I live in LA.  Or close enough.  I live on CalArts campus, 30 miles north of LA.  I am a Brit abroad.  My first Thanksgiving in this country, I got invited along to a vegetarian dinner complete with salmon and tofurkey.  Least said about the latter, the better.  But said dinner was in New York.  I fought the ridiculous queues, added security measures and general mayhem that is travel on Thanksgiving for a 5 day break from school (most welcome, learning is hard!  I haven't done it in so long!).  My host generously gave me some time and space to chill out whilst giving me the opportunity to pound the NY pavements in search of clothing bargains and as much art as I could take - he's an artist - but I can take a lot of art - I out arted him!  The day before I left we visited the shows at the Guggenheim, the new photo acquisitions at MOMA, Kara Walker and Danny Lyon at the Whitney and Robert Capa at the International Center of Photography.  I really liked a lot of what I saw, in particular the Kara Walker exhibition was a amazing.  Walker punches, hard.  I think her work is very interesting, because in the material she works with, the punch is justified, useful even, necessary.  And I like the time period she has chosen to explore - pre-Civil War - pre-segregation, tracing the roots of the jazz style, the look, design and feel.  There's a lot I can say about the work, but I need to think more about it too, it takes some thinking about.  But Google her, the work is truly amazing.  

However, Richard Prince is who I really got my head around.  I half remember seeing a very, large photo of a cowboy on a horse, rearing up, on a restaurant wall, somewhere amongst the galleries in the West End.  And I also half remember his joke paintings.  I never quite squared the 2 projects in my head or figured out if they were the same person or how they fitted together.  Then, recently, we discussed his work in class.  His chauvinistic tendencies were apparent to me, but little else.  My expectations were pretty low before I saw the show, although I heard from other people that it was really interesting.  Seeing the work, I got it.  The one liners in the painting repeat, and bleed into one another, and seeing them en mass, a bad comic's gag routine becomes apparent.  His promo photos, that he signed himself as if they were signed by the celebrity, alongside his piece, 'Spiritual America' - a highly provocative photograph of a prepubescent Brooke Shields, question the legitimacy of representation and in my mind, connected the dots between Prince, Ricky Gervais and Chris Morris.  I have to concede Prince's mastery of his material.  He clusters his photographs into 'Gangs', rotates them, adds comic strip images on top of them and adds text to them in a style that makes it look easy.  From my own practice, I know that stuff is hard!  He resolves his work in really smart ways.  He makes it look effortless!   

I’d been looking forward to the Teamphoto exhibition ever since hearing Brian Griffin mention it at a BJP event last year, but I somehow missed out on the news that it had opened in September, and only stumbled upon it by accident a few days before it closes, as I was killing time waiting for a train at the newly renovated St Pancras station (nice brickwork, shame about the half-mile walk to the tube station).

Griffin was commissioned to document the building of the High Speed 1 rail link to the Channel Tunnel, “the UK’s first high speed railway for over 100 years”. The result is a monumental series of portraits which really lives up to my expectations of it.

I had a great time wondering around and around the show, looking and looking again at all the photos, and it’s one of the few photo exhibitions where I have actually laughed out loud. Griffin’s photos fall roughly into two categories: his portraits of the workers are epic, mainly black & white studio portraits. In a similar manner to much Soviet artwork, they clearly portray the worker as hero. By contrast, the photos of management are very much in the style which Griffin utlised during his many years as photographer for Management Today: the subjects are placed in Kafkaesque scenarios where they seem unsure or unaware of what’s happening to them and what they’re supposed to do. Even more than with the Management Today photos, I was left wondering “how the hell does he get away with it?”

For the rail project’s American project managers, Griffin had reserved an even more bizarre approach: they were captured in what seem to be half-staged, half-candid poses which remind me of nothing quite so much as Twin Peaks. Their American suburban location adds even more to the strange disconnect from anything to do with the UK-Europe rail link.

There were also a few group photos styled as Frans Hals paintings. On their own these seemed a little uninspired, given the frequency with which photographers seem to be ripping off the Old Masters nowadays, but thrown into the melange of strangeness which made up the Teamphoto exhibition, they added a little extra spice.

It’s a very daring move from Griffin’s corporate client, and one which leaves them open to ridicule, but I’m very glad that they’ve apparently allowed him free reign on this project, and I think the results are something of a landmark.

As I was walking around the exhibiton, I overheard one woman saying to another “The only thing I would have done: I would have kept it all black & white, I wouldn’t have had any colour. I think that would have been really powerful”. That made me laugh nearly as much as the photos did.

If you’re in London, get yourself down to the Gymnasium (in between St Pancras and King’s Cross) sharpish: the exhibition ends on 16th November.

