Bonnington Square, Kinetica Artfair, and Snowdrops at the Chelsea Physic Garden

I've been in a bit of a London funk lately. Too many rotten Vyner/Redchurch Street art shows and not enough genuinely inspiring new stimulation. This is why I live in London, after all. It's supposed to be home to the best of everything, but of late it feels as if I've seen it all before.

Nothing like a weekend full of new adventures and a return to some old favourites to nip this pessimism in the bud! 

First up: Friday night dinner at the Wapping Project. I'd been to the Wapping Project before, so it's not exactly new, but my first visit was so long ago that I'd forgotten how brilliant it is. The interior is so cool and the food was wooooonnderul. Really, really delicious. Service was impeccable, very friendly. If you haven't been here before, scoot to Wapping ASAP. It will make you feel happy to live in London.

photo by Purple Cloud.

I'm one of those sorts of people who clips out interesting articles from magazines or newspapers and files them away for later use: places to visit, books to read, music to listen to, whatever. 

I must have filed away a newspaper piece on Bonnington Square neigh on three years ago and this weekend was the first time I managed to get around to actually visiting. I don't know all that much about the history, but Bonnington Square is an interesting place given that it was a community of squatters in the 80s and most of the housing is still co-op owned today. There's a tranquil community-run cafe, The Bonnington Cafe, where we had a cheap and delicious lunch (braised fennel!), and the sweet gardens which were taken over in the mid 90s. What's up with the slightly creepy, beckoning hand atop the garden gates.

Saturday early evening I swung by Kinetica Art Fair at P3. It was difficult to look at things properly because the place was so rammed, but there were only a few pieces I really liked. I'm not entirely sure why this piece was at a fair featuring digital and kinetic art, but I admired its elegance and simplicity. Anya Gallaccio's Cast was a cast bronze acorns nestled in a box full of real acorns. Intended as a comment on today's disposable culture, the purchaser of Cast is invited to plant the real acorns, leaving behind only the cast bronze. A simple, thoughtful idea beautifully executed.

But the work I found most to my liking was Alex Posada's The Particle. The piece is all about the creation of our atmosphere, but perhaps it's best to just watch a this little clip I recorded instead of me trying to describe what the thing was like. 

Sunday was all about Galanthus - that's Snowdrops to me and you. I love the etymology of the name: in Greek, gala means milk and anthos means flower. Milkflower. Isn't that lovely. 

The Chelsea Physic Garden is only open to the public from April to October, but they occasionally open for special events in February to show off their winter shrubs and bulbs. The Garden is one of my favourite places in London. I used to visit often when I lived in South Ken, but I get over a lot less now I live on the other side of town. Opened in 1673, it's the oldest - and probably most wonderful - botanic garden in London. I love that it feels all hidden just behind Royal Hospital Road. How many people must walk past and not even know it's there. It's small, but beautiful and very good for curious folk like me because as it's a physic garden - most of the plants are or were grown for medicinal purposes - there's an awful lot to learn. If you missed out this weekend, there's another Snowdrop fest this coming weekend. Tickets are �8 and worth every single penny.

Frieze!

Sometimes I have a sneaking suspicion that London is run by an underground group of art-loving, booze-hound, film-going foody types given that last week saw Frieze Art Fair, the London Restaurant Festival, London Film Festival, and London Cocktail Week vie for Londoners� admittedly limited attention spans.

I managed to make it to a fortified wine tasting event as part of Cocktail Week and dinner at the Criterion as part of the London Restaurant Festival - both were excellent.  But I drink sherry and eat out all the time: Frieze happens only once a year (thank god).  The tent in Regent�s Park is already well on its way toward being dismantled, but people will be talking about the art, the sales, the inexplicably impossible waiting times to purchase a coffee for, oh, the next three days.  I don�t know what it is about London that so encourages cultural ADD, but if the last few weeks have been anything to go by, it�s all but impossible for any one thing to hold public attention for more than seven days. 

