John Smith mug at Kate Macgarry

Weird

Vinyl Factory tour yesterday

Refrigerated cakes from Eden’s show at Harlesden High Street

Visit to Sophie’s studio yesterday

Painting from 2018 lit by afternoon winter sun yesterday

Work bathroom selfie

And being critical, if this is what’s happening, are they empty gestures devoid of the ‘concept’ imperative to conceptualism etc. Mimicking a steeliness pertinent within social media marketing and fashion

And I suppose my brain worm is that, in the face of hyper networked, hyper marketed online existence, is there a tendency for artists to mimic modernist cleanliness, to quiet things down, rather than present the mess that all these divided selves/various brains actually add up to

I keep thinking about this phrase which I’ve associated with a work or text by/about Thomas Hirschhorn, which may be 100% totally wrong, but felt prescient at the Mike Kelley show. ‘The mess of life’ being something that’s present in the room. No necessarily abjection, but that a filter is removed

Adored Mike Kelley retrospective experience. Refreshing in its total chaos. Felt v counter to a cleanliness and detached ‘coolness’ that he experienced in minimalism and conceptualism, but which also seems to pervade today

Starting point