Booktrust Art of Reading Show at Waterstones Gower Street

Portrait by Elizabeth Shields, on show at Waterstones Gower Street.

Phoebe Dickinson: "My Eye" at Blanchards

Hidden somewhere behind the King's Road is an unexpected wasteland of industrial warehouses; even more unexpected is the appearance of an antiques shop, Blanchards, where the artist Phoebe Dickinson had her show last week. Amongst a junkish landscape of pipes and vast vats glistened a series of works of depth and beauty. I've seen her work before, but seeing them all together was a marvel.

Dickinson is a portrait artist of great talent, with an ability to experiment between styles: all of her paintings have a mature, rich quality to them which belies her years. There were some other, more playful things on show: a beautifully executed seahorse, and a wonderful little mouse in what appears to be a Genghis-Khanesque tunic. There were nudes that were almost impressionistic. A "Cabinet of Curiosities" took centre stage, filled with enchanting objects; the odd landscape sparkled lushly up from the walls. She is a painter who is unafraid to be traditional, and yet at the same time imbues her work with a lively, modern freshness. The show has finished now, alas, but do keep your own eyes on Phoebe Dickinson. Look at her website here. I also particularly enjoyed the wine table (not made by Phoebe) which has two little depressions where you can keep the bottles; presumably for ease of access - and so that you don't knock them over in your cups.

Liza Campbell and Henry Hudson

Two private views in a week: first there was Liza Campbell, whose Black Boxes have been a feature of my life for a while now; her "Carphology & Cryptograms" were on display at the Julian Hartnoll Gallery in St James'. My favourite was "Neurotics Checklist" (left), which lists - you can guess - all the things that a neurotic might worry about, including Alien Abduction, Putrefaction of the Genitals, Quicksand, a Tsunami and a Piranha Infested Caipirinha. If you are neurotic it's probably worth avoiding it. The works have a great deal of the customary Campbell charm and wit - go and check them out: never have Linnaean taxonomies seemed so much fun.

Read about Liza Campbell's Black Boxes here

Then today, at T J Boulting's near Oxford Circus, was Henry Hudson's "Hominidae", a series of vast portraits of his family and friends in swirling, layered plasticenes that brought to mind Lucian Freud. They're textured, striking and haunting, upright figures in all but bare surroundings, sometimes looming out of their frames (quite literally as the material rises up towards you.) To the right is a portrait of the artist Lucy McMillan-Scott (who painted both me and my mother) and her dog Piper. There's also one of the novelist Cressida Connolly and her husband Charles Hudson, both of whom were present; striking a more colourful note was Janet Street-Porter, whose hair was, I think, purple, though it was hard to tell.

More about Henry Hudson

Kalliphilia, and some Wykehamists

Hugo Wilson

It was a very artistic weekend, what with one thing and another. On Saturday I went to a show called Kalliphilia at the Vegas Gallery, which lurks in a back street in Bethnal Green beneath the thundering of trains. A love of beauty can often seem to be absent from the art world, and this gallery aimed to showcase some things of real beauty. Emma McNally's weird and entropic abstracts were very striking; Andy Harper's seething and dream-like serpent stood out, as did Hugo Wilson's dark and dream-like kneeling monk. More surprising was a piece by Tom Gallant, which on the surface seemed a normal collage: look closer, and you will see some very explicit pictures. Beauty lurks everywhere, it seems, whether in flesh or flowers, faith or fever.

Emma McNally

On Friday, I zoomed down to Winchester for an exhibition put on by some recently Old Wykehamists in the enormous and impressive art school. Six old boys, the eldest of whom left in 2003, came together to show some of their recent work. The art school itself was displaying some excellent pieces by current pupils, including some wonderfully Mervyn Peake-like portraits.

