I’ve just finished preparing the work for the closing down auction. It’s a proper credit crunch special, with guide prices starting at £4.99

I hope you can be there, here’s the details :

Monday 5 December 2011 : Colchester Minories art gallery Essex CO1 1UE.

Viewing starts at 6.30pm.

It will all be over by 8.00pm

I’ve also been playing with a new toy, a tag cloud which looks though text and finds patterns - here’s what it made of the writing I did about this show :

This will be the final event of Such Stuff, after Monday the show will be struck and will ‘Leave not a wrack behind’.

This is your chance to pick up a bargain. The guide prices range between £4.99 and £285, and will perhaps be even less on the night.

But if you are not buying you are equally welcome to be part of this unique event. We are especially thrilled that the auctioneer is to be none other than Frinsley Baggage, the renowned art opinionista and critic. He really enjoyed his book signing on the opening night and is excited to be leading this closing down sale. Catalogues and guide prices will be available when you arrive on the night. However, you may wish to place bids by telephone if you cannot attned in person. To reserve your copy of the catalogue guide prices or arrange a telephone bidding assistant please email Frinsley through the Signapse site. We look forward to hearing from you.

Monday 5 December 2011 : Colchester Minories art gallery Essex CO1 1UE.

Viewing starts at 6.30pm.

It will all be over by 8.00pm

Visit :www.signapse.co.uk

Follow : @signapse

See the film : www.youtube.com/user/signapse

 I’m looking forward to two events next week, one in London and the other in Colchester.

Such Stuff : Everything must go !

Next Monday at the Minories Colchester is the last chance to view the static show and also to go home with a bargain at this closing down auction. We are proud to have Frinsley Baggage, A-list art opionista and autioneer, with us again. Everything must go, I hope you can come. Guide prices between £4.99 and £285. You will be welcomed with a drink, this will be another unique event and I hope to see you there.

Final viewing at 6.30pm - event starts at 7.00pm. Monday 5 December 2011. It will all be over by 8.00pm.

Venue : Colchester Minories art gallery Essex CO1 1UE.

Highgate Contemporary art : 12PM Twelve Printmakers

This is the second year we are showing here, this time with Alan Woods our new member. I’m showing some new box installations with intaglio embossed prints, as well as some of the early redundant media prints.

PV : 6 - 9.00pm Wednesday 7 December 2011. Show runs until 4 Jan 2012.

Venue : 26 Highgate High St. N6 5SJ. Open Tuesday - Saturday 10am - 6pm and Sunday and Monday by appointment.

I’ll be regularly tweeting through the week. If you would like to put in a tweet bid at the Everything must go auction please follow @signapse, or you can be a proper oligarch and phone in your bid. I have assistants standing by ready to receive your calls so email me and I’l give you the number to call.

Olympic posters ? Whassaappennin ? More posing than postering. YBA poser ?

It’s all very well being the grit in the bikini of the establishement, but that was a long, long time ago. Now we have Middle Aged British Artists, and we need a better word than MABA. My friend Steve came up with just the phrase to describe what happens when an enfant terrible gets properly settled at the armchair :

Les pantoufleurs terribles.

“Pantoufles are slippers. So someone who’s middle-aged and smugly comfortable & likes curling in in their slippers in front of the fire is a pantouflard. But the verb pantoufler has adopted two meanings: to laze around at home and also to transfer to the private sector. The latter meaning got attached to civil servants who use their privileged positions to secure hugely well-paid jobs in the private sector before they’ve given decent service to their country.”

Perfect. You heard it here first.

Some people have names that are perfect descriptors of their lives - William Whitelaw, Bob Diamond, Dan Quayle.

John Cage is the exact opposite. He opened the doors and the windows so the rest of us could hear properly. His work was properly, rigorously conceptual at a time when that word really meant something. The trouble is that the descriptions of conceptual work nearly always sound much sillier than the work itself. His 4′33″ sounded daft when I read about it, but was completely magical when I performed it for myself a couple of days ago.

I found a really beautiful interview he did in 1992 :

“When I hear what we call music it seems to me that someone is talking. Talking about his feelings, his ideas, his relationships. But when I hear this traffic here on 6th. Avenue I don’t have the feeling that someone is talking. I have the feeling that sound is acting. And I love the activity of sound.

… People expect listening to be more than listening … Sometimes they speak of the meaning of sounds. .. They think that for something to be just a sound is to be useless. Wheras I love sounds, just as they are. I have no need for them to be anything more. I don’t want them to be psychological. I don’t want a sound to pretend it’s a bucket, or that it’s president, or that it’s in love with another sound. I just want it to be a sound.”

For me it’s important to make space for silences, especially after working so hard for a show. Thinking about John Cage also reminded me that paint is just paint and I love it for that, it doesn’t have to pretend to be a bucket or the president. Maybe it’s time to get the sticky stick out again.

I need your help developing a new test to identify machines and non-human entities.

Play “I wish” by Stevie Wonder. If you can stand completely still throughout, then you a non human unit.

