May

I had a fabulous trip to Israel - it was fascinating. I was very lazy too and managed to get some rest. I arrived at Fresh Paint and found it incredibly difficult to navigate even though the charming Igal Ahouvi was my host.

However Yifat Gurion spent a quite morning with me and showed me everything. I saw some wonderful art works: many new and up-and-coming and some great talent.

Yifat in front of work of photography by Dror Daum.

Irit Sommers' Kinetic show seemed the most exciting to me.






A beautiful sculpture at Alon Segov Gallery by Sigalit Landau.








The winner of the Igal Ahouvi prize.









On the way to Jerusalem we headed to Bat Yam museum, Wendy Fisher's head stuck in a Will Hunt Sculpture.








On the way to the Israel Museum, I visited a small Museum called the Museum on the Seam, where Ivan Navarro's door was installed.

A work by Philip Rantzer in the show.
















The show was called HomeLessHome and the curator, Raphie Etgar, created a wonderful show. Incredibly well-thought show and everything placed to perfection. BRAVO.














Hema Uphadyay, Where the bees suck, there suck I










A large sculpture by Ohad Meromi at the entrance to the Israel Museum.
















Then Jerusalem, where we visited the unfinished Museum but incredibly James Snyder pulls it off and manages to invite 500 amazing benefactors from all over the world. The museum, when completed, will be spectacular.

The Girls: Nicole Klagsburg, Hazel Collins, Georgina Cohen, Pamela Crystal, Ayelet Elstein.








Anish's sculpture was magnificent. We all hung out together in the evening in the wonderful old bar, the most special in the world.























Anish and Georgina Cohen
















Loushy

MAY DAY!

MAY DAY!

We visit Ryan Gander’s show at Lisson and then the hard-working Toby Ziegler in his studio which we discovered was not far from 176.

We watched Toby and his technicians at work. Something exciting is happening!

Then I head to Rachel Harrison Dinner at the Whitechapel - the place has never looked so vibrant. All the spaces were intimate and full of people in no hurry to leave. Rachel’s show was warm and filled the room beautifully. She however was not willing to let me take her photo and accused me of being a BLOGGER - in a nice way of course.

I sat next to Philippe and he asked me to take his photo so here it is...

I sat opposite Freddy and Muriel, Iwona Blazwick and Andrew Renton on a huge big long table at the Rochelle School.

Coincidently the next evening in Berlin at Andreas Gursky’s dinner I was sat in exactly the same place opposite Muriel and Freddie but this time with Monica Sprüth. The new Gursky work was spectacular - views from NASA Satellites.

I also sat next to Carl Freeman who was very happy that we had acquired Fergal Stapleton’s works and he asked if I would take his photo so here it is...

I dropped by to Haunch of Venison where Damien and Michael Joo were the stars. I bumped into Tim and Sue, Michael Landy (first time in Berlin), Gillian Wearing & Keith Tyson who is getting ready for his Triathlon and is on great form. Damien’s revolting work....flies all over the picnic table - yuck!

Lizzie, Maitreyi, Bernd, Anna-Catharina Gebbers and Christian Ehrentraut - My Anglo-German Gang!

Then they somehow managed to drag me to a the Dice club where everyone was very happy and Marc Almond was singing the night away. I spotted one of his biggest fans.

LA was there in full force Sean Regan, Glenn Ligon, Peter Doig, Steve Hanson and Javier Peres with his dream team. We were all dancing to Rory’s Reggae then to Spencer Sweeney’s ensemble.

I caught up the next day with Hurvin Anderson in the street who only last night we were dancing away with.

We loved the group show that Pavel Büchler had put together at Tanya Leighton Gallery. We bumped into him with Douglas Gordon. I asked Pavel if we could meet again as I really liked him. I reserved a slide show on plastic bags by Sean Edwards.

Martin Klosterfelde showed us his new space an old printers shop still intact Isaac and Freda Uziyel joined us.