Ben Walton

Of the old boys, Ben Walton's human animal hybrids were playful and engrossing, recalling the Chapman Brothers' mutilation of Goya paintings but without their gross sensibility. Tom Rainsbury's abstracts were luminous and peaceful; Charlie Stewart provided some striking photographs (including one of a goldfish and its shadow, seemingly unconnected.) There was fine draughtsmanship in Sam Wilkinson's portraits, eerie and swirling; and also some excellently striking lines in Freddie Martelli's, whose subjects gazed out solemnly and realistically from their frames (amongst them, one of me. Ahem.) Neil Ziatabari's gloomy landscape of a field with some houses was set nicely against his livelier portraits. All in all, there was much beauty there.

The Death of a Master: Lucian Freud

After Cézanne, by Lucian Freud. (Detail).

Lucian Freud's paintings were uncompromising and brutal, yet they had a tenderness for the humanity of their subjects. I have a quote by him stuck onto my computer which I frequently fail to live up to: "I work every day and night. I don't do anything else. There is no point otherwise." I am always in awe of such single-minded determination to perfect one's art, of people who make art their life.

You can read about Lucian Freud's life and art HERE. 

Timurids and Architects: A Blazing Weekend

Saturday brought with it one planned activity: a visit to the British Museum, to listen to a lecture by Thomas Wide about Afghan art. He traced the influences of other cultures on the Afghans, and showed how they responded in interesting and creative ways. My particular favourite was 'two fabulous lions chasing a ribbon' (reproduced right, but not very well I'm afraid). I enjoyed the fact that Timur's nickname (Tamburlaine) means 'Timur the Lame'.

Then an unplanned activity: a visit to an architectural show where we were alternately baffled and excited by the various displays. It was a review of the Architectural Association's academic year. It was fascinating. In the first room were some labels (I hope intended ironically - see left). Space was played with in interesting ways, and one exhibit (which hummed and roared with electronics and lights and space maps) confused and delighted me. Brilliant.

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

By the River (Henry) Hudson

This photograph does not do the pictures justice

To the depths of East London last night, near the new Olympic stadium at Bow, for a showing of Henry Hudson's Hogarthian plasticene paintings, which depict the artist in a number of poses from the Rake's Progress. Despite claims of remoteness, I managed to take a bus there without mishap, although I did get a lift for the rest of the way from a nice man in a hat (thank you nice man in a hat).

A red carpet led in to the enormous warehouse, where huge tables laden with glasses were laid out. Behind hung the paintings: the effect was magnificent. Velvet coated guests thronged; I was upset because I didn't wear my velvet jacket (so I wore a brown one today). A pink haired Janet Street-Porter smiled affably in a corner. Also present (amongst legions of others) were artists Vanessa Garwood and William Roper-Curzon and curator Aretha Campbell. I talked to Georgia Byng, the author of the Molly Moon series, about children's writing.

The Olympian setting was fitting, the contrasts between the scuzzy location and the glamour of the guests, the sporting prowess and the artist's decadence illuminated. The debris floating in the river could have been put there by Tracey Emin herself. We ate roast hog, served by girls in white dresses with blue flowers in their hair, and tried (unsuccessfully) not to reenact any of the Hogarth scenes. There was a curtain marked 'DO NOT GO BEHIND THIS CURTAIN'. I went behind it. Hoping to find another world (maybe Narnia), I was disappointed in the result (which I will keep to myself).

The Saatchi Gallery: In Other Rooms, Other Wonders

Well I never - I, the King of the Killers of Time, the Man Who Stares at Walls - was dawdling down the Kings Road today in search of an impecunious way of passing the time, when I saw the Saatchi Gallery. In several years it's never occurred to me to go in there. It must cost the earth, I reasoned, as I settled in to yet another five minutes thumbing through identical shirts in Reiss which I had no intention of buying (despite the weirdly bearded sales assistant's insistence).

Little did I know - it's free! Yes, absolutely free. Walking in there is like walking into some mad person's house - the exhibits stand alone, all but unguarded, waiting for you to come upon them serendipitously. The first things I saw were Jonathan Wateridge's enormous paintings - groups of astronauts, sandinistas, and one that particularly struck me - 'Jungle Scene with Plane Wreck' - which, for some reason, reminded me of Werner Herzog's diaries, and of the romance of the world in ruins.

