Boy shows you his… » carlo keshishian

Summer/Autumn updates

Outside In 10th Anniversary

Greetings. As usual, it has been a while since the last time I have posted here. Time passes, things accumulate, etc.. So, let’s get on with it!

Outside In have put a show together at Pallant House Gallery, in order to celebrate 10 years of Outside In, which is quite an achievement. It’s great that they can continue to carry out the work that they do and seem to be going from strength to strength. I have a couple of diary drawings in the exhibition alongside the works of other award winners. The show is on until the 30th October, so if you are nearby, do check it out! Also imperative to mention, something that really blew me away and was a total surprise, on exhibition in the DeLonghi Room at Pallant House, are some (many) collected works by Friedrich Nagler. Seriously incredible, faces created out of all sorts of materials throughout his adult life.. Some simple, others quite detailed and complex.. I can’t stress how great this exhibition is and urge anyone remotely near to go take a look, I’m not sure what the probability of seeing them again is, where or when, but I do hope it can tour for others to share this experience. These shows aren’t on for much longer, so check it out while you can!

Friedrich Nagler works on show at Pallant House Gallery

Three Quarters Records

By now, I do have a somewhat dynamic history with a figure known to some as Joe Dub. He resides in Hawaii and first came to my attention in the last few years of the previous millennium for his work with the group San Francisco Street Music. He has gone through a few name changes and it is about to happen again, on this occasion to be coinciding with the launch of his new record label, Three Quarters. For their first release, Joe, alongside longtime collaborator Alex 75, handles the production for singer Doug Shorts on a 7″ called ‘Throwing Our Love Away/Slow Poison’.

I am proud to present to you all, a wooden 45/7″ record adapter that I’ve designed for the Three Quarters record label. It is my understanding that these will be available as a limited edition promotional gift with orders of the first release by Doug Shorts very soon.. Stay tuned for more info! In the meantime, you can read a bit more about Doug Shorts here.

Additionally, I have included part of an interview that I recently conducted with Joe Dub, in my 100th radio show for Itch FM (It is my 140th in total). The show focuses on the historical development of my interest in Jazz and I’ll be uploading it to my Mixcloud archive soon. It can be found on Itch FM’s archive already. Furthermore, I am in the process of putting together quite a thorough show focusing on Joe Dub and his music, which will include the full interview. I’ll provide a link to both of these as they become available.

The Carlo Keshishian/Three Quarters 45 Adapter

Outsider Art Fair Paris 2016

It’s that time again.. October 20-23rd. Outsider Art Fair Paris, at Hôtel du Duc. A few dozen galleries and organisations from around the world will be exhibiting. I will have works on display with the Galerie du Marché (Lausanne, Switzerland). I’m in great company alongside favourite artists of mine such as Raphael Lonne and Edmund Monsiel, whose pieces are very rarely exhibited, so treat yourself to a trip and journey. Come see us! I will be writing my opinion piece for Outside In as per usual, so if you can’t make it, perhaps you’ll be able to gauge and glean something from that once it’s published. I’ll keep you posted, in any case..

Right, that will be all for now! I’ll be in touch again in due course..

Bright moments,

Carlo

17 Mar 2016, 7:15pm
Boy shows you his... Uncategorized: Andrea Joyce Heimer Castlefield Gallery Darren Brian Adcock David MacLagan Jenna Kayleigh Wilkinson Joel Lorand Marlene Steyn Mehrdad Rashidi Mit Senoj Nick Blinko Peter Darach Richard Nie Rudimentary Peni
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Inside Out at Castlefield Gallery in Manchester, UK

‘Inside Out’ at Castlefield Gallery, Manchester (UK) / 4th March – 24th April, 2016

As promised in the previous blog entry, I am expanding on the topic of a current exhibition which features some of my work. At the time of writing this, it has been open to the public for just under two weeks and will remain open for just over a further month. I highly recommend a visit after having attended the preview night. The space is impressive, and the combination of artists and works make for a rich experience which should have something to absorb you into and intrigue you. I think it is fair to say that there is enough potency in this show to captivate beyond the much too often case in my experience of entering gallery, perusing ’empty’ feeling ideas/art for a matter of a handful of minutes at most, and sometimes even forcing further attention in case time might do anything in me understanding/appreciating the work, but more often than not failing to accept there is any substance of real value. I am so tired of that, that I wanted to write that sloppy sentence as quickly as possible and move on.

