The Pleasures Come to London

Koenig Books, Frieze Art Fair 2021

After years away from my second home (in my heart, not in bricks) I finally flew to London. Aside from museum-hopping and eating Indian food, I visited the coolest bookshops in the city, discovered new authors, distributed my book, met up with friends, and had some wild times in East London. The highlight of the trip was seeing my art book, ‘The Pleasures of Hackney Road’, at Koenig Books in Frieze Art Fair. 

Here’s where you can find my art book in London:

The Broadway Bookshop. Burley Fisher Books. Pages of Hackney. Gosh!. Housmans Books. Koenig Books at Frieze.

It’s also available in 12 other bookstores and art museums. Write me on Instagram @thefortunyverse if you would like to find a copy at your nearest bookseller.

The second draft...

My book at Gosh! in Soho

Come Into The Fortunyverse

Exciting news: I have a new artist website! You can see my drawings, performance art (yes, I love rubbing paint on naked skin, dancing at bus stops,  and lifting shamans into the air), photography, and paintings at thefortunyverse.com. Check out www.thefortunyverse.com and let me know what you think.

The Pleasures of Hackney Road

This year I wrote and illustrated my first artist book! The Pleasures of Hackney Road: Five Tales of Wildness features drawings and stories about my adventures in London. You can find it at two major contemporary art institutions (The CCCB and La Casa Encendida) and at numerous bookstores. There's also a Spanish edition, Los Placeres de Hackney Road, which is now in its second printing. 

You can write me on Instagram @margofortuny if you would like to order a copy internationally or stock it. 

It's the first in a series of books about different cities I've lived in. What cities do you dream of moving to, if you just move spontaneously?

Holding my book in Madrid

The inside of 'The Pleasures of Hackney Road' by Margo Fortuny

A drawing from 'The Pleasures of Hackney Road' by Margo Fortuny

At El Imparcial in Madrid

At the CCCB bookshop in Barcelona

Frieze Furniture

Every year thousands of art collectors swoop into London to attend Frieze Art Fair. I usually go to check out the hits, drool over the Nan Goldin photographs and Raymond Pettibon drawings, and sketch the chairs. Every gallery brings their own chairs. Sometimes they surpass the pieces on the wall. If you're a modernist lover they are the art.

2009

Frieze 2010

Photos by Kirsty Buchanan

O f f s e t F e s t i v a l

I illustrated some of the styles going on last weekend...Click on the image for the close-up details.

Offset Festival takes place in September in Hainault Forest, about 40 minutes from East London to the ticket booth...

Offset is fantastic. It showcases newer bands like Fiction, Wild Palms, and the Horrors, alongside the groups that have influenced them. The vibe is relaxed, (except when Kap Bambino played and everyone went crazy), the music is good, and both years the weather has been perfect- none of the downpour of Field Day or the My-face-is-surely-melting-off-under-this-infernal-desert-sun of Coachella. Everyone meandered over the grass, watched bands, danced around, and cast their eyeballs about. Boys wore short haircuts, black, brogues or Docs, and either high-waisted 1940s style trousers or the old skinny jeans and wayfarers combo. Girls sported black eyeliner, red lipstick, kneesocks, cotton carrier bags, mismatched thrift store gear or neo-gothic frocks and boots. There were plenty of glossy black bobs freckling the grassy fields. S.C.U.M. and Romance seemed to have the most hype. The Slits were mobbed and audience members shook hips on stage. I heard Wild Beasts were amazing, though alas, at this point in the evening I had been whisked back to London by an Italian pixie.

Nice safety pin, Nikola.

You can't go wrong with Chucks.

Check out my interviews with Fiction and Wild Palms on www.exitmagazine.co.uk next week...

The Ecstasy of Saint/the Reece.