But then I turned to my left and saw what I at first thought was a glass case full of flies. My initial reaction was - and so? I remembered Damien Hirst's new exhibit, thought it might have something to do with that, and was about to pass on when I looked closer. I saw a whole world. Little tiny skeletal warriors perching on insects and bees, in bellicose poses: one in the act of carrying a butterfly's wing for some nefarious purpose; another skateboarded on the back of something. They hung from almost invisible wires, locked into some strange and extraordinary battle, petrified in time and space: as if in reaction to this, everybody I saw who looked at it immediately reached for their cameras to petrify the petrification.

What was most interesting was that the narrative of the piece was so open to interpretation. What was the purpose of the five little figures, sitting in wait on a dragonfly? Were they reinforcements? Spectators? Generals? Was there any purpose in the swarm at all, or was it, as the name implied, merely chaos? In literary terms, it was a Kelly Link story come alive. The piece was Tessa Farmer's Swarm. Go and see it, now, and be frightened and charmed.

Other things that caught my eye were a large steel balloon; Steven Bishop's stuffed mountain goat; and a large sculpture made out of fans and bins that throbbed menacingly in a corner, called 'All My Exes Live in Tescos'. Most intriguing, too, was Anna Barriball's Door and Black Wardrobe - portals into other worlds if ever I saw ones.

So next time you've got time to kill on the King's Road, step into the Saatchi Gallery - you may find Narnia. Or, at the very least, something that isn't Reiss.

Debut: Pop Up Gallery

Last night brought an excursion to the Vauxhall Bridge road, and to 'Debut', a show run by the Pop Up Gallery. Here were works exhibited by Henry John - interestingly, intelligently composed interiors and landscapes, with a way of making the ordinary seeming ethereal, even extraordinary (see picture.) My particular favourite was a small painting of a traffic light: unobtrusive and elegant, it seemed to showcase much of this painter's talent as the red traffic light glowed out of a grey sky. Also on show was Marianne Spurr, whose diptych of a piece of black velvet next to a pale green acryllic made me stop and ponder. Amy Moffat's intriguing, almost cartoonish oils provided a note of amusement, whilst Chloe Ostmo's architectural prints were austere and striking. Will Martyr's pop-arty paintings provided a colourful contrast; and Timothy Betjeman's paintings were thoughtfully and movingly executed. The show runs till January 10th - it's definitely worth taking a gander.

Vanessa Garwood, and A Brace of Stirlings

Well, it has been an arty week. First off, I attended the private view of Kitty Stirling and her father Angus at a Cork Street Gallery. Though visually different in style, there is a subtle similarity between father and daughter in the way that they use colour. Angus' elegant landscapes were bold and striking; Kitty experimented with space and texture in a way that was fascinating to behold. A series of paintings made with photographs was particularly intriguing. I didn't stay for long, alas; but I did eat a lot of breadsticks.

Next up was Vanessa Garwood at 68 Dean Street for an exhibition curated by Aretha Campbell. The house itself is a marvel: almost practically the same as it has been for years. It also has the best lavatory I've ever seen (well, nearly - at least, at an art gallery.) Vanessa's paintings are mostly concerned with the human figure: beautiful nudes adorned the walls. A bronze sculpture of three girls was the centrepiece of the downstairs room - a charming take on the Three Graces. A mostly green landscape was luscious and inviting; upstairs, portraits of monkeys stole the show, each challenging one's conception of humanity. There were no breadsticks, unfortunately, but there was plenty of prosecco. Huzzah!

I'm Late, I'm Late... Christian Marclay's The Clock at The White Cube

I'm actually never late, at least on purpose. Last night, after a party for Help the Heroes at the Cobden Club (lots of soldiers, and Princess Beatrice), we piled into a taxi and headed to the White Cube Gallery in Mason's Yard. It was all but empty: we got there at 3 am to watch The Clock, an installation by Christian Marclay which is a twenty four hour video. We sat on white sofas and watched the film unfold: it runs in real time, and is made up of excerpts from other films. The effect is hypnotic; even though the time is shown all the, er, time, one doesn't notice it passing because one is so thoroughly drawn into each narrative. And they only last three or four seconds. They flow and segue into each other, blending and fading and echoing each other: sometimes voices from one film will bleed into another scene. At 3am we saw nightmare, insomnia, sex, robbery, desperation, fear and even peace. It was incredibly beautiful and awesomely involving. I am going back, now. If you don't see me for a while, that's where I'll be.... I wonder if anyone has watched it all the way through? It only runs till Saturday, though, so hurry if you want to go...

