Still thinking about the Museum of Everything! I think a key to its success is that the exhibition redresses the balance of power held by the galleries, dealers and media, tipping it back towards the artists and the general public. You appreciate what you’re seeing on its merit, without preconceptions of the artists’ fame, reputation or ‘value’.

At the Museum, the presentation and atmosphere, almost like inside an art school, perfectly mirror Brett’s un-snobby and democratic approach to collecting. It feels like an antidote to how I often encounter art in the mainstream institutions, big art fairs and slick commercial central London galleries.

All the elements, from the little postcards, badges, handwritten signs, the sense of humour, tea and cake, the website and large-format catalogue are all executed with real warmth and personality.

Posted in art, design, graphic design

Last weekend I was in Primrose Hill and spent some time at the Museum of Everything. Housed in a former dairy and recording studio, its Exhibition #1 showcases a huge selection of work by ‘non-traditional’, self-taught artists from around the world, many of whom have regular day jobs. So here are a dental technician, truck driver, transport worker, slipper manufacturer, bricklayer, scrap merchant, Prussian governess, a couple of butchers and three Reverends amongst many others.

Both the work and the overall experience are totally refreshing, exciting and inspiring – making you feel like you want to do more yourself.

Curator James Brett and the guests he invited to select the work, have assembled a show that celebrates the non-celebrity, the everyday and unrecognised. Instead, these artists make work borne of the pure joy of making, it is not self-conscious, contrived or created with any financial motivation. In an interview with The Art Newspaper Brett said ‘here, the best work has nobody guiding it; and I love his reasons for collecting (‘I didn’t get into this intellectually, I got into it emotionally.’).

The art is more than just a form of self-expression but often a kind of therapy or self-consolation. Anna Zemankova’s delicate embroidered pieces fall into this category. She began making them when feeling depressed and menopausal, always working in the wee hours.

The artists all work intuitively, in a very pure, personal and human way, not copying traditional techniques but developing their own unconventional methods. An example is Judith Scott. As part of the Creative Growth studio she created strange sculptures, objects wrapped in so much wool that they become lost and take on another identity.

Other stand-out artists for me were:

Nek Chand whose human and animal forms are made of broken crockery, bottle tops and other detritus, now accumulated into a Rock Garden:

Morton Barlett, one of the most ‘established’ outsider artists, known for his unsettling, vulnerable hand-made dolls. Here’s a fascinating article about him.

Charles AA Dellschau who created thirteen books illustrating flying machines after a chance UFO sighting in 1899. The official website is here.

Bill Traylor, a former slave who, aged 83, started to paint the people, animals and events of his life.

Posted in art, review

Saw Michael Clark’s Company perform the Bowie, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed et all  last night at the Barbican, absolutely fantastic! The dancers, costumes by Body Map’s Stevie Stewart and sets totally mesmerising, Michael Clark is an iconic artisan and so inspiring.

I love his mix of punk with classical, it has an anarchical pulse to it. Memories of 1988 I am Kurious Oranj, Leigh Bowery and The Fall. It reminded me of the 80’s just left Camberwell and set up my print studio in Rotherhithe, a time in London that was full of negative influences on art and design beset by the Thatcher government. There was a growing movement of rebellion, art students holding sit ins at the Tate Britain in dispute with the forming of the London Institute which was to bastardise the London art colleges as we knew them, Nicholas Serota informing us that although he sympathised with our goal we would be carried out of the building by the police one by one, which we were!

It was a time when designers were challenging the craft aesthetic, following on from Punk, designers such as Stevie Stewart of Body Map the Hemmingway’s ‘Red or Dead’ at Camden market, John Moore’s inspirational shop ‘The House of Beauty and Culture’ in Hackney, Pam Hogg, with Tom Dixon, Judy Blame and Fric and Frack at the pivotal 1987 Crafts Council show ‘The Makers Eye’ that pushed the conceptual boundaries of craft and production methods.

“we were rebelling against the conservative, the bland….. We are striving for excitement” says Stevie Stewart of that time (Vogue UK, March 2003).

So seeing Michael Clark again reminded me of the movement – expressional, confrontational and non-conformist times which feels so different to the mass-production tribe of fashion of today. There may not have been much money around but there was the mentality of Do It Yourself which was much more inventive and personal.

Michael Clark mixes Punk with classical, creating a tantalising explosion in sound and colour especial in ‘COME, BEEN, GONE’ – stripy jackets over bright red body suits, against brilliant blue and orange backdrops with Jean Genie and Heroes blasting out loud from gigantic speakers… jaw dropping dance movements – it had a similarity to the Anish Kapoor I saw last week, the feeling of being immersed in to the deep rhythms of colour – pure genius! Thank You Michael Clark and team!

Go see at the Barbican till end of this week.

PS … forgot to mention great programme in the shape of a record sleeve designed by Malcolm Garrett.

Posted in colour, design, fashion, review