I  need some help to develop this playlist, which will yield more accurate data. We can then  apply it to managers, helpline administrators, PR people and gallery front of house and others we encounter in our working lives. Then we can roll it out, as managers tend to say. Ooops.

Suggestions so far are :

1. “Reasons to be Cheerful” by Ian Dury and the Blockheads.
2. “Denis Denis” by Blondie/Debbie Harry
3. “Cool struttin” by Sonny Clark

Then we can think about having some fun designing the hardware, no better place to start than the Voight-Kampf Test. I can’t believe that the Blade Runner sketchbooks now fetch over £100 a pop secondhand, I remember them being full of beautiful drawing by Ridley Scott. It was clearly a fully imagined place for him before he went near a camera.

Douglas Coombes of Ipswich community radio asked me onto Lifelines, his weekly talk and music slot. I ended up being in the studio with Julia Devonshire, Ipswich art project officer. We talked about the joint show of Chinwe Chukwuogo-Roy and Gareth Bayliss in the old Ipswich art school building, her object exchange project and how that connected with Such Stuff at the Minories. Was a really interesting morning.

I love radio.

It’s my imaginary/imaginative friend in the studio. What also makes Lifelines really worth a listen is the playlists, Douglas gets the guests to choose them and I heard a really beautiful reading my Roger McGough. Here’s my playlist, which I got carried away with and we only had time to listen to four of them :

Miles Davis : “Nuit sur les Champs-Elysees (take 2)” from Ascenseur pour l’Echafaud.
Little Stevie Wonder : “I wish.”

Now that’s what I call poetry, and the best bass line ever :

Smokin cigarettes and writin somethin nasty on the wall

Teacher sends you to the principle office down the hall

You grow up and learn that kind of thing aint right

But while you were doin it, it sure felt outta sight

I wish those days, could, come back once more

Why did those days ev-er have to go

I wish those days, could, come back once more

Why did those days ev-er have to go, cause I loved em so…….

Antonio Vivaldi : Concerto no. 2 in G minor.

US3 : “Cantaloup (Flip Fantasia)” from Hand on the Torch

Annie Lennox : “Every time we say goodbye” from Red hot and blue.

Cannonball Adderley : “Autumn leaves” from Somethin else.

JS Bach, played by Glenn Gould : “Chromatic fantasy & fugue in D minor”

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi : “Stabat mater dolorosa”

Howlin Wolf : “Highway 49″ from the Howlin Wolf London sessions

Captain Beefheart : “Yellow brick Road: from Safe as Milk

There’s loads more on the list but we only had time for three. Lifelines on Ipswich community radio is definitely worth a listen. It’s on between 10 - 11.30am on Wednesdays.

Matthew Bowman curated the Such Stuff exhibition, and took these rather fine shots of the static show. The Garden room at the Minories is screening the film, a 10 minute animation :

The Front room houses the static show including 6 large charcoal drawings on scrim, a room set, box installations of the props used in the film and some embossed prints :

Matthew works at Essex University and Colchester institute, we had many really interesting discussions as the project was developed, but he had a really good knack of trusting me when I needed him to. This meant that a lot of the working methods for this show were worked out as we went along. This made it a really exciting show to make.

Surely, like supermarket chicken wings, the word “contemporary” should have a use-by date. If we think about the term contemporary at all, we probably mean stuff made in the last 60 - 100 months. You can see the word used in this way right back to the 1940’s and beyond. I think it’s time to move on and start thinking for ourselves a bit more.

“Contemporary” is a lazy term because it appears to absolve the viewer from deciding for themselves if the work is any good or not. It’s a quick way to count work in or out  when we don’t have the courage to say if we like it or not.  This infatuation with the last 60 - 100 months is nearly as unhelpful as the infatuation with the previous 60 - 100 years, which is known as “retro”. But even less helpful is “cool”, meaning stuff made in the last 60 - 100 hours.

Computers couldn’t function without a completely regular timeline. This timeline has to be rigidly followed and unflinchingly shared with other computers. But humans can be much more promiscuous with time, which is why we are more interesting to talk to. So instead of asking “Is it cool, contemporary or retro ?” I’ve been trying to think of different questions that could be asked of the art we see and make :

• Does it feel authentic ?

• Does it connect to me, here, now ?

• Does it disrupt the assumptions I am making here and now and does it leave me looking at things slightly differently ?

• Does it leave me asking interesting questions, or does it merely present me with another answer ?

• Am I slightly less complascent after looking at it ?

For me, Hogarth is a contemporary. William Blake’s books are contemporary. Charlotte Salomons gouache sketchbooks are contemporary because they are all role models for me in the studio and signposts when I am looking at other peoples work.

For me Goya’s Pinturas Negras are contemporary -  they feel closer to Frank Auerbach than Auerbach ever feels to Chris Ofili.

And don’t try telling me that Caravaggio isn’t nearer to Francis Ford Coppola than Coppola is to Guy Richie.

I feel we need to stop being frightened by the ticking of the clock and start trusting our own reactions. Try to feel braver about making judgements for ourselves about what connects work together and even more important, what connects it to us.

