the saramago wall and chico

i could feel some eyes on my back.......you know the feeling.....it was a surprise visit from chico...the man from salir......chico is the general factotum....a man of many parts...always with a smile......he was working with antonio....i think looking for old farm implements @ the generals fathers house....a new project that the general is working on....progress is going well....lots of white bits painted.....there are stilll about 30 metres to go........the wall arrives in lisboa next....with a hotel.......and the birds....id forgotten them.......and the dog with the blue wool..........

zefa salir and almancil in april.......plus volcanic dust!!!!!!!!

volcanic dust equals a family get together.....so says shovell.......saski and claire were having a short break.....sam was fising in toulouse...in fact making a fishing film....he also had a gig in lisbon........iceland exploded......no planes.........the 2 girls found themselves with an enforced extended holiday........sam was driven to barcelona by davide a fishing friend....he did the gig and then caught a train to the algarve.......mixed weather and lots of food.....i managed to escape to zefa almancil to work on the wall for a few hours in the week.....sam...hil and i went upto salir to see chico and the other saramago wall paintings......i particularly like the totemlike highly coloured structure by the general........picture above...wednesday am at zefa 1 trying to get as much done s possible before a large black cloud emptied itself on my head.....lucky me only a few drops....i am now contemplating the next move on the wall....it seems endless.....i also have some very big canvases in the generals studio to finish....plus a peice of work for the music festival in loule

bits of manchester march 2010

bits of manchester scene on foot........the sandwich shop in ducie street where philips gallery was close by.....which moved to the northern quarter.......now in tib lane........when i was a student in rochdale we used to get down onto the towpath of the medlock and walk under the city appearing in a variety of locations...... . i was incredulous at the demise of urbis...............i was on my way to see what was on.............................before i got there a friend told me the news...............the late urbis...........whatever happened to this fantastic idea of the museum of the city..............a missed opportunity that will never be reinstated....some good shows ............hacienda..........black panthers...........photos of hidden manchester...............now to become a football museum....theres one in preston i think?..............whilst walking around the northern..... quarter on my search for urban grafitti............surprise! surprise!................someone has been round with a tin of paint and hidden them.........but on a closer look there are a number of small ones left....subversion is still alive and well...i am not going to say where or what they are...in case the anti grafitti brush will be out again.........i continued on to vinyl exchange to see my friend russell marland dj.......the story so far....

malcom mclaren punk guru

 a sad day.....with the passing of a creative entrepeneur....i have just read a transcript of the infamous interview held with the sex pistols and bill grundy.....whilst listening to the filth and the fury a sex pistols film by julian temple....only last week i found a record of my sons whilst looking for a long forgotten john cooper clarke...beasly street....it was a todd terry remix of francoise hardy produced by malcom.......coincidences...as i have only recently started to listen to punk music....as part of a project that i am currently working on based on street art and graffiti....which will include music...i have also just started reading phil strongmans book "pretty vacant" a history of punk........
a mini extrapolation from strongmans book......." london 1975....on his way to the kitchen mclaren trips over a homeless would be guitarist....steve jones......somewhere in north london ray stevenson goes to bed....in the east end on a roof john wardle relights a joint....whilst john lydon thinks about an audition he has just had.....in a garden shed  in suburban hounslow dave goodman plays his four track endlessly...in a stoke newington squat glen matlock struggles with a new riff......headlines will be made...at that moment no one new what was going to be unleashed....no one except malcom mclaren who was only 29....or possibly one of the youths on the east end roof..........

