EAST LONDON THREE YEARS AGO

Photos by Alistair Allan.

I just came across this list I scribbled a few years ago when I moved to Hackney…

You know you live in East London when…

The 55 bus is a great place to meet people.

Every good electro night is described as ‘polysexual.’

Consequently you haven’t met a straight guy in six weeks.

You forget fringe-less girls exist.

Everyone has at least one Pete Doherty story.

Your boyfriend is so thin he’s now two-dimensional.

You see Faris Rotter so often you think he’s part of the wallpaper.

Your passport photo was taken by Alistair Allan.

Every Sunday night (in a secret location) there’s a guestlist-only candlelight memorial mourning Boombox. All tears shed must glitter.

At least half your friends go to Saint Martins.

You haven’t seen flared jeans in years, and consider them a symptom of blindness.

You thought Santa was the mayor of Shoreditch.

Photos by Larissa James.

BERLIN: A Metropolis Guide

EXPERIENCES

After you’ve bought your day pass or parked your bike, pick up a copy of Zitty magazine at a newsstand or record store, it’s similar to Time Out. It’s all in German but you can figure out what exhibitions are on in the Kunst (Art) section and what gigs are on.

See what's new at the Hamburger Bahnhof modern art museum and the small Guggenheim museum Unter den Linden 13, Train: Französische Straße. It’s fun to wander around the contemporary art galleries in Mitte. Also Sprueth Magers Gallery usually has excellent exhibitions on. Gallery Oranienburger Strasse 18. Train: Oranienburger Strasse. The Helmut Newton Museum is also worth a look if you love photographs of beautiful statuesque women. Jebensstrasse 2. Train: Zoologischer Garten.

The best time to visit Berlin is in the summertime, though any season will be interesting, as long as you bundle up. If you do go in warmer months hang out at the Badeschiff- an outdoor bar complete with sand underfoot, iron beds, hammocks, a bar, free gigs, and an open air swimming pool. The view is amazing, the vibe is relaxed, and it’s open late. Eichenstraße 4. Train: Treptower Park.

My favourite hairdresser in the world, Persona Non Grata, is based in Berlin. Or fly him out if you can afford it. He’s known for hair sculpture: avant-garde cuts and colours with the obsessive precision of early Vidal Sassoon. He also specializes in going platinum and asymmetric fringes, though he can do understated styles upon request. If you want a real Berlin souvenir book Persona Non Grata to cut your hair.

Oh, look who we found in the hall...

Hair by Persona Non Grata. Photo by Jeffreyvanhoutte.be

NIGHTLIFE

Young indie rockers and hipsters: go to White Trash Fast Food on Saturday night for dancing or Monday night for screenings, Schönhauser Allee 6/7.

For tasty cocktails and a lesbian/ mixed scene go to Barbie Deinhoff’s in Kreuzberg Schlesische Straße 16.

Feeling experimental? If you’re a fan of massive nightclubs and minimal techno you might want to check out the infamous Berghain/ Panorama bar, preferably around 6 am Sunday morning. Public sex (gay and straight welcome) at this club is allowed, cameras are not. Some people say it’s hard to get into but I’ve never had a problem, just look bizarre and not too wasted and be prepared to queue. Am Wriezener Bahnhof. Train: Ostbahnhof.

Also keep your eyes peeled for club night flyers in record shops. (Leave any other nightlife recommendations or funny stories in the comments box...)

Josephine in Treptow. She likes behrensen saurer apfel and dead beat poets.

EAT

For vegetarians on a budget: order the hot halloumi sandwich from the falafel place near Barbie Deinhoff’s on Schlesische Straße; the nearest train stop is Schlesisches Tor. Expect warm cheese on a bed of lettuce and onions and salad with a creamy garlic sauce and a dab of spicy chili. It’s about 3 Euros and fills you up for hours.