This is largely from a conversation I had with my philosophical best friend Hugh Aitken last night over a bottle of Highland Park. Having friends who are smarter than me is treasure beyond measure especially when as in his case they are also wondrously earthy and emotionally wise.  Safe journey North dear Shug, and come back soon.

The show has just started so we thought it might be a good time to share some links in case you are unable to make it to the live event tonight.

You are also invited to the closing event on 5 December, which is called “Everything must go”.

You can see the web version of the film through this link : Such Stuff : a requiem for all that redundant media and all those forgotten messages.  

We worked hard on the sound, and there is a projection copy available where you will get the full version, rather than the phone or laptop experience.

We will also put up some stills from the show in my blog, and will be tweeting.

There is a special set of 8 catalogue cards. You can buy signed versions of these at either of the events on 21 October or 5 December, or by getting in touch with me through the site. I think of them as a breadcrumb trail you could  follow in whatever direction you like and in whatever order you choose.

This show was challenging and exciting to make, most of it well outside my comfort zone.  If I hadn’t had the middle bit working on the large charcoal drawings I could have easily lost my bottle. That seems to be the trick for me, to have enough new stuff to keep me on my toes, and enough familiar stuff to stop me hiding under the duvet. Making this show felt like hitting a bend too fast on the motorcycle. You can’t brake. You mustn’t wobble. Just lean over a bit more and hang on.

Just got back from the first day installing the work. Mixed feelings,  partly a shock  to see ideas take shape and start breathing on their own. Partly feeling regretful that its too late to change anything  Mostly straightforward relief at getting shot of this work that has been obsessing me for months.

But mostly just feeling tired, and grateful to my mate Melvyn who did the difficult stuff.

It’s strange how my relationship with the work changes as I prepare to hang for a show. It’s partly because I’m saying goodbye to it, like when a close friend moves to a different country. It’s also because the detailed admin you need to so at this stage is MUCH more stressful than doing the work itself. Pricing … Framing …. publicity and press stuff …. aaaagh. But it’s also wonderful to see how it went from here, which is a really early visual I did of the whole thing :

To here, which is one of the box works :

and ended up here which is your invite to the launch event :

I hope you can come to the launch on Friday. The performance is between 7.00 and 8.00 pm. and that’s the bit I’m really looking forward to. Once that performance is over it will never come back.

Just woke up after a long day rigging the show at Brighton. I was showing my CD engravings, people liked them and I really should do some more.

The PV was heaving, they had to stay open for extra time so everybody could get in. I checked out Alexander Korzer-Robinson again this year. His altered book sculptures gets better and better. It’s very easy to copy Joseph Cornell but very difficult to say anything new.

Off to help at Origin in London  tomorrow where Susi Hines and Maya Selway are showing. I need an assistant or three ….

Brighton Art fair : 12 PM Twelve Printmakers 

Dates : Thursday 22nd September 6.00pm - 8.30pm (ticket only)
Friday, 23rd September 11.00am - 7.30pm
Saturday, 24th September 10.00am - 6.00pm
Sunday, 25th September 10.00am - 5.00pm Venue : Corn Exchange, Church Street Brighton, BN1 1UG

It’s great to be back again this year. I’m showing the lithograph/monoprints from my Changeling series Bestarios de ensueño as well as reviving some of my CD engravings based on song titles. Come and snap up your copy of Trout mask replica.

CATOS 2011 : Open studio

Dates : Saturday 1 October 2011. 11.00 - 6.00pm.
Venue : My studio.

The annual CATOS safari where you can observe me in my natural habitat. I’ll be working on the box works for the Minories show so it’s a chance to see how they are progressing and also to see the prints from Brighton.

Such Stuff : an event of film, performance and drawing

Dates :

Launch event : Friday 21 October 2011. 7.30 - 9.00pm. Includes a performance and the first screening of the film. There is also a preview for press/networking on the same day, so please get in touch if you’d like a personal invitation to that.

Static show : Saturday 22nd October to Tuesday 6th December 2011

Closing event : “Everything must go.” Monday 5 December 2011 6.00 - 8.00pm
Performance and public auction of work.

Venue : The Minories 74 High St. Colchester, Essex CO1 1UE.

This show brings together several parts of my working life and has been really exciting to make. It combines film, performance, drawing and box installation and has become my requiem for all that redundant media and all those forgotten messages.

I hope you can come to the launch event, which is the only time you will be able to experience all the work in it’s entirety. At the end of the static show we will be pulling the show apart in an event called “Everything must go”. Such Stuff will then only exist in our memories, leaving “not a wrack behind” so I hope to see you before it goes.

Such Stuff at The Minories coincides with the opening of Firstsite at the same location. This beautiful building is designed by Rafael Viñoly as an internationally important arts centre.

Just finished a week on the big drawings. Aaaaaaaaaaaaah that’s better, to have finished the animation and to have got back into my comfort zone. There is something about charcoal - the most primitive and the most sensitive of materials. I also found out from a science programme on the radio that carbon was one of the first materials to appear after the Big Bang. We are made from soot and silicon. Perfect.

Now I can start on the box installations. Despite the wobbly moments I love this job.