I have to send a big shout out to co-curator of the show show, David Maclagan, for his support over the last few years and for bringing me into this show. The work on display was co-curated with the Castlefield Gallery and I saw some interesting work that I was unfamiliar with until that point. Darren Brian Adcock‘s interactive pieces had a wondrous and original way of engaging with me. I had the honour or being in this group show with an artist I have admired for over half my lifetime thus far, Nick Blinko. This strangely put some sort of perspective on things, for me. In fact, and I hadn’t thought of this until now, but Nick Blinko’s original drawing used for the insert of his band Rudimentary Peni‘s first album ‘Death Church‘ from the early 1980s, being exhibited in this exhibition, is a result of some cosmic vibrations if ever there were any. A friend of mine in school made a compilation cassette for me, containing hardcore punk recordings from his record collection. It took him months to finally get round to finishing it and giving it to me. A song from ‘Death Church’ was on this tape, and I went to seek out the album after that. Purchasing it was my first exposure to Nick Blinko’s art, and right now you can see the original art for that album on show in an exhibition along with some of my work. I’m not quite sure what to make of it, but something happened there!

I was going to write more, but I think I’ll leave it at that! I hope you can make it along to see some interesting work that doesn’t often get an outing. Vibrations courtesy of: Darren Brian Adcock, Nick Blinko, Peter Darach, Andrea Joyce Heimer, Carlo Keshishian, Joel Lorand, David Maclagan, Richard Nie, Mehrdad Rashidi, Mit Senoj, Marlene Steyn, Jenna Kayleigh Wilkinson.

Below are some photos from the opening.

David Maclagan introducing the exhibition

Manchester is awash with youth

Man steps into my realm

Crowd congregate with fascination and intrigue in regards to a stranger’s diary

Further attempts are made to decode my rantings

Diary Drawing, Sept. 2015 – March 2016

Another diary drawing has reached its natural ending point. On this occasion, without filling the entire page. I’ve covered most of it though. There are a handful of reasons that I am aware of relating to why, one of which is how difficult I found using the pen that I chose. It was not very fluid and did not flow so well. This, in part, delayed the process by months. Anyhow, that’s the way it goes. It was not the sole reason, in any case.. Unfortunately, my scanner is not scanning the page straight, regardless of how straight the page is placed into the scanner, so I hope this temporary scan should do for now.. I guess you won’t notice too much either way though..

Lastly, I must mention I have been on some inspiring adventures lately. In contrast to the behemoths I normally post as blogs, and rather sparsely, I hope to submit somewhat more frequent and digestible posts, in which I’d like to focus on these adventures, for example. Until then,

Peace

Carlo

Outsider Art Fair Paris, Castlefield Gallery, Sweet Earth Records and a Happy New Year..

Outsider Art Fair Paris 2015…

Greetings friends, family, fans, followers and spies. I thought I’d write one of these posts to update everyone on some of my activities before the year is out. Firstly, as I mentioned in the previous post in September, I had two drawings shown at the Outsider Art Fair Paris thanks to Galerie du Marché and the Eternod/Mermod Collection from Lausanne, Switzerland. I must reiterate how much of an honour it is to have my drawings in their incredible collection and to be shown at their consistently strong booth, having attended the fair for several years and been absorbed by the potency and selection. This was the first time that my works have been exhibited at the fair, and I was in good company on the wall with a Louis Soutter above me and a Theo below me, with a Madge Gill below that. As I said in my entry of reflections on the Outsider Art Fair Paris for Outside In‘s blog which can be read here: “In a weird way, I quite like being in the company of dead people who manage to speak from beyond the grave (and particularly in this way).” Quoting myself from other blogs, into my own. The future has arrived. Anyhow, for my perspective on the fair, click on the aforementioned link. The two diary drawings of mine that were shown were bought by the La Maison Rouge collection and a private collector.