Delores. This inexpensive California/ Mexican café offers delicious quesadillas, burritos, and salads filled with vegetarian, vegan, or meat ingredients. Try the lime marinated tofu quesadilla with fresh guacamole (5.50 with a side of fresh salsa), or the spicy mole burrito with peanut salsa if you’re feeling adventurous. Delores plays cool music and has a selection of new fashion magazines in English and German for you to peruse. Rosa-Luxemburg Strasse 7. Train: Alexanderplatz.

Room 77. As you walk in it looks like a cross between a dive bar and a living room. There’s a random old man playing the guitar, numerous sunken velvety sofas, maybe a floppy eared dog wandering around. Everyone was really friendly when we went, including the waiter and the people whose booth we squeezed into because every table was occupied. Room 77 specializes in juicy cheeseburgers with crispy potato wedges that come with a sour cream dip. 77 Graefestraße. Train: Schönleinstraße.

If you’re a candy freak and a fan of Germany’s famous square chocolates visit the Ritter Sport Chocoworld Store. They have every type of Ritter chocolate including limited edition flavours, (such as vanilla bourbon and creamy cashew) bite size, giant size, and melted praline hot chocolate as well as a build-your-own bar, where you pick the fillings and they make the chocolate fresh for you that day. Upstairs there’s a café and an exhibit explaining the manufacturing process. Französische Strasse 24 Train: Französische Straße.

Have you ever tried honey-hazelnut-yogurt milk chocolate? What are you waiting for?

SHOP

Close to the Ritter Sport Chocoworld is the French department store Galleries Lafayette. The food hall stocks an impressive assortment of French mustards in a plethora of tastes and sizes, from caramelized onion to cognac. Upstairs, the beauty department sells unusual products such as expensive cologne that is meant to reek of the four body excretions and perfume that is marketed to smell like the blood of a virgin on clean sheets. Französische Straße 23.

Glasses aficionados: rush to the vintage specs shop Lunettes Brillenagentur. They sell beautiful frames and quirky one of a kind designs from about 20-200 Euros, most priced around 120. (You can get the prescription put in cheaply in Berlin or at Mott Street Optical in Chinatown, NYC or at Arckiv in London.) Marienburger Straße 11. Train: Senefelderplatz

If it’s the weekend, check out Treptow flea market on Saturday for knick knacks, vinyl, random electronics, and inexpensive china or better yet, Mauerpark on Sunday for sheepskin rugs, 60s lamps, and vintage treasures. Train: Treptower Park. Mauerpark: Bernauer Strasse 63-64. Train: Eberswalder Straße.

Do You Read Me? is a phenomonal magazine store. They have hundreds of international contemporary magazines (specializing in fashion and culture) plus zines and books. They don’t mind if you browse for a while either. Auguststraße 28. Train: Rosenthaler Platz.

Reach for the scent of virgins.

Cologne scented like blood, sweat, tears, and sperm. About 50 Euros. Or you could mix that up at home.

A fox stole in a vintage shop near U2 Eberswalderstrasse.

A Constructivist zine at the Guggenheim.

Artwork at a train station.

Berlin: A Metropolis Guide by Margo Fortuny originally appeared in Fine Magazine: http://finemagazine.co.uk/author/margo-fortuny/

Yves Klein in my mind

Yves Klein was a prolific painter, composer, and conceptual artist in the 1950s and 60s – until he died in 1962, aged 34. He’s famous for using women as paintbrushes (called anthropometries.) Klein also invented his own shade of ultramarine blue (IKB), painted with fire, and exhibited emptiness in 1958- an opening that attracted 3000 people.

Klein was fascinated with the colour blue. It represented the abstract elements in visible nature. In the 60s, using his trademark blue shade, he found a way to show the body’s energy by using nudes as living paintbrushes. Their forms pressed against papered floors and walls became records of the experience.

In the years following his death, major art institutions have honoured him with exhibitions, including the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Tate Gallery in London, and many other national art galleries.

This winter, Mitchell Bridges (conceptual artist) and I reenacted an anthropometrie twice, in front of large audiences, as an ode to Yves Klein. We reversed the gender roles to open up a discussion about the fluidity of masculine/feminine identity.  Instead of an instrumental ensemble, an old record of violin concertos accompanied the happenings. We used white paint for the first performance and red paint for the second performance.