Anyway, I digress.  The thing about Frieze is that if you�re not buying you have to be absolutely ruthless.  I stomped around the fair in two hours on Friday afternoon, daring something to spark my interest.  That said, the object that most took my fancy was a beautiful, dark-grey worsted wool suit worn by one of the eighteen-year old sales monkeys at Victoria Miro, though I have a sneaking suspicion it wasn�t for sale�  Funnily enough, my other favourite works were also at Victoria Miro�s stand.  I�d forgotten that Alex Hartley was represented by VM and it was a pleasant surprise to see two new works on display.  I first saw his work at a solo show at the Fruitmarket in 2007.  I love the way he integrates photography with sculpture and installation alongside larger buildings and architectural concerns.  In many ways Hartley works as an architect would in that he scouts for the perfect location, but then transforms the site not with a literal building, but by taking photographs and then transforming the photographs with low-relief sculptural elements added to the surface of the prints.  Hartley�s been working on a rather conceptual project for the Cultural Olympiad, which perhaps explains why he�s been off the radar for a bit, so it was a nice surprise to see a few new pieces.

At Plan B, I spotted a new Adrian Ghenie and though it was a decent example of his work, it wasn�t half as spectacular as the pieces on show at Haunch of Venison last year.  Not sure what happened there�

Bortolami�s stand was lovely, full of pieces from Brooklyn-based artist, Richard Aldrich.  I�d never heard of Aldrich before and spent a bit of time perusing previous exhibitions.  His work looks a bit hit and miss, but I think Bortolami did a superb job of curating his pieces for Frieze.  There�s a rather charming  �slide painting� where a blank canvas is broken up by a single, back lit 35mm slide.  There was another large Aldrich canvas which I loved: a pale, peachy salmon-coloured wash takes up most of the canvas, punctuated by a little wall of turquoise and something like a stone-circle at the bottom of the frame.  I don�t know what it is or what it�s supposed to be, it�s not the most exquisite piece of work I�ve seen, but it�s confidently done and quite captivating.  I stood looking at it for a good 3 minutes, which in Frieze time is a bloody eternity.

Another piece I loved was a set of works by Julius Koller for Galerie Martin Janda.  Slovakian artist Koller, again someone I�m relatively unfamiliar with, has a bitty, almost anthropological approach to making art.  The series of six objects, created between 1966-78 from what I can deduce, ranged from a marked-up loo roll, to a stamped piece of paper, to an intricate drawing of a town scape on a piece of found paper and was completely captivating � like finding a time capsule from a lost civilisation.  Koller died in 2007, and I later found out that the entire collection of works was bought by the Tate for their permanent collection.  It's amusing that I like so little of the Tate's collection, yet their buyers (at least one, anyway) clearly have good taste.

Perhaps my favourite piece, though, was a work called 'when what was when' by Claire Harvey at Amsterdam-based Galerie Fons Welters.  An entire wall had been given over to a display of small glass slides, each featuring an oil-painted figurative character.  The whole thing was slightly surreal and a little bit bonkers: one bit of the display consisted of a foot-long wooden shelf piled up with sand and an egg nested in the sand next to one of the little glass slides.  But the piece was also whimsical and clever � the slides were stuck to the wall with white tack and many of the figures seemed to interact with the very material fixing them to the wall.

There were a few other pieces that I liked (some images below), but nothing really took my breath away.  Having said that, the quality of the work this year was definitely better than last year. But to be honest, Frieze really isn�t about quality; it�s all about the money, baby.  And given that people will be talking about sales figures for at least the next two days, no doubt this year�s Frieze will chalk up to be a totally massive success. 

memories, mentors and the movies

(Cliche alert!) I love how I often seem to find what I didn't even know I was looking for at just the precise moment I need it. Usually, this something comes in the form of a book. So, I�m *this* close to finishing my PhD and wondering what in the hell I�m going to do now that I�m not clinging on to the life raft that is academia when, on a whim, I start reading Eric Kandel�s autobiography. Kandel, apart from being a surprisingly wonderful writer and a total genius (such a babe!), won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2000 for his research on the physiological basis of memory storage in neurons. I don�t normally read autobiographies, but Kandel�s is awesome: aside from our shared interest in neuroscience and the quality of his prose, many of his insights have reminded me that there�s excitement, discovery and inspiration to be found outside of academia, somewhat surprising given that most of Kandel�s life has been spent in research labs.

There�s one anecdote that has nothing to do with science or academia, where Kandel describes his first date with his future wife, which properly cracked me up. According to Kandel, she resisted his advances initially, though eventually consented to go out on a date with him. When he picked her up, he asked if she�d rather go to a movie or to the best bar in town and when she said she�d like to go to the best bar in town, he took her back to his apartment. What pluck! I love it.

