This show is at Victoria Miro Gallery and finishes on 25th July
Below this post are some pictures to start things off. I forget which shows I have been to see. In fact I usually can't remember the names of the artists either, which is annoying. Instead of writing them in a book they can go on here and they look pretty too.
Every time I see a show I buy the exhibition poster. These are the only things I deliberately collect. My bedroom walls are full and now the new ones gather dust down the side of my dressing table.
The Tal R show was odd. A bouncer tried to turn us away as we didn't have an invitation. I've never been to a private view where they asked for your card before. We stood outside and ate peanuts - slightly embarassed - till a friend came out and got us in. The place was packed with work - but none on the walls. Plenty of big smooth shiny phallic and egg shaped sculptures. The paintings and drawings were laid flat on platforms - at shin height. There were brightly coloured flags laid on the floor. Blank white walls.
The odd assortment of pieces - flags/sculptures/paintings - on platforms made the work come across as a cultural exhibit - like they were artefacts someone had collected together from a nutsy tribe. Totems, flags and fertility symbols.
It was impossible to move around easily. Victoria Miro came over and gazed glazedly into the middle distance as we spoke to her. My Dad told her he'd send her some work. She nodded vaguely. I told her I liked the floating metal ballbearings in the pond outside. She smiled very slightly and wandered off.
(Later on I saw her blackberrying ferociously - impassive face - oblivious to the dancer who was taking part in the grand Tal R fashion show/performance dressed in a frightening mediaeval jester costume and freaking out wildly to some banging music right in her face.)
Outside the decking was rammed with people - artists and trendy folk smoking roll ups and drinking free beer and wine. We squeezed into a corner by the pond to smoke and had a conversation about how artists have to suck up to gallerists like Victoria Miro in order to get a show. My Dad is a painter. He said that's the way it is, pretty much, and he doesn't seem to mind enormously. At the gallery where I work I delete the emails I receive from artists straight away. It isn't really my choice to do this.
We watched the fashion show. MoonSpoonSaloon. This is a fashion label created in collaboration between designer Sara Sachs and Tal R. The models were wearing pyramidal hats tied under their chins. The girls walked with white doll painted faces, staring into the lights with fixed expressions, while the boys danced around and worshipped them. These are Tal R's tribe I suppose.
My Dad liked a dress like a lampshade. There was also this furry blob coat.
The band We are the World were more mesmerising - they entered with their faces covered by long, sinister black veils, costumed in freakish jester clothing and wearing gloves with long trailing fabric fingers. The singer performed from behind her faceless mask, her mouth stretching out the black fabric in a hollow gape, while the two dancers capered to the elctro like spooky manic jesters.
On the way out I encountered the models from the fashion show. They were lined up in front of the mirror in the toilet wiping away the red and white paint, wearing pants and vests like in PE with ballerina tight hair. The rest of us queued and eyed them in the mirror. Two of them were chatting - posh white girls.
'I hate hair like this,' one of them said to her friend. 'The make-up totally ruins your skin too.'
Another model came in with a full face of clown make up. 'Oh girls, can I borrow some cleaning wipe?' she asked. I'm not sure where she was from.
The other two exchanged a bitchy little look in the mirror and then carried on carefully wiping their faces, rubbing round the hairline and nose delicately, deliberately oblivious.
This encounter somehow sums up the general impression I got from the Tal R opening at Victoria Miro.
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