Sunday, 22 February 2009

Jane & Louise Wilson: Unfolding the Aryan papers

archive still

Showing at the BFI at the moment is a short video directed by Jane and Louise Wilson, about a film that never happened (planned and heavily researched by Kubrick, then spontaneously dropped) and a portrait of the leading artist Johanna ter Steege. It begins with images of Johanna taken by Stanley Kubrick - they are for the wardrobe shoot of The Aryan Papers. Johanna was to play the lead role of Tania , a compelling character. She is a Polish Jew trying to save herself and her family from the Nazis.


The amount of research overwhelmed Kubrick, in the end it left him depressed and for his own health he had to abandon the project. Maybe the story itslef was too cruel, and he in the end was unable to tell the story. Kubrick the famed perfectionist never felt he could justify the movie, or express the cruelty shown within that period.
A beautiful, still shot video which unearths repossessed histories within film, and expresses how even the greatest filmakers know that some works can never be realised.

Monday, 16 February 2009


say things that have not been said

hear things that have not been heard

see things that have not been seen

feel things that have not been felt

learn things that have not been taught

fight things that have not been fought

create things that will blow your fuckin' mind


Spike Lee.

This is going to be my mantra for the work I create this year.

Wednesday, 11 February 2009

Ryan McGinley











born in 1977.
Lives and works in New York
upcoming exhibition in May at Alison Jacques Gallery

Sunday, 8 February 2009

AlterModern Manifesto PostModernism is Dead

A new modernity is emerging, reconfigured to an age of globalisation – understood in its economic, political and cultural aspects: an altermodern culture
Increased communication, travel and migration are affecting the way we live
Our daily lives consist of journeys in a chaotic and teeming universe
Multiculturalism and identity is being overtaken by creolisation: Artists are now starting from a globalised state of culture
This new universalism is based on translations, subtitling and generalised dubbing
Today’s art explores the bonds that text and image, time and space, weave between themselves
Artists are responding to a new globalised perception.
They traverse a cultural landscape saturated with signs and create new pathways between multiple formats of expression and communication.
The Tate Triennial 2009 at Tate Britain presents a collective discussion around this premise that postmodernism is coming to an end, and we are experiencing the emergence of a global altermodernity.
Nicolas Bourriaud
Altermodern – Tate Triennial 2009at Tate Britain 4 February – 26 April 2009