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Shanghai’s Fiu Gallery welcomes visitors to experience life in London – roughly 5,700 miles away. Contemporary British artist Peter Judson’s Wonder Around East London exhibition stays true to his playful, colorful, energetic style. Daily objects are transformed into “visual energy” that Judson uses to innovate and explore further, extending lightness, liveliness, and joy to visitors.
In Wonder Around East London, Judson hopes the audience can shift their focus from the functionality of the objects to the beauty of the artwork itself. “There are two things I want to express, and I also want the show to work on two levels. Firstly, to create an aesthetically punchy and interactive experience that can be enjoyed by all. Secondly, I wanted the show to act as a catalyst to a way of thinking,” shared Judson. “Observation is so profoundly linked with conscious and subconscious assumptions. I wanted to use color, abstraction, reduction, and scale as a way to break these assumptions and try to force the audience to view the world around us in a new context.”
The ultimate takeaway is quite simple: “I would love it if anyone leaving the show were to walk home and begin to see the city they live in in a new way. To spot some minute detail they may have normally not noticed and appreciate it regardless of context. To see the object in isolation and maybe find a new appreciation for the world that we live in.”
To learn more about Wonder Around East London, visit peterjudson.com.
Peter Doig, Canal Painting, 2022–2023, on the cover of issue no. 243. © Peter Doig. Courtesy of the artist and TRAMPS; photograph by Prudence Cuming.
For the cover of our seventieth-anniversary issue, we commissioned a painting by the artist Peter Doig, of a boy eating his breakfast beside a London canal. Our contributing editor Matthew Higgs spoke with Doig about his influences and fried eggs.
INTERVIEWER
How did the cover image come about?
PETER DOIG
I’d made a birthday card for my son Locker—a more cartoony version of what became the painting. I quite liked the subject: he’s sitting at a café on the towpath of the canal in East London. Everyone who knows London knows the canal—we take it for granted. I can’t think of any paintings of it, but it seems to me a sort of classic painting subject.
I started working on the image alongside a big painting I was making for an exhibition at the Courtauld. I was thinking about how my work relates to the Impressionist galleries there, which contain Cézanne, Gauguin, Daumier, Van Gogh, Seurat, et cetera. I had begun many of the paintings before I was invited to make the exhibition, but most of them had a long, long way to go before being finished. I’d brought all my paintings to my London studio from New York and Trinidad, and all of a sudden I had more paintings in progress than I think I’d had in probably thirty-odd years. It was quite exciting in a way, but then I had to make an edit, to decide which ones I was going to concentrate on, because I was getting carried away and I was never going to finish everything. The canal painting was the one very, very new one. That’s why I liked it for the Review—and because, although I thought of the image as very much a London painting, somehow after I made it I was reminded of Paris, and of French painting more than of English painting.
INTERVIEWER
Is it important that the viewer knows the boy is your son?
DOIG
Perhaps for people who know him. I’ve got quite a large family, and so it’s important to me that when I make a painting that depicts one of my children, the others can relate to it and feel that they understand why I did it. In the painting of Locker, I wanted to capture a person at that stage in life, the way Cézanne did when he used his son as a model. Another one of the paintings in the Courtauld exhibition features my daughter Alice in a hammock surrounded by greenery. I began working on the painting in 2014—I know that because I recently found a photograph of Alice standing in her primary school uniform looking at it when I very first started it. I finished it this year in my studio in just a few hours, after having returned to it after all those years. One of my other kids saw it and said that I had absolutely captured Alice at that age. That’s why I left it not quite finished, with translucent tones—I wanted it to feel almost ghostly. She’s now a grown woman, and it captures the passage of time.
INTERVIEWER
What’s the significance of the canal?
DOIG
The canal, up until fairly recently, was a place of dread. After the industrial revolution, the canal no longer served the buildings on it, so for a long time stepping onto the towpath at night meant risking a mugging or worse. That has changed and is changing. The painting’s setting is a real café very close to where we live at present, and where I’ve spent quite a bit of time over the last few years, looking westward at the view through the bridge. Sitting there I realized how beautiful it is, and how much like a painting it is already. I also thought of paintings by Manet and others—paintings of railways and train stations, with figures in the foreground.