Carlo, beside himself at OAF Paris 2015

Diary Drawing…

I am currently drawing the 9th in my series of diary drawings, with the intention to stop at the 12th, as I’d like to continue a painting that I began in 2011 and hopefully build a series around it. Below, you can see an image capturing a moment in the process of my current diary in progress..

Ninth diary in progress

Castlefield Gallery… Inside Out

I am pleased to announce that some of my work will be shown in Inside Out, an exhibition with a very interesting roster of artists, at the Castlefield Gallery in Manchester, UK. The show will be on from 4th March until 24th of April. For (a lot of) additional info, check out the first link in this paragraph. I’ll go into some more detail about this exhibition in my next blog post, but for now I will say I am very excited to discover I’ll have works shown alongside Nick Blinko, Joel Lorand and Mehrdad Rashidi.

Sweet Earth Records

I undertook a most pleasurable adventure in recent months, in an attempt to shed light on a somewhat obscure, short-lived record company that was active between 1977-1979. My curiosity resulted from a variety of ‘coincidences’ in regards to the records that were released on the label, most of which are rare and all out of print with the exception of Sun Ra‘s The Other Side Of The Sun which saw a reissue through another label in recent years. In my attempt to demystify the story of Sweet Earth Records, I managed to speak with John Sprague who kindly elaborates on his memories of performing and recording with David Wertman and The Sun Ensemble, as well as his involvement with the label and their releases. I also speak with the legendary Amina Claudine Myers about her album Poems For Piano ‘The Piano Music of Marion Brown’, I chat with the charismatic Stephen McCraven who kindly invited me in his home to speak on his classic Wooley The Newt LP, and lastly I interview the great Ahmed Abdullah about a Sweet Earth Records non-release and what would have been Ed Blackwell‘s first album as leader. As far as I know, there isn’t really even a synopsis of what Sweet Earth Records were about, online, let alone an exploratory show containing interviews with someone associated with each release to come out on the label, which is what I’ve managed to piece together. I hope you enjoy it. With that, I’ll stop typing and leave you with those two hours of audio Sweet Earth Records special / See’s To Exist show. Happy New Year!

Bright moments,

Carlo

23 Sep 2015, 12:43pm
Boy shows you his... Boy talks Uncategorized: Adolf Wolfli Aloise Corbaz Artlicks Carlo Zinelli diary drawings Edmund Monsiel Eternod/Mermod Collection Galerie Du Marche Hotel Elephant Madge Gill Outsider Art Fair Outsider Art Fair Paris Raphael Lonne Scottie Wilson
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Artlicks Weekend with Hotel Elephant, Outsider Art Fair Paris, Diary drawing..

Artlicks Weekend/Hotel Elephant…

Welcome once again or for the first time. If you are sitting in silence, let me take this opportunity to momentarily redirect you to the archive of my weekly radio shows, in case you’d like a soundtrack to reading my blog. Go here and pick any of the hundred or so shows I’ve executed in my life as a radio DJ thus far. Don’t forget to come back though.

My first bit of news is that I’ll have some work showing in London (UK) again, finally. This will occur between the 1st-4th October. The opening is on the evening of Thursday the 1st of October from 6-9pm and then you will be able to come and see the following few days (Fri, Sat, Sun) from 12-6pm. Courtesy of Hotel Elephant as part of the Artlicks Weekend. The address is 23 Harper Road SE1 6AW. This location is just a few minutes walk from Borough station, or Elephant & Castle. For further info, you can use your search engine(s) or try these links: 1 and 2 and here’s another.. 3

Outsider Art Fair Paris 2015

I’m very pleased to announce that some of my work will be shown at this year’s Paris edition of the Outsider Art Fair, thanks to Galerie du Marché and the Eternod/Mermod Collection from Lausanne, Switzerland. It is an honour to have works in their highly impressive collection containing master works by Aloïse Corbaz, as well as works by some of my favourite artists (Edmund Monsiel, Carlo Zinelli, and Raphaël Lonné). Madge Gill, Scottie Wilson, and Adolf Wölfli are among the legendary names whose works can also be seen in the Eternod/Mermod Collection. The fair runs from October 22nd-25th. See website for further details. Here.

