Wednesday 30 November 2011

KUCHAR and KA-BOOM


Screening in Oscar and Hollie's basement cinema this Friday: Gregg Araki's Kaboom and George Kuchar's video diaries.


Tuesday 29 November 2011

Chômu book launch: Lord Magpie to support Jeremy Reed



Lord Magpie will be playing at the Jamboree this thursday in support of Jeremy Reed and the latest Chômu Press book launch. Chômu Press is an exciting new publisher of genre defying, fiction set up by Quentin S. Crisp.

Quentin and I have been collaborating recently to create the Chômu Radio Archive. This is in its early stages still but you can find an interview with author John Elliott on it already:


John Elliott talks to Quentin about Philip K. Dick, Lovecraft, Oulipo, John Calder, Queneau, Georges Perec, and many other things.

And here are some photos from Lord Magpie's last Halloween gig:


Wednesday 7 September 2011

RIP George Kuchar

I am so glad to have met you.



George Kuchar 1942 - 2011

Monday 29 August 2011

Ben Osborn writes about my work

I was recently talking to a friend who doesn't know Joe very well; they know him by reputation as a musician and music producer, but they didn't know about his art. I was trying to explain why Joe's art appealed to me so much.

I tried to explain that his art isn't about creating objects, or images, or events. He does create those things, but they are part of his wider project. His art is about certain, sometimes very specific, moments and feelings.

Surely that's very difficult, said my friend, impressed. To give an audience one particular feeling. Make them feel just that one thing and nothing else.

Well, that's not what he does, I realised. What's great about it is that you're free - usually encouraged - to feel whatever you want to, to bring that to the art. Joe is not interested, as far as I can tell, in being prescriptive or controlling.

Italo Calvino said that the poet of vagueness would have to be the poet of exactitude as well - 'able to grasp the subtlest sensations with eyes and ears and quick, unerring hands.' I think Calvino hit on what I am trying to say here, and why I struggled to explain Joe's art to my friend. How can I find, in this art, an exact, subtle feeling - as well as a liberating vagueness, obscurity, aleatory?

Calvino says that one can't really exist without the other. The random, chance elements that vagueness allows can only be understood through a magnifying lens of exactitude.

I'll try to explain using one of Joe's pieces. It is a drawing of Mulder and Scully. It's a pretty good picture and as far as I'm aware Joe didn't draw it. He put it on his wall, fastening the top two corners of the back of the picture to the wall of his bedroom with bluetac. He happened to place the picture above the radiator in his room. When the radiator is on, the hot air rises, causing the picture of Mulder and Scully to flap very gently up and down.

The combination of the image and the movement is the kind of thing you would notice out of the corner of your eye in your room or someone else's room, and that would stick with you all day.

Presenting that art gives the audience a tiny moment, and out-of-the-corner-of-the-eye glance. The feeling of noticing an unlikely juxtaposition - a pencil drawing of some characters, with all of the stories they may or not may not conjure up in your head, and this tiny, silly movement. It happened by chance, so it's only the act of observing that matters. But such a careful kind of observing, where the images at the corners of your eyes are the most important.

Ben Osborn

Thursday 18 August 2011

Lord Magpie's Animal House theme for Ed Fornieles




James at Ed Fornieles' Animal House performance Jan 2011.

Animal House Theme at the Star of Kings last wednesday.

Saturday 2 April 2011

Lord Magpie warehouse gig



We have a few London shows coming up including:

The New Empowering Church - 7th April
The Main Yard Gallery (w/Pseudo Nippon) - 16th April
The Camden Barfly - 17th April

Check the myspace for more http://www.myspace.com/lordmagpies

Monday 14 March 2011

The George and Steph Trilogy

In 2010, our friend George Buchanan admitted to having stolen a golden spacesuit from Pawel Althamer's 'Common Task' exhibition at Modern Art Oxford. This event became the catalyst for a series of performances.


George and Steph Trilogy Part I/III: Second Date with the Goddess from jfcampbell on Vimeo.



George and Steph Trilogy Part II/III: Chain of Life from Oscar Oldershaw on Vimeo.



George and Steph Trilogy Part III/III: Road of Trial from Oscar Oldershaw on Vimeo.

Monday 17 January 2011

Update / Mou


A Ray in the Life should be finished by the end of the day. It can then be seen it at the 'Hong Kong Whispers' opening in Brixton on Wednesday. And then again at some point in Hong Kong. Details to come.

Monday 10 January 2011

Coming Soon

A Ray In The Life: A Psychogeographical Negotiation


A new project with Raymond Wong and Oscar Oldershaw for the exhibition Hong Kong Whispers.

20th January -26th February 2011
Preview 19th January 2011 6.30-9pm

Contemporary Arts and Learning
198 Railton Road
London SE24 oJT

"Hong Kong Whispers is a group exhibition, which addresses the cultural and historical relationship between Hong Kong and the UK. Proposing a definition of an art exhibition analogous to a game of Chinese Whispers. The exhibition explores the miscommunications that happen in cross cultural art exhibition, and attempts to create a space in which meanings can be discussed, debated, and challenged."

As the Arts Council England cut their funding for the exhibition, our budget has been entirely provided by the Hong Kong Economics Office. So far, we've used it to buy well deserved kebabs.




http://www.wix.com/hongkongwhispers/hongkongwhispers