Organ Thing of The Day? Here’s a random picture of a cat instead. Someone said to me at an art show the other day, that the trouble with Organ is that “everything you write is always so f***ing positive!”, that we like every art show they we ever go to, a valid point I guess, but then no, give us a little more credit than that! We are very very (very) picky and well, as we’ve pointed out many times, we really, as a rule (a rule that we sometimes break), we only really, as a rule, cover the things we feel positive about. We really haven’t got the time or the energy for the rest of it and anyway who wants hundreds of words, opinions and bag loads of photos of all bad art shows we go to? Went to an opening at an East London gallery last night, I won’t bother telling you which one it was, the opening was rather busy, lots of people crammed into a small room drinking cheap larger our of green bottles while they stood in the way of the paintings and talked about themselves, “yes, blah blah, I’ve got a new studio blah blah and a show coming up and me me me blah blah blah”/ last night’s show was a solo show, a painter, the second solo show he’s had in the space – been to quite a few shows in that gallery over the past two or three years, probably covered about half of what goes on and not bothered writing about the other fifty percent,there’s been some great shows in that particular but hey, last night?! I mean the emperor’s new clothing or what? It really wasn’t that impressive was it? Six or seven paintings, two of them relatively big, the others banged out in a surely a half an hour of one dull day on A4 canvas – nothing wrong with a painting that takes minutes but these particular paintings really had very little of substance to them. Seven or so not very good, not very challenging, not very anything, not very good paintings on a very white set of walls along with a the usual wordy show statement, a whole load of people drinking the free larger, and not looking at the work they’re standing in the way of while they talked bout themselves – or maybe the work just wasn’t as exciting as those green bottles of cheap and nasty larger and well, those paintings really weren’t that good were they? Badly painted uncommitted pieces of new clothing in a a gallery that sometimes really hits the spot and then on other occasionally does feel like it might be disappearing up its own self-important arse. Apparently the current show is a “wry and sophisticated exploration of British working class life”, yeah right! Pearly Queens? Sophisticated exploration? Nah mate, you’re ‘avin’ a laff, I did take some photos of last night’s opening but hey here’s a random photo of a cat instead, we all love cats don’t we? “That’s the thing about Organ, so damn positive about everything, why don’t you piss off and paint some fruit or something” said yer man the other day, he had a point, who the hell needs more paintings of fruit or noting but positive reactions to exciting art? Flip me, that was a crap opening last night,, about as sophisticated an exploration as the crap lager they were giving away, there better be some decent beer at tonight’s set of openings, and no I’m not coming to the Other Art Fair however many invites you send me.

Andy Warhol at Halcyon, London W1, Feb 2019

And while we’re here, here;s several things that are more annoying than random cat photos and bad exhibition of dreadfully painted “sophisticated explorations” of pearly queens…. how about annoying artists who want everything in a neat box, I’m an abstract artist, I only want to show my work alongside other abstract artists who I can relate to and make art that’s just like the art I make, heaven forbid that a show might have more than one narrow set of flavours! What else? Well that dreadful painting of Bowie on the wall by Broadway Market and that other thing on the wall over by London Fields station that really has been there for far too long, where are the crappy teenage taggers when you really need them? In fact how annoying is most street art that’s imposed on us these days? Ditto paste ups, And then there’s There’s the Other Art Fair and all the invites that are still coming in, no I’m not coming, not it isn’t a “radical departure”, art fairs? Nah, cattle markets, soulless things that are about nothing more than milking artists, that and still life paintings of fruit and veg and especially aubergines and the growing plague of Jean-Michel Basquiat impersonators who aren’t even subtle about it and the galleries that show their work without questioning the fact that they do all look rather like something we might have seen already somewhere from a certain superstar artists from the end of the last century? That and street artists who a paint their website addresses or their instagram handles under their half-arsed pieces of not quite art they insist of littering street walls with and those Andy Warhol shoe illustrations at that recent Halcyon show the other day when we were exploring the West End, how disappointing were they? And here comes yet another e.mail about the Other bloody Art Fair opening tonight! No! Art fairs? How annoying are art fairs and the way artists let themselves be rolled over by the prices art fairs demand for the smallest of piss-taking spaces, why do you artists put up with it? Hey, look at me I have a new print at the Other Art Show, yeah I know I pretend to angry on my social media feed, all radical and mouthy with my prints, but hey, give me a chance and I;ll sell my artistic arse just like the rest of them, I’ll be there flogging my new Giclee print – no I’m not coming to do a feature on the Other Art Fair! What else? Art shows about Brexit! No! Artists who think they have the answers to brexit, and I don’t care if Jeremy Deller is in the show with you, he’s crap most of the time as well. Art galleries that don’t have signs, paintings of Bowie, paintings of Kate Moss, paintings of grapefruit, apples, pomegranates, paintings with words in them, what a copout text-based art is, can’t you say it without actually saying it?, Most group shows, art student shows, art students, art student group shows, any show at the Saatchi Gallery, the idea of a second Cash is King book when the first one really wasn’t that good, pop art, op art, people who think painting op art is still radical, skimmed milk, all milk, that band called Milk, nah, I quite like Milk, they were a great band. bad typing in art reviews, faddish art critics who post photos of themselves in red hats or black hats that are bigger than the review they’ve cut’n pasted from a press release anyway, artists who who think their abstract art is deeper then the other abstract art that a ll the others make, performance artists who can’t keep their clothes on, performance artists who keep their clothes on, digital art, digital artists, neon art, neon artists,  realism, painters, artists and art in general, . We go to more shows and art events than most, we write about the good ones, we don’t write about than ones we don’t have anything positive to write about, that show last night was, as Ruskin might have said, utter shite. Went back to it today so I could see it in am empty gallery, well it was by the post office, it didn’t take too much time out of my day, it was still utter crap… (sw)

Street Art,, The West End of London, Feb 2019