Love is in the air and we don’t like it. Gallerist couples have been sickening us with the success of their couple-run gallery model – yes we’re looking at you Brunette Coleman, Niru Ratnam, Rose Easton (kinda) and, erm, Carl Kostyal. What a dream it would be to co-run a space, we think as we brew the 8th flat white of the day for yet another client wearing Loro Piana, Connolly and Richard James in the basement of the blue chip gallery in which we are enslaved. No money worries, no logistical issues, no clashes in taste… surely the gallery-couple has it made. Drastic times call for drastic measures and we are compelled to look inwards – to our inner sanctum of Gossip Girl quotes – for guidance, realising that when it comes to love [on the Upper East Side], trust is a luxury only a few can afford…
So who are London’s most eligible art-world bachelors? Spotted: Isaac Simon, the bad boy of Farringdon who runs a capacious gallery with more than enough room for two curatorial practices, right Isaac? There’s Jonny Tanna, London’s favourite gallerist, up to his usual trouble-making antics (shoe-horning friends / frenemies into major international art events) – just think of that network! In fact, there are quite a few options, now that spittle comes to think of it – let us not forget Helen Neven and… Maureen Paley. Hot property for those of us finding our way in the big bad world, looking for stability, purpose and a good old fashioned power struggle.
With these targets in our sights, we threw dry January to the wind and headed out to mix and mingle. As they say, sometimes a girl’s gotta kiss a lot of frogs [artists?] before she finds her prince [gallerist life line]… xoxo, spittle
Despite the early January freeze, swarms of the more conceptual art-inclined (read: East London-based) crowd flocked to Emalin’s new space in Shoreditch, a former Clerk’s House which the press release daubed as ‘quirky’ (i.e. it was once a watchhouse for spotting 18th-century graveyard body snatchers). Proud new parents – gallery directors Leopold Thun and Angelina Volk – welcomed visitors, all of whom were febrile with anticipation of what the catering arrangements might be. Our attention was captured by Tolia Astakhishvili’s beautiful line drawing on artificially frosted plasterboard installed on the stairs – in direct competition with the worst patch of damp this reporter has ever seen. We were kind of into it! Shabby chic is back kids; don’t forget your PPE.
While the day was ostensibly about celebrating the new space, the real (guestlist gatekept) party was held at the original Emalin down the road, where we spotted Tate’s Nathan Ladd, Carlos Ishikawa’s Robert Liddiment, and Emalin’s own Tosia Leniarska making their way through Imogen Kwok’s gorgeously minimal spread of natural wine, Nocellara olives, salami disks, and some kind of cheesy mousse on charcoal crackers xx
As we reported in our ‘sletter (and Jacob Wilson unpacked on Plaster), anyone who was anyone found themselves heading to Margate one Sunday for a blustery seaside sojourn – and to participate in the ‘Margate moment’ concocted by the town’s emerging gallery scene. The idea to time the openings of three shows across the respective spaces of 243 Luz, Roland Ross and Wells Projects paid off; as one adventurous gallery-goer commented on the late morning train from Kings Cross, ‘the school trip vibes’ were strong. After popping in to see Alex Margo Arden at Quench, Nat Faulkner at Roland Ross and the mind-bending film by true icons Lizzy Deacon and Ika Schwander at scene darling Ed Leeson’s gallery (243 Luz) we drifted off to a bar called CAMP where the day culminated in tipples du jour – glacé cherried Shirley Temples for those pretending to do dry Jan, and soothing whiskey on the rocks for gallerinas and artists braving strep throat (the bacterial infection plaguing many in the art world this season). If you haven’t made it down yet, go go go! And if you haven’t had strep throat… live a little.
