PORT special food issue, guest edited by Fergus Henderson

Are you hungry? You will be when you've read the gourmandish new edition of PORT magazine, which is a foodie special. It's bursting with brilliant stuff - Fergus Henderson, of St John Bread and Wine, guest edits, and there's pieces by Simon Armitage, an interview with Nigella Lawson, and some fish photography that's beautiful and eerie. My piece, about Ruth Rogers of the River Café, isn't online yet, so get hold of the weighty and impressive print edition - and have a look at the preview video here.

Boomerang: Oscar Murillo and Marianne Spurr

Spurr: Treasure

After a day of editing, through the almost-rain to Aldgate East, where Hilary Crisp had put on a showing of Oscar Murillo and Marianne Spurr's work. Murillo's paintings stood casually as if they'd just been abandoned by the artist; two works by Spurr seemed to have organically appeared out of the floorboards. Murillo's paintings reminded me a little of Cy Twombley's; two of them leaning against a wall, one against the other, as if fighting against each other (or playing off each other) to get realised into the world. I was particularly struck by one of Spurr's pieces, which consisted of a cylindrical concrete bollard next to a slightly taller glass cylinder full of water, with a layer of oil; in the second cylinder was a black X on a gold background. The perspective made it look like a giant X was floating in the air, as if we were inside a treasure map. Gold in the everyday, indeed.

I also applaud the new practice of serving food at art openings - first there was Henry Hudson's pork roast; here there was arroz con lechona, which we ate out of cardboard boxes; (it's basically pork scratchings stuffed with rice.)


www.hilarycrisp.com