Diary Drawing, March-September 2015

I’m very pleased to announce that I’ve completed another diary drawing. This time surpassing any previous shift in increments by a surprising amount, in regards to the amount of words contained in the drawing, which on this occasion clocks in at 11,273 words. The last couple of drawings were around 7,000 words each, and the one before that had the highest word count previously, at 9,539. Here is an image of the latest drawing.. (click on it for a larger view).

Thanks for reading (and listening?) Bright moments, Carlo

8 Jul 2015, 11:15am
Boy shows you his... Uncategorized: Carlo Keshishian David MacLagan Line Let Loose Raw Vision Magazine
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Raw Vision#86

Greetings, folks. Things have gotten significant in the last week so I’m bringing you the news. My favourite quarterly magazine, Raw Vision, has just published a 6 page feature article on my work, written by David Maclagan. One of my drawings was used to illustrate his book Line Let Loose: Scribbling, Doodling and Automatic Drawing almost a couple of years ago now. He also included the same image as part of a great article he wrote for Raw Vision #82. Raw Vision can be bought in its physical form as has been consistently the way since the late 1980s, or now you also have the option to purchase issues as digital (PDF) files.

You can get the current issue with the feature length article about me and my work here: Raw Vision #86, but let me fill you in on some details first.. The printed edition has beautiful professional quality/resolution images but there were two images that were imperative to include and due to a mix up they were replaced by an additional two spiral-based images, on top of already having two spiral-based images accompanying the article. In the version I proof-read, the correct images were present. The article refers to text-based drawings/paintings and diary drawings, but there are none now accompanying the article, and to confuse matters more the titles of the intended diary drawings (‘Diary, April 2011– November 2013′ and ‘Diary, October 2010– March 2011′) have remained in the description and accompany the spiral-based images. This has all been corrected on the digital version of the magazine and the diary drawing images are now included there, but the image compression used in order to keep the file size manageable compromises the quality of the image to a degree that you cannot quite see what the detail in the diary images depict due to pixelation. Ideally there should be a correction in the next physical issue with a page containing a paragraph explaining the diary images should have been included and rectifying the matter of the wrong titles/sizes attributed to the spiral-based images that were used to replace the diary-based images, along with the necessary high resolution images of the diaries so that those buying the physical magazine will understand what the article was addressing. I am not sure if they are considering doing this, I think I would if I was publishing a magazine and something like this happened, but then I don’t know what goes on and what limitations and challenges they have, so will have to wait and see.. I will provide the images here in any case, so if you buy the magazine you can reference the blog entry for the additional imagery that is necessary in achieving the full potential of harmonious realisation! Just click on these below, and then zoom in when they appear in the new window..

Diary, April 2011 – November 2013, ink on card, 11.7 x 8.3 ins., 29.7 x 21 cm

Diary, October 2010 – March 2011, ink on card, 11.7 x 8.3 ins., 29.7 x 21 cm

Right, that’s all for now folks! I’ll keep you posted on any more developments soon.. Peace out for now..

Carlo.

Marching Into Spring

It’s March…

Winter is behind us, or is at least subsiding temporarily. One thing is apparent, each day stays brighter by 40 seconds or so. Certainly beneficial to my creation process nowadays! Light at the end of the tunnel.

I recently completed the most recent diary page which began on the first of January, 2015. Here is an image of it.. Click on it to see a larger version (which you can then click on again)..

In other news, there is currently an exhibition on in London (UK), Circus In Terminal 15, featuring a large painting of mine from 2009. It is also text based but more of a word association than diary-like. It’s on until Saturday 14th of March. On Friday the 13th there is a sort of ‘closing party’ which will feature performances (musical, theatrical, poetical, existential, un-categorisable) from 6.30-9pm. It’s at the RR Gallery, St.Peter’s Church, Kensington Park Road, London W11 2PN. Come along if you are in the vicinity. Here is an image of my piece at the opening..