Here are some of the photographs by Laura Jung:

Advice for meeting my mother

Bring a gift. Not something crummy. Something fine: loose assam tea from Harrods, macarons from Ladurée, Charbonnel et Walker hot chocolate, a Diptyque candle, Neal's Yard bath oil, an art book on a hot artist, the latest exhibition catalogue from a hyped show, a handmade drawing (preferably framed)...if you're broke go to a second hand bookstore (e.g. the Strand in New York or the little shops on Charing Cross Road in London) and pick out an old photography book.

Dress up and groom yourself: something tasteful, e.g. trousers, unwrinkled shirt, sweater, tidy shoes. No holes or stains. Above all look clean. Check your fingernails. Disguise bite marks if relevant.

Be as polite as possible. Sit up straight. Smile. Say thank you/ please/ I appreciate that. Offer to carry her bags (not her purse.) Hold the door open. Ask her questions about herself, her life, her projects. Complement her and her dogs. Things my mother likes to talk about: New York, Greece, travel, languages, art, architecture, style... I suggest you read the New York Times and the Guardian (or the online editions) so you have a few things to talk about. Most importantly, at the dinner table, put your fork down when not using it to eat. Whatever you do, do not wave it around to punctuate your thoughts in conversation. She might stab you with it if you do.

If you go out to dinner with her, offer to pay the whole bill. Insist upon it at least once, or be sneaky towards the end of the meal and pretend to go to the loo and discreetly arrange with the waiter to pay the bill.

To make a good first impression, don't talk about yourself too much but present yourself in the best possible light. Show her you're motivated, a hard worker. Before you meet her be prepared to answer questions like: Describe your educational background. Where do you see yourself in ten years? What are your professional goals? What has been your biggest achievement to date? (e.g. winning awards, learning languages, exhibiting, opening your own gallery...) It sounds like a job interview but it'll be worth it, because if she likes you she might introduce you to Larry Gagosian or invite you to a Pucci hotpants party on a friend's yacht.

Obviously, don't mention previous experimentation with drugs and /or unconventional sexual practices, even though she's pretty bohemian.

If you stay in her house, be a thoughtful guest. Be tidy. Ask if she needs help with anything around the house.

After you meet her, send her a letter or email saying how lovely it was to meet her. If it was a visit, send a thank you letter.

LONDON FASHION WEEK: ON THE STREET

London Fashion Week just ended. My friend Martin, Dalston-based co-head of Purlstitch Knit Club, and I were photographed several times as we left fashion shows and parties… Since you’ve probably seen what was on the catwalk, here's what we wore this week:

I wore this vintage (1970s) dress to the Liberty’s party.

I wore this vintage suede skirt and Shu-Ba top (feathers added) to the METAL/Lina Osterman party.

I wore this satin kimono and leather obi sash to the PPQ show.

Martin wore this to the METAL/Lina Osterman party. Check out the miniature birdcage necklace.

Martin wore this to the Roisin Murphy / Linda Farrow party. Cape, shirt, hat vintage.

Martin wore this to the PPQ afterparty. Couture trousers by Sara Loi. Coat by W.S. Wilkenson & Sons.

Fellini & Le Donne

Oggi, vorrei discutere Fellini e la sua visione delle donne e il ruolo delle donne nei film di questo regista. Dopo discutero' lo stereotipo delle donne in Italia, insieme ai film di Fellini. Nel mille-novecento-ottantanta Fellini ha detto:

‘Penso che il cinema sia una donna a causa della sua natura rituale. Questo utero e' il teatro, il buio fetale, le apparizioni- tutti creano un rapporto, noi ci proiettiamo sul rapporto...noi forziamo lo schermo ad assumere la personalita' che noi esigiamo, come facciamo con le donne, su cui ci abusiamo. Le donne sono le diapositive che sono inventate dagli uomini. Nella storia, lei e diventata la nostra fantasia.’

