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Showing posts from February, 2009

Back from London

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Just back from a couple of intense days in London and the very pleasant company of artist/curator Marianne Eigenheer, Museums consultant Benedetta Tiana (shown eating Japanese), poets Carol Watts (second photo) and Caroline Bergvall (website in my links), Professor Will Rowe, and Petur Arason from Iceland - with whom I saw the Altermodern show at Tate Britain, which I will review this weekend. Sorted out various projects including my forthcoming book, a couple of international museums developments, and the structure of the Poetics symposium in the Text Festival.

Palais de Tokyo, Paris

According to the Palais de Tokyo http://www.palaisdetokyo.com/fo3/low/programme/ glossy catalogue, Gakona is a small village in Alaska, home of the HAARP (High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program), which inspired by the inventions of Nikola Tesla is believed to be studying the transmission of electricity in the high atmosphere. What it is actually up to is a mystery because of its military funding. The premise of the show is that the works from Micol Assaël, Ceal Floyer, Laurent Grasso and Roman Signer somehow respond to this context of electricity research, mystery, rumour, science and imagination of Gakona. There are some good pieces in the show but the Gakona reference seems fairly arbitrary. The artist who most directly seems to respond to HAARP is Laurent Grasso who has constructed what seems to be a replica of the HAARP hi-fi array, but as far as I could tell it didnt actually function so it became merely an illustration. Micol Assaël "Chizhevsky Lessons" falls

Monsters in Museums

Last week the Guardian newspaper reported on the launch of a manifesto from a new charity called "Kids in Museums" to make museums more family-friendly. The detail of the 20-point plan are by definition of no interest. This nonsense was apparently triggered by the experience of Dea Birkett, surprise surprise, a writer for the Guardian, who was asked to leave the Royal Academy five years ago after her two-year-old son pointed to an Aztec statue with snakes for hair and a beak for a nose and shouted"monster!". It is claimed that the family were "thrown out" for the noise. So this Birkett woman began a campaign that grew into an independent charity. On reading this tale, obviously my first thought was: what is the point of taking a two-year-old to an exhibition of Aztec art? Surely the monster in the room is the mother. I'd be willing to wager that 2 year olds are not one of the target audiences for the Royal Academy (or many other galleries either - or

Tampere Museums

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Tampere is a great place to visit. It is remarkably built astride swirling black rapids dropping 80 metres between two large lakes. It is also remarkable for its number of high quality museums. I visited: Vapriikki museums - www.tampere.fi/english/vapriikki ; the current " Tampere 1918 " show about the civil war is one of the most powerful museum displays I have seen in years (picture). And in a different way, the survey of the work of Finnish designer Dora Jung was as well done. Maltinranta, Tampereen Taiteilijaseura - www.tampereen-taiteilijaseura.fi/hakue.htm Grafiikanpaja Himmelblau - http://www.himmelblau.fi/ Hiekan Taidemuseo - http://www.hiekantaidemuseo.fi/ Finnish Labour Museum Werstas - http://www.tyovaenmuseo.fi/ Tampere Art Museum - http://www.tampere.fi/english/artmuseum/ Sara Hildénin Art Museum - http://www.tampere.fi/sarahilden/ The Amuri Museum of Workers' Housing cafe Stone Museum - surprisingly fascinating collection of stones and minerals. Me

Tuire on the Frozen Lake

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Tampere, Finland

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O'Connell Bridge, Dublin

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So Anyway

The new online journal 'soanyway' has just launched: http://www.soanyway.org.uk/soanywayintro.htm I have " Mr.Worthington's Chapel " featured. It was written after a visit to Greville Worthington's chapel to see his exhibition of Roger Hiorns http://www.a-n.co.uk/interface/reviews/single/392964 . The first time I visited Greville the lines from William Carlos Williams' famous "This is Just to Say" were being installed along the top of the wall in his kitchen. The installation turned the poem into a single line rather than retaining the original line endings: This is Just to Say I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast. Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold. So at the Hiorns opening, Greville and I were in the kitchen agreeing that the poem needed the line breaks. About the same time, in response to 50 Heads , Robert Grenier had compared my practice with Carlos Williams; so dri