42 GSCENE
ART
ARTS
BY ENZO MARRA
B Y E R I C PAG E
M AT T E R S
BOOKS
ENZO MARRA
CHARLIE DUTTON GALLERY
1a Princeton St, London WC1R 4AX, www.charlieduttongallery.com
) You can see the tail end of the CRASH OPEN SALON 2013 of 50
artists (until Sat 11), which I was fortunate to be selected for. This
year’s curatorial panel included artists Phillip Allen and Neal Tait and
Time Out arts editor Martin Coomer. In the past they have had
Matthew Collings, Geoff Dyer, John Stezaker,
Ceri Hand, Toby Clark, Julia Muggenburg &
Dan Hays on the panel. Other artists selected
for the show of wall-based works and videos,
include Archie Franks who was included in
the recent Bloomberg New
Contemporaries, Charles Williams who
exhibited with me in the Threadneedle Prize
2013 and David Dipré who exhibited with me
in the John Moores Painting Prize 2012.
TOWNER
Devonshire Park, College Rd, Eastbourne, BN21 4JJ
www.townereastbourne.org.uk
) Moving on from ‘me’ things, the Towner has a show of JOHN
SKOOG works entitled Redoubt (from Sat 25). John works with film
and video, following in the tradition of Scandinavian film through the
use of stark landscapes and slow-pacing. The poetic use of the
Swedish landscape and powerful studies of character and emotion
evoke memories of film works by cinema greats such as Victor
Sjostrom and Mauritz Stiller. For his first solo show in a UK public
gallery, he’s made a film set in the flat farmlands of the southern
provinces of Sweden. Skoog was born in Kvidinge, Sweden and lives
and works in Frankfurt. He won the 2013/14 Ars Viva prize for visual
arts and was recently awarded the 1KM film scholarship from
Stockholm Film Festival 2013.
LONDON ART FAIR
TOM SHAKESPEARE: THE NIGHTMARE
Business Design Centre, 52 Upper St, London N1 0QH,
www.londonartfair.co.uk
) Brighton-based Ink_d Gallery are exhibiting works in the main fair
section (Wed 15–Sun 19), by artists Paul Scott, Miss Bugs, Ryan
Callanan, James Cauty, Carrie Reichardt, Carne Griffiths, Jake
Wood Evans, Retna, Tom French, Pure Evil, David Ross, Hush, Matt
Smith and Ian Hodgson.
PALLANT HOUSE
9 North Pallant, Chichester, PO19 1TJ; http://pallant.org.uk
) You have a few days to catch the end of TOM SHAKESPEARE:
INCARNATE (until Sun 5), a triptych by the writer, performer and
disability arts campaigner. Originally inspired by the Gothic Nightmares
exhibition at Tate Britain, the photographic triptych is a conversation
between Shakespeare and some great works from the Renaissance to
the modern era, on the theme of human embodiment. The triptych is
his largest body of visual work to date and comprises The Nightmare
(After Fuseli), Figure with Meat (After Bacon) and Dead Christ (After
Mantegna).
) THE MURDER WALL by Mari
Hannah. www.harpercollins.com
The Murder Wall: It's where you
look death in the face. Months
after discovering a double
homicide in a sleepy village,
detective Kate Daniels is still
haunted by her failure to solve
the crime. When a new murder
gives Daniels her first case as
officer in charge, she jumps at
another chance to get it right.
But even more shocking than the
brutal killing is the fact that
Daniels recognizes the corpse.
Eager to prove herself, she
decides to keep her connection to
the dead man a secret from her
team, putting her career in
jeopardy as her personal and
professional lives threaten to
collide.
As the killer continues to claim
his victims, Daniels unearths
baffling clues in her search for
connections among the murders...
and while she draws closer to
finding the culprit, he is watching
her.
Author Mari Hannah won the
Polari new LGBT fiction prize this
year with this precise, sinister
and perfectly believable police
procedural novel, her first
following lesbian Detective Kate
Daniels. If that’s not a good
enough recommendation, then
nothing I’m going to write will
convince you. A brilliant first
book.
) CATCHING BULLETS –
MEMOIRS OF A BOND FAN by
Mark O’Connell.
www.splendidbooks.co.uk
Shortlisted for the 2013 Polari
Prize, this funny book is written
from the vantage point of a gay
teenager whose grandfather was
chauffeur to legendary 007
producer Cubby Broccoli. Catching
Bullets is a gay man’s love-letter
to James Bond, Duran Duran
songs and quickly bolting down
your tea to watch Roger Moore
falling out of a plane without a
parachute.
When Jimmy O’Connell took a job
as chauffeur for 007’s producers it
would not just be Roger Moore
and Sean Connery he would drive
to James Bond. His wonderfully
gay grandson Mark swiftly hitches
a metaphorical ride on a
humorous journey of filmatic
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