INTERVIEWER
The Impressionists painted some of the earliest depictions of what we understand as modernity.
DOIG
I was looking at Manet’s painting A Bar at the Folies-Bergère. Behind the girl at the bar, there are two globes in the background, two spheres. It’s not obvious at first, but they are electrical lights, and Manet painted them in very, very sharp focus, whereas everything else in the painting is quite blurred. I suppose at the time Manet made the painting the viewer would have been really surprised by this very modern element entering a work of art. In my painting, the eggs are a bit like that—in a way, the eggs are the most contemporary thing in the painting.
Matthew Higgs is a contributing editor of The Paris Review.
Looking deeper into the catalysts for violent crime. How an Iraqi U.S. Army interpreter became an underground drug kingpin. What plants have to teach us about life, both real and artificial. Aging, but with vitality and grace. How one Iceland town comes together to help baby puffins take their first flight, and our first-ever audience award. Here are five + one stories to kickstart your weekend reading.
Maurice Chammah | The Marshall Project | March 2, 2023 | 7,750 words
When we look at the face of a criminal in a mug shot or in a courtroom, what do we see? Many adults facing the death penalty have been shaped by childhood trauma or violence they experienced or witnessed in prison as juveniles. Mitigation specialists work to uncover traumas and dig into the personal and family histories of people on death row — not with the aim to excuse or justify their crimes, but to help paint more complete portraits of them as human beings. Maurice Chammah spends time with mitigation specialist Sara Baldwin as she works on the case of James Bernard Belcher, a man on death row for the 1996 murder of Jennifer Embry. It’s a complex story that Chammah reports and tells with great care and empathy, and highlights a little-known profession that helps to illuminate why people hurt one another and are led to violence. —CLR
Benoît Morenne | Wired | March 9, 2023 | 5,403 words
There’s an old episode of Portlandia in which the city’s mayor goes on the dark web to buy fireworks, and of course winds up buying rocket launchers instead. Buffoonery and prosthetic noses aside, that was the impression most people have always had of the dark web: a place where you could buy absolutely anything with total anonymity. Alaa Allawi was one of the people making the first part of that impression come true. After becoming a U.S. Army interpreter at age 18, Allawi developed an impressive proficiency for low-level cybershenanigans — and when he ultimately left his native Iraq for the U.S., those cybershenanigans became his way out of poverty, courtesy of selling counterfeit Xanax online. But it turned out that “total anonymity” wasn’t quite right, and after the real fentanyl in his fake pills led to overdoses and a campus cop took notice, there wasn’t a prosthetic nose big enough to save him. With precision and a relentless chronological tick-tock, Benoît Morenne details Allawi’s rise and fall, as well as the federal investigation that slowly tightened around him. Sure, you’ll find bitcoin and giant champagne bottles and Lil Wayne cameos, but the kingpin stereotypes are few and far between. This story has no heroes, anti- or otherwise. That’s the point. —PR
Amanda Gefter | Nautilus | March 7, 2023 | 4,890 words
Professor Paco Calvo used to study artificial intelligence to try and understand cognition. However, he concluded that artificial neural networks were far removed from living intelligence, stating “what we can model with artificial systems is not genuine cognition. Biological systems are doing something entirely different.” The abilities of AI have been dominating many a headline of late, making Amanda Gefter’s essay on Calvo’s theories a refreshing read. Calvo claims we have much more to learn from plants than AI. Plants sense and experience their environment, learn from it, and actively engage with the world, which he sees as the key to consciousness. His theories may be a little out there (I am not convinced neurons are not necessary for thought), but this essay did make me consider the significance of our interactions with our external environment in the thinking process. Rather than leave you with these Big Thoughts, I will end with Calco’s joyful description of plants: “Upside-down, with their ‘heads’ plunged into the soil and their limbs and sex organs sticking up and flailing around.” You will never look at your roses in the same way. —CW
Jane Miller | London Review of Books | March 16, 2023 | 1,999 words
