DISCOBALLBREAKER
Music / Art / Culture / And The Occasional Awkward Silence Background artwork credits : Adam R. Garcia, Pressure, Neon ©2011
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After four days of talks, performances, curated tours, cocktails, coffees, and many, many conversations, I said goodbye to the spring edition of The Other Art Fair. The fair returns in October and will take place at the Old Truman Brewery.
For more (grainy/shitty) pictures from the fair, head to the discoballbreaker facebook page.
The Other Art Fair
The Other Art Fair, London’s leading artist-led fair, opens this evening and continues until Sunday April 28. This edition of the fair gives people the chance to buy directly from 100 artists (chosen by a team of art insiders), and also features a busy performance program, food stalls, and educational activities for the kids.
I’m really excited to be working with the fair on their editorial and social media content, and will be there every day, most probably drinking numerous coffees while following people around with a notebook. Come and say hello!
The Other Art Fair opens to invited guests tonight, and continues until April 28.
Ambika P3, Marylebone Rd,
London NW1
The Knife have collaborated with filmmaker Marit Östberg on a short film called The Interview (Östberg previously directed the video for ‘Full of Fire’). The film attempts to “explain their intentions and thought processes behind the new album Shaking The Habitual”
Eddie Hooper - Tomorrow's Sun
Spring may have finally hit London. Even the Shouty Old Man who lives on our street is smiling.
Interview > Florence To
“When I began my visual work, I remember constantly trying to defy gravity”.
What makes for a good party? It would seem that the tried and tested formula (at least here in East London) is made up of nerdy trainspotters and camera-friendly scenesters, converted churches (or shoe stores, or pool halls), and skinny men (because unfortunately, it’s still mostly men) playing music very loudly. While they all make for fun evenings, these days I’m gravitating towards the nights that push the party formula, whether it’s with curated film screenings, or soul food.
One woman who is becoming a valuable component in the evolving art form of the party is Scottish artist Florence To.
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figen han - pisi pisi
Celebrating Easter with Figen Han, infamous ’70s icon and star of Turkish ‘seks filmleri’ (sex films).
Interview > Jonny Briggs
At Art13 a few weeks ago, as I made my way through the orange-scented main hall (courtesy of a Roelof Louw installation), and poked around various projects and performances, and one faux-artist squat from Lazarides, I came across the work of Jonny Briggs at FaMa Gallery.
Jonny Briggs is a young British artist who won the 2011 New Sensations Prize from The Saatchi Gallery for work that is deeply personal, and occasionally uncomfortable.
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Heading to the Jazz Cafe in Camden tonight for an evening of Arab hip hop. The Narcicyst and Omar Offendum will be performing alongside Wriggly Scott and a few others. And it’s all for a great cause!
Limited tickets are available here.
“Whateverest” - the short documentary by Kristoffer Borgli that was cut down to create the music video for Todd Terje’s ‘Inspector Norse’ - is as funny and touching and wonderful as I hoped it would be. The documentary follows Marius Solem Johansen aka Inspector Norse - failed musician, sweater model, youtube dance god and kitchen sink drug chemist.
Be my friend Marius!
‘Full of Fire’, the new single from The Knife, reminds me of Thrills-era Ellen Allien. Check out the video from filmmaker/artist Marit Östberg, whose work deals with feminist theory, queer studies and gender. Says Östberg
“The film ‘Full of Fire’ started to grow as an embryo in the song´s lines ‘Who looks after my story’. Who takes care of our stories when the big history, written by straight rich white men, erase the complexity of human´s lives, desires and conditions? The film ‘Full of Fire’ consists of a network of fates, fears, cravings, longings, losses, and promises.
The film features some nudity so it’s NSFW.
“Shaking the Habitual” is out Apr 8.
UTOPIA
Channel 4’s new conspiracy thriller may not have debuted with a bang, but just two episodes in, I’m already hooked. Led by a bold design (which brightened up numerous billboards around London in the lead up to the first episode) the show is a tightly art directed mystery wrapped in a riddle, smothered in bright yellow enigma sauce. It’s also pretty fucking funny.
But it’s not just UTOPIA’s slick storytelling and hyper-stylised aesthetic that keeps the show in my TiVo favourites, it’s the score provided by Montreal-based Christobal Tapia De Veer.
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Brand new video from SBTRKT, a grimy Philip K. Dick-inspired tale starring one timid young woman, one chain-smoking barber, and a fuck load of sharp tools.
The video is directed by Ross Anderson, who won the chance to work with SBTRKT and Young Turks in a competition run by music development agency Generator and Northern Film & Media.
via cliptip
Steven Quinn @ The London Art Fair
Salon Vert caught my eye at the London Art Fair with works by artists including Steve Rosenthal, Margo Trushina and collage artist, Steven Quinn.
To brand Quinn as just a collage artist would be to do him a disservice - the artist also works in graphic design, photography, illustration and motion graphics (he’s even directed a few music videos).
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David Cotterrell @ The London Art Fair
Last week, after an impromptu lunch time snow ball fight with the Ten Thousand Yen crew, I left the protective confines of Dalston to head to the 25th edition of the London Art Fair. In a few short hours I took in two talks, and discovered new and recent works from various British artists (my thanks to the tired gallerists who politely indulged my every query).
In the next few posts I will share a few of my favourite pieces from the fair, starting with a tense sculptural installation from artist David Cotterrell.
