Dancing In Peckham

Don’t be fooled by the title – I didn’t go dancing in Peckham, Gillian Wearing did. In 1994 for the purposes of art though she may have boogied since then too.

Gillian Wearing, Dancing in Peckham, 1994.

I haven’t had a chance to get up close with her new survey show at The Whitechapel yet, despite making a film with the curator last week for work, but Dancing in Peckham is one of her most iconic works and it happens to be in the collection of the SLG. 

In the work, a 25-minute film piece, Wearing dances to music only she can hear in her head in the middle of Aylesham Shopping Centre in Peckham. She gets down, she shakes her ass, she rocks out, she thrashes her air guitar, dressed in mid-90s brown flared cords while bemused, confused and concerned shoppers pass her by. It’s so socially awkward and there’s an embarrassed sort of frisson between her apparent lack of awareness and the acutely obvious fact that she recorded herself doing it.

On Saturday night I was down in Peckham, confronting some of my – fears? – perceptions? – pre-conceptions? - about council estates and supporting the launch of the gallery’s Dancing in Peckham project – 10 weeks, 10 locations in Peckham, 10 screenings of Wearing’s work. The event, on Wyndham and Comber estate, coincided with an evening of film work and a performance by some of the young people from the estates who’d been working on a year-long project exploring movement, dance and the local environment.

Photos: Richard Eaton. Courtesy: South London Gallery

The performance was genuinely great – not quite a traffic stopper but absolutely a head turner for the passing cars – and there was a confidence to it that really made it special. And seeing Wearing’s work projected against the wall of the tenants and residents hall as the day turned to night was really quite poetic and being out in the gritty concrete environment and away from a traditional gallery space liberated her somehow. The abandonment no longer uncomfortable – now, well, kind of fuck off cool.

It was a pretty special night really.

Which makes it two Saturdays in a row now that I’ve been out and about in the name of work.

Last Saturday was an epic, Kusama-inspired event at Tate Modern that involved interactive digital sculptures and a silent disco, if you can believe that. It was a gorgeous day – as in, sunny and beautiful and criminal to be indoors. But there you have it.

This weekend it’s Easter – Easter! -  when did it become April already? Anyway – an arty dinner and a country adventure are on the cards. Bring it. 

Kusama, cocktails and a little bit of crazy

It would be a stretch to say I got to meet Yayoi Kusama two weeks ago.

It is true to say that if I *had* stretched I would have got within an inch of her thanks to an invite to the press view for her retrospective at Tate Modern. One of several art world perks that are increasingly coming my way these days. But I'll get to those.

We're doing a huge project with Tate at the moment around Kusama's show and so it was incredible to get the chance to explore the exhibition without the hoards and to really have the space and time to allow total absorption in her obsessively beautiful, dark, quietly poetic works. People think dots when they think Kusama and you do get dots here - lots of them - but the curation is so thoughtful that they go beyond any glib pop-esque moment to become a really powerful meditation on madness, infinity and beauty. Because they are beautiful....

Yayoi Kusama, Infinity Mirrored Room - Filled with the Brilliance of Life, 2011 

It was a pretty lovely moment, one of many recently actually, that have punctuated what has otherwise been a stressy couple of weeks that in my head got totally out of control. Exhaustion, homesickness, flatness, semi-brokeness, tiredness and a general case of the Over Its when it's come to public transport and three hour daily commutes, living in Hammersmith and wearing three days worth of outfits all at once. The Lovely Moments are the only things that have kept me from spinning totally out of control. That and a waning full moon?....

In amongst the stress was schlepping out to Croydon in the snow and sub-zero temperatures to get my new visa, or Biometric Residence Permit, as they call it these days in yet another step to dehumanise, humiliate and overly manage you. £850 and four hours later and I'm allowed to stay for another two years. A new lease on London life but one I don't think we'll be renewing when the time comes.

Funnily enough the day after my visa adventure was Lovely Boy's and my three year anniversary. Three years since Lovely Boy first cooked me dinner, three years since we drank three bottles of wine to overcompensate for nerves and an anticipation for not quite sure what and three years since we first kissed at the 94 bus stop at Shepherds Bush at 2am drunk and dizzy and elated and freezing.

After finally getting to have our date with Grayson Perry we decided to honour our little anniversary with a re-enactment of all the key details except the 94 bus stop. We (Lovely Boy....) cooked butter chicken curry, we drank too much wine and we smiled a lot. It was a good night and a perfect moment to reflect on everything the last three years have brought us both.

The last week, despite a shitty few days at work, brought other bright moments in amongst the crazy. I got a very small pay rise - more gesture than largesse - but I'm grateful for it nonetheless, going some way as it does towards improving the balance on my budget.

Which is good - because apart from groceries, I have cocktails to save for. And a holiday.

The joys of Night Jar...

On Friday night I met up with a gang of fabulous girls for some demure bar hopping in east London in pursuit of good drinks in new and interesting locations. Starting with a quick dose of art at the Barbican, first stop was Night Jar at Old St, where the cocktails are curated around themes of pre-war, prohibition, post-war and Night Jar originals. The decor was speakeasy and the music was jazz. I can't quite remember the name of my beverage but it had something to do with paradise and beach-combing so you could say it chose me...

