London Art Fair: Chris Kenny

After four and a half hours spent moseying round the London Art Fair this weekend, I was pretty much ready to skewer my head on a shard of metal passing itself off as contemporary art. Still, in the main it was incredibly helpful re the book i am working on, which is about buying contemporary art. In terms of wanting to buy individual works myself, there were a few things which, had a i a few thousand comfortably to spare, i would really like to have taken away with me. No.1 was probably one of the pieces on display by British artist Chris Kenny.

Chris Kenny is an artist who makes sculptural collages from found text. I first discovered him at Samuel Johnson's house just off the Strand, when i went to the House of Words exhibition there about a year or so ago, where he was showing a collection of funny miniature books with curiously provocative, humorous and philosophical titles. Here at the LAF were larger works either telling a surreal story or combining phrases to evoke a sense of something - celebrity, the universe, nature. On sale was a very cool story about a couple called (if i remember correctly) Marguerite and Dave. I would have taken pictures, but my iPhone was still up the spout after i had to get a replacement and the new one decided it was incompatible with my macbook. helpful? very. Anyway, both the dissonant and complimentary randomness of the phrases and words he compiles together are a complete joy to read. it's part story, part word association, part art, part theatre of sorts. the below images are taken from his gallery site, England & Co.

 All the way to Idiotsville, 2008 (above).

You can just about make out part of the  weirdly wonderful story.

Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing? 2010

below are a series of questions included as part of this circle of phrases:

Which way is London from here?

Do men follow you in the streets?

What are children a substitute for?

Is a poem worth dying for?

Do fetishists get married?

How exactly does looking at pictures corrupt the viewer?

How does this make you feel?

All worth asking if you ask me. I'd very much like to have one of his artworks in my house.

 

Frieze(ing)

I left Frieze on Friday and literally slumped down in a heap on the floor outside the tent in Regent's Park; a little pool of misery. I had to take myself off for a cup of tea and caramel waffles to pep up my spirits which had been culturally steamrollered. As usual, the fair was completely overwhelming even though I pretty much let the art wash over me like a cultural salve rather than allowing it to penetrate my consciousness, agitate my senses, provoke a reaction or illicit any kind of formulated thought at all. Since it is basically a glorified trade show, admittedly of very expensive agitprop high culture, it's just nice to notice general patterns and trends, pick out the shock-jocks,  creep round the stranger exhibits (the 10 embarrassed men by Annika Ström this year) and linger over pieces which personally appeal rather than try and make sense of it all. A selection of the latter piece (for me) are below. 

A grand cinematic statement that's part glamour of the silver screen, part decidedly un-glamorous industrial fundamentals behind the scenes

 I've always had a penchant for word collage creations like this, you want to make sense of it, you can't, you grapple... you surrender. I like the phrase 'Skitish friend in central Asia'

 Completely different from most things at Frieze, I liked this for the mix of instantly relating to it, aligning oneself with something about it, and then confusion when the white crosses are noticed, like there's something sinister and insidious lurking beneath the surface.

 Pretty much what i was feeling about half way round the art fair

 Reminds me of the two rather crazy golden palm trees that light up that used to belong to Elton John and which my Dad bought in a Sotheby's auction eons ago, and which i love.

 A George's Cross made up of £10 and £5. sort of so grim it's cool? In two minds.

 Love love love this Tracey Emin line drawing of a woman masturbating. Looks like the most elegant act in the world.

 50s cultural reference: Check.  Outward expression of what was going on internally: Check.

 Quasi-street signs with slightly non-sensical, existentialist phrases. Basically summed things up for me at that point.