Viceversa, c’e un paradosso. I film di Fellini sono attraenti alle emozioni a causa dell' impatto delle protagoniste femminili al pubblico. I personaggi femminili ottengono piu comprensione di Fellini, dei loro equivalenti maschili. Le donne di Fellini sono le vittime o le prostitute, i personaggi umani nel mondo crudele che e' dominato dai valori maschili e insensibili. I protagonisti maschili sono di emozioni inferiore; sono superficiali o brutali.

D’altre parte, i personaggi femminili sono descritti come le fantasie sessuali e il desiderio delle donne di essere la proprieta' degli uomini. Le critiche femministe dicono che i film di Fellini danno il messagio al pubblico che dice che queste fantasie rappresentono le donne vere. Questo messagio limita il potenziale delle donne e rinforza lo stereotipo femminile in Italia.

Negli anni cinquanta in Italia, c’erano due gruppi stereoptipi di donne. Ci sono la madre e la vergine nel primo gruppo. La madre e il capo potente che controlla la famiglia e unifica gli Italiani (che sono decentrati in Italia.) Ci sono le prostitute/ amanti nell' altro gruppo. L’idea di una donna professionale era impossibile o comica.

Come Italiano, Federico Fellino ha questa opinione riguardono alle donne. In aggiunta, la filosofia di Jung ha influenzato Fellini. Questa filosofia dice che c’e una anima (l' elemento feminile nell'uomo: l'anima e' erotica e emotiva) e un animus (l'elemento maschile nella donna: l'animus e razionale o logico.) Fellini crede che gli uomini e le donne non siano opposti polari, sono le forze complementari. Come direttore, lui ha sperimentato con l’idea della anima e l’animus.

In aggiunta, le sue visioni dell' infanzia hanno influenzato i film di Fellini. C’era sua madre, che era una donna distante. Un altra donna bizarra nella vita di Fellini: quando Federico aveva sette o otto anni, una domestica della famiglia lo ha molestato. Era un poco traumatico. C’era anche la visione italiana delle donne: la vergine e la prostituta. Fellini si aggrappa a queste visioni, il suo cinema e' dipendente dalla sua fantasia soggettiva.

I personaggi femminili di Fellini sono le sue fantasie sessuali, ma l’aspetto della fantasia e' l'essenza dei film di Fellini. I sogni, la poesia, la fantasia, e l’immaginazione sono gli elementi piu importanti delle creazioni di Fellini. Io sono una femminista ma mi piaciono i film di Fellini perche lui e' un maestro di questi elementi. Il suo cinema 'e surreale, un sogno che e' bello e difettoso.

-Margo Fortuny

WALKS IN THE DARKEST FOREST

Young British Photographer Stuart Bailes explores woods and glaciers to capture heightened experiences on film.

24 year-old Stuart Bailes likes to walk in a straight line, armed with a large format camera and flash lighting. He transforms familiar spaces into eerie experiences by working at night, often exploring new locations on foot. Bailes has been awarded the Fujifilm Distinction Awards, 2008, the Reginald Salisbury Travel Scholarship, 2007, and MPD Graduate Future Partnership Award, Portfolio Award, 2007. He has exhibited at numerous spaces including the Photographer’s Gallery, London, and at the PhotoEspana, Descubrimientos PHE08, Madrid, Spain. I met with him in London Fields to talk about the land and the image.

Come to the show, up now, through November 22, if you’re in London. http://www.halsilver.com/

Fortuny: What photographers/artists are you inspired by and why?

Bailes: Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko…Abstract Expressionism was one of the coolest things to happen in painting. Bas Jan Ader: he managed to gel aspects of Romanticism with Conceptualism. This is an almost impossible task but he did it well. James Turrell, Anthony McCall: These guys harness light in the best possible ways making light and maths the material of their work. I love lights and I love numbers. Werner Herzog. Herzog uses the lens to present what is true and what is not true and somehow manages to retain Herzog's style in every film he produces. He is often softly Romantic but always aware of this.

