Stop-off in London

Back for just 22hrs from Finland and managed to squeeze in Dazed and Confused's Converse/Dazed 2010 Emerging Artists Award, hosted by Stephen Friedman. There was an abundance of talent gathered around the pavement enjoying the warmth.

Ex Tate art handler Peter Ainsworth won the prize. I was particularly proud of Laura Buckley her piece was spectacular.

July!

Last Blog for the summer... I have had enough now, ready for a break, no more hanging out going to parties visiting studios etc.. I am going to read, run, swim, walk, sauna, vodka and try not to eat to much in Finland.

I went to the Tate summer party, sadly as I arrived I gave a wave goodbye to the very happy organised treacle footed protestesters, they had managed to make many good-willed people who look forward to this event every year (and for some this party is THEIR highlight of the year) a little unhappy as we had a LOCK IN in the Tate Britain on one of the most beautiful evenings and it was very hot.




To finish the most spectacular summer evenings ever I headed on to the Serpentine. The whole world was out in force in the sumptuous Jean Nouvel Pavilion as background the music was blaring and spectacular.

Poju and Rob Hersov









Amir with Rita Tainola-Tapiovaara
















Photograph of Christopher Farr and Martine d'Anglejean-Chatillon under an aeroplane in the Divine Duveen Gallery.









Gregor Muir, Louis from Serpentine and Robin Saunders









Jack Kirkland and friends.









Laura Lehman and friend from Continua.









Tracey and Conrad Shawcross









Mr and Mrs Blake snuggled up on a Ron Arad sofa

















The show Systematic at 176 curated by Ellen Mara De Wachter turned out to be wonderful. People were coming to me and telling me that the Charles Sandison was the best art work they had ever seen. I was so thrilled to see these eight artists coming to the surface in such a fantastic way. What thrilled me was to see Damien Hirst's two early works “I love You” and “Sometimes I Avoid People”, which were at the time when they were made just like the other seven artists on show, works made by his own hand. And also in this period Damien was an emerging artist which is one of the most important elements of the Zabludowicz Collection.

Our GA Tim standing in front of Damien's work.

The opening was a lovely summer atmosphere about 500 of us. Sausages, Wine and Beer and dancing in the back.













Picture of the boys, Haroon Mizra, Tom Morton, Sean Dack and Giles Round in our garden.








Dave Maclean, our DJ for the night standing next to the Anthony Gormley Sculpture















I had such a wonderful 24hrs in Tracey Emin World in the South of France.

Rob Diament and Russell Tovey posing
















Tracey and Russell next to to the pool.









I immediately dozed off and then stumbled upon Tracey and Jay sharing a bottle of wine in the sunset. I think this is one of the most perfect moments I have ever captured?

The party was the most chilled out party I have ever been to in my life. It was on an even keel throughout no highs or lows. Everybody was incredibly mellow and at 4am it was very hard to drag myself to bed.



I lay on the beach and chatted with Lorcan O'Neil and Russell.








Tracey receiving her birthday cake with Jerry Hall at her side.








Scott Douglas and some of the gang.









The next morning Tracey made us all the most perfect breakfast of scrambled eggs and freshly sliced local produce, the most perfect way to finish my visit.







Dave Eustace









Meanwhile back at the ranch at 176 Toby Ziegler came with his team and tested his balloon which for Lizzie, Ellen and I was the beginning of Toby's very daring project to be shown in October.








There was an air of great excitement...
















In the evening we headed to Philips de Pury where we were warmly greeted by Michaela, Simon and Mario Testino. The evening was to celebrate Mario photographing Kate Moss by producing the most amazing powerful photographs.








Julia Peyton Jones with a friend admiring Kate

















Two hip looking guys admiring Kate











Then we went to a small intimate dinner at Mark's club where I took a photo of Jake Chapman and Daffyd Jones, the photographer.

















I was sat on a table with Mario Testino, Donatella Versace and Juergen Teller. Michaela and Simon. Juergen was told off by Phillip Green for smoking at the table. I was for a moment very afraid he might react and Jurgen was incredibly cool about it I thought.