We paid a visit to Johann König and the work he was showing was by the artist David Zink Yi - he had created a forest of silver palm trees.

We admired the laid back atmosphere at the Berlin galleries – even on the busy Gallery weekend.

Our highlight was bumping into Tom Burr at Neu Gallery’s MD72 space - it was amazing to meet him and talk about his work. We have recently acquired some of his work for the collection.

Our last stop was to see Sebastian and Sylvia at KLEMM’s where we bought another Alexej Meschtschanow work called ‘Baltic Boy’. A lovely way to finish of our pleasure trip, sadly no time for Museums but we managed to visit over 30 Galleries in 24 Hours...!

Our farewell to Berlin was a naked man emerging from the U-Bahn... Happy Labour Day!

Great Smiles - April 2010

My impenetrable Israeli Easter bubble has finally burst!

I was celebrating our daughter turning into an adult and we invited a few of our friends to join us in the Dead Sea it was a dream. Now back and buried deep into the art bubble again.
But even in Israel we managed to check out the vibrant and über trendy Tel Aviv art scene.

We headed to Jaffa and after ate an amazing lunch in the harbour amongst the fishing boats: Shifra from Dvir Gallery joined art lovers Simon, Kenny, Jaqui, Daniel, Amir, Lizzie, Arlene, Tiffany and myself. And then off to Dvir gallery where Shifra and her son proudly stand in the midst of works by Abdel Abdessemed and Claire Fontaine.
















Then we went to the Dead Sea where Thomas Dane and Paul Pfeiffer show off their mud. I promised Thomas i would not show a picture of him without his hat ... so no mud pictures unless Michael Landy begs me to. (Photo: Richard Braine)





Then back to London and 176, where the Library of Babel is in full swing (extended until 13 June art lovers!). We have had so many excellent guest speakers take tours, which as well as the artists in the show include other volunteers from all walks of life.

Tracey dropped by for a tour with Catharina, Sophie von Hellermann and Alex Heim to talk about her photograph called ‘Good Smile, Great Come.’







Sarah Thornton joined Sue Pearce and Anne Welsh who gave talks on collecting and knowledge - it was very entertaining.










Artist Lora Hristova gave a talk on her favourite artists in the show - it was wonderfully dark in nature.










I went to Dasha’s BRIC tea party at Philips, it was a lovely afternoon, then to Fake Modern at Camden Arts Centre for the Outset Big Rip Off day.














I acquired some bricks by Caragh Thuring and some wool by Katja Strunz. Alex De Cunha gave quite a quirky henna Sierra performance....







Then I went to the wonderful lunch for BFAMI. It is their tenth year and Tracey Emin was the honoured recipient of the Woman in Arts award. She gave the most wonderful talk with Tim Marlow interviewing. Then popped on her top hat and raised many twenty pound notes before picking the winner... me! And nope, it was not fixed.

Tracey could see I did not want to give my beautiful mono print away so she generously donated yet another which went to Pamela Crystal.







Then Graham Steele of White Cube desperately counted the money with the help of his assistant Tim Marlow.














Assistant and Chairman Wendy Fisher with Tracey
















Muriel Salem and Georgina Djanogly with Tracey









Heather Kerzner, Tim Marlow and Candida Gertler - giving great smiles.








Later I dropped into the show of Gerry Fox at eleven - the show is very beautiful and an amazing introduction to any collector of Modern Masters who wishes to collect contemporary art.








His few days old little girl also paid a visit to the show...










Then I head of to the Victoria and Albert depositories at Blyth House for the new Artangel project by Judith Clark and Adam Phillips: The Concise Dictionary of Dress.

It is all one big huge mystery that perplexed me from beginning to end, even with Alain De Botton as my walking partner.







Then to Modern Art Inc and the mesmerising show by Nigel Cooke. He gave myself and some ladies a lovely talk on the story of creativity.







Hilary Crisp had created a wonderful show with the help of Graham Hudson. This is a work by RCA student Ed Fornieles. I am wondering if this might influence my younger kids to want to collect?