And here‘s a lengthy bit of blog I recently wrote for Outside In, focussed on my experience with the Circus Terminal project. It contains some historical, ideological, philosophical, and other otical contexts. And some images. Check it out HERE

Lastly, I’m gonna plug a couple of my recent radio show uploads. As I’ve mentioned before, I do a weekly radio show called See’s To Exist show every Friday 4-6pm GMT on Itch FM which streams live on the internets via their website. I archive the shows here.

But what I wanted to draw particular attention to are two shows. The first being –

1) a special edition I did live at the station in dedication to the music of Joe Bonner, a favourite pianist of mine who sadly passed away a couple of weeks prior. There is a magical quality to his playing as is exemplified in the selections I have included from my record collection. I also speak a bit with Juini Booth who played bass on Bonner’s classic Angel Eyes LP. You can hear this show / here/

2) A more thoroughly put together show, and a first instalment in a series of three shows, is my focus on the overlooked pianist, composer, and conductor Horace Tapscott and the movement that he put in motion from the 1960s onwards. I interview several affiliates for this. The author Steven Isoardi, who edited Horace Tapscott’s autobiography and wrote an extensive account of the Pan Afrikan People’s Arkestra and their history. Michael Session, who joined Horace and the Arkestra initially in the late 1970s and who is currently leading the group since Tapscott’s passing. Darryl Moore, also known as JMD, who was drumming and touring with Tapscott in the 1990s, and is known for his work with the Project Blowed and production work with Hip Hop groups Freestyle Fellowship and The Pharcyde among others. You can hear the first instalment – /here/

That’s all for now, folks.

Be well..

Carlo

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What’s new and still old…

In this entry of my seemingly biannual blog I have little to say that isn’t said elsewhere but I have a couple of links to throw at you containing masses of information, should you be interested. Firstly, I’ll draw attention to the latest diary page completed a couple of months ago. Click on it to see it in more detail. It may take a moment to load. And click on it again to see it in more detail:

I’m currently working on the next diary drawing, which unlike previous diary drawings which have more of a stream of consciousness based approach in terms of structure, even though there are in depth and thorough explorations into ideas, topics and experiences, the new diary is a continuation of the one illustrated here, focussing on just one topic, an in depth analysis which I feel will most likely even carry through onto a third page.

In other news, I’ve recently gotten back from a trip to France. Mainly Paris. I was there for the Outsider Art Fair. Quite an indulgent affair. There was a lot going on in terms of exhibitions and I saw more art than I would usually see in at least half a year. I documented some of my experience of being there for the Outside In blog which you can read here: click here

Ah yes, also, a well rendered image of mine is used in the David Maclagan article Beyond the Doodle, printed in Raw Vision magazine issue #82. You can read an extract from the article here and/or buy the magazine which features the full article with the glorious accompanying images and rest of magazine full of fascinating art to ponder on, HERE.

Finally, something that I received a few days back, which terrified me (fittingly, for Halloween), was an eleven minute video interview that I did for Uncooked Culture TV. I’d almost forgotten about it and then it just appeared out of nowhere. I still don’t understand how it spans eleven minutes but it does. Should you be interested in viewing this, you can find it below and it may be an idea to view it full screen if you want to see more clearly. That’s all for now.

Until next time..

Carlo.

24 May 2014, 10:32am
Boy shows you his... Boy talks Boy travels Uncategorized: Circus Terminal Circus Terminal Slovenia Downtown Music Gallery Henry Darger Horniman Horniman Museum Kitty Gale Kud Esko Museum of Everything Outsider Art Fair Phil Baird Raymond Pettibon Trumpet and Cloud
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2014 so far…

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Where to Begin…

How does one start a blog entry when 6 or so months have passed since the last. It seems to be a recurring thing, this accumulate and combust pattern. All I can do is create breathing space by leaving gaps and making more paragraphs. A few photos here and there.. Firstly, here is the last completed diary drawing.. which I began in April of 2011 and completed in November of 2013.

