Jeff Koons

A stack of basketballs in their boxes and three 1950's Hoovers.... had I just wandered in to Arthur Daley's lock up or could this be, perhaps, the Jeff Koons exhibition at The Brighton Museum? It was, of course the latter but you could be forgiven for thinking that you had wandered into a random collection of objects rather than a carefully curated exhibition.
Koons work currently on display the the museum is part of the Artist's Rooms series a collection of post war contemporary art donated by a private collector. The works on display represent various periods of Koons creative life. Works from his earlier 'Banality' series stand alongside later pieces from the 'Popeye' series.
Koon's idea was to raise objects to a 'metaphysical level' and to celebrate the everyday or banal.
The exhibition suffers from a lack of consistency or 'flow' owing to its disparate nature.Because the works stand alone and out of context this only serves to isolate them and highlight their banality and purpose as functional rather than iconic objects.
Some of the pieces are undoubtedly startling and even disturbing. 'Caterpillar Chains' a kids lilo toy in the shape of a caterpillar suspended from the ceiling by six chains is an uneasy look back at childhood suggesting the passive and powerless nature of the child in an adult world.
It is worth wandering into the museum and taking a look at Koons bizarre take on the modern world- it would be better, however, to see the works in context as part of each individual collection.

GMF

Hurray the summer has arrived! Just chillin' out and listening to GMF by John Grant (from his latest album Pale Green Ghosts)it's an awesome tune.

Bold as a wild strawberry..

Indeed...A beautiful collection of work. Graffiti art, Anime (we won't even go into the bizarreness of what happened this evening about that!!)Collage, Stickers, Moshi Monsters?? But very beautiful brush strokes, thick and textured and an ethereal feeling. Sends you off in a multitude of directions, aesthetically pleasing and thought provoking all in the same breath! Most of all it was quite inspiring as a body of work that seems relevant to today's 3D obsessed world

David Bowie is...

The David Bowie Is.. exhibition at the V&A museum, London is one of the fasting selling exhibitions ever- a testament to one of the worlds greatest, most original artists. The exhibition was an intriguing mix of the mundane, suburban life that Bowie saught to escape and the spaced out, stylised world peopled with the eccentric characters that he created. It was fascinating to see the influences that inspired his vision from Burroughs to J G Ballard to Stanley Kubrickto. All visionaries that took the decades desire to explore outer space and turned it into a voyage into the inner mind. The evolution of Bowies alter ego's such as Ziggy stardust or the Thin White Duke were explored and the characters costumes on show were impressive. The most successful part of the exhibition for me though were the giant screens onto which images of iconic Bowie performances were projected complete with soundtrack- like you were there seeing him perform live. He was a performer first and foremost.
http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/exhibitions/david-bowie-is/

Eels

Eels at the Brighton Dome last night were AWESOME! Highly entertaining from the matching adidas tracksuits worn by the band to the mock 'wedding' - 'Do you Mr E take The Chet to be your lead guitarist?'. The first half rocked out big time and when the band dropped Fleetwood Mac's 'Oh Well' into the mix the crowd went crazy. After telling the audience that they were too old to carry on rocking all night the band calmed it down a notch- although not for long. Like being at the best party ever complete with drunken trip to A and E. ha ha.

 

Rock Inn Music

Rock Inn Music, a new project aimed at getting musicians together to create something new, launches tonight at The Rock Inn, Brighton. Hope it all goes well and I hope to be going back to see some cool new bands in a couple of months performing at Brighton Five Pound Fringe. In the meantime im off to see Eels on Monday at The Dome! Here's to having a relatively quiet weekend first though as last weekend was a bit ridiculous  involving too much port and 'Bedknobs and Broomsticks'- never a good combination!

Cooking with Bon and Billy

Got to cook a million cakes today (slight exaggeration ) and I'm finding that listening to Billy Holliday and Bon Iver is helping with the cooking vibe . I've only got to the letter b on the giga juke - who knows what will happen when I get to c?!