Fortuny: Can you discuss the Romantic versus conceptual in your work?

Bailes: I love being on the land, walking on it, thinking about it and learning about it. I want to photograph those incredible moments where the light hits the right place or you see something phenomenal but in making that picture and presenting it something is lost, or left behind in the transaction. I search for alternative means of presenting the unattainable thing that potentially has romantic connotations, for example in the lighting and colours I work with. I enjoy the imagined possibilities of landscape.

Fortuny: What equipment do you use?

Bailes: I use a 5x4 large format camera. I like the historical context of using the 5x4 camera to make 'landscape' photographs.

Fortuny: Do you have any other talents?

Bailes: In 2008, I went on a month long European tour with an Icelandic musician called Olafur Arnalds (www.olafurarnalds.com). I worked as the lighting designer/operator for the tour. We did shows in many different venues with a whole range of specs from tiny clubs in basements to the Barbican and also to a couple of 5,000 capacity outdoor festivals.

Fortuny: How do you pick the landscapes you shoot?

Bailes: I do have a preference for cold places. I have traveled to Iceland a number of times because I love the blue-coloured sky of their dark winters.

Stuart Bailes is exhibiting in Flashforward 2009 at the Lenox Contemporary in Toronto, Canada October 8-25^th, 2009 and in the Hal Silver show, which opens 18th November, and runs from 19th -22nd Nov @ The Russian Club, Kingsland Road, London, UK. Check out http://www.stuartbailes.com for more details.

The full interview will appear on Dazed Digital.

A Master of Ambiguity

Yesterday touched me. First I went to the Ed Ruscha retrospective at the Hayward Gallery. I overheard him say, “I’ve been doing the same thing for so long I don’t even though why I do it. It’s compulsive. It’s my vocation.”

Then I introduced myself to seminal multi-media artist and asked him where his favourite place in L.A. is. (Mr Ruscha has lived in Los Angeles since the 1950s.) He replied, “Lucy’s El Adobe on Melrose in Hollywood.”

Ed Ruscha, I Was Gasping for Contact, Pastel on Paper, 1976.

Around 7 o’clock, I went to the Robert Mapplethorpe opening at the Alison Jacques Gallery. The sidewalk was crowded with art aficioados rapturously waiting for Patti Smith to play an intimate set in honour of her close friend Robert Mapplethorpe. She began to sing in the doorway of the gallery: When we were young, we had imagination, we had each other… In between songs Patti spoke about walking around New York with Robert.

Standing quite close I sketched her and wrote down her words. On the topic of AIDS awareness, she said, “It doesn’t mean we can’t have fun. It doesn’t mean we can’t be free. It just means we have to love our life and take care of it.” She also advised, “All of you in the next week or two, read Rimbaud, read Jim Carroll and look at Robert.” When Patti sang acapella Because the Night, everyone went silent before tentatively beginning to sing along. She sounded amazing and sincere.

Robert Mapplethorpe, 
Lisa Lyon, 1982, Silver gelatin print, at Alison Jacques Gallery

“I’m glad that you’re able to breathe

I’m glad that you’re able to distinguish me

from the lights along the thruway.

I mean don’t both of us illuminate

the direction which you are taking?

and don’t both weep nervously above

the moist pavement where you move”

-a verse from The Narrows by Jim Carroll

Jim Carroll died a few weeks ago. Here is his obituary.

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.

SUBCULTURE WITH LOVE

THE BED'S TOO BIG WITHOUT YOU

By Margo Fortuny

This is about an artist that started out D.I.Y, as in punk style, drag style, taking snapshots of her friends, documenting their lives: getting dressed up, listening to Lou Reed, getting wasted, fucking, being love-seared, dying, hanging out in New York/ London/ Berlin… The subject matter is often relatable (everyone has glanced longingly across a room, eaten birthday cake, peered in the mirror) and even when you haven’t done what’s depicted, you can FEEL it. The sting of youth, the excitement of experimentation, the disillusion of failed love, the aesthetics of a new city, self-transformation…Nan Goldin archived the feeling.