It also made me think about The White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland. 'I'm late, I'm late...' he cries... Late for what? Is he permanently catching up, or is he heading towards his death? Who knows. It reminds me rather of 'Werner Herzog reads Curious George.'

Lord Dunsany and the Treasures of Hungary

The two are not connected, of course. Lord Dunsany was one of my favourite writers as a child, his weird, enigmatic folktales short and sharp and affecting. Yesterday I acquired a letter he'd written to the young Penelope Betjeman (then Chetwode). He was a big influence on my writing at school. Having the letter on my desk is wonderful, it's as if he will walk into the room at any moment, pick it up and post it. Dunsany was somewhat of a hero: not only was he deeply literary, he was also the best shot in Ireland. Why aren't people like that any more?

I then pottered down to the Royal Academy: entering it was like walking into a shrine, with an atmosphere of sacerdotal hush. It was positively packed with beauty: and lots of pictures that, alas, do not seem to be very widely available on the internet - although perhaps that's why they're treasures. In particular I enjoyed two drawings from Giuseppe Cades' series illustrating Orlando Furioso (which has been haunting me recently: I've just finished reading a new novel by Russell Hoban, in which the hippogriff returns to find his lost Angelica). There was also a wonderfully witty Apollo and his Muses with Fame: Apollo sits snoozing under a tree, surrounded by the Muses' cast off clothing - they've got the afternoon off, and you see them cavorting in the nearby vegetation. Above, Fame flies somewhat sternly, looking at her watch (metaphorically speaking, of course.) It was by Lorenzo Lotto. Two more very striking pictures were Corner of a Room by van der Heyden, which showed a luxury of interesting pieces - a Japanese spear, and so on, and looked as if one might actually be able to walk into it; and Landscape with a Village Scene near Tivoli by Karoly Marko the Elder, which was endowed with incredible warm luminescence.

One of my favourite books of last year was about Hungary: it was about Matthias Corvinus, the Raven King, and his library, by Marcus Tanner, a fascinating - even gripping - account. I thoroughly recommend it to anyone, bibliophile or not. To buy it, click this link: The Raven King: Matthias Corvinus and the Fate of His Lost Library

Lust and Murder in Lilliput: The Return of Liza Campbell's Dark Boxes: review

Last night I wended my way through the slate-grey streets, past the megalithic tower blocks of Royal Oak, down a road that seemed never to end. I felt like a knight on a quest (specifically, like Childe Roland): and then I came to the Dark Tower; although it wasn't actually the Dark Tower - it was Westbourne Park Studios. Brooding under the arch of the Westway, it is a strangely tranquil place of glass and space - and the perfect setting for the return of Liza Campbell's Dark Boxes. No Lilliput Lane is this: Naughty Lego, as the poster said. Here you will see tiny people in the throes of existential crises; possessed twins, unreformed bestialists, suicidal actors and gun-toting tortoises. The landscape is the mind: anything can happen in the square, dark confines of the black box. Incredibly wry, funny, and often deeply cutting, they are both salve and stimulus for the troubled. The centrepiece was a large doll's house, which on the surface appeared normal. Peer into the windows, however, and you see a devil walking out of the bathroom; a man who's hanged himself, a woman who's put her head in the oven; an orgy going on blithely upstairs, and a party of sinister nuns approaching a cradle.

The real party, of course, went swimmingly, with the guests managing to suppress their neuroses even with the application of several glasses of wine. Chief amongst the admirers was the actor Bill Nighy, who loomed in his greatcoat; perhaps he found some inspiration for his next sardonic film role.