What makes time meaningful? Is it time spent with a book? Learning something new? Maintaining your fitness routine? Doing things for others? What’s the relationship between meaningful time and being satisfied and happy? How does the definition of happiness and satisfaction change over your lifetime? If you’re anything like Jane Miller, age 90, you might ask yourself these and other questions, reflecting on the one resource we share on earth: time. At the London Review of Books, Miller ponders all this and more. “When I was 78, I wrote a book about being old. I don’t think I’d ever felt the need to swim more than twenty lengths at that time, let alone record my paltry daily achievements. Now I put letters and numbers in my diary (a sort of code) to remind me that I’ve walked at least five thousand Fitbit steps and swum a kilometre, which is forty lengths of the pool,” she writes. While I can’t relate to her need to swim a kilometer a day, I can empathize with owning a body much closer to its “best before” date than its birth and the constant need to evaluate how I spend my time. In sharing her boredom and anxieties, Miller’s given me much to think about. —KS
Cheryl Katz | Smithsonian | February 14, 2023 | 3,125 words
Every year Bloomberg Businessweek publishes what it calls the Jealousy List, featuring articles that authors wish they’d written or that editors wish they’d assigned. If I were to have my own jealousy list for 2023, this piece by Cheryl Katz would be on it. I love it so much. Seriously, drop what you’re doing and read it. Katz’s story is about a village in Iceland where, every year, residents young and old work together to save baby puffins, also known as “pufflings.” The wee birds that look like they’re wearing tuxedos often get lost leaving their burrows and struggle to fly out to sea as they’re supposed to. Enter the Puffling Patrol, which cajoles the birds into boxes and carries them to a cliff where they can catch the wind they need to migrate.” Enter the Puffling Patrol, which cajoles the birds into boxes and carry them to a cliff where they can catch the wind they need to migrate. As climate change does its worst to the earth, ushering pufflings into the sky has never been more important. I’m jealous I didn’t get to write this story. Or maybe I’m just mad I’m not in the Puffling Patrol. They get to do good for the world by communing with adorable baby birds. How often is something so essential also so joyful? BRB, Googling flights to Iceland. —SD
Here’s the piece our audience loved most this week.
Raquel Rutledge and Ken Armstrong | Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and Pro Publica | November 16, 2022 | 13,808 words
This story starts with a house fire in 2013, then takes readers on a journey from the 1970s to the present, tracing the parallel yet wholly different existences of Todd Brunner, the landlord of the property, and Angelica Belen, the woman who lived there with her four young kids. Riveting and infuriating, Raquel Rutledge and Ken Armstrong’s work has been nominated for a 2023 National Magazine Award for feature writing. —SD
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At age 90, Jane Miller relates her ongoing battle with a self that wants to “indulge my lurking wish to spend longer in bed in the morning reading the Guardian and listening to the Today programme than I already do,” and the one that obsessively logs steps and reads classics in their original Russian, to make the most of her physical and mental abilities.
I am freer than I’ve ever been, yet I quite often feel edged out, and it’s clear that I have become actually and metaphorically deaf to significant contemporary sounds. My spectator’s view of it all doesn’t fail to remind me that other people are not so lucky or so detached, that some of them are sad beyond hope, that there are young people who don’t want to stay alive and people who worry to distraction and despair or who suffer all kinds of untreatable pain. I became an adult just after the end of the Second World War, and I think of the 1950s, so often described by younger generations as bleak and impoverished, as a time of idealism and optimism. I find it difficult to detect that sort of faith in the future now, though I hope against hope that it’s there in some form I’m simply too old to recognise.
When creating the OBJECT collection, Polish artist and maker Anna Bera was searching. Searching for a place where an object suddenly appears without justification, but whose existence is indisputable. The series was on display during the 19th edition of Collect in London as part of the Collect Open exhibition, the international fair’s platform for pioneering, thought-provoking craft installations by individual artists.
