School of Saatchi

Watched the School of Saatchi last night; what a bizarre show.

On one hand, the idea of a talent show based around actual talent is quite alluring, but as usual, the contestants were all jazzy-handed messy-haired wankers. Apart from Suki, the sweet lassy with the slightly rubbish video installation that looked like a screensaver. It isn't really a surprise that they're tools since it is, essentially, a televised talent content. But still....

Also, to complicate things, Charles Saatchi (or to give him his full name: The Reclusive Enigmatic King-Maker Charles Saatchi) doesn't actually appear on camera! Which means that we're treated to his wee sycophantic assistant starting every sentence with 'Well Charles thinks....', and brilliantly, having a conversation with him on her mobile and sitting there saying 'yeah.....hm....uh huh....sure......yeah' as if she's talking to the banker on Deal or No Deal. It's ridiculous!

Like, I'll be watching next week. Some of the stuff they made was quite interesting if you just block out the idiots that made it. Oh, and Tracy Emin is fucking fantastic; my favourite new TV personality. She shouted at a guy for painting a wheel in his installation yellow and green! She was fucking furious! I thought she was going to lamp him.

I have no real way to wrap this wee bit up; I thought I'd just share my thoughts. Bye.

Episode 1 is on the iPlayer right here.

Feltus Feltus

The last time I went off to the Arches for a visual art exhibition, it was a bit of a mixed bag. The exhibition, Chris Coleman-Smith's Burnt and Charred Surfaces, was a collection of 8 photographs, each sampled from, you guessed it, the remains of recently burnt buildings, which was actually an interesting insight into the past of the buildings. Now, given the sort of building that the Arches is (large, nooked, crannied) there was a real potential to make this a great exhibition.

But the works were just papped up in the weird lobby space, off the main reception, hanging off the walls like those creepy paintings of dogs that hang up in the waiting area of dentists. (Shit like this). Worse still, was that because I went during my lunch hour, about 1 o clock, I had to clamber between groups of people slurping lattes and talking about the previous nights edition of Coronation Street. It was just a fucking mess basically.

So, it was with definite trepidation that I went off this afternoon to see the new Feltus Feltus show, Two Gentlemen.

The exhibition, like Coleman-Smith's, was a collection of photography presented, rather unceremoniously, in the dimly-lit lobby area. Happily, the crowd were downstairs in the cafe bar, which meant that I was able to gawp away to my heart's content at the works. Which were alright I suppose. The main focus of the show was the juxtaposition (yeah? YEAH!) of the inner-self and the fabricated exterior, which meant that we were offered plenty of bizarre theatrics and psuedo-religious imagery (one piece in particular actually dropped the 'psuedo-' part and went all out, casting the Feltus brothers are deliberately terrifying bishops). Actually, the deadpan eccentricity and dark undertones only served to remind me of how good a film Roy Andersson's We, The Living is. Like I said, the exhibition was OK; nothing to get particularly excited about.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of the Arches; it's a great venue for club nights and they have a decent enough booking policy. Likewise a great, and innovative, theatre venue. I just think that 'One Of Europe's Leading Arts Venues' shouldn't really be squandering the potential of the fairly solid visual arts exhibitions that they book.

Lara Favaretto

The Tramway have uploaded a great free podcast to tie in with the Lara Favaretto exhibition which is on at the moment in the Tramway 2 space.

The installation is made up of kinetic sculptures (count how many times the presenter of the podcast uses that term), the central themes of which are disintegration and general glumness.

More info here, and download the podcast here.