A hasty roadtrip made from Friday to Sunday that was almost scuppered by problems of motivation and accomodation. The A1 from Newcastle to Leeds contained so many roadworks—incidentally without a single sign of workforce or plant—that one would be forgiven for thinking that the government had given the sum of its recession stimulus entirely to the cone industry.
A quick stop in Marlow on Thames to pick up a Newcastle tree surgeon emmigrant ended a bottle of bourbon later, and after four hours sleep I was dragged out to find coffee. Months at a time spent in and around Byker makes it easy to forget just how good gene pools can be. At home I feel fairly unobjectionable. On the streets of Marlow I felt like I should have been carrying a bell.
The tree surgeon and I car shared into London to avoid colliding with each other on the A40 again, grabbed Bruce Weber’s chef from Westbourne Park, calling in on Zoo proper to check out the work of and pick up Mr. Ant Macari before heading to Vyner Street on the promise of free alcohol and interesting art. Macari had pulled an all-weeker to install his show and wasn’t his usual self, so without the usual banter about the work I decided to chiefly review the booze:
—Madder 139 Gallery, No.1 Vyner St.
Nessie Stonebridge’s paintings would have likely been quite interesting, had the gallery supplied us any drinks at all. However we all agreed that their ‘running out’ policy towards latecomers was off-putting, and left pretty sharpish.
—Kate MacGarry Gallery, 7a Vyner St.
I am familiar with Dr. Lakra, whose new work was presented here, as he had the misfortune of having to stay at the same damp house in Belfast that I once had to. The work seemed like a step backwards to me, but then the room was again alcohol-free.
—Ibid Gallery, 21 Vyner St.
Still no drinks, but Anthea Hamilton’s show reminded us of some mutual friends, lifting our spirits enough to push on.
—Artists Anonymous, 32A Viner St.
This gallery came up with the goods in a highly original way by charging two pounds for big, cold, perfect bottles of Chang beer. Cleverly capitalising on being the first gallery on the street that could actually supply us with some, the charge was paid eagerly, especially as a percentage of the profits were spent actually heating the gallery. Bruce Weber’s chef was so overjoyed that she almost bought a rather nice drawing/collage by an artist whose name I can’t remember. It had a tracing paper assembly and a subtle colour wash. Like an old architect’s impression, but if the building was pictured exploding.
—Nettie Horn Gallery, 25b Vyner St.
Featured amongst other things was an installation of chicken wire, bark, and cable tie trees. The tree surgeon spotted that one of the trees had different bark to the rest, a detail that made me feel proud to have brought along a tree surgeon. The beers were warm but complimentary, and served by delightful women rather than slopping around in a bucket on the floor.
—Gooden Gallery, 25a Vine St.
I was initially eager to enter this gallery in order to pet a very handsome dog that was being led around the works. However I then noticed that it contained a piece in a trapezoidal frame and couldn’t bring myself to it.
—FRED Gallery, 45 Vyner St.
The beers were very cold, but we had to plunge our hands into buckets of iced water to retrieve them, only to find them to be Carling. How can art galleries be at once so expensive and so cheap?
—Wilkinson Gallery, 50–58 Vyner St.
We missed the drinks by seconds, but were briefly taken with an incidental Danish dining table and chair set where the chairs tucked in perfectly flush to the table. The exhibition reeked of 1970s New York feminism, driving us out of the gallery very quickly, and into a nearby rockabilly nightclub very shortly after.
