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London came out in celebration of Dame Tracey Emin and her amazing show at White Cube. Harry Weller, her studio manager, gave a wonderful speech, informing us that she would paint through the day and night gaining huge spurt’s of energy, but every time Tracey pays the price and collapses. So each painting is not just a painting but also a symbol of her huge effort and energy
Here I am with the wonderful Assia Webster and Amanda Love in front of one of our favourite paintings
There were so wonderful guests at Tracey’s dinner including Gilbert who was celebrating his birthday
Norman Rosenthal gave a validation speech dedicated to Tracey - not that she needs any validation
The next evening we went to the opening of the very special show – London by Frank Auerbach at Frances Outred’s new space and Offer Waterman Gallery. The exhibition was full of incredible loans (NFS) and never before seen works. Sadly by November Frank had passed away. But I hope he got to see this show with such a focussed group of London paintings together in his adopted home town
We went for a lovely celebration dinner where Frances Outred engrossed us with the most insightful talk on the show, and introduced us to all the incredible curators and collectors behind Frank Auerbach’s epic career.
Later we dropped into see Christies to see a performance by Marina Abramovic
Then on to see Magdalena Odundo at Thomas Dane gallery. James Lingwood and Michael Landy admired Magdalena’s stone ware vessels – we all agreed that they are total perfection
We could not wait to get to the CoLab project’s ‘Mary Mary’ was magnificent to encounter, set in a beautiful ‘garden’ aside the Thames. We made a special trip and will come back again. My highlight was Candida Powell-Williams’ new commission ‘Auguries through the Mist’ (2024), an ‘unruly' fountain subverting the stability of classical fountain geometry, a wonky balanced globe worn away to reveal fantastical fossils balances on top of a chariot. Perhaps in the future we will find scientific and spiritual knowledge co-existing
We were also drawn to Olivia Bax’s Cartouche, a bright orange sculpture made to fit into itself and be shipped to its next exhibition – it’s a celebration of the vital ingredients of sculpture: deftness, resourcefulness and good humour. Apparently Bax was “drawn to the illustrations of 'cartouches' in Derrida's 'The Truth in Painting' of empty rectangles and boxes with items coming out, the artist intends "all its meanings [to] work with the sculpture"
A semi-permanent work is tucked away by the brilliant Holly Stevenson. Another Mother (2022) is a surreal baluster/ woman embedded in the architectural fabric of the perimeter of The Artist's Garden. It is simultaneously a decorative wayside shrine, a guardian of the Garden and a nod to all Marys of which Maria Kough Bazalgette is one. Maria was the wife of the great Victorian engineer Sir Joseph Bazalgette who, in the 1860s, resolved the 'Great Stink' and saved London from cholera by constructing the Embankment and the roof terrace on which The Artist's Garden was created. Stevenson was spurred on by a desire to improve its 'toothless balustrade'. The exhibition is above Temple Station and on view until the summer, worth multiple visits to see how the season’s effect the show
Then we went to visit Ago and Tiqui Atencio at Thadeus Ropac where she launched her new book. Inside the Homes of Artists
I stumbled upon another member of the Tiqui Fan Club – the always picture perfect Glenn Brown
At Stephen Friedman was a beautiful show of portraits by Kehinde Wiley. They were intensely intimate and realistic. We enjoyed viewing ‘Portrait of Oloyede Oluwakanyinsola’ amongst many more
Then it was to see Michael Craig Martin at the Royal Academy. I loved ‘Pricks” it was part of his first ever retrospective
For this exhibition Craig-Martin has created ‘The Planets, Cosmos’ his first fully immersive digital work of art, it uses more than 300 images of objects the artist has made over the past 45 years, making it a fitting work for a retrospective
We ended the month with a special night for Michal Rovner was given by BFAMI at our home hosting Pamela Crystal, Cheyenne Westphal, Ilana Fattal and Doron
In other news we were thrilled to see Tracey Emins tiny bronze bird had flown over from Sarvisalo for the Loewe catwalk show
Here is Tracey’s bird in Finland as a memorial to my dad Harry
