PINK BIRDS

Elad Lassry's Chilean Flamingo 90028, 2007

LIZA LOU

Liza Lou's quieter pieces such as Tiara (above) and drawing Cell (both 2006) often impress me as much as her large scale works.

Her latest show is opening this weekend at White Cube Hoxton Square, I can't wait.



 Tiara (above) and Cell, both 2006.


The idea of brides wearing tiaras usually makes me nauseous but to wander down the aisle with this work of art would be quite something else. I wonder what kind of kingdom the owner of  Tiara would preside over...

GAVIN TURK & VALESKA SOARES

Valeska Soares, Duet, 2008 Marble.

Gavin Turk, Habitat, 2004. Painted bronze.


I particularly remember seeing one of Gavin Turk's series of sleeping bags at the bottom of a staircase at a gallery (Wallace Collection or perhaps the Royal Academy) and marvelling at its realism. The two sculptures stir completely different reactions, despite both alluding to sleep - it is hard to look at the pieces side by side without considering the disparity between the imagined sleepers.

I wonder which work would be more popular in a poll of gallery visitors? I am inclined to think Valeska Soares' pillows because they are easier to look at compared to Turk's evocation of a cold vulnerable night. Turk's work makes me thankful that, like the majority of gallery visitors, I am lucky enough to be more familiar with a crumpled pillow with a high thread count than a threadbare sleeping bag gleaming with grime.


While working in the White Cube archives I came across a book which had invited writers to provide an accompaniment to the work, this was poet Vive Griffith's response to 'Duet':

JAKE AND DINOS CHAPMAN

Is it just me that sees more than a little Jake and Dinos Chapman in the 19thC lithograph above?

Reworked etchings from Goya's 'Los Caprichos' series left.

WHITE CUBE

I have started a new internship, working at the White Cube gallery. A big perk is that I am getting back up to date (ish) with contemporary art. I can't help but see my old favourites in new works -

Katharina Fritsch Mönch (Monk) 1997-1999

Egon Schiele Male Figure 1909