'Tis bitter chill at the moment, but I've warmed myself on a couple of inspiring exhibitions this week. This lunchtime, a brisk and bracing 15 minute walk got me to The Serpentine's Centre for Possible Studies for a proper look at the Fabelist Imprint show. We'd gone to the launch the previous Friday (I'm a …
Category: London
a bunch or two of cheerfulness
I'd lived in Battersea for years before I discovered there's a traditional greengrocer's just seven minutes' walk from my block. And even though I've been frequenting Thurgood's for a good few years now, I still get a tingle of anticipation each time I set off for their small but invaluable establishment. A proper greengrocer's in …
a quick (late) sketch from the rear stalls
To a seat in the rear stalls at the Royal Festival Hall last night, for the T S Eliot Prize readings. This was the hot ticket on a very cold Sunday night. Nearly 2,000 in the audience. Eight shortlisted poets reading for 10 minutes each (give or take a rambling digression or two). Compered by …
big paintings, small review
Well, hardly even a review. But I've been thinking about the Gerhard Richter retrospective, Panorama, on at Tate Modern at the moment. I've been twice now, and there is so much to see, and the work is so varied, which is one of the things I like about Richter. The same artist can produce bleak …
less is more, more or less
To Kings Place on Friday evening for a concert billed as 50 Years of Minimalism: Europeans & Experimentalists, featuring the sibling pianists Katia and Marielle Labèque, alongside musicians involved in Katia Labèque's 'contemporary rock band'. It turned out to be quite a varied programme, ranging from incredibly quiet and delicate pieces to the cacophonous. Now, …
immersive states
On Friday evening, we went to see the Pipilotti Rist exhibition, Eyeball Massage, at the Hayward Gallery. 'See' is not quite right; 'experience' is more accurate. And what a joyous, enriching and somehow also calming experience it was, and a wonderful transition out of - far away from - the working week. I'm worried now …
masks and wings
On Tuesday night, we found ourselves standing in a street in Shoreditch with a hundred or so others, all sporting plastic Alfred Jarry masks. The occasion: a group photo to mark the launch of Alastair Brotchie's handsome and indispensable tome on the great 'Pataphysician. Inside The Griffin pub, the pool table had been temporarily transformed …
no boundary condition
I've been twice so far to see the current exhibition at the Lisson Gallery: No Boundary Condition - paintings and sculptures by Shirazeh Houshiary. It's the paintings I'm most drawn to - shimmering, shifting, mirage-like pieces, with their captivating titles ('Wither', 'Sigh', 'Ebb', 'Between'); the intense, bruised colours; and the surfaces, which appear to have …
a crumb of literary comfort
On a lunchtime wander this week, I came across this plaque: There I was, dragging about in a fog of head-cold and office blues, and suddenly I'm connected to Eliot - his 'lonely cab-horse steams and stamps' only a few streets away from where I earn the crust that keeps the wolf from the door. …
heat wavelet
I can't help it. I know it's superficial but I'm revelling in this late, short blast of summer weather. Those uninterrupted blue skies over London make me happy. I love the strange sense I have of my childhood Australian summers revisiting me in London in October. I never thought I'd be lowering the blinds to …
Hilaire 