Very much a diary entry, very much not a series of reviews based on coherent vision or thought making. More Alexa Chung’s It, less whatever it is I’ve been trying to do for the past six months.
I got out of bed at six-thirty to go work on my glutes at the gym. Already set up for failure, when the latter task of the day is to stand upright for upwards of three hours. There were three exhibitions and a launch on that evening. Aitor González at the brand-spanking-new Robert’s Gallery, Moira Salt and Fiona McGurk at 16 Nicholson Street, Hamish Chapman at Kendall Koppe and the launch of Nothing Personal issue two. A fully booked day, double-booked, overbooked, overstrained, overstimulated. It was quasi-awful. We went to Robert’s first.
Robert’s is a new tenement flat-gallery, à la Suede and Celine. Although out of all of them I think Robert’s smells the best, like an Aesop washbasin. The gallery inside the flat, a room about the size of a large bedroom, has exposed plaster walls and blocked-up window, about fifteen fluorescent strip lights (I didn’t even know that was possible) and eleven of Gonzalez’s drawings and two paintings. The exhibition is called A bark in the night woke me up to a bed with no sheets, which I think is funny. The drawings are scribbled with ink and Sharpie, powder blue and black, and some feature a house wearing little booties in a variety of poses; exultation, distress, creeping-about. Like if a cartoon house were a character actor and had headshots for obtaining a role as a Bradshaw-type. And there’s a picture that looks like a dog, although the work’s untitled so I could be wrong (Untitled #1? #6? #8?).
The drawings I liked, and I was with people I liked, talking, but there was a turn. Remember those fifteen fluorescent strip lights and no window I mentioned earlier? So do I. Trauma. One minute, we’re talking about the upcoming vibe shift and then the vibe shifted. A microcosmic class system emerged; some people had plastic cups, beer cans. Warm Red Stripe. Did you bring that with you? No one brings a plastic cup from home. Is there a bar? This is a home, it smells like Resurrection Aromatique Hand Balm, we can’t just walk around. Then an old friend said hello to me who I hadn’t seen in years, who I didn’t recognise, and I froze because I didn’t have a little plastic cup of vinegar. Now, these whimsical drawings are taunting me. That little house has set me up to fail. We left. We got the subway to 16 Nicholson Street.
‘They should have a shuttle bus.’
Who organised all this? Do none of you talk to each other? Someone organise a curators group chat. It sounds awful but it’s what you all deserve.
We got to 16 Nicholson Street in time for a performance by Moira Salt, the place was packed—about half a dozen tree-root/branch structures hung from the ceiling—but there was equal-opportunity wine to drink. The performance was about to begin, a sit-down-reading-with-movement-artists kind of performance, and then a little kid started being real vocal which was cute and funny. The kid was removed from the building by force. And the performance was serious, not cute and not funny. About structural racism as manifested in health access inequality, and in education and in work, and dying in childbirth. The room was cramped and should have been ticketed. The space was neither generous for the performers nor the audience. We forgot to see the rest of the show because someone said the next one was closing soon. And with a second round of whiplash and a glass of wine on an empty stomach, we went to Kendal Koppe.
The last exhibition was Hamish Chapman’s paintings; big oil on canvas saleable art. Probably my favourite of the night. Like Robert’s, Kendal featured eighteen to twenty-four fluorescent strip lights but unlike Robert’s there were windows. And a bucket of beer bottles on ice. Coronavirus is totally over too because last year there’s no way anyone would get away with putting a bottle opener on a string next to a bucket of beer. Chapman’s paintings are of the nape of necks, hair clips, hoop earrings, eyes, and ‘the court’. Cold, a little bit sad, great texture and dare I say c-word. Much better in person, I would go see it if I were you. As the last stop of the night—so sorry to Nothing Personal, one could even say it’s nothing personal—I felt pretty at ease. Knowing that most people’s skin is showing up bad (see: mottled) under the lights is a great equaliser. Social capital dissolves under fluorescents. Everyone went to Bonjour and I said ‘I’m going home’. I ate noodles and went to bed.
—Andy x
Also: does anyone have a room I can move into from May in Glasgow?
'They Should Have A Shuttle Bus'