I have been planning a new reviewing site and persona for myself when I leave the MA. Having reviewed for The Upcoming for a couple of years, I recently took a break from that to devote more time to finishing off the MA, and realised I didn't really want to go back. I truly enjoyed getting to review not just exhibitions but also theatre, film, opera and basically anything. I've built up a good body of work and know that I can review absolutely anything, no matter how awful, wonderful, baffling or high/lowbrow.
I thought I would be sending out screeds of emails to get myself on press lists for galleries, etc, but something came up which precipitated the launch of theGlamorousAnorak. I was invited to a press lunch in my own right, as it were, from an artist I worked with a couple of years ago in the Cubitt Drawing Collective, who now works at Flowers Gallery. I've had the opportunity to go to press events through The Upcoming, and they are invariably a table of coffees, perhaps a few sandwiches and pastries, and a talk by the artist or curator. I was taken aback to walk in to Flowers gallery and find about a dozen people sitting around a big table having a proper lunch. If I'd known that I'd have been in time, as usually these things start a bit late anyway.
So I sat right next to Angela Flowers who started the gallery and her son Matthew who now runs it. Next to us was the artist Patrick Hughes - this lunch was for an exhibition celebrating his 75th birthday and 50 years since he came up with his reverse perspective paintings. There were various other artists and writers there. It was a very pleasant time with Patrick telling outrageous anecdotes about characters he and Angela knew. Angela Flowers is a lovely lady and we talked about my popup theViewergallery and how she had to imagine eating butter during the war. I asked Patrick if he was going to give us a walk through the exhibition, whereupon he bounded up and said he'd take me now, and I had a great talk with him about his work and various other things. He's energetic and enthusiastic, and really generous with his thoughts.
Eye Level, Patrick Hughes, 2014
Work, life, preparing for MA and everything else - it's a bit relentless at the moment, but some chances you can't pass up, so theGlamorousAnorak was launched and tweeted later with this review:
http://theglamorousanorak.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/patrick-hughes-new-reverspectives.html
More will probably have to wait for a wee while, but I thought theGlamorousAnorak would be a good place to keep up the blogging habit the MA has engendered, and to see where else reviewing might take me. Hoping for some sort of an in with a gallery,
19th October 2014
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