3rd September 2011 - The Museum of Everything@Selfridges

It is a grey day, cold and bald and stone and rain. We go for a coffee first, at Nude Espresso in Soho. It is OK. It seems like everywhere else, and the walls are black tile and I want there to be colour but the coffee is good. It comes in a little black cup that you can see your face in. We walk up Oxford Street to Selfridges. The yellow cheers me. We go downstairs to the museum of everything. It consists of paintings and drawings all hung on walls, in different rooms throughout a house, a little house in the basement of Selfridges. The paintings and drawings in the house are full of colour, the house is the museum of everything.

13th April 2011 - High Arctic@National Maritime Museum

At the ticket counter the woman says "Do you know anything about the exhibition" and I say "no" even though I do, and she says "Oh. Well its not like a normal exhibition" and I say "OK" and she says. "er, there's no exhibition, as such. Its, er, interactive" and I say "OK" and we buy tickets.
Downstairs at the door an old lady hands us each a torch "these are ultra-violet torches. Its very important that you point them down at the floor and not in people's eyes" and her own eyes glitter when she says it but then she looks down at the floor.
We go in.
It is like being at sea, it is like being in the belly of a whale. A voice says "you lie to yourself because you are afraid of the dark"

28th March 2011 - Joan Miro @ Tate Modern

It is packed, and there is a lot of it. Every room is full of people that line the walls, standing before the paintings, and you try not to feel overwhelmed but you do, especially when you look beyond the room to the next, and that is full too, and even beyond that you can see more.

We slowly meander through it, we don't look at everything because you cant. And it doesn't matter anyway, we are here for free. So we don't have to see it all. Perhaps realising that, in one room we just sit down on a bench. In that room is a massive painting which is just white, but with a thin crooked line making its way from the bottom of the painting to the top.

24th July 2011 - Ryan Mosley @ Alison Jacques Gallery

We are looking for something to do and its nearby, just up the street from where we are. We were sitting on a bench in Soho Square and we left its comfort to be here.

I imagine it will be one of those places. You can see inside but the door is firmly shut and the receptionist looks unfriendly and there is no-one in there, and you are too intimidated to go in. And when we arrive it is all of those things, exactly all of those things, but we go in anyway.

the exhibition is on the ground floor and we dont spend too long in there.

19th July 2011 - Eyewitness: Hungarian Photography in the 20th Century @Royal Academy

It is raining heavily when we get out at Piccadilly. Hordes of tourists shudder under market-stall umbrellas that will break before they go home. Some stride happily forth in log-flume ponchos, their clothes and bags underneath like organs.

We are ill-prepared. My cords are turned up but they are still too long and they trail in the puddles, and soak up the muddy water. it travels all the way up my legs, like i've been taken by the shoulders and dipped in dye.

On piccadilly we find an abandoned umbrella. Sitting upright and shut, leaning against a wall. Steve takes it, and opens it up. It opens proud, bucket-big and see-through. makes its occupants look like little girls. We huddle under but it shuts on us, and when we try and open it again we see that its broken, the clasp wont fix. You have to hold it open all the way along the street and as soon as you relax it collapses upon you. So you cant relax.

We bring it to the Royal Academy. We go in, and out of the rain, into the lift to the exhibition. the lift is also see-through. A man is operating the lift. "You can't take that umbrella into the exhibition" he says. He doesnt explain why.
There is already a queue to get in. Everyone is tall, and smart, dark clothes, herringbone blazers, black polo-necks, overcoats.
Steve puts the umbrella under his cord jacket and we walk in.
"You cant bring that in here" says the woman on the door. she is a young woman, she is young and her voice is high pitched, she is like a little girl.
"You can check it in at the cloakroom" she says, "Down in the lift"
"OK" we say and we leave the queue.
But instead of going to the lift we roll the umbrella under a bench.
We don't think she sees us but she does.
"You cant leave that there!" she says, her voice shrill and annoyed, she is like a little girl. she belongs under the umbrella, but she wont have it. "Its ridiculous!" she says.

