November 9 I acquired from the Ludwig Museum “I collect records”, a 27 cm ø 175gr. professional vinyl frisbee piece that the Turner Prize-nominated artist and occasional DJ David Shrigley created in 2012.
“I collect records” is based on a drawing he did for a record cover featured in his exhibition Life and Life Drawing.
I have often criticized artists who hide behind “my work speaks for itself” or “it’s up to the viewer to interpret my work”. Nice try, but that’s bullshit.
Of course, anyone can interpret anything when exposed to an artwork! But the artist should at least make an attempt to explain the meaning behind a piece. No matter how self-explanatory (or obscure) it might be. It’s not “restricting the viewer”, it’s guiding; suggesting is not imposing.
November 6-9 I had to travel to Cologne (Germany) to attend the BioEurope trade show, along with a UK delegation. I have been in Cologne several times before, so I was not particularly surprised. But as with every trip, here are a few remarkable things I would like to comment:
The hotel was right next to the train station and the Cathedral, quite convenient It rained every frigging day. It was cold and dark Where there are trees, Autumn is quite a spectacle Rheinpark is very nice, but has too many walls.
INTERVIEW with JORGE CORTELL, curator
By Airida Rekštytė – November 4, 2016
According to your profound theoretical education (sic) it will not be difficult to present us in short your intentions for organizing this event.
When did the idea of making this exhibition occur and what inspired it?
I have spent years as activist defending free software and online privacy, and opposing censorship.
During a dinner with the director of an event that focuses on those themes (the Internet Freedom Festival, also known as Circumvention Festival), I told him how it would be a nice challenge to try to convey the main messages of the Festivals themes into an art exhibition.
The other day I received a letter from Buckingham Palace, inviting me to have dinner with the Duke of York (Prince Andrew) on Thursday at Windsor Castle.
I was curious to see the castle from the inside: it is a medieval style fortress, filled with military memorabilia (guns, swords, lances, armors…), banners and crests. It was more Game of Thrones than Harry Potter.
The reception was held at the Grand Reception Room.
For second consecutive year, my company has been named “Top Scaleup in the UK”. This means that we are growing fast, and also that I get invited to cool events. One of those events was a reception and a ‘Ten Years From Now’ series of keynotes at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, another one a mentoring session at London’s City Hall, and another one a series of talks at Google Campus.
Halloween has arrived in Wimbledon. The multicolored leaves paint their annual natural mosaic, one of the many subjective manifestations where we can observe our mind at work, interpreting events. Do you get taken away by the beauty of the color range? Does it make you wonder why everybody finds beautiful a cyclical natural event that occurs because tree leaves die, fall and rot? Do you associate it with annoyingly unpredictable weather and uncomfortably falling temperatures?
