This website places cookies on your computer to improve your experience. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. For more details, see our cookie policy.
and this time joined by Stephan Tanbin Sastrawidjaja and Mr McDonald at the airport.
Arriving at the fair we are confronted by a sight that’s perhaps more not to be seen than seen; a performance of a naked woman giving birth to painted eggs. Later that evening at the Hauser & Wirth dinner, I have a discussion with Pierre Huyghe where he reminds me that this has all been seen before with the Viennese Actionism movement.
A wonderful red tie to glide up the wide concrete stairs.
Then straight into the usual question of ‘art or not art’ but for a change it was just a late arrival waiting to be unwrapped.
However, this work by Astali/Peirce was real art!
As was Anna Kolodziejska’s take on empty pockets.
This was an intriguing work by Win McCarthy, one to watch out for.
Salon 94 and Galerie Henrik Springmann collaborated to present Carlos Rolon/Dzine with an installation on boxing and his life.
I bumped into Mr Kennedy from Kerlin Gallery who also happens to be Daniel Kennedy’s dad. Daniel and I had met up with him only three days before at Chateau La Coste.
We loved the work of Sam Keogh, so very lively and thoughtful.
Another one to watch is David Jablonowski. Such a delicate approach to using every day materials to create a certain intelligent sensitivity. On a slightly different note, what I found very interesting was that the fair was prepared to receive museum directors rather than trophy hunters. It really made things much more dynamic and diverse rather than the usual boring and now quite generic spectacle.
The shows outside the fair were quite fun. ‘Maybe This Is A Dream’ by Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg at Kolnischer Kunstverein was as usual, stranger than strange.
The most amazing moment of my visit was finally getting to view the Pierre Huyghe show at the Museum Ludwig. I was totally stunned and overwhelmed by the intensity. He is a renaissance man through and through and completely ahead of his time.
Then it was home sweet home to walk ‘The Line’ through east London courtesy of Megan Piper and Clive Dutton’s initiative. Battling sheets of rain we saw some really wonderful sights and a selection of artists put forward to be shown along the sculpture walk. What a girl Megan is, a future great in the making. A quick cable car to the Cody Docks near the mouth of the River Lea allowed us to join Richard Cork and Mark Wallinger and be sped away to choose the final top 10.
Simon Myers was a lovely host on his Community Boat, who could ask for more? Well, maybe some nice weather would make a change. We all huddled up with Whitechapel’s curator Omar Kholeif to be photographed by Sim Canetty-Clarke.
One quick visit to Josh Lilly and I finally get to view the work of Nicholas Hatfull in the flesh. The work was actually really good and Nicholas is most definitely on my ‘artist to follow’ list.So that concludes my mini marathon for the past couple of weeks and now I need to put my feet up and have a cup of tea! I know, I am so British....
