thrills. We're sorry to say that one of our number screamed like a baby throughout. Leave your cynicism at the door and enjoy a romping good night of hair raising horror.