All of a sudden, spittle found itself amidst an intimate and excitable crowd gathered at Michael Werner to listen to the inimitable PJ Harvey read poetry by Don Van Vliet – also known as Captain Beefheart – surrounded by the late artist-singer’s works (on view until Feb 17!). Listening to incredible lines like: ‘A monkey never had a guilty masturbation’; ‘You should know by the kindness of a dog how a human should be’ and ‘A monkey wouldn’t shit on another’s creation’, were spittle-fave Florian Krewer; painter Jake Grewal; legend Louisa Buck; designer and hotelier Jasper Conran; she-needs-no-introduction Victoria Siddall; maverick wordsmith Charlie Fox – in a bomber jacket somehow related to the filming of Bram Stoker’s Dracula; Stuart Shave in battered Air Force 1’s; the FT’s Jo Ellison; Frieze’s Claudia Kensani Saviotti and Sean Burns; and crutch-wielding PR Carrie Rees. As Plaster’s own Harriet Lloyd-Smith observed: ‘The mood of the enchanted, hallowed congregation was truly sacred as alt-rock doyenne PJ Harvey recited ten fantastical poems by the late great eccentric Captain Beefheart, whose paintings adorned Michael Werner gallery’s walls.’ After consecutively locking eyes with Ben Whishaw (star of the upcoming Peter Hujar biopic) and edgelord Issy Wood we began to feel all slebbed out – there’s only so much one can take xo
Blagging our way into the Condo party was no.1 on the to-do list for this week. It was rammed with basically everyone: woman of the night Vanessa Carlos in tow with collector/patron Bianca Chu; Lomex gallery proprietor Alexander Shulan; collector Paul Ettlinger; artist/cook-fluencers Lowena Hearn and Jago Rackham; gallerist Phillida Reid; Union Pacific’s Grace and Nigel; artist Dani Marcel; Nicoletti’s Camille Houze and artist Ruby Dickson (receiving a show at the gallery very soon <3!); no.1 exhibition installation photographer Damian Griffiths; Project Native Informant’s Stephan Tanbin Sastrawidjaja and Jeremy Parker; Frieze editor-in-chief Andrew Durbin; Goldsmiths CCA director Sarah McCrory; spittle-fave artist Jenkin Van Zyl; Soft Opening’s Antonia Marsh; and artist Michael Ho (obvs). With a steady circulation of sliders and no queue for the unlimited bar, you can imagine how the night ended for those that indulged…
A fashion editor in attendance voice-noted us their take: ‘Well well well, gone are the days of the mid-week art world party it seems: weekend affairs are officially in for 2024. While most people save their weekend to escape their odious colleagues, I prefer to get stuck into all the gossip and watch from afar as my peers debase themselves with debaucherous acts – and let’s not name names regarding some seriously questionable dancing. Last time I was at this venue it was for the Burberry bash for Daniel Lee’s debut. This time, the gouty setting proved fruitful for a cosy little shindig with roaring fires ablaze and plenty of artworld gays and theys gossiping from armchairs [as pictured]. What I will say is that a certain Freddie Powell was serving serious moves ‘pon the d-floor to Jenny from the Block, one of her favourite anthems, so shout out to her. Old Drag came thru in a full look, serving as per. I also clocked a certain Tate curator, known as Fiontán Moran, surveying the room with an intellectual gaze only she could bring. All in all, I didn’t wake up hungover and 10/10 would do it again!’
Patrick Bateman, Jackie Brown, Shiv from Succession, Offred, Special Agent Dale Cooper from Twin Peaks, Mads Mikkelsen on the hunt, and – you won’t believe it – Brunette Coleman* herself (!) form a menacing line up in Mathis Gasser’s show at Brunette Coleman. Gasser’s paintings pay homage to icons of fantasy, asking interesting questions about who and what constitutes Global Culture’s archetypal figures. As usual, lots of cuties at the opening – spotted mooching around were photographer Moritz Tibes; Dunhill’s Zak Klein; Copenhagen-based painter Oliver Bak; Cassius & Co.’s Fraser Brough; and Sprüth Magers’s Carla Schöffel.
*Brunette Coleman was originally the pseudonym of poet Philip Larkin when he was into writing homoerotic novellas as a student… the moniker has now, obviously, found a second wind as the hot young Bloomsbury gallery run by Ted Targett and Anna Eaves.
Opening on the same night was Ocean Baulcombe Toppin and Ebun Sodipo’s really very good show at Neven, featuring a precariously balanced stacked wine glass sculpture, an iridescent work declaring ‘DUST YOURSELF OFF AND TRY AGAIN’ and sexy shiny shimmery collages. We bumped into Antonia Marsh; Harlesden High Street’s Scattsman; artist Judith Dean (soon to receive a solo at Daisy Sanchez’s gallery Bodenrader in Chicago); and friend of the ‘sletter Leo Costelloe – on a high following an interview with Dazed Korea. So chic!
One show has been playing on our minds all Jan and that’s the bunny coded, positive aphorism strewn, reference heavy ‘Group Relations’ by Jan Gatewood at Rose Easton. While we absorbed one of the best exhibition texts we’ve ever got our mitts on (definitely one for the archive @hectorcampbell) penned by artist Justin Chance, we spied some naughty but impeccably dressed PRs stealing the very pillows from the very floor of the show! Easton herself was dripping hard in custom Arlette and looking pristine, as was the always gorgeously attired editor of Emergent magazine, Albert Riera Galceran, whose entrance caused ripples of ugg-envy to radiate tangibly throughout the crowd.
We found ourselves unexpectedly moved, almost choked up, to spy the bulk tub of Little Hotties hand warmers behind the scenes at a.Squire, who opened a graceful show by Nina Porter also on the 19th. Only girlies condemned to invigilate unheated galleries and/or bound to front-desks-by-the-front-door will understand. spittle arrived late, by which time the packed opening meant limited movement and a sea of mildly panicked faces trapped behind the gallery’s glass frontage. So cute. We were sad to miss the chance to pick up a copy of the limited edition ‘map for mystics’ which accompanied the show… let this be a lesson in punctuality for us all! If you, like us, have been simultaneously bone-cold and huddled knee to knee with an electric fire all winter make sure to get down early next time (the next show is rumoured to be a groupie titled ‘Quad’ – you heard it here first) and pick up a Little Hottie for yourself <3