At Collect Open, Bera debuted the latest addition to OBJECT: a 2.6-meter tall sculpture, hand-carved from sycamore wood with a mirror made of polished steel. Its design, like the rest of the collection’s utility objects – the form of which does not reveal the functionality – plays with form. OBJECT is full of sculptures that may perform the function of mirrors, but then again may not. You may view it as something else entirely. This curiosity of function doesn’t make the pieces any less legitimate, even if all they do is simply exist.
mirror OBJECT CD N.2
mirror OBJECT CD N.2
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Anna Bera with mirror OBJECT CD N.16
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To learn more about Object, visit craftscouncil.org.uk.
Photos by Emilia Oksentowicz.
As spring inches ever closer I can’t stop thinking about and planning what I’ll be putting into the ground this year. London-based LSA International’s new Balcony and Terrazza collections also have me dreaming up what I’ll be adding to my empty planters – and maybe a few new ones. Inspired by biophilia – our affinity to engage with the natural world – Balcony and Terrazza’s designs are sculptural and purposeful. Their individually mouth-blown glass pieces add a sense of calm to their surroundings by echoing patterns found in the natural world.
Balcony is a two-part, self-watering glass planter that uses sub-irrigation to deliver water straight to a plant’s roots via a cotton cord that wicks water from the built-in reservoir to the soil. Inspired by visually interesting terraced landscapes and offset city balconies, Balcony maintains a consistent level of soil moisture – ideal for plants who don’t like to dry out before their next drink. The two clear and olive green glass sections neatly fit together and are suitable for plants, bulbs, and herbs.
Sticking with a staggered profile, Terrazza is a collection of floor and desk planters ready to help you add green life to your space. The two-part planter features a mouth-blown glass planting bowl that nestles into a powder-coated steel base. The resulting column mimics high-rise terraces and roof gardens, creating a shelf-like formation, while an open channel in the base provides the plant’s roots with exposure to sunlight. Terrazza is a great option for growing trailing plants, as well as bulbs and herbs.
To learn more about Balcony and Terrazza, visit lsa-international.com.
Queen Mary accused of ‘turning students into spies’ to gather data on academics who did not reschedule missed teaching
A prestigious London university has become the first in the country to use a “student snitch form” to encourage students to report striking staff, while threatening to dock full pay for 39 days if those named fail to reschedule missed teaching.
Queen Mary University of London was branded the “worst university employer in the UK” by the Universities and Colleges Union last July, after it deducted 21 days of full pay from more than 100 staff who refused to mark students’ work in June as part of a national boycott. But staff claim the university, a member of the esteemed Russell Group, has reached a new low and “destroyed trust” by “turning students into spies” to gather data on who went on strike in November and February, and which classes have not been rescheduled.
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The Hoxton Shepherd’s Bush is a boutique hotel located in London, designed by AIME Studios. This retro-inspired hotel features 237 cozy bedrooms, a Thai-Americana restaurant named Chet’s, a serene terrace, a spacious lobby with a mix of earthy-toned bespoke and vintage furniture, and a communal central bar.
The interiors of The Hoxton Shepherd’s Bush pay homage to the local area with references to the nearby London Transport Museum Depot and the retro transport design. Iconic train carriage shapes, decorative glass chandeliers and pendants with mixed metals, and custom rugs by West London’s Holmes Bespoke add to the playful design. The lobby’s earthy aesthetic is complemented by verdant prints, floral motifs, and tactile textiles.
Guests are greeted by a striking central wraparound bar with a reeded maple and Salome grey marble counter, contrasted by mid-century modern lighting and furniture. The guest rooms take inspiration from the neighborhood’s history and heritage, with scalloped motifs referencing nearby Pennard Road and finishes of copper, antique brass metals, peach paint, and warm-toned timbers creating a home feel.
Photography courtesy of The Hoxton.
Nemat Shafik, who previously served as deputy governor of the Bank of England, spoke during the International Monetary Fund spring meetings in 2016 in Washington.
FreshRSS 