"small places"...a project in faro...an urban palimpcest.....grafitti.....punk funk.2010

"small places" is a combination of flyposted walls....grafitti.......street art.........hidden messages.....lilliputian sized people...poetics.......it is an urban palimcest.....invisible cities....this project is takingplace in mariana madeiras studio in faro........it is an enormous x business space complete with pigeons and holes in the roof......the building makes eerie sounds...mariana is work on"an imginary city"constructed fom mother boards...in the shape of portugal.....i am trying  link my idea with to her city.......the sheer  scale of cities......exciting and also lonely....e  and what part do we play in this urban playground....each of us going about our daily routine...each in our own bubble.....like ants ........the little people are here too....watching from the window....unseen.....invisible...........we are people of different tribes........different values...different customs......we inhabit the city....we work in the city....some live in the city....some have nices apartments....some live in doorways....some have jobs.....today many have no job..... decay

ian dury and conceptual art.....do what john!

 ian dury poet painter ex walthamstow and rca friend of peter blake...ian studied at both walthamstow and the rca....fine art painting........peter blake his teacher and later his friend taught at both institutions.....i too was an art student in the 60s.....as soon as i heard ian first records i was hooked....a poet....a punk funk poet......his wacky eccentric dress code....he was a performance and an installation all at the same time...a great stage presence and what a band.....the blockheads...so tight they nearly explode......chaz jankals percussive piano really making the music drive along....coupled with ians words that created exceptional surrealist images....tantalising stories......quirky scenarios......essex in the raw...the places had a ring to them for me some where of real memories....my grandparents lived in becontreee and later barking....we used to wait for the bus at the dutch little just outside brentwood....i remember romford cattle matket as a child...my uncle stewart and aunty ivy lived on the harold hill estate for many years.....they had a telly that used to play up so stewart used to give it a thump and that seemed to fix it......my uncle jack lived in bilericay...........upminster the end of the district line......many years later i taught at what was brentwood college of higfher education....and lived in a college house on ivy lodge lane right by the dutch little....coincidence or what...........ians lyrics combined with music were a perfect combination....i have a kind of affinity with ian ...the blockheads.... and essex........desert island discs was a sublime treat...i have a copy on video and listen to it often.
i wonder what he would have made of conceptual art......any ideas??????? i would like to find some images of ians paintings....can anyone help???????

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-JIzWFfsPk       

hugo canoilas in loule march 2010....some thoughts

some random thoughts on the hugo canoilas show which has just opened at espirito santo gallery in loule it runs til april 4.it contains a number of distinct peices, plus one collaboration with pedro reis. the works that i am drawn to are the text paintings....they contain references to surrealism...., the word "chance" is present...an important surrealist element....possibly the most important...are the words on these canvases "Chance" or selected?....perhaps in this context....they are conceived .....planned ....organised....are  they a message?....the message is the medium....that rings a bell!.....are these paintings conceptual peices like other works in the show ?....or do they make references to jasper johns!.......the letterforms sit on or in an unidentified place or space....is there reference here to colour field painting...a la rothko or more to newman whose shapes extend beyond the picture plane.....some of the text in these paintings are missing .....are they to beyond the picture plain!!!..is pop art present ....that movement of the 60s that took popular imagery as its starting poiut......these text poems have an autographic feel....they have a painterly presense, including accidental marks left by the stencil...this is not chance or random...this is using these two elements in a positive way,,,,even though they are produced with an anonymous stencil...a stencil that would be used to label a sack or a parcel.......the text generated from the computer does not follow this archaic system....the computer controls the spaces between letters....there is no happy accident....."rivers" run amock in present day print........i am interested in the way that they are presented....not hanging on a wall but hanging back to back....you are invited to find out!..........if tjere are any spelling mistakes then so be it....its chance......over the years my own work has been influenced by artists such as magrtte ..daniel sporrie....concrete poetry....hockney....alfred jarrry...and crossword uzzles........words...signs and cymbols...myths and legends....borrowing from other cultures.........lots of  mental suitcases full of collections of experiences...thoughts....conscious and subconscious connections....that might interconnect a any given time......below are 2 canoilas works and one of my number paintings.....my routes are in pop and the early conceptual days in the 60s whilst still a student...its interesting how events go around....and re appear......we have ideas that we redress like a cindy doll?????? the doll remains constant........? the equisite corpse?