" It comes with oblivion, per se. All in a day's work"

Multiplied Arts

Harland Miller print, £500, White Cube

While the whirr of Frieze continues apace in Regent's Park, the inaugural and alternative Multiplied Arts has set up shop very nicely thank you very much at Christie's on the Brompton Road. Filled with over 30 galleries (most of whom aren't at Frieze) the fair focuses on limited edition prints, artist box editions, and multiples, which means the prices are brought way down - they start as low at £9.99 but generally hover around the £500 mark, but big names still feature - Peter Blake, John Baldissari, Tracey Emin. Rachel Whiteread, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Harland Miller (above - GOD I LOVE THIS PRINT). It's such a wonderful opportunity to see amazing work that's actually affordable, in a space that's not frenetic or intimidating. I particularly liked The Vinyl Factory - artist/musician collaborations of album cover artwork, and the cosy prints at Elphicks, plus the stands of the ICA and the Whitechapel galleries, which sell limited edition prints by both big name and emerging artists, with the proceeds supporting the galleries.

Album cover from the Vinyl Factory

Pick Me Up

I first came across the work of Rob Ryan about 5 or six years ago. I was at the V&A Village fete, an 'alternative' village fete held in the John Madejski gardens of the V&A every summer, run by artists and art collectives. as you'd expect, you pay to play games and then you can win things - but here the games are skewed as artists re-interpret the rules, and the winnings are more often than not art prints or crafty things.

Dressed as 'Robot' Ryan in a collection of tin-foil covered cardboard boxes, Rob Ryan manned a 'play your cards right' stall. It's a game i'd never played, but proceeded to win rather decisively (ha). the game's fee of £1 was all it took to win a print, but a side effect of my winnings was a bad Rob Ryan art habit which i cannot seem to kick. Each year since then i have returned to win a print, whatever the cost of loosing-until-i-win amounts to. The biggest loss one year being my pride, as the game consisted of dancing to the noises of barnyard animals on a plastic sheet decorated with said animals faces - you had to leap onto the face of the animal that matched the bleating/mooing/neighing/quacking as it blasted out of the speakers and were marked out of 100 by the roar of audience appreciation (or lack thereof). deliciously humiliating if you weren't involved. and to to heap upon the ignominy there was a crowd several people thick watching various desperate fools partake in the game. (it was pretty hilarious to watch if from a safe distance). it took me about 1/2 hour to build up the courage to debase myself thus. still, i came home gleefully clutching a print in my sweaty palms.

As well as prints i also have amassed/bought/been given various other prints, plus books (either by him, or novels that he has done covers for), tiles, invitations (the fashion and art worlds love getting him to make bespoke invitations and Christmas cards which i'm lucky enough to receive), and which are dotted around my flat. i bought the above laser cut out for my best friend for her birthday (the arrows point to a dictionary definition of the word WONDERFUL). if i had more money, i'd throw it at my addiction and buy up everything. well, not everything, but lots, certainly.

Anyway... massive deviation. the point of this post is really to talk about Pick Me Up, which i went to on Sunday, and which is being held at Somerset House all week (until may 3rd). It's a Graphic Art Fair, with lots of emerging and established contemporary graphic artists and art collectives - including Rob Ryan, Print Club London and Le Gun. Rob Ryan has carted his studio (or a simulacrum of it) to Somerset House, where creative operations take place for a week. the walls are covered with his work, and various laser cutter machines and printing press machines line up to churn out work. It's fascinating to watch operations and see so much of his work hanging together. His laser cuts are mesmerisingly beautiful - delicate and intimate, and they invoke a childlike bubble of emotion that speaks to one's inner hopeless, imaginative, solitary, sensitive romantic.

The rest of the show was fairly mixed - much not really appealing to my taste, being a bit to pixelated or oblique in its impact, but what i did love, i really did. Le Gun's installation Le Bum was genius: a giant ass that blasted out The Pet Shop Boys and which you poked your head in the sphincter of to view a monochrome mural which skipped through time, style and design, fusing genres, styles, fashions, figures from all over the shop. the label read: "Le Bum is made with the arse-pertise of Matt Duddleston and Gary Cross". the collective Peepshow were making colourful prints on site to buy. Print Club were selling screen prints with punchy images and sayings for £50. I also loved prints by artists Pierre Nguyen, - his dark broody images of girls, and those by Erin Petson - strange fashion-esque illustration with a macabre twist.