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Today was quite special, after being stuck in bed for three days with horrible Lurgy I stepped out into the putrid rainy London weather to the East End.
I had missed so many wonderful events. I had missed Elizabeth conducting a talk with Larry Clark at 176, I missed an amazing dinner hosted by Simon Lee for Larry Clark, I missed the amazing opening and dinner at Stephen Friedman, Jennifer Rubells incredible “William and Kate Installation”. I missed the awesome opening of Cory Arcangel at the Barbican.
However I had a wonderful first day out. We started at the Approach and I was shown the works of Stuart Cumberland which is not shown justice on JPEG.
Cindy and I collapsed under a Phillip Allen painting at Approach
Then we met up with Pierre d’alancaisez, the work was very impressive we discovered a young Polish artist called Marcin Dudek and we walked through an incredible tunnel with a very intimate atmosphere. I am not sure what was quite happening it was perhaps an exploration of some sorts of 1970s architecture but it was really an enjoyable experience and very intimate at the same time. <br><br>Then we were happy to experience Ben Washington who is one of Toby Ziegler’s assistants create his own work which is quite photographic but architecturally sculptural at the same time.<br><br>We also went to see Rachel at Vilma Gold where I spotted some very impressive Brian Griffiths, they were incredibly abstract and conceptual perhaps a little too much for me to get my finger round it, but I always like a challenge.<br><br>We checked out Varda Caivano’s work at Victoria Miro with Glenn Scott Wright - as usual she is experimenting away.<br><br>
I dropped by 176 and checked up on our four young artists in residence. I managed to catch Peggy Franck and Samantha Donnelly hard at work.<br><br>The Topping on the Cake of all my visits that day was at Cabinet, Ed Atkins' work “Death Mask” The trilogy... Eureka! It was spectacular, what a visual feast. Lizzie had seen the work now twice and as we arrived Jose Freire from Team Gallery was so upset as the film is 40 minutes long and he could not take himself away as he was so mesmerised and it prevented him from working on his tight schedule. With Jose was Cory Arcangel and at last we meet it was a great honour to meet such a talented artist. We had acquired for the collection in Miami Art Fair some great art works by Cory.<br><br>
One of Peggy's paper folds. <br><br>Then it was off to Spain and what a wonderful trip. I left at the ungodly hour of 5am which had its advantages and disadvantages. Advantages being I managed to get in some clothes shopping before lunch and the disadvantage being I could not stay awake after 1am and was a party pooper and had to go to bed. I had a wonderful lunch hosted in the beautiful home of Elena and Norman Foster and I had the honour of sitting next to Norman Foster and he is such a visualist it is a dream to talk to him. <br><br>Then it was off to Ivory Press for cocktails where we all met up and Elena gave me a tour around her space. She has an incredible bookshop and office filled with all sorts of treasures. A long cabinet filled with incredible wonderments and editions. Then John Gerrard’s retrospective and his new show: it was a feast for the eyes. I met his teacher from the Ruskin Brian Catlin who also taught Conrad Shawcross, Tessa Farmer amongst others.
Then Elena showed me her past publications, she had worked with such artists as Anslem Kiefer, Damien Hirst, Anish Kapoor and Anthony Caro. Each publication was individually ambitiously produced and successful!<br><br>Here's a picture of John Gerrard and Candida Gertler
Candida Gertler, John Gerrard, Elena Foster and Martine D'Anglejan Chatillon
We went to a wonderful restaurant called El Bocaito. John managed to rearrange the table by introducing a more romantic candlelit dinner. Then he was checking out perhaps a new future work which looked incredibly promising. We had a wonderful dinner hosted by Thomas Dane and Simon Preston and I was sat next to Gordon Watson which was a wonderful as we spoke about wonderful gorgeous subjects such as E Bay....Then next day we headed to Arco, the reason I was in Madrid. <br><br>Here's John at dinner planning his next work.
Lizzie flew in for the day and we acquired for the collection the most kitsch and brightest art work in the art show by Jin Shi. It is Karaoke on wheels, made in china by the artist, used in china then brought back to Europe.
We dropped by Forsblum Gallery and Raphaella told us some exciting news. They will move to a new incredible space in the centre of Helsinki and have taken on such artists as HE Berg and to our delight Charles Sandison.<br><br>HE Berg at Gallery Forsblum
Then we looked at some great sculpture. Here's Enrique Marty Bolinio at Espacio Minimo
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