Why This Is Hell

Having, against my better judgement, gone to Bexhill to see the Warhol show (free, De La Warr, worth it for the building which needs a lick of paint again), I see another exhibition coming to Dulwich Picture Gallery. Which is more than the DPG website admitted to yesterday.

The Artist Rooms Warhol is going to Ferens Art Gallery, Hull 2 June 2012-13 January 2013; I'm not sure if they'll also have the various loans which were at Bexhill.

There's meant to be something at St Martin's, but I've not found any details on their website.

When Joseph Beuys crashed his plane during the Second World War, the Tartars who rescued him rubbed animal fat on his body, and wrapped him in felt. It should be no surprise to see felt and animal fat as recurrent elements in his ready mades and central to his art.

Beuys is the subject of the Artist Rooms exhibition at the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill on Sea. The Artist Rooms series of exhibitions are sponsored by Tate and the National Galleries of Scotland, and are scattered around the country - Warhol in Walsall, Mapplethorpe in Sheffield - but you need to do some digging to find the dates and locations of them (the Tate's own website not being that informative - http://www.tate.org.uk/collections/featuredworks_doffay.htm is one way in), and seems to be built around the donation of Anthony d’Offay (see also http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/aug/24/artist-rooms). ETA: http://www.tate.org.uk/collection/artistrooms/ gives dates and venues

( Beuys is Here )

Let it be recorded: Today has been a good day.

I've been feeling a bit trapped, and the endless coypu-editing, camp or otherwise, is getting to me (do experts not know the titles of the books they are discussing? can no one follow Routledge NuStyle?). A jolly, an expotition was in order.

There are various exhibitions in London I am failing to see. My therapist recommended an exhibition at the De La Warr Pavilion, and there's a bookshop in Bexhill-on-Sea which requires more exploration. Various days turned out to be free, and Saturday was a wash out, and the shop would be shut on a Sunday, and I was working on Monday. So Wednesday was the day I finally was free - and note this is the day the dvd shop shuts. I renewed the railcard, caught the train and was in a bookshop was 11.30. I found a pile of seventies books which in some cases stretched the two pound rule, and a Leigh Brackett crime novel, and the shop keeper said he'd call it two quid a book plus a quid for the cheap one. Eight books for £15. Result.

Then a trudge around the various charity shops - with nothing leaping off the shelves that I could justify buying - I think the quality of the books is improving, but that means fewer battered paperback sf books. No waistcoats (vests), no jackets, no interesting bric-a-brac - although I paused on a purse disguised as a glitterball (or a glitterball disguised as a purse) with the notion of it being a birthday present. I found something that will do, but not, yet, what I wanted. I proofraed the dvd shop and went to find some Fried Chicken for lunch, which I ate near the Pavilion, kicking the gulls out the way (gulls like chicken. Who knew?)

I sort of resented having to pay for the exhibition - but I will say more about mid-period Ben Nicholson later, as it was rather interesting to see landscape and geometric abstraction mesh so closely together. There were some nice photos in the overflow of the Brighton Photo Biennial (it's over now, and it wasn't in Brighton). A wander around the building, a coffee, a reader of the Grauniad and then to Sainsbury's* via a rather worrying cakeshop.

I popped into Sainsbury's, to picked up some pitta bread (had it been a bit later then I would have bought sustenance for the journey home), but as it was I bought a blue cherry yoghurt and two six packs of pittas for the price of one at 70p. Naturally, they come up at 75p each. I query it. Someone is despatched to the shelf - and the sign was in the wrong place (it does not cover organic ones, which these were, and neither of the two signs were that close to any pittas. But - get this - i could have them for 70p. That's better than Tescos would behave.

I lost the card from the bookshop on the way to the pub - but found it on my way back.


* I remember it as a Waitrose. I remember green signage. Has it become Ramsgate in my head?