By the end of the party, I'd never seen so many red dots. May the dark boxes invade every house.

Sorry, We're Open

There is nothing I enjoy more than being reclusive, which is what I have been doing, burrowed away amongst books and dust, for the last couple of weeks. I did, however, manage to emerge blinking into the light (or rain) to attend a gallery show called 'Sorry We're Open.' This was at Unit 2 on Whitechapel Road, and the pavement outside was thronged with people wearing jeans so skinny I wanted to take them to a hospital and put them on an intravenous drip.

Inside there was a huge wall of light switches (which, being, as I am, rather like a rat in a maze, I pressed many times in the hope that something would happen. It was only after I'd pressed them all that someone came running up and told me that every time a switch was pressed, someone somewhere died. You know, like in that crazy film The Box, which I still haven't seen, but really want to.) So, a huge wall of lethal light switches, and a vast orange climbing frame, and a video of some men dancing, and a photo story in which two men's heads got sewn on to each other's bodies (projected onto a screen, it was like watching a really weird version of Deirdre's Photo Casebook, only with hospital beds and surgery instead of pouting lovelies in lingerie). Only joking about the switches, by the way: apparently a light went on somewhere in the world. I only hope that noone was trying to read by the one I was pressing.

Two pictures caught me: I discovered later that they were by the same person: Charlotte Bracegirdle. One painting was like looking through a bright window into some strange other world: it was a version of Courbet's 'The Painter's Studio', but with all the figures taken out. I almost wanted to be sucked into it, to have my own personality dilated and erased, a nightmarish and seductive proposition. The other was a photograph of a disembodied dress, floating, black and white, spectral. Both pictures stay firmly rooted in the retina, firm reminders of the impermanence of personality.

I also managed to attend the opening of a new magazine, called Dare2. It's an ecologically aware journal that shows how you can be fashionable and save the world at the same time. It's online, of course. There was a goody bag, but unfortunately I lost it on the way home. Someone very lucky will no doubt find a nice selection of green soaps and face creams, appropriately enough, on the District Line. Here is a link to their website: DARE2

Henry Hudson and William Roper-Curzon

I'm writing a short story for the artist Henry Hudson. He's a proponent of the new grotesque, and makes marvellous Hogarthian pictures out of plasticine. They are alive, haptic, roisterous. Here is the biography which appears in a pamphlet for the show, with a short excerpt from the story, which is titled 'Henry Underground'.

I've also been to a show by William Roper-Curzon, who does intricate drawings. One that particularly hooked me was Diana and Actaeon. Titian and Ovid, two of the layers that slide beneath The Liberators. The Actaeon story, in its violence, its poignancy, is always startling and shocking. The hunter stumbles upon the virgin goddess as she bathes; for his impudence, he is turned into a stag, and torn apart by his own dogs. You don't spy on a goddess.

"He flies through grounds where oftentimes he chased had ere tho;
Even from his own folk is he fain, alas, to flee away.
He strained oftentimes to speak, and was about to say,
'I am Actaeon. Know your lord and master, sirs, I pray.'
But use of words and speech did want to utter forth his mind." (Golding)

The Latin is as follows: "clamare libebat,
'Actaeon ego sum, dominum cognoscite vestrum.'
verba anima desunt; resonat latratibus aether.'

Golding misses the terrible, haunting contrast of the lack of words with the 'latratibus' - barkings - 'resonat' - resounding - in the air.

There are many theories as to why Diana exacts such terrible punishment upon the innocent Actaeon. Perhaps the myth stemmed from Actaeon's arrogance in boasting that he was better than the goddess at hunting (always a bad thing to boast in front of a god, I find); perhaps there is at the story's root a veneration for a female cult, where a goddess' statue was washed, and men were not allowed; it was only in later versions that the myth was eroticised. Whichever way, the suddenness of Actaeon's death is a reminder of our own fragility as we hunt through the forests of the world. I think that Roper-Curzon's drawing captures that wildness and that haunting sense of impermanence beautifully. The lines tremble, as we too tremble at the hunter's fate.