From here we went for Vietnamese and from here we went to the back lounge at Callooh Callay on Rivington St. This detail (back lounge versus front lounge) is important only in that to get to the back lounge you have to walk, Narnia-like, through a wardrobe to get there. 

Novelty factor or no, I completely loved it. The decor back here was Dali meets disco and again I can't remember the particulars of my drink but only because I remain distracted by the drink that was on the table across from us:

Look closer....

Yes, they are gnomes.

It was a great way to shake off the week and on Saturday Lovely Boy and I set to being grown ups by opening a joint account and doing the groceries. And making a collective decision to pull ourselves out of the doldrums by booking a holiday. And not just any holiday - but a holiday to New York. HELLS YES! I'm already thinking about what I'm going to pack. We found this amazing loft in Carroll Gardens in Brooklyn to stay in thanks to some savvy internet research and now we're to the planning. I cannot freaking wait. Something to soften the blow of Monday blues.

Culture fatigue

If I appear listless or lacking in humour I apologise at the outset - it's entirely possible my capacity for wit and clever insight was left at the roadstop in Oxford last night on the way home from Liverpool. What a loooo-o-ooong last few days it has been. Amazing in so many ways but I am now so tired I don't even have the energy to watch America's Next Top Model - surely the one true and effective antidote to a serious case of Culture Fatigue.

I got home late last night from our three day trip to the North of England - Sudeley Castle (which is in the Cotswolds if anyone is interested...), Birmingham to see the Martin Creed exhibition at Ikon Gallery and then two days in Liverpool for the Biennial. 2008 European Capital of Culture maybe but sometimes a dump is just a dump, you know? Certainly a hectic few days - but in many ways also the ultimate magical mystery tour (sorry - couldn't help myself) of all things art and crazy.

Sudeley Castle was on the list because every year it holds an outdoor sculpture event called Reconstruction. Contemporary art meets gothic ruins - that sort of thing. A fabulous idea really and a fabulous exhibition too - despite the rain - thank goodness for sculpted hedges to hide under. These were just two of my favourite works - taken between bouts of thunderous downpour. This here being a work by Henry Krokatsis (the name of which escapes me....)


And this one, by Kevin Francis Gray, which was particularly evocative - especially when you looked up at her face through the beads...



Just insane. Won't go all art theory on you but suffice to say there's been a lot to think about and it's been fascinating. Not like Birmingham - rife with idling police oficers thanks to the Conservative Party Conference that was also on that day. Ikon Gallery though was great and an interesting exhibition of Martin Creed's work, despite the videos of vomiting and anal sex. For those of you that don't know, Creed won the Turner Prize a couple of years ago for his installation featuring a room with a light that went on and off. And then on and off again. And then...

We also saw an amazing project by an Italian artist called Claudia Losi that was all about whales.

Uh huh.

Anyway - Birmingham was a flying visit and we got to Liverpool (after leaving London at 7.30am) at 7.30pm. The whole experience was rather like school camp - long bus trips, communal lolly eating etc etc - except at this camp you got to stay at the Holiday Inn Express. Thankfully we didn't spend much time there (a hotel whose chief appeal is its proximity to the Beatles Museum doesn't hold much sway with a bunch of girls from London it has to be said...)

The Biennial had a lot on offer - sadly most of it was seen in the rain on the first day - not the most conducive of conditions for viewing outdoor sculpture - especially when you add icy winds and an ambient 8 degrees.

As with any biennial of this scale there was a lot of dross but enough sparkling moments of genuine ingenuity, beauty, perplexity, humour and intelligence to make it overwhelmingly worthwhile. Highlights would include Ai Wei Wei's Web of Light...


Richard Wilson's Turning the Place Over...

Steve Mcqueen's Queen and Country (no pictures sadly but the most beautiful, brilliant work about the Iraq War and all the British soldiers who have died in the conflict) and Yayoi Kasuma's totally immersive and utterly hypnotic Gleaming Lights of the Souls...


This was one of the very last works we saw before beginning the shlep back to London. She's a Japanese artist who lives voluntarily in a mental asylum (though she comes out for openings apparently...) Her work is exquisite and totally trippy - you certainly get a sense, among other things, of what it would be like to suffer, as Yayoi does, from a vision constantly obscured by hallucinogenic-like dots. In this work you enter a darkened enclosed space with mirrored walls and roof and a floor of water surrounding the small standing platform. The room is dark but for a series of suspended light bulbs that change colour intermittently - creating an otherworldly, ad infinitum experience. It was fairly magical. And quite mysterious.

There were other highlights of course, one of which was getting to know more of the girls on the course. We didn't sit around singing camp songs or braiding each others hair but we drank a bit and gossiped and bitched - talked art and shoes and boys. And we were all of us thrilled to get back to London last night. Nothing like a six hour bus trip for a bit of communal bonding.

No plans for the weekend - though half of Saturday has already been squandered because I refuse to get out of bed it's so fucking cold - but looking forward to next week - Rothko at the Tate Modern, some great lectures, return of the first assignments... And then Berlin. I mean "Reading Week"...