The new one is coming a lot faster. I am nearly halfway through it, and began it in February.

Circus Terminal New Zealand/Slovenia…

The adventures continue with the Circus Terminal touring exhibition, accumulating more artists and artwork along the way. My work was shown in New Zealand, reaching further across the globe than me! In some ways, a parallel to a news piece I read recently regarding humans reaching a depth in the ocean that we’d never reached before, and finding some of our rubbish there. Our litter reached these unexplored areas before we did.

I can speak (a lot) more about Circus Terminal’s excursion to Slovenia as I actually went along for the ride on this one.. but in regards to chronology, I shall speak about my trip to New York first..

New York / Inside the Outsider Art World…

I have an interesting relationship with this city. It brings back my awareness of everything resonating on a paradoxical level. I came into Newark airport, which I felt would be quieter and easier than JFK, as last time at JFK I had to queue for an hour and twenty minutes to get through passport control, which was a lot worse for the weak-kneed elders, families with little babies and children, or the obese.. I remember waiting for my luggage and hearing an announcement over the p.a., to paraphrase: “Please keep your mobile phones off in the luggage pick up area”.. and as my phone was on, I took it out of my pocket to turn it off, and within seconds a security/police person was beside me ‘excuse me sir, you’re gonna have to turn that off’.. I began to explain that this is why I had taken it out of my pocket, but he cut me off mid sentence and seemed aggravated by my being conversational/talking back to him.. Newark welcomed me in a similar fashion. The queue only took half an hour or so. I noticed a poster up which was focussed on explaining how the security there should treat you with respect and are there to help you etc.. etc.. Before arriving at the passport desk, a security guy was randomly checking people’s passports in the queue. He looked through mine and laughed whilst saying ‘why have you been to Libya so many times??’, (why have I been to New York so many times!?), I responded ‘I’ve never been to Libya’. He changed his expression and seemed stumped for a moment. He pointed at the stamps and asked what they were. I said ‘Lebanon’. He said ‘Same thing’.. I refrained from commenting further. Not long after, when I was on the New Jersey Transit train to Penn station in Manhattan, the ticket officer checked my ticket and I asked her roughly how long the ride to Penn is, and she of course answered with ‘do you have a smartphone?’, why she couldn’t just say ’10 mins’ or something like that, I don’t know.. This is New York, sometimes. I told her I don’t have internet as I am coming from London and to use internet here would be extortionate. Very much like the character of Gail in the film After Hours (one of my all time favourites, set in Manhattan), she completely ignored my comment and proceeded to show me this app on her phone which tells you the timetables of the trains etc.. She then turned around and showed the app to a couple of the other (American) passengers, telling them it’s quite useful. I reiterated my point “Can you just tell me, 5 minutes? 10 minutes?”, and in her overly helpful fashion she responds “I told you, 2 stops!”.. Thanks. As it was a national train, it is difficult to determine the length/space between stops, but I left it at that.

On thing I do like about New York is that you see stuff like this on the train platforms..

The next phase was meeting someone to pick up keys for an apartment. Interesting lady. I had no luggage with me, which she was glad about, being paranoid about people in the building noticing visitors coming and going with luggage. This is understandable. I explained to her though that I’d be picking up a suitcase from somewhere the following day. She asked how big it was. We talked about all sorts of things and then I noticed she had these circular cards on the table and was shuffling them around as we spoke. She then mentioned that perhaps I should bring the suitcase in the morning instead of the afternoon. By now I’d pieced together the puzzle and she was using tarot cards to help her figure out when I should sneak this suitcase into the building. Another ‘After Hours’ moment. I had a busy schedule and couldn’t comply to her fully, but compromised the timing in regards to when I will bring this suitcase. I assured her it was very light and would take just a minute to walk through.. There are more eccentric aspects to this story but I shall refrain from going into those details..

