Hey...curious as to what London peeps are thinkin and sayin over there about Obama for President over here in the U.S of A....(posted an entry on his MLK day speech in Atlanta on my page).
The London edition of the birthday celebrations continued last night with the big party. Cage the Elephant, Lindsay, Hayley, Olivia, Alex, Rory, Andy, Niamh, Davina, Michael, D, Ben, Tich, Lincoln, Joey, Bradley, Gemma, Joe, Lynton, Hana, Graham, Tara, the neighbourhood cat and others popped by. We had cake, candles, dancing, spin the bottle, injuries, faceplants, thrills, spills, drama, Guns'n'Roses, chair dancing, to-ing & fro-ing, chatter and drank the cupboards dry. Now for the clean-up op then....on to NY!! Here comes trouble.
The Twenty-Faux birthday celebrations have begun and it started with a bang. We pre-partied, dropped by Catch and danced the night away. Hana got tattooed, i thieved another person's hat, threw up the hood and shook the tush. Now...time to prepare for tonight's official CharChar party.
I'm Feelin rough I'm Feelin raw I'm in the prime of my life.
Let's make some music make some money find some models for wives.
I'll move to Paris, shoot some heroin and fuck with the stars.
You man the island and the cocaine and the elegant cars.
This is our decision to live fast and die young.
We've got the vision, now let's have some fun.
Yeah it's overwhelming, but what else can we do?
Get jobs in offices and wake up for the morning commute?
So Alex and Rory are bidding farewell to the Big Smoke in favour of life on the outskirts of the city. We sent them off in style - a bar hop around the East with muchos dancing, a city walk, tequila, fevers, carbs and a shared love of London. Bon voyage smug-marrieds xx
The exhibition opening was a major success. We were packed and had to extend the opening hours. After a little gentle persuasion everyone was out by 11pm. Hana then ordered a group of vans to get us East. Ended up in the Dolphin's new "wine bar" - and I call it that with intended sarcasm. Conversed about men, music, life and love over shots. Woke up with the headache I deserved.
Those Kentucky boys done gone and left the UK. To toast the end of their time in London I had a little(!) house party. Send offs are always sad but we turned that goodbye into a goodtime. Watch out for Cage The Elephant...no doubt taking over a town near you soon.
Unforgettable times, life long memories, forever friends, unstoppable rockstars... definitely missed
Pippy Houldsworth Gallery is very pleased to present a two-person exhibition of works by Adam King and Yutaka Inagawa, two London based artists pilfering the everyday to create the extraordinary. Kleptomaniacs of societal debris, King and Inagawa force recognition of the forgotten and ignored. The result an exhibition of beautiful decay.
Adam King’s installations burst from the gallery wall with abundant energy yet intricate detail, cascading to the floor in a riot of colour. Yet despite their mock baroque aesthetic these controlled explosions reveal themselves to be constructions of our consumer detritus – techni-coloured entanglements of tat. In opposition to their kitsch appearance King’s reliefs offer a weighty criticism of our modern throw-away culture. The appropriated imagery powerfully depicts the excesses of a seduced society. For his collages, King ransacks magazines, catalogues and advertisements to create sublime ‘landscapes’ of the familiar and unusual. Whilst the colour and imagery in these works allude to the works of Paul Nash or Yves Tanguy, King’s own voice speaks loud and clear in his investigation of the here and now.
Yutaka Inagawa’s paintings are equally imbued with an overload of visuals, signs and motifs. In his partly abstracted collages, and use of photo-transfers, he explores the dystopian repercussions of urban life with disarming delicacy. Inagawa draws on collected and recollected imagery from his own photo-documentation and the overflowing image library recalled from memory. The fragmented recovery and combination of techniques reflects the chaotic foundation of the works. Inagawa views the modern city as a site of confusion whereby the grotesque has invaded our ideals to the extent that we no longer recognise it as such. Like the surrounding landscape the works are montages of clashing idiosyncrasies; artificial dreams and awakening nightmares.
Adam King won the Dundee Contemporary Arts Print prize (2002), was shortlisted for the Pizza Express Prospects Prize (2002), and was a finalist in the Celeste Art Prize both in 2006 and 2007. He is one of a number of emerging talents to have had several works acquired recently by Charles Saatchi. He is represented by Lounge Gallery, London. Yutaka Inagawa, Japanese and living in London, studied at Chelsea College of Art, has had solo shows in France, Korea and New York, and is currently featured in Wound Magazine 07/08.
Sunday...went to Southbank, picked up coffees, walked a little, talked a little, ate a lot, sat in my spot, watched the world go by, visited the Tate, bought some books, wore an "I'm a bad person" badge, crossed the Waterloo bridge, got to Trafalgar Square to celebrate Chinese New Year, caught the "Laughing Dance", stopped by Leicester Square, proved I couldn't be left alone for 5 minutes, watched the fireworks, read my horoscope, decided it was going to be a good year for us rats!