Kandel writes of what it�s like to work in a lab beautifully, but one of the most striking passages describes Kandel's excitement and pleasure when he first began to conduct his own experiments. Despite the fact that Kandel was merely replicating Hodgkin and Huxley�s experiments recording the action potential in the large axon of the crayfish, his joy at discovering his results match those of his predecessors is so uplifting. I won�t explain it well, but there�s something about the thrill of setting off on one�s own, whether in a lab or elsewhere, that's so intoxicating. And there's something about seeing these same feelings mirrored in the experiences of another human being... I don't know. It's reassuring and strangely moving.

Having said that, Kandel also speaks very eloquently of the importance of mentors throughout his career. I suppose that I had mentors as an undergraduate, or at least professors I adored and who steered me down the academic path of no return. But since then, in both professional and professorial contexts, there�s been not one person who�s seemed to me anything like what a mentor ought to be. I�m not sure if this is because everyone�s now so concerned with personal gain, that the idea of passing on knowledge to the younger generation is anathema or if perhaps because the idea of mentoring is simply old fashioned. I don�t know, but I do find it sort of depressing that learning comes only from reading books or from that ancient art of screwing things up and learning from mistakes/experience. Not that I have anything against either, but I think it would be wonderful to have someone around who just, I don�t know, rocked your world a bit and pushed you on to brighter and bolder things. Pipe dreams� Anyway, the book is fantastic and I heartily recommend it: you�ll learn a lot about molecular neural science, but also about the fascinating life of an equally fascinating man.

Happily, I did more this weekend than just read an autobiography that made me feel all wistful and uninspired. I also learned how to change my inner tube when my tire (sorry Anglo folks: I refuse to spell tire, tyre. Icky) got its first ever puncture.

Thankfully, tire got said puncture just before we rocked up to this lovely little caf� in Hackney Wick, the Counter, so I was able to scoff a plateful of eggs florentine before getting my hands greasy.

Bikes fixed, we realised how close we were to the Olympic site and cycled over to check out the progress. I�m not sure why it�d taken me so long to have a nosey round (hello, cynicism!), but I�m glad I finally went to have a look, because it�s actually pretty rad.

Also pretty rad is the cinema that�s been erected on the petrol station where we had our feast back in July. Some seriously ambitious kids knocked up  stadium-style seating, a silver curtain and a cinema screen which will be up through the middle of September. I�m actually amazed they pulled it off, but pull it off they did and it�s great fun. I�m a total sucker for this sort of thing: no massive corporation pulling a marketing scheme, no money-making scamming, just good, old-fashioned DIY architecture at its best.

i love and i hate

Like any good love affair, my feelings for London are often in flux. Or as Catullus so elegantly put it, odi et amo. Lately there�s been a little more odi than amo, which is non-sensical seeing as I�ve been engaging in some rather, well, engaging activities of late.

Though I�m rather ashamed to admit it, Friday saw me cross the river for my first ever night out in Brixton. It was a little bit of SGP all over again with the amazing Brassroots kicking up an absolute storm. I�ve never seen people dance like this in Dalston! Bit of an odyssey getting home though, so perhaps not going to make Brixton a regular night out, but nice to do something different nevertheless. Check out the boys doing their thang. Amazing.

We also stopped off at late at Tate Britain before getting down and dirty in Brixton and though we missed (major bummer) Paper Cinema, it was nice to catch Fiona Banner�s installation of two fighter jets in the Duveens gallery space.  There�s all this blah blah blah about the jets symbolising wild animals trapped within the confines of the gallery, the embodiment of their namesakes. God, I wish art PR people didn�t have to superficially embed everything with such overblown significance. How is anyone ever expected to be able to differentiate between acceptable art and great art or even objects and art if curators and PR people are always trying to instill the maximum amount of meaning in every single show? Annoying.  Anyway.  Despite the fact that this is another one of those curse of Duchamp exhibitions, Banner�s choices work.  It�s nice that they�re not in Tate Modern, where you�d expect them to be, and, as objects, they work well: on a purely functional level,  on an aesthetic level � for they are truly exquisite objets d�art � but also, on an emotional level, for there�s no denying the pull of such powerful, brutal machines.  This is a perfect example of an exhibition where the, 'yes, but is it art?', question simply doesn't do justice to what�s going on here. It�s not complicated, but great art doesn�t always have to be complicated to be effective.

photo credit: Fiona Banner at Tate Britain

Where was I. Oh yes, the festival. Since I came back from Secret Garden Party a few weeks ago things just haven�t been the same. Fantasy Land 3 � 0 Real World and all that. Thankfully some nice kids, likely suffering from similar ailments, organised a mini fest in London Fields last weekend. 