Snapshot-style photography is something anyone can do, from famous artists like Larry Clark and Wolfgang Tillmans to younger sparks like Ryan McGinley... yet Goldin’s work features a unique pathos. Nan Goldin is a snapshot pioneer, a staggering witness to love stories, addictions, nightlife, death, and the quiet minutes that happen every day. She is a historian to her best beloveds. Frank without being sensational, beautiful without being obvious, and cool without effort, Goldin’s photography touches a nerve. What sets her apart is the striking intimacy portrayed, exemplified in her work “The Ballad of Sexual Dependency.”

After studying at the Museum School in Boston, and surviving the suicide of her sister, a young Nan Goldin came to New York in 1978. She was a fan of Caravaggio, Faulkner, Tulsa, Dietrich, Antonioni, and Fassbinder… Back then NYC was punk/ dangerous/ electric with creative fire. In the late 70’s/ early 80’s, Goldin hosted Bowery loft parties popular for the characters in attendance…and the inevitable board games, rolled-up dollar bills, cake, cocktails, and tail-feather shaking. She worked as a waitress at Tin Pan Alley, while pursuing her vocation as a photographer. Goldin was part of the New Wave Life. The era’s parties, pleasures, and achievements were not important. The personal interactions were what mattered. She preserved them. She took pictures at work, out and about, at home, in bed, everywhere.

Goldin was inside the NYC downtown scene, and she documented it. On the topic of Goldin’s contemporaries, Darryl Pickney wrote “This was not the first generation to fall under the spell of the ruinous message that a wild life indicated a fertile imagination, that art was intrinsically progressive, a form of dissent, and that you would have to spend some time in the wilderness because of your daring aesthetic choices…” Goldin captured this 80s New York mood of heady recklessness and creative rebellion, before it burnt out. Many of the people shown in her early slideshows were dead by the 1990s.

As the years passed, Goldin maintained her intimate photography style while getting clean. She expanded her visual repertoire to include daylight, new characters, and more landscapes. The artist continues to create striking portraits and memorialize friends with AIDS. She exhibits internationally, from London’s Tate Gallery to Paris’s Centre George Pompidou to New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

Rewind a couple decades. In the beginning Goldin was presenting slideshows, usually accompanied by live bands, or homemade mixtapes. She worked the projector at bars and nightclubs, in front of an audience of friends. Her first NYC slide show happened at Frank Zappa’s birthday party at the Mudd Club. These slides, which became the seminal “Ballad of Sexual Dependency,” depicted a portrait of the Lower East Side collective experience, and the human practice of feeling and living and looking into oneself.

“The Ballad of Sexual Dependency” created between 1981 and 1996, is a series of 690 slides, shown over a period of forty-five minutes. The slides form a narrative, dealing with identity formed by gender politics, love, and sexuality. The subjects were her close friends assuming various aspects of themselves: lover, mourner, and social self/private self. Each photograph is taken as a tender glance, presenting imperfect people with such honesty and lack of judgment, thus rendering the subjects loveable and beautiful. At the time, the slideshow was radical. Now it is recognized as fine art. Her work is still relevant, as a window to a specific time and place, as a tool for awareness, and as a candid visual language.

Nan Goldin captures the energy between people.

The Arch

AN ATTEMPT TO LIVE THROUGH A TONGUE-LINED TUNNEL FILLED WITH RED CLOUDS

& CONCRETE FORESTS

A wet collision against the wall!

O the splattering of kisses…

We trade tongues by the bricks.

In the city romance is on concrete,

And the streetlight is our moon.

In between the skinny streets

And dirty sidewalks our footsteps

Leave a trace of happiness…

I hold your hand, rough

Skin stretched over the bones and

Blood of love; in the background

I hear an orchestra of sirens,

Honking and shouts…

In front of me I watch the

Beautiful movie of your eyes, curtained

By damp, black shadows.

Our soundlessness overcomes

The neon noise, and

Inside I sense

Your pulse flickering.

photo by weegee. top photo: unknown source