Being the social influencers we are we were asked if we would like to take receipt of a goody box for the upcoming show ‘Blood Drive’ and watch the first episode. The box of stuff was particularly well suited as we’ve now managed to get Hugo a new girlfriend. Her name is Brandy. The fluffy dice will seriously accentuate the look of the id-iomobile too and apparently a 1993 study showed there to be no correlation between the use of fuzzy dice and the degree of a driver’s reckless driving behaviour so we should be fine.
To say Blood Drive is something of a Marmite show is probably an understatement. It’s basic premise is a death race in cars powered by blood. There’s sex, violence and all that comes between. It’s like every trashy exploitation b-movie you’ve never seen but enjoyably ridiculous for being so. It’s starting on Syfy channel tonight in the UK.
There I was having a flick through today’s print copy of Time Out and what do I find at the bottom of one of the first pages you come across? This little beauty. A nice little feature on some of the pop culture based subversions that we’ve been depositing in our local shops. Surely that means fame and fortune will be knocking on our door some time soon. Oh wait, who’s that ringing my bell….
No, it was just the neighbour demanding I turn the music down. I could barely hear him shouting over the smooth sounds of Nana Mouskouri. He really needs to calm down a bit.
Before we move ahead with some new work for 2014 we thought it time to take a moment to reflect on what just happened in the year that was 2013. You can find our picks from the year on the link below:
Team id-iom had a little outing to Pahnl’s solo show ‘Do look down’ at West Bank gallery last night. On arrival we were given a copy of the ‘Lowdown Times’ newspaper and a cardboard frame. All would soon become clear. The downstairs space had been transformed into ’40 metres of a sprawling stencilled city across the gallery walls’ featuring a huge selection of Pahnl’s small stylized stick men and animals up to all kinds of tricks – from bank robbers and graffiti artists to crane operators and rioters.
The ‘Lowdown Times’ newspaper was a 12 page edition in the style of a local newspaper for the stencilled city. All the stories in the paper related to events on the wall and it’s written with a certain wry sense of humour. I particularly liked the horoscopes and obituary section (below). The cardboard frames we’d been given were so if there was a section of the city you liked you could frame it with the cardboard and then Pahnl would reproduce this on canvas for you (there were various sizes of frame available). It was clear a lot of thought had gone into whole thing.
Lowdown Times horoscope page
Upstairs there was a small selection of prints, a couple of originals on canvas and some nice repainted metal street signs. These all looked good but my favourite touch was the little comedy write ups they all had on the walls next to them. There was also a screen showing his excellent ‘Nowhere near home’ video made using light stencils. Clever work and a good night all round. It’s open until next week and I’d suggest you pay a visit.
It’s been a while since we’ve gone out to a gallery show and I could hardly resist going to My Dog Sigh’s ‘Can Man’ show at the Pure Evil Gallery so it was time to don my ironic glasses and hit the East End. My Dog Sighs is involved with Free Art Friday and likes nothing better than dropping his cans and other work on the street for people to find – but this time they’re all indoors. There was an edition of 30 of his small cans, various other larger cans and a few canvases. They were all framed nicely, priced well and looked great on the wall. I think my favourite pieces were the bigger catering size cans, the smaller cans with woolly hats on and the can which was wearing a burka. Great stuff all round and we wish him all the very best. The show is on for another 10 days so if you are in the area you should definitely pop in.
My Dog Sighs - Can Man show @ Pure Evil Gallery
Can man complete with little woolly hat
Larger can man (although it's tricky to tell size with nothing to compare scale...)
Burka can
After a couple of drinks and a swift chit-chat with My Dog we headed off to Stolenspace for a quick shufty at Roa‘s new show ‘Hypnagogia’ (which, i’ve found out, is the name for the state between being awake and being asleep). Roa’s work is impressive as ever and I like his work on bits of wood/furniture. Although saying that if i had to choose between his street work and his gallery work I’d take the street work every time. If i had a large industrial building he could work on I would invite him over and ask him very nicely if he’d consider doing a huge Manx cat for me…
It sure was a busy night in the old East End last night! With so many new shows on and free beer to be quaffed it would be rude not to. There seemed to be a gallery show just about every couple of steps. I had originally planned to go and see Evol at POW and then along to SPECTRA I just because i really like Katrin Fridriks. Naturally I forgot to take my camera so links and images from the interweb will have to suffice.
First up we headed to P.O.W to check out the very talented EVOL and his mini tower blocks. Although why we had to queue when the place wasn’t full i don’t understand (or is it just to make the place look more busy/popular?) I was a little gutted as i first saw some EVOL pieces on cardboard a few years ago and was quite taken with them but unfortunately had no spare cash. Back then they were going for a few hundred quid and they are now selling for around 10 grand! It’s good work if you can get it but unfortunately a little rich for my blood…
EVOL @ nu-art
There was plenty more on offer but the only pieces that really caught my eye were the Jimmy Cauty ‘Riot in a Jam Jar‘ series – of which he had 3 or 4 maxi-sized ones on display complete with flashing blue lights on miniature police vans (I had previously only seen them in actual jam jar sized glass jars).
Next on we moved up to Stolenspace at the Truman Brewery for a group show. For me the stand out artists were Kai & Sunny, D*face and Rose Sanderson. All the pieces were a little more affordable than POW and there were some very nice examples. I particularly liked a piece by Rose Sanderson called (I think) ‘Contemplation’ which featured a load of starlings sitting on a ghostly branch (a picture can be found towards the bottom right on this page). There was a huge (120 x 170cm) Kai & Sunny print called ‘Wild Flower’ that I particularly liked. I can’t find a pic online but if you follow this link and scroll down you should find it.
I’m not usually a huge fan of D*face but did particularly like like his Flutterdie collection (one example of above) which were like fantasy taxidermy. I also liked the big Flutterdie prints that were done on aluminium. I thought they looked splendid.
Next up on our busy schedule we decided to pay a visit to Futuretense presents SPECTRA I at a nice large venue at 28 Redchurch Street. I was looking forward to this one as it features the lovely works of Katrin Fridriks which I really covet and my new favourite find of the evening (whom i’d never heard of before) – the brightly coloured work of Lee Baker. The colours on his pieces positively glowed and the photo beneath does them little justice…
Finally on our way back to the tube we nipped into Xenz at Blackall studios. Overall the quality of work was good but I wasn’t blown away. I think my favourite piece was actually one of the smaller ones of an orchid.
Overall I had a great night out seeing some new stuff and swanning around the East End. Sometimes i’m real glad to be living in London.
thisisidiom.wordpress.com 
You must be logged in to post a comment.