And a brilliant festival it was. Serious congratulations and felicitations to the organisers for creating such a wonderful environment to let go and play, if only for a single rainy Saturday (apologies for alliteration � don�t know what�s gotten into me).  Though I missed Young Athletes League (grrrrr), I saw two bands I�d never seen before who were excellent: Black Cherry and YesKing.  Even though it was properly raining during YesKing�s set, we were out at the front of the stage dancing like absolute idiots.  There�s something wonderful about a festival with only three stages and so we spent the day skipping (literally) between the main stage, the little main stage and the dance tent.  Good people, good atmosphere, great music. So, so, so pleased they�re doing it again next year.

Last, but not least, a quick little plug for a wonderful London project: the Urban Orchard on Union Street in SE1.  The Urban Orchard kicked off construction during the London Festival of Architecture, but it�s really taken off as of late.  They�re doing late night openings and with a bar and a BBQ every Thursday and Friday until 16 September.  There�s also a cycle-powered film screening of Animal Farm this weekend and a harvest party to pick all the fruit and veg on 11 September.

Go South/East/West/North and prosper (you moody bastards).

photo credit: Mike Massaro

this is not my idea of a good time

photo of Dalston Roof Garden by Clemens Hackl

This week has sucked a very sour lemon.  I�m a doer. I do things. I suck at being patient and when I want something, I go out and get it. When things don�t work, I keep at them until they do. I like to think that I can fix everything or make anything work (hence earlier musings on control/perception?), but sometimes there�s only so far you can go before that something or someone has to meet you halfway. It absolutely kills me to sit on my hands and do nothing: hence unhappy times.

Thankfully, London is ever so good at diverting one�s attention and there are two places I�ve been meaning to flag up for the benefit of other London-dwelling folk.

Our offices are in Mornington Crescent, a short stroll from Camden and nearly two years of working here has left me feeling more than a little bored with the local food scene.  When I heard through the foodie blogging network that the chin chin laboratorists, a nitro-ice cream parlour, was set to open in Camden, I could hardly contain my glee. It�s only been open for a few weeks, but I�ve already been about five times.  

The ice cream is made using liquid nitrogen, which means it�s made to order right in front of your eyes: you know it�s going to be good.  For me, though, the best thing is the attitude to flavours and ingredients � the nitro bit is secondary.  I�ve had brown bread and stem ginger, Monmouth coffee, vanilla, and � my absolute favourite � earl grey and victoria sponge cake and they�ve all been delicious.  The home-made sauces and toppings, including parma violet marshmallows, cardamom and pistachio sugar, salty camel sauce, and popping candy are all very appealing, but usually I�m too excited about the lush ice cream to go crazy adding toppings. So whether you�re a Camden local or not, if you have even the slightest interest in ice cream (as any concerned citizen ought to), get your ass down to Camden Lock for a bit of something special.

If you want to know what the flavour of the week is before you trek all the way to Camden, keep an eye on their twitter feed: http://twitter.com/chinchinlabs

The other quite special place I�ve frequented of late is the Bootstrap Company�s Dalston Roof Park.  The garden�s been all over the web, but I didn�t know of anyone who had actually been there so I went down for their weekly film night yester eve to check it out for myself.  On the roof of the Print House, just off Dalston Lane, the space is brilliant, the views are spectacular and garden is wonderful.  Even despite the rain, I wish I would have rocked up a bit earlier to have time for a proper look around. As it was, I arrived as the film was about to start and had just enough time for a good chat with my amiga before the film began.  They�re running weekly film nights and other events throughout the rest of the summer so check out the site or the facebook page to keep up with happenings. I reckon I�ll be spending the rest of the summer here so say hi if you spot me.

a top tenner

One significant benefit of keeping a blog is that, unlike a kitten or a tomato plant, it doesn't actually die if you neglect it. Not that it flourishes either, but at least it doesn't develop abandonment issues and simply stop calling. Or whatever. I've been too busy, blah, blah, blah, to write here lately and what with organising the Filling Station feast and the SALON (LONDON) Secret exhibition, working at my mag job and trying to finish my PhD by the end of September, regularly updating here has sadly been relegated to the bottom of my list of priorities. Thankfully, the lovely art team at Spoonfed have included RoWS on their top-ten London art bloggers list and kicked my ass into gear about posting here again.