Mario, Donatella and Kate were all deep in conversation. I had never really met her before and she gave me a very firm handshake, and from this I could see she is a gutsy girl, definitely not a pushover.







The next day I headed with Diego Marroquin to the Hayward which was full of splendid suprise. We were enveloped in the installation of the New Decor show and upstairs with Ernesto Neto's show, which was an enriched experience.






And if it all got too much there was a swimming pool and changing cubicles on one terrace and the other terrace there was a sculpture to meditate next to.































Cliff Lauson, curator of the Hayward took us around. Geoffrey Isaac and Catherine Petigas were relaxing in the green of it....















Diego and I hung around in the red tent and art consultant Ann Berthoud played with the drum.








The show itself, The New Decor was a delight. All things for the senses. Was a little disappointed that the settings were not more installations rather than mainly individual pieces but it was still a fun show.













Then with Diego, Catherine and Jen Beller we headed of to the Saatchi and we spent more time studying the British Art. Some of the works were spectacular however the juxtaposition of certain artists in the same hall I found a little unusual. The works of Hurvin Anderson, Ged Quinn and Daniel Silver I thought were spectacular and looked much better without the beds. On our way out I had time to give Charles a big hug and cannot wait for a play date after summer!

ICA came to visit us with Rosie Allerhand who sadly leaves soon we will miss her.








Ron Arad left his mark, now 176 has a permanent art work that will never be removed I hope!

Basel and MORE!

I have just experienced five days of pure art and what total bliss our first stop was.

At Liste we saw some great artists such as Ida Ekblad the hot new artist at Karma International ( I bought a ladder with T Shirt on it), Laura Riboli installation at Wallspace,

Marieta Chirulescu at Micky Schubert: small scanned photos








Richard Previdi large scan photos

Sara Barker sculpture from Mary Mary in Glasgow.

A fantastic sculpture by our home grown Paul MacDevitt shown with Patricia at Sommer and Kohl Gallery.















We liked very much the Gabriel Hartley Paintings and sculptures showing with Foxy.

The work of Jessica Dickenson at James Fuentes was also a new discovery for me.












The works of Diane Malzon









Picture of my legs under an Oscar Tuazon mirrored wall sculpture.









The Big Fair was full of suprises.

Nosy neighbour
















The one that got away the American Flag by Banks Violette WOW!















A little child playing on the sand dunes in Agnes Varda's installation.








We acquired work from a young artist in Art Statements. It's by artist Sreshta Premnath and called Zero Knot.















We loved the amazing installation by Michael Beutler in Art Statements. He personaly spent time with us and explained everything about his crazy machines that makes out of paper a sculpture that looks like industrial pipe lines gone crazy.







Simon fujiwara performing in his installation and photo of the porn shelf with big sausages - look in the mirror and see if you can spot the Wilkinson Brothers with FT / TAN's Georgina Adam and Vincent Honore from David Roberts Collection.






















Roy bought his second purchase for the collection his first being Jack Strange and now Jay Heikes from Marianne Boesky.














Another great work by David Shrigley at Anton Kern gallery.
















Lizzie and I loved the gallery cupboards this year. There were all sorts of little suprises in this one being Karma International with works by Ida Ekbland














Then in this cupboard we found an awesome Gabriel Orozco.









I went for the biggest and brightest work in the art fair. We have been collecting Sterling Ruby's work for a few years thanks to the advice of my art guru Marc Foxx and this work for me was as striking and mysterious as a Rothko.






There was a fabulous installation by Gerda Steinar and Jorg Lenzlinger called the Conference.








Haroon Mirza (who is in our next show called Systematic opening 1st July at 176) also had a wonderful installation in Unlimited.

The lovely Continua Gallery was showing the most wonderful Berlinde de Brukyere.








At Urs Miele we spotted the most perfect Ai Wei Wei
















We bought the most fabulous Fabian Marti that will get him off his couch















Andrea Rosen as well as having one of the most innovative booths was wearing the most amazing boots!
She gave the most amazing party at the Beyeler on the Wednesday night. I was so tired I was told I was dancing on the tables but I do not even remember.





What I do remember was walking through the Beyeler and seeing the most amazing Basquiat's and Felix Gonzalez Torres amongst Giacometti's and Picasso's.







