bald fat man blinks quickly

The blink test: blink too slow and you look like Ed Milliband talking about his sincere love for his brother; blink to fast and you look like Alan Davey trying to avoid answering for who’s responsible for spunking loads of taxpayers cash on The Public. Scroll forward to the bit in around 11:20 to hear the blustering excuses.

What’s so bad about the Arts Council?

Eager to know how the House of Common’s Committee on Culture, Media and Sport is going? Go on, yes you are! Well, basically the Arts Council are getting a thorough going-over from the likes of Dr Tiffany Jenkins, Norman Lebrecht and David Lee (the “maverick” ex-editor of Art Review and the current editor of that well-known arts mag “The Jackdaw”). Here’s the uncorrected transcript of the latest session, and scroll down halfway to get past the boring stuff about heritage to Tom Watson’s question “What’s so bad about the Arts Council?”
(nb – just added full transcript below in comments).

Our favourite bits are David Lee offering to send ex-chicklit novelist and now surprisingly rather sharp Tory MP Louise Bagshawe the last 8 copies of The Jackdaw (she refuses).

Crap-per Art

This passed us by – slipped into our junk folder – can’t think why. We think they’re trying to raise money to introduce public conveniences in India. Here in Homerton things haven’t been the same since they closed the toilets on Brooksby’s Walk. Funny how the richest man in India is giving us Anish Kapoor’s Olympic scrap metal thing at the end of our road for however many billion rupees and we’re sending his compatriots urinals. Something very Dada about all of this. Anyhow, that’s a whole other story. Lots of ‘famous’ artists like Jamie Shovlin, John Isaacs, Maggi Hambling and Sam Taylor Wood have adapted toilet signs and apparently people bought them in an auction raising £40,000. If this idea wasn’t brilliant enough already some proper famous people also had a go at ‘art’ (Beuys has a lot to answer for). These included the country’s current and previous Prime Ministers, a minor member of the Royal Family and Geri Halliwell. There is too much to say about this and, at the same time nothing at all. So, briefly, David Cameron’s is the most cynical – getting your kids to do it might seem cute on the surface but it is empty and exploitative (no surprise there). Gordon Brown has written a weird note on his about boys being nice to girls and, like those letters to the kin of dead soldiers, it is illegible (but comes with a typed transcript to avoid confusion). Gerri Halliwell drew herself in that nationalist mini dress (of course).

Ex-Gallerists soon to be banged up, schadenfreude ahoy !

Thanks to the person who sent this in… click to view in full.
If it’s, err, made up, sorry. Our fact checkers have defected to Artforum for better pay and conditions.

Who would liiive in a house like thiiiiiisssssss?

Morning chumps!

“My good friends Tim Noble and Sue Webster”.

POP Goes the Editor…

Well, Dasha didn’t last long at POP now did she? Her 18 month tenure and attempt to “revamp the magazine in order to provide a broader point of view focusing also on art, contemporary culture and the globalisation of all things pop-related” has comes to a drastic end, rather than changing the world of art and culture publishing as once predicted by Zhukova sycophants consorts. She joins forces with Larry G, Eric ‘Google’ Schmidt and Rupert Murdoch’s wife Wendi to start up the brilliantly titled Art.sy. Sebastian Cwilich, formerly of Christie’s and Haunch of Venison will be COO. As a list of contributors we can only predict a tasteless but hugely profitable monstrosity.
Though we look forward to being able to buy Dan Colen by Paypal.

Eugh. CoS needs a lie down in a darkened room and an ice cold Malibu and Coke.

Whut Whut Wullschlager….

Renowned hiphop impresario Jackie Wullschlager, who, before becoming head art critic at the FT, was CEO of Death Row Records and edited The Source, is at it again. Writing about painter Nathan Cash Davidson, she praises his evocation of ‘rap rhythms, video remixes, graffiti and Gameboy metamorphoses’. Pretty street, right? You’d almost forget she wrote a biography on Chagall. Oh, but then she goes and spoils it all by mentioning Kitaj.

The show she is blurbing – sorry, reviewing – is at Parasol Unit next month. It’s titled ‘Artist Prodigy and Rap Star’ and the press release (from Hannah Barry’s almer mater Bolton and Quinn) mentions that Nathan IS ONLY 22 approximately 468 times. Did we mention that he’s is represented by Hannah Barry? Which might just make this combination of two of London’s worst galleries the unholy alliance we’ve all been waiting for. It’ll be like the end of Indiana Jones where the Nazis open the Arc of the Covenant and loads of ghosts and lasers fly out. But with Wullschlager playing perennial hypeman.

House of the Rising Sun

Cathedral of Shit’s invite to the opening of Studio Voltaire’s Mayfair shop venture seemed to have been mysteriously lost in the post, but luckily, we managed to wangle our way in regardless. So packed was the opening that we didn’t see much other than the booze counter and anything hung over 1.5m high. We couldn’t afford anything on our minimum wage but considered shoplifting a Steven Claydon brick… it was just too heavy.
The party, distinctly harder to get into than the shop but no match for the CoS crack party team (in through a toilet window, a fiver to a doorman, and “create a diversion, Steve!”), was in full swing by the time we got there, with East London journalist and DJ ‘face’ Charlie Porter manning the Ivy’s tape decks. We are sure that at one point we heard DJ Assault’s “There’s Some Hoes in this House”.
In attendance – Rob Tufnell (at one point face down on the floor), a very drunk Darren Flook, the Napoleones, ACE’s Julie Lomax (no doubt taking advantage of the free booze while she can), Matthew Slotover, Emily King, Fiona Banner, Alice Rawsthorn, Sarah McCrory, Mark Rappolt, Oliver Basciano, that actor off the telly that everyone likes, Rupert Sanderson of the shoes, Stuart Shave, Jeremy Deller, and Jennifer Higgie making shapes on the dancefloor, some fashion designer who looked familiar, and that’s all we can remember.
It seemed a remarkably well stocked party for a fundraiser, though we did see Julia Royse of champers sponsorship there. We tried to get a CoS champagne deal but apparently we’ve no ‘discernible merit’. How rude.

Su sussudio, oh oh…

We enjoy the fashion efforts of the art world. But what’s a curator to do if he has a sartorial query? Why, ask your favourite men’s journal!

East Is East. Or is it?

Did you hear that East has left the East? Arts Council East dropped funding as East International left the umbrella of the Norfolk and Norwich Festival, and was taken back into the control of the art school. ACE will have nothing to do with ‘Norwich University for the Creative Arts’ (NUCA) because the principle is such a ‘difficult’ person.
Nav Haq is going to host it at Arnolfini in the west but is keeping the name East. If you think about it, it’s still ‘East’ if you are, say, in Minneapolis. Or Canada.
Lynda Morris is being employed as a consultant.