It's funny because a lot of other bloggers I know say they go through periods of not posting because they haven't got anything to write about. This is most definitely not my problem: in the last few weeks I've experienced my first F�te Nationale in Paris, rocked out at my first party in a fire station, seen the Nederlands Dans Theater TWICE, had my bike rescued by three firemen in a big fire truck, cooed over baby goats at the Lambeth Country Fair, danced my legs off at Lovebox, sipped a Campari and soda on top of Hannah Barry's car park cum sculpture exhibition in Peckham, spent three glorious days at Secret Garden Party, checked out the latest in digital art at the Creators Project, learned about the Complete History of Food with Bompas and Parr, hit up a bowling alley in West London, been mesmerised by Antony Gormley's Breathing Room III at the White Cube, printed my own t-shirt with the super cute Hit + Run boys, seen Toro y Moi jam out all bass-heavy-like, and tasted earl grey and victoria sponge ice cream made with liquid nitrogen. Quite a backlog, right? Right. So, I'll endeavour to get back on a semi-regular posting regime.  Especially seeing as this Saturday I'm going to Glyndebourne to see Don Giovanni, followed by the boys' -  my mates who run the We Are Not a Rock Band music blog - summer warehouse party in Hoxton. Mozart meets electro/disco! Even I don't understand myself sometimes.



To the power of fun.

Stag & Dag-her

a most un-excellent snap of the excellent Phenomenal Handclap Band

Ah, what a weekend: surfeit of sunshine, dancing and music and a not a whole lot of sleep.

Stag & Dagger was in London on Friday night and I suppose it's the unofficial kick off for the summer festival season. And a brilliant kick off it was. I'd dutifully printed off the schedule and highlighted the bands I wanted to see - much to the amusement of all my friends - and rocked up to meet everyone for a quick drink before heading over to swap my billet for a bracelet.

After hearing horror stories of queueing for hours last year, I was a taken completely aback to find that at 9pm there was not a single soul in the queue and I skipped right up, got my wrist band and made my way back to my friends. This happy coincidence was consistent with the rest of my S&D experience. The whole evening was incredibly well organised - we didn't queue once, bands started on time - and perhaps in part because of such good event management, the crowds were awesome - lively but well behaved.

We blagged our way into a packed out Hoxton Bar and Grill to check out the much-lauded Phenomenal Handclap Band. Well...so what if the BBC hates them, my friend Keith saw them live a few weeks ago and hasn't shut up about their act. True to his word, PHB absolutely threw it down/rocked it out/did every other musical cliche in the books. They were excellent. Everyone had the biggest smile on their face and we danced like idiots for their entire set. 

Check out my two favourite songs here:

Then we headed over to Hearn Street Car Park cause I insisted we see Dopplereffekt. Thankfully, my friends are great and didn't give me too much shit when they turned out to be super lame. Yawn inducing and pretentious and boring and blah. 

 Dopplereffekt

We snuck across the street for a quick bass-fueled boogie before rocking back up to Hearn Street for Casper C (good times) and Simian Mobile Disco (amazing). SMB absolutely brought the house down. The whole place was just going crazy: dancing, dancing, dancing. The best kind of night out is when you're still dancing when the sun comes up. Love it. The thing about something like Stag & Dagger is that there are so many venues and so many bands - there's no way you're going to make it to even a fraction of the gigs. So you hedge your bets and hope for the best. Sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you don't. Thankfully we hit the jackpot. Bring on the summer. I'm ready to dance.

Aqua by Aqua

The most amazing shop has just opened in Fouberts Place, just off Carnaby Street in London. If you're from the North of England you may well have heard of this store before, as they began life in Leeds five years ago, and have even recently been selling on asos. Aqua is the most interesting and forward thinking independent store on the high street at the moment. It opened here in the capital only two weeks ago, so take a visit soon before everyone else catches on!

Two of my favourite pieces are these oversized tops. Most garments in the collection are body-con, but these diaphanous tunics are a fresh, wearable way to do the lingerie trend which has been all over the high-street for some time. If like me, you don't like to wear your pants over your trousers like superman, I suggest these options!

I visited Aqua with a friend yesterday, and she bought a few hard-edged statement dresses. They may not be to all tastes, but you cannot deny their unique and utterly flattering design. We scoured the regular shops around Oxford Street and Carnaby Street, but nothing compared to the party dresses in this new store.