Ah yes, the Outsider Art Fair.. I enjoyed it. Saw some great works by Edmund Monsiel, Raphael Lonne, A.G. Rizzoli, Nick Blinko, Christine Sefolosha, Stephanie Lucas, and many others.. I was intrigued by the talks on Jean-Michel Basquiat and Henry Darger, and spent my Saturday attending both. I go into some detail about these in a blog entry I have written for Outside In which has just been uploaded here. The stand out moment for me that afternoon was when James Brett took control of the panel discussion on Henry Darger and made it his own, becoming more and more animated as he built up to revealing his epiphany regarding Darger’s images and how they each follow on to the next, aesthetically, if you put them next to each other. He used nine or so slides to illustrate this point and flicked back and forth between them, the more he pushed the point, the louder the rain got. The talk took place on the roof of Center 548, with a temporary tent erected around us, you could see the material fluctuate from the violent rain and winds, and as Brett landed on a Darger image depicting a sky full of lightning, thunder struck and lightning flashed in completely simultaneous synchronicity on the roof of Center 548. The rain got so loud that we couldn’t hear the speakers’ voices and they had to stop for some time to see if it would calm down, and as it was passively said on the panel, echoing what some of the people in the room must have also been thinking half seriously, is that it was like Darger was interrupting the talk from above, showing his reaction, resonating with the theatrics of discovery.

Here’s another New York shot:

I was out and about a lot in New York.. entering the outside world at around 10am and returning just after midnight each day for four days straight. My energy didn’t seem to run low at any point until I returned home after an overnight flight which I did not sleep during. The following morning I set off for Slovenia, adding a further hour to the jet lag and putting me in a completely different environment. Anyhow, prior to that, in New York I managed to check out a few record shops. I had planned to visit just two but I eventually got through a dozen or so. I have some fuel for my radio show, which hopefully should be starting up again at a different radio station in the next few weeks.. I saw a few films, ate some great food, saw a few exhibitions. Of note is the Raymond Pettibon exhibition at Venus over Manhattan. Was great to see that. It’s a shame I only found out about the exhibition of Basquiat drawings on the Saturday during the Outsider Art Fair talk. I wanted to go the following day but the gallery was closed Sundays according to the internet and I flew home that night. I did however walk past a gallery with no signage, where some activity had caught my eye. A man holding open the door, another carrying packages from a van. The man holding the door asked “Well, are you coming in??”, I responded “I don’t know.. what’s going on in there?…. What’s the show?”, he said “Keith Haring”, and so I went in. I wouldn’t have even known about it! Was good to catch that. On the same street there was an exhibition of Julian Schnabel paintings from the late ’80s I believe. So it’s funny to see that era all on show at once. The Schnabel stuff is just interesting to see purely in terms of scale. The content I don’t really connect with.

I was told it wasn’t a very good record, but I do love a good octopus find.. Here’s a photo from the ‘rare records room’ at the Downtown Music Gallery..

and here is a photo of me in front of a wall painted by Raymond Pettibon..

Circus Terminal Slovenia…

The journey to Piran seemed dubiously painless, until halfway through the flight when we were informed that the plane had been struck by lightning.

I saw the flash of light but heard no thunder. There was some roller-coaster turbulence. Five minutes or so later, the pilot said something (to paraphrase): “As you may have noticed, our plane has been hit by lightning. Normally, we would continue on to the closest airport, in this case our destination, and have engineers look at the plane upon arrival. Unfortunately there are no engineers at Ljubjana and so we have to turn around and return to Stansted.” We got there and remained in our seats as engineers explored the damage for 30 minutes or so. According to the pilot, the lightning had penetrated the plane through one sheet of metal and come through the other side of another piece of metal. This occurred very close to a circuit board which is related to measuring internal or external pressure, but thankfully the circuitry was unaffected. We were then told that they would spend the next 15 minutes or so scraping off some of the burn marks and then we would be back on our way. Nok’s flight was arriving in the morning but she had decided to wait for me until I land at 4pm. Of course now that I was landing a few hours later, she rightfully left the airport to embark on the road trip to Piran. I would be picked up by a young lady who takes a small fee for running a sort of organised hitch hiking service which people can use on the internet to get a lift from town to town. After having just been hit by lightning and surviving, the conversation between my designated driver and I over the next hour somehow didn’t phase me, but I did feel quite overloaded after. We touched upon planned parenting, censorship, castration, good vs evil, free will, population control, the eradication of money, horse burgers and various other wonderful topics. It’s a bit of a blur to me now. We did pick up two more passengers along the way but they remained mostly quiet. One of them seemed quite interesting though.. He teaches kindergarden and makes this trip once every couple of months on his own with some psilocybin and just walks around these three towns for several days. He said it gives him time to think and reflect and clear his mind. I don’t remember him carrying anything else with him. He seemed pretty together. I wished him a good trip as he exited the vehicle and quite soon after reached my own destination.