Last night I went to the opening of Neil Webb's (AKA Bocman) latest show at Bloc space, Sheffield: The Stars In Us All.

The work is inspired by astronaut Dave Bowman's last words before entering the black monolith in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Oddyssey: "My God, it's full of stars". Webb has positioned three black monoliths around the studio, each highly polished and perfectly reflective. The monoliths, the room itself, and a bench in the room all act as loudspeakers, broadcasting a 45-minute sound piece. The only faint light in the gallery is provided by blue neon lights behind each monolilth.

The result is suitably awe-inspiring, frequently meditative and contemplative, and occasionally disturbing. As with previous works by Webb which I'm familiar with, there is a perfect relationship between the auditory and the visual, and every element seems perfectly judged to contribute to the overall experience.

The show is also reviewed in today's Guardian Guide . 

On Friday I went to the opening of Paul Evans ' show "After Nature" at the Cupola Gallery, Sheffield. I've been following Paul's work for a couple of years. When I first met him, he'd just given up his job as head of a successful Sheffield-based design agency in order to concentrate full-time on his painting. His new focus is paying off: there is some wonderful work in this exhibition, showing an intimate exploration and growing understanding of oils and watercolours. His talent is also attracting attention from further afield: in 1996 the Guardian tipped him as "one to watch out for" and just last week he won the Eyestorm Gallery Award for Painting.

The paintings themselves are inspired by landscapes: both inner and outer. The inner world of cellular biology inspires some delicate organic watercolours, each painting accompanied by a Haiku written by the poet Chris Jones:

Evans' oil paintings, ranging in scale from small studies to large canvases, draw from wild British landscapes, starkly beautiful spots such as Kinder Downfall and Malham Cove:

Last Wednesday was Short Circuits night at the Common Room, upstairs at The Forum in Sheffield's Division Street. I walked in to the bar's cavernous interior, hunted around the pool tables and past the couples in their smart casual clothing, watching boxing on multiple flat screens, until I finally stumbled upon a more rag-tag bunch hidden away in a dark alcove, watching a series of short films made by local artists and film-makers.

There were around 20 pieces on show, ranging from around one minute to five minutes in length, with short breaks every few films during which music played along to live video mixing and we were treated to one or two performances. A highlight of the night was the live show by WebsterGotts - two near-naked men (Alexis Gotts and Scott Webster) dressed only in large cardboard y-fronts, a forest of fake pubes hanging underneath. They stood, impassive, smoking cigarettes and holding pints of beer while a brass band version of Bohemian Rhapsody played over the PA. When it reached its near-climactic "guitar solo" both men lifted their pints to their lips and tipped them back, glugging the lot over the length of the solo. Glasses down on the table, they returned to making only the most understated of movements, puffing on cigarettes and staring into space. As the last breaths of the song played out, the two took one final drag and exhaled over the last lingering note. The whole thing was inspired, and reminded me of Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer at their surreal best.

Back to the films - here are some of my favourites:

• David Shrigley and Chris Sheperd's Who I Am What I Want, a disturbing and funny animation about a savage boy whose name is muck and who just is who he is; voiceover by the legendary Kevin Eldon.
• Aqua Gym by Simon Green, is a film of two synchronised swimmers but filmed from underwater, and often turned upside-down, so that it looked as though we were watching two women balancing upon water. The film began with a quote from Diane Arbus: "Nothing is the same as they said it was. It's what I've never seen before I recognise". Echoing the quote, the action in the film was simultaneously familiar and alien.
• Forget Me Not 3 by Trine Lise Nedreaas showed an old man eating a plateful of mini-frankfurters (around 30 of them) in a little over a minute. The expressions on his face, especially the pleasure on finishing his task, were beautiful to behold, as was the photographic style of this fixed-camera piece.
• All the time in the world? by Semiconductor combined sounds from the British Geological survey with cleverly animated photographs of the Northumbria landscape which made it seem as though the earth was breathing, pulsating, its heart beating with the passing of aeons.
• The Pitch by Mark Lewis was a pitch, spoken by the arist (I presume), proposing a film with no leading roles, where the stars are the extras. The film started out as a head shot, and panned out over the course of its four minutes. The speaker was standing in what seemed to be a busy station (Liverpool Street?) and all around him people bustled, their various activities both distracting from and adding to the significance of his speech.

Once the films were finished, Hotsnack set up and played a set of largely improvised music which regularly broke down (broke up?) into a repetitive troll-like marching rhythym. The band members stalked the stage in masks, hats and enormous beards, while snatches of film, orchestrated by Edwin Rostron, continued to play on the large projection screen behind them, making the performance as visually exciting as it was aurally. When they finished, the band packed up as the film continued, scenes from a variety of bizarre fetish movies which showed, among other things, scantily-clad women pouring baked beans over one another's feet and then licking them off.

