t h e o n e a b o u t f r i e n d s

This week we finished reading a book about the highly popular TV show Friends. It’s called ‘I'll Be There for You: The one about Friends’ and it’s the definitive retrospective of Friends, exploring all aspects of the show from its unlikely origins to the elusive reasons why we still watch it. The author Kelsey Miller is a journalist and pop culture expert and relives the show's most iconic moments, analyses the ways in which Friends is occasionally problematic and examines the many trends it inspired, from the rise of coffee-shop culture to Friendsgivings to the ultimate 90s haircut, the Rachel. Weaving incisive commentary, revelatory interviews and behind-the-scenes anecdotes involving high-profile guest stars, it’s the most comprehensive take on Friends. We would really like to use the new knowledge from the book to make some art about friends. There are some obvious issues, the first being that it’s so important to so many people, secondly that it’s such a massive symbol and therefore carries so much meaning if it’s appropriated. We’ll continue thinking about it and see what comes up. Our initial thoughts are about the side characters, extras, and sets that make this fictional world so believable and comforting. Another thing we were considering was the archetypal nature of the characters and how the audience relate to each of them for different reasons.

w e ' r e g o i n g o n a n a r t h u n t

Headed round to some exhibitions this week starting with Rachel Rose at Pilar Corrias. Some incredible lenses are positioned on a lovely carpeted floor, with a film being the main focus of attraction. The film appears like a fairly big project, multiple actors all in full period costumes. Even with these intricate details the film falls a little flat, we weren’t really sure what it was about or how it related to the lenses. Always appreciate a carpeted floor though… 

Next up was Andy Holden at the Cinema Museum. It’s a pretty exciting place – so much film paraphernalia all around. The film on show is his masterpiece ‘Laws of Motion in a Cartoon Landscape’ which examines the formation of ‘laws’ within cartoons as a way of making sense of the world we are now within, a space where anything could potentially happen. It’s made from hundreds of cartoons clips and adopts a part-lecture, part-documentary, part-conspiracy theory tone, with the artist rendered as a cartoon avatar in order to narrate his theory. Some of our favourite laws are “Everything falls faster than an anvil” and “Anybody suspended in space will remain in space until made aware of its situation”, and these are mixed with Greek myths, philosophy, politics, physics and the history of animation to create an hour long exploration of the world as an irrational space where anything can happen, yet certain things reoccur, and in which a new set of Laws have formed. We’ve now seen it a handful of times and it get better every time. 

Then we had ‘Subversive Stitch’ at TJ Boulting. Taking its name from Art Historian and prominent feminist Rozsika Parker’s 1984 book and 1988 touring exhibition ‘The Subversive Stitch – Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine’, it presentsa variety of textile-based artworks. Spanning the mediums of embroidery, weaving, tapestry, clothing and sculpture, it builds upon the rich history of the previously disregarded craft, considered a purely feminine and domesticated preoccupation until the twofold influence of both the Arts and Craft movement and the Suffrage movement, of the late 19th and early 20th century respectively, co-opted and subverted the medium, bringing it to the forefront of avant garde artistic practice. In contemporary art textile work retain that forward-thinking aesthetic, imbued with political, cultural and innovative touchstones usually associated with more traditional mediums. It was a really tight show, very beautiful and well-made objects with a consistent theme. 

Finally, we had isthisit? taking over Harlesden High Street for the 6th issue of their book which was all about fake news. As always it was a really diverse show, paintings, sculptures, videos and algorithms – there’s plenty to get your teeth stuck into. A work that stuck out was the fictional newspaper by Frank Wasser which depicts an alternative future where trump is assassinated. Overall a great show with so many exciting artists.

c o n d o p a r t 0 2

It’s the final week to catch the remainder of the condo shows so we ran around as many as possible. Pilar Corias was first on the list and as you enter you get Ken Okiishi a personal solo show composed by installation, video and photographs concerning the artist’s meditation on his childhood. All their childhood possessions are in boxes that fill the gallery floor. It’s actually a very hard hitting show and made us think about identity and how having such a mixed and complex one might make you feel like you have no true home. 

For Condo, the gallery’s basement had a film by artist duo Felix Bernstein & Gabe Rubin all about gender, transgender and queerness. With such over the top costumes it’s impossible not to think about Rachel Maclean. 

Sadie Coles has some boring sculptures and some even more boring paintings. 

Arcadia Missa’s new space is so incredibly small. The busts are fairly horrible but was fun to have a glittery floor. 

Rodeo had a huge, immersive and site-specific exhibition by Adriano Amaral. Reminded us a lot of old sci-fi films which is never bad but the sculptures were a bit too much. 

Southard Reid was quite bland but funny to see Bedwyr Williams’ mocking ink drawings that we’ve been seeing on Instagram for so long now. 

Finally, we had Cork Street hosting Koppe Astner, Project Native Informant, Mother’s Tankstation and Dan Gunn. The only work which we actually enjoyed in the building was ‘XOXO, Safety Net’ by DIS Collective. The video imagines Serena and Blair embracing a different sort of safety net, namely, socialism, in between checking their gold Motorola phones. It also features an ersatz Gossip Girl cast delivering socialist wisdom like “Workers should benefit from the surplus value they create,” and “Tax income from property, not labour,” and “End inheritance, bring back the death tax.” 

And some good news, we got into the next bf film festival which is going to be held in Leeds and again shown at SET in Dalston! We’re going to be showing ‘Story Time with Mr. Orange’ and it’s nice to have the piece show as it was made about a year ago ad since it was before the degree show it kind of got a bit swallowed by the process.

t h e r e ' s s o m e t h i n g a b o u t a r c h i t e c t u r a l m o d e l s . . .

We took a trip to Porto which was really fun! Great to get a sunny holiday in during the winter. While we were there we managed to see the infamous Anish Kapoor exhibition where a visitor fell into the ‘infinite’ black hole he built. Other than it being great to see something so well covered by the news, the show itself was quite something. Our favourite room was one full of all these architectural models for either realised projects or future ones. Some were even fictional or speculative, no actual location in mind or we currently lack the technology but maybe they’ll be realised eventually. It would be amazing to have a model like one of those made, there’s something about them which is so exciting. Perhaps it’s their potential to be so much more than they are…could also just be that small versions or things which are usually big is weird.