19th March 2011 - Anselm Kiefer - Des Meeres Und Der Liebe Wellen @White Cube, Hoxton Square

We are just passing by. We have been for coffee at The Bridge cafe on Shoreditch high street, and then to buy arancini for lunch at an Italian takeout next to the Jaguar Shoes. We go to Hoxton square to eat the arancini because its warm enough to sit outside, for the first time in months, for the first time this year. The sun is out, bright and warm but you still have to wear a coat buttoned right up to the top, and its freezing in the shade. The square is nice today. A few people milling about under the first sun of the year. A little boy doing demented laps. Some students making a film, interviewing a stranger with a big furry mic. A man in a long overcoat, sitting down, his girlfriend in front of him, standing up. They are exchanging a rose, but in the act of passing its in both of their hands. I cant tell who brought it, who is giving it to whom.
In the white cube are people in second hand jumpers, thin belts and too short trousers. Everyone is really tall. The exhibition we see consists of large pictures of the sea in various tormented states, waves whipping foam smashing water frothing and gurgling. I’m not sure how they’ve been taken but they seem like old photos, washed out blue, seeped of colour and drained of hue. Attached to each photo is a real object; a gynaecological instrument, big long forceps and clamps, and a thing that looks like a stethoscope only much longer. The instruments are old, they look like they’re from the forties, from some horror film. It says in the catalogue that they are supposed to represent birth, as does the sea; the place from where everything came. I don’t like them, they look like old beer mats or something. But it doesn’t matter. We’re just passing by.

5th March 2011 - An American Experiment@the National Gallery

I go the national gallery. Its a freezing day, early in the morning, and the cold gets everywhere, it whips up your sleeves and you try and stop it by bunching your hands together, but all you end up doing is making cold fists. I walk through Trafalgar Square, shivering, the cold seeping through my clothes like water. The square is a frozen stone, the fountains look as though they’re pumping snow. I would like to watch them, but I want to get inside.
I plan to go and look at the Klimt – Portrait of Hermine Gallia – but I am distracted by a temporary exhibit called “An American Experiment” so I push through the double doors and in. It’s a very small exhibition, only a dozen or so paintings. Maybe it’s because of the cold day, maybe it’s just me, but I go straight to a painting called Blue Snow: The Battery, by George Bellows.
It’s a picture of Battery Park in New York, immersed in snow. Commuters are ploughing their way through the park, heading home after a day in the factories, which you can see in the distance, looming like Gods, judging the tiny faceless inhabitants as they struggle through thick snow. They throw long shadows, and the shadows are blue, and its the kind of blue you only ever see when there is snow.

10th February 2011 @Milk Bar, Soho

Dan and I go to Milk Bar in Soho, to see Bonnie's mate's art exhibition. I cant remember the name of the artist. He's Bonnie's mate, thats all I know. And there might be free beer.

But we get there and all the beer is gone. There are a lot of people crowding outside the gallery, which is actually a coffee shop during the day, and they are clutching short, green bottles of beer, mostly empty. Dregs swilling around. It is dark and the crowd frighten us a little. They are oldish, 30s, but they look wild. Drunk, drugged, t-shirts in the cold and dark, starey eyes. The music is blasting out of the gallery and we are intimidated but we push through the staggering crowd and go in. There are more empty beer bottles on the table inside. The place is tiny. The music is blaring, banging, everything is in slow motion. There are 2 people inside. A girl in make-up and a fur coat, maybe nothing on underneath it, sitting at the back, legs in high boots folded over each other. A guy, staring at nothing, dirty jeans, dirty mind, another t-shirt. Everything is tense, they look put together, like a piece of art. they looks like they are frozen in time.
We pretend to ignore them, and we inspect the art. It is cartoon-like. Manga, in black and white. Skeletons in dark pen, skulls with personalities, no eyes, but smiles. On a sticker, below one of the pieces of art, it says "£10", the music bangs, bangs. We push out the door.
Back outside in the street, dark and scary and the thought of skulls, of dead cartoons. We go into the pub next door which is red like a mouth, and we buy vodka, and we come back out again and stand in the street, with the crowd. It feels like Soho. We lean against a brick wall and we drink and Dan smokes.
And then a guy with mental eyes appears, he's going up to everyone in the crowd, in their little groups and saying "got any coke?" and they all say "no" then he comes up to us and says "got any coke?" and we say "no".