Finally, I headed downstairs to The Forum in time for two songs by local band Monkey Swallows the Universe, and then trolled home myself. There is a full set of photos from this night here.

On 30th June I went to the third BLOCassembly (you can see my report and pictures from BLOCassembly two here) at BLOCspace, Sheffield. I arrived a bit late, and spent most of my time chatting once I was there, so I missed some of the work which this time was all film/video based arts. The first piece I caught was Homagery by Elizabeth Adams, a claymation featuring plastacine ducks, which was described in the programme as "small commentaries on art, art education and the importance of either, with slapstick overtones". It took a few scenes for me to catch on to the theme of the pieces, but after seeing ducks on couches, ducks picnicking on the lawn, duck ballerinas, ducks covered in blue paint writhing on canvases, ducks in formaldehyde, etc etc etc, I realised I was watching the history of art as re-enacted by small animated plastacine animals. Lots of fun.

Next up was Restricted View/1 by Susanne Palzer. Footage from a 70s American cop show, featuring an outrageously camp drag artist and some apparently closet homosexuality. There was something strangely familiar about the show, but the strange jump edits made me wonder what was missing and how the various parts linked together. It was only when I read the programme that I realised this was an episode of Starsky and Hutch with all appearances by Starsky and/or Hutch edited out. Made for an interesting study of what's left over once the main focus of attention has gone.

Outside in the courtyard, several TVs (and a Mini-DVD player, viewable through a telescope) played pieces on continual loop. I didn't get a proper look at any of these, something which could well be the fault of Drink by Sheena MacRae, another piece of re-appropriated American TV. This time the source material was the soap opera Dallas: an entire series-worth edited down to show just the scenes of characters drinking - seven minutes in total. Placing this right next to the bar was either a very bad or a very good move. I'm sure shots of JR repeatededly knocking back large whiskeys had some subliminal influence upon my habits that evening, and go some way towards explaining why my memories beyond this point are rather fuzzy.

As I stood outside, drinking, Linda Bevan performed her untitled piece, walking carefully back and forth around the courtyard, laying down pieces of paper (flyers for the event), walking over them, re-tracing her steps and collecting them up. In the programme she explained that "my art practice has included me using high heels, bubble wrap, cardboard boxes, and sheets of cardboard as important perpetual props to make my art. It is imperative to my practice that I don't allow a prop to remain a trace left over from an event, but come back and perform a task that allows me to activate it again". By this stage, I think I'd had too much Dallas to properly appreciate the significance of the ritual. Inside again Shaun Armstrong's film Things Are Queer was mainly a photographic animation, a series of still photographs strung together to make a jerky motion picture in a similar matter to Between You and Me by Patryk Rebisz. The effect was spoiled slightly by a "making of" documentary afterwards in which the artist explained, in uneccessary detail, how the effects in the film were achieved. Some things are best left unsaid.

As the evening wore on, and I grew more and more under the influence of Dallas, I saw less work and participated in more drunken chatting. Eventually the studio closed down for the night and we headed, en masse, to Dulo, where I sat beneath the angels in the beer garden and took photographs of any and every stranger passing my way.

Last night met up with Kirsten and went to the Gagosian gallery in Kings Cross
They had Francis bacon and Damien Hirst – loads of celebs met Bez from Happy Mondays!!

Also Damien was there himself being photo’d a lot.
His work looks really dated already!! Very 90’s does that mean it’s good or bad??
Liked the flies ‘a thousand years”

In the other room were Francis Bacons Triptychs
they where Filmic. Visceral, intense, disturbing,.and worked well all together- didn’t take any photos of the art kept getting told off

No free drink unless you where important and no use of the loo’s apparently unless you where Bez’s girlfriend who came out rubbing her nose.

I ll probably go back to have another look it’s always really hard to have a proper look at a private view.

20th June- 4th August
More details here
Art Star Press review here

   Then we went to the Rove gallery Between a rock and a hard place curated by Danny Moynihan- rocks and stones lots of contributors including David Hockney,Damien Hirst,Keith Tyson and many more

More famous people someone from sex in the city and some comedian - didn’t really have time to look at the work took a couple of photos
more info here
20th June – 26th August

Then by cab to Haunch of Venison we’d picked up Calum and Holy by now –
We went to see Bill Viola and this was great not sure how/what he does but its not just slowing the video down its great the two heads going under water and the bubbles –it kinda seduces you I think the more you look the more you become surrounded protected from all the cynical crap( and this being the haunch of venison money/success that’s amazing) beautiful really worth seeing it’s at two venues so not sure how this works we went to the one in town.
More Info here
21st June -2nd September

Also met Russell Heron who’s a very nice guy with a great blog which he updates really quickly.