Ok so its been super hectic for the last week so not really had chance to sit down and write anything, however I found out yesterday that I received my funding from The Arts Council England towards a course I am attending in Long Beach, which means I am now sat in LA and shall be in California until the end of July! Lots of interesting things to blog about here... I am staying with my artist friends Liz (who I did my internship with in 2009) and her husband Morgan, and their adorable and super smart baby Sadie. I arrived Thursday and yesterday we went to The Bunny Museum in Pasadena, but thats another story for another day as it deserves its own post!
After much procrastination I am back! Truth of the matter is I currently cant find the card reader for my computer so transferring images from my camera to my computer is a lengthy process of doom.
Aaaaaaanyway, I digress.
One of the things I want to cover in this blog is some of the stuff I spot out and about. Luckily I happen to work in Sheffield, which is pretty much one giant outdoor alternative gallery space. I am occasionally allowed to leave the city limits, but this is pretty much as a good place to start as any.
Are we all sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.
Two of Yorkshire's most famous exports since flat caps and Kes are the artists Kid Acne and EMA. The Stabby Women by Kid Acne are just about everywhere in Sheffield if you look long enough. They are metropolitan amazons who reclaim the areas falling into urban decay, and lets face it, what's good about the urban without a bit of decay? A lot of the time these paste ups of urban warriors are accompanied by something completely different and yet somehow strangely apt, the Drop Men by EMA.
The mythology of the Stabby Women was elaborated on last year with Kid Acne's solo show at the Millennium Gallery last year, and there is definitely a cross over between the two mythos of the artists. The most obvious reasoning behind this is the fact that they are a couple IRL, but they also have a working harmony that seems to create its own universe within the real world. I could go off on a tangent about the actual collaboration work, but lets stick to the paste ups for now.
One of the best things about these is that they actually do exactly what they set out to do, they reclaim spaces. There are many abandoned buildings that have Stabby Women and Drop Men peering out of them defiantly, proudly surveying their new conquests. These are clearly not new works but the element of dilapidation to them adds a new element to them. Rather than being beautifully clean graffiti, they are war torn and battle scarred, showing the struggle to keep control of their crumbling bastions.
I don't actually know much about the Drop Men individually, but that doesn't stop them seeming amazingly apt. There's a mural on a wall on my bus route that I assume is by ANA (but I could be totally wrong) that's eyes keep being repainted different colours. I will post about it eventually but I feel I need to get the pictures to prove I'm not crazy!
For more pictures check out my tumblr posts here and here.
Still getting into the swing of this blogging malarky, so any feedback would be greatly appreciated! I also have a tumblr and a facebook. Twitter still alludes me and my word count, but we shall see...
Thats all for now, I shall keep my eye out for more stuff and things, and try to get more regular with my postings!
Well lets just dirty this nice clean page up a little shall we?
Starting as I mean to go on, lets break the ice with the new wave notes of Hazel O'Connor in the 1980 EPIC* "Breaking Glass."
For anyone who is curious as to why she is dressed like the Queen of Tron (two years before the latter came out I might add) you can watch the full film on youtube now...
Personally I love H.O.C so the music alone is enough to make this amazing for me, but the whole breaking down of society sub-plot and vaguely faustian dealings of the lead are scarily familiar motifs at the moment.
Well thats that, I'm no longer staring at a blank screen and I have something nice and familiar to start with. Next time I shall begin to get down to serious biznis!**
Oh and if you needed any more incentive to watch the film...
*Not technically an epic, even remotely... but it totally should be.
**Maybe, but probably not. Serious and I no longer get on.