I was welcomed by this lovely mosaic piece at the Trumpet and Cloud hostel, where I was staying for 10 Euros a night!..

I know it was just a week ago but somehow it feels like a lot has time has passed since then already and the details get rearranged in my brain. I think it was the following day or possibly the day after that, that we took the art works down to the gallery. Circus Terminal is certainly a miracle of an embarkment, and only one Nok has the energy, drive and vision to pull off such an impossible task. I remember two or three years ago when the exhibition had maybe 15 or 20 artists on board, and since then after having toured through France, Spain, Thailand, USA, UK, Holland, and Australia, picking up new artists as the momentum continues, we now have a suitcase full of 350 or so art works by around a hundred artists. Here’s some photos of walking down the hill and taking the work to the Kud Esko exhibition space!

And then we laid all the art works out on the floor, and in some sort of mysterious fashion they began to get placed on the wall with a sort of improvised, yet practiced, (dis)order..

Contemplation back at the hostel..

and a full moon..

By the next day we were joined by Farad and Verena who drove over from Austria. We took Farad’s work down to the gallery..

We visited a sculpture park..

We drove past some salt-extracting environments, and this guy went in to go fishing with his harpoon..

We were told that there was a fish market or something going on in Piran and so we went down to go and buy some fish to bring back to the hostel and barbecue in the garden. When we got closer, we found out that they were actually giving away free fish. This sounded quite unusual.. We got there and they were cooking fish and giving people a fish each to eat, so we queued and got some free local wine and fish for lunch, which was incredible. I asked how often this happens and they said it will probably happen again towards the end of summer..

Back at the gallery, and hundreds of reference sheets with no order to match art works and images with titles etc..

Unorthodox methods..

and the opening..

Some of the local and young artists were painting a wall outside.. And Farad and I had an impromptu noise jam inside.. Farad was shredding on the guitar and I was providing some drum programming and effects.. Check out some of Farad’s music here.

Gotta thank our hosts, Vasko and Nina, good job!

Between the opening on Friday and the collaborative painting session I lead on Sunday, all sorts of whirlwind happened. I won’t go into the shenanigans but it was a guy called Igor’s birthday and he was throwing a party from Friday night which went on until Monday? I passed through on Friday night and though it was pouring with rain, the party was lively, there was plenty food on the grill and an infinite supply of beer and other beverages. Skipping right ahead to Sunday, I was hugely impressed by how quickly this massive canvas was getting filled with the marks of local artists, and it was great that they could make it and were either struggling through a hangover or opted to come and paint over staying at the party..

It was funny to hear these people trying to read my drawing. They were doing a good job actually. It was weird hearing them read out what I’d written, aloud, slowly but surely..

And more photos of the Circus Terminal here.

Horniman workshop…

Fellow artist and collaborator, Phil Baird and I have been doing a few things here and there. We ran six weeks of workshops at the Three Cs Crossways center in Peckham, and have also held a series of workshops at the Horniman Museum in conjunction with Network Arts Lewisham and Drake Music. I recently got an email from the Horniman with some photos of the workshop we held there most recently at the Community Music Day, which are quite pleasant. It was quite a short workshop but we showed one of the films we had made, and then everyone played on some instruments that were provided by the museum. Phil and I jammed on a couple of instruments as the others drew their reactions to the sound, and we did a version of this which involved passing the drawings around until everyone has drawn on every page. Here are some photos, courtesy of photographer Kitty Gale..