Culture Vulture

Rebecca Warren
'Loulou' 2006
Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery, New York and Maureen Paley, London.



Carla Borel
'Even a Stopped Clock Tells the Right time twice a day' 2005


Back in the day it was a certainty that a Monday evening would be a definite night in for The Established Man staff. We'd all be sent home at a reasonable hour, turning off the Apple Macs before 6pm and saunter home with a distinct amount of glee across our faces knowing that one might able to catch up with close friends Ben & Jerry and any developments on the product portfolio in Vermont...Oatmeal Cookie Dough and Peanut Buttercup being office favorites. But alas no such luck has prevailed so far for 2009. What with fashion weeks galore, if we've not been in Milan then we've been in Paris and if its not been New York then its been here on home-turf... heavens knows why its called 'home-turf' as home barely featured during a packed out London Fashion Week. Thankfully the fashion pack are in Paris for the women's shows and London has returned to a vague sea of calm. Or at least we thought so, but then the invites continued to fly through the letterbox like something out of a scene of Bedknobs & Broomsticks and to our horror those sacred moments of utter Hermit-dom...a Monday night...are not spared.

So it was with a slight amount of huffing and puffing this evening, think schoolboy not actually wanting to go to school, that we boarded the loyal steed that is the office Vespa and took to the streets of London town as we seem to do every evening after a day in office. However tonight it was with a cultural air that The Established Man traversed the streets. Our first stop being the much-anticipated show at The Serpentine Gallery by British artist Rebecca Warren. As part of the YBA generation its no surprise to read that Warren is Goldsmith's educated, a Turner Prize nominee in 2006 and Saatchi was, and might still be, a protagonist. It was at the former Saatchi Gallery in County Hall that we really came to look at Warren's work in closer detail and found it hard to absorb; her reworkings and misappropriations of works by artists who are known for their figurative sculptures such as Degas and Rodin are harsh, aggressive forms that are only exaggerated further by the lack of them being fired in a kiln, suggesting that they might change and a sense of the process being somehow unfinished.

On the other hand there are Warren's vitrine works which are a totally separate entity in relation to the clay pieces. Here are carefully assembled wall works that contain detritus from in and around Warren's studio. It appeals to the inner hoarder and one questions the relevance of each object and its particular placement within these boxes. Seeing them juxtaposed with the works on plinths makes for a very different interaction with Warren's practice and after catching up with the art world fresh in from The Armory and dodging the bank of photographers gathered in the gallery spaces this is a show definitely worth seeing.

Now for most people that would be quite enough for a Monday evening and rest assured we were lusting for mushroom and rosemary risotto and a holey cashmere sweater but this was not the end. A brief ride through Mayfair, a nod to Sean on the door at Scott's...one of our favorite lunching establishments....and through the backstreets of Soho to the infamous French House for an exhibition of works by photographer Carla Borel. This colourful area of London is in Borel's blood and her series of intimate Black and White portraits of 'writers, flanneurs and bon viveurs' as she puts it displays a distinct affection towards her subjects. It only seems fitting that an exhibition reliant upon strange and tender encounters be held in such a venerable Soho establishment...a former workplace of Borel's. With their filmic quality and Borel's wonderful take on life this really is a very special show and this young lady is set to go far.

Rebecca Warren
The Serpentine Gallery
10 March - 19 April 2009
www.serpentinegallery.org

STILLSOHO
Photographs by Carla Borel
10 March - 5 May 2009
French House, 49 Dean Street, London, W1D 5BG
www.mypsace.com/carlaborel