29th January 2011 - Ben Slow@Tina, We Salute You

We go to Tina, We Salute You for a coffee, on the way to Dalston. Its a freezing day, a greyness that gets to you. The first time we went in we were intimidated, like pushing the door into someones living room, you could feel it sticking in the frame and you wanted to just give up, not bother. But we went in and it was good and they had bon soy in yellow and lilac cartons.
We order coffees and we sit on the leather sofa which is cracked and slack underneath us. On the opposite wall, behind a group of friends in bright wool, eating toast and marmite, is Ben Slow's painting. Its painted right on the wall, all over the wall, a girls face. She's painted on the wall but it looks like the wall is painted around her, like she was there all along and they just discovered her, peeled back the paintwork and there she was with her giant, heavy eyes, eyes looking to the side, not looking at us, not interested in us, not interested in whats out there either, the grey street and her grey face and her grey eyes and she gets to you too.

here: http://benslow.tumblr.com/

16th January 2011 - Norman Rockwell's America @Dulwich Picture Gallery

You have to get the bus from Brixton tube station. The P4 from across the road. The streets of Brixton are crowded with folk ignoring Sunday, barging into you, their shopping bags stretched full, dirty coats on their backs, hard looks on their faces. They fill the grey sky.
Over the road, the P4 stop. After a few minutes we see the bus coming, a single-decker. A relief; it’s cold, windy. I’m shivering under my coat. I’m looking forward to being inside. But it’s never coming. It’s stuck at the back, behind an awkward parade of double-deckers packed with folk, arms leaning against high windows. More dirty coats. We watch our P4 edging slowly forward, no hope of getting past the buses queuing, unloading, filling up. Then, it stops to wait. A woman tries to get on, hauls her Primark bags past 4 buses to the P4. She bangs a cold fist on the windowed door. Waves to the driver. He shakes his head. She makes her way back to us and we wait until it’s time.
Dulwich village is empty. The sky grey as woolwire. We get off the bus alone. Go into the gallery, which is busy, but calm. The visitors are old, well turned out. Ladies that look and dress like the queen. Like they are going to church. Gents in suits, eye glasses, double-chins smiling.
The exhibition is in several connecting rooms that go in a straight line, a tunnel inside Norman Rockwell’s head. Exaggerated faces, long necks, adam’s apples, ruddy cheeks, bright colours that don’t disguise the darkness he felt inside.

January 2nd 2011 - Mona Hatoum - Keeping it Real @Whitechapel Gallery

We go to the Whitechapel Gallery, which is right next to Aldgate East tube, practically on top of it. This is presumably so that all the middle class people who go there dont have to experience any of the other things Whitechapel has to offer.
We see Mona Hatoum's "Current Disturbance" which is Act 3 of Keeping it Real.

It is a collection of wooden cages, kind of like battery chicken cages, built into a large wooden square which sits in the centre of the room. In each little cage is a single lightbulb. The lightbulbs go on and off, fade in and out at different times, accompanied by a single sound effect, which is meant to be the sound of electricity. It is like you might hear electricity in a cartoon. It groans as the lightbulbs go on, it quietens as they go off.
We watch the lightbulbs go on and off. It is timed so that most of the time around half of them are on. Most of the time the room is half in darkness. But then for a short time the room is completely dark, and for a short time, it is completely bright.

It reminds me of my day. There's a brief amount of time when I'm awake, bright, lit up. But most of the time I'm only half there.

see it here