It was an awesome sight.



















Alexandre De Cunha work was particularly strong I thought and I ended up buying two works as I could not resist.















Gareth Moore who is also in our collection was busy running around with a rock on his back. I tried to catch him but he was running too fast.














We went to Volta art fair and bumped into our old friends Edu Leme from San Paulo and David Risley now living in Copenhagen. He had the most amazing work by Graham Dolphin which is Freddy Mercury's back door. He had copied every detail of Graffitti on the door. He had carved it to perfection and we had to have this work for our collection.











In Berlin we dropped by to the Flick collection at the Hamburger Bahnhof with Roy, Tif and Lizzie.















We were totally in awe and I was very jealous which is unusual for me but a very good sign that I am viewing the greatest collection. I saw many works for the first time that I had only seen in books. Amazing Bruce Naumans, the work Art Make Up which I had only seen at the ICA and then through our own work by Ian Forsyth and Jane Pollard: “Kiss My Nauman”.



Lizzie and Tiffany looked particulary attractive in the green light I thought.
































The most incredible Paul McCarthy









Coincidently we had dinner with Mr and Mrs McCarthy and their daughter Mary on the Tuesday night at a dinner hosted by Gregor Muir for Hauser and Wirth.








On their stand they had left a bag of rubbish lying around by the artist Christoph Buchel. Last year it was a sock and the year before that a piece of crinkled paper by Martin Creed what next? The bag of rubbish was only 20,000 euros much cheaper than the sock and the paper - a bargain!












The reports were that the Berlin Biennale was rubbish. I just want to report back that I am not sure what they were talking about. If you didn't have the time to watch the films, and were surrounded by friends to talk to then I understand you might miss the subtle but intense works - but we all had the luxury of spending three hours in one building alone and had the most amazing experience.

Hans Schabus's dinosaurs of Europe...









Tears were coming down my eyes twice (this could have been the relief I was not at an art fair) to the works of Avi Mograbi and Fehrat Ozgur.







It was the most amazing show I had seen since the Hayward in the late 90s when I saw the art works of Terry Gilliam, Peter Greenaway, Damien Hirst and Steve McQueen ( I still shiver when I think of the man crawling naked around the floor or was it a dog?)

In the KW building we saw the work of Petrit Halilaj with chickens rockets, white spaces and strange timber structures.










































Walking around Berlin in the sun (what a relief after basel and the rain) we bumped into a wonderful British furniture maker called Peter Harvey. His work was very contemporary. He also liked to show other designers apart from himself.





I arrived back home to London and went to a lovely University of Arts lunch hosted by Richard Greer with Leigh Message, Lucy Morris, Robert Devereux, Andrew Williams, Angelica Sule and Medeia Cohen-Petrolino






Then I went to the most amzing evening at Phillips de Pury there were Simon and Michaela were displayed behind one way mirror - they could not see us but we could see them it was very very strange. There were huge platforms of sausages and oysters. I arrived and Roger Bevan, Amir and Don Rubell were there to greet me over the oysters.

Then we all had dinner in bed which was incredibly strange. Demure ladies were hanging around









The singer had the most amazing energy I had ever seen.









Then it was an art installation of cakes galore: each little table had an amazing cake on it. Hundreds and hundreds of tables it seemed it was a sweet fest.
























Simon Lee deciding which cake he should go for.
















Cambridge Art History student Michael Walker posing beside Daniel Silver sculpture.















Then dancing and of course Simon doing the DJ with one of his friends showing him how to do it.....








The next day I gave a casual out-of-towners lunch for Michaela and Simon at home. They cut their cupid cake in bunny and tiara style.















We had some lovely guests such as Maya Hoffman and Mera Rubell , still in awe from the success of the night before as her daughter Jennifer Rubell had thought up and created the whole concept.






Also were Beth De Woody and Charles Sandison who is busy installing at 176 his amazing installation.








Lizzie had time to be with Albert Oehlen and his lovely wife Esther








Then it was off to the Serpentine to a very private dinner given by the Lebedevs for Wolfgang Tillmans. The show was very thoughtfully laid out. Wolfgang had even changed the shape of one of the galleries to suit his installation.