Monday portrait: Portrait of a Man, Barthel Bruyn the Elder

Image c/o the Wellcome Collection

Portrait of a Man, Barthel Bruyn the Elder (1493-1555, Germany), oil on panel, 1533-1555.

This belated monday (thursday) portrait was inspired by a weekend trip to the Wellcome Collection's current exhibition Death: A Self-Portrait. A visit is highly recommended for the morbidly curious. 

News: A1 bag

Our A1 bag is going to be on sale this winter at BEARSPACE Gallery's shop as well as from Culture Label. The ideal Christmas present for artists sick of lugging unwieldy portfolios around London.

House of Voltaire pop up shop

We went to the House of Voltaire launch yesterday afternoon and the shop is looking great.

We couldn't resist a beautiful tea towel made by Art House Meath and are seriously considering the Stefania Pramma x House of Voltaire leather bag... Well worth checking out.

News: House of Voltaire

Over the past few weeks we have been working away on some exciting products for House of Voltaire, the pop-up shop from South London gallery Studio Voltaire which opens this wednesday.

We have produced a T-shirt designed by Åbäke, a fan by artist Anthea Hamilton, a silk wall hanging from Cary Kwok and exclusive scarf from Turner Prize nominee Mark Titchner.  

Image c/o House of Voltaire

House of Voltaire is open 21 November - 15 December at Jonathan Viner Gallery, 17a Adam's Row, Mayfair.

Monday portrait: Nick Relph by Audrey Mayer

Nick Relph photographed by Aubrey Mayer, 2010
[Image courtesy of RHM Foundation]

Grayson Perry reliquaries

A box of smashed pottery has arrived! While strongly resisting the urge to try and put the pots back together, we are starting to make some more Grayson Perry reliquaries.


Grayson Perry: "I think that the way we look at art comes from religion. We go to special buildings to stare at significant and precious things. We feel it is good for us. Tate Modern is a 21st century cathedral. Artists are its saints and holy fools. Here is a relic of one of them to take home from your pilgrimage."

Plastic fantastic

A couple of days ago Kit came into the office wearing a much loved pair of clear plastic Converse - a great way of showing off an impressive sock collection.

After a distracting twenty minutes trying to find a reasonably priced replacement, we stumbled upon these lovely Opening Ceremony x Adidas Originals brogues above, five stars. 

Obviously we can't discuss plastic shoes without mentioning Maison Martin Margiela's (sweaty) boots from his S/S12 collection:

Monday portrait: Salvador Dali

This image of Salvador Dali is hard to trace, does anybody have any information about its origin?

Naked-ladies-as-skull aside, Dali's clear cane is rather wonderful.

The Clocks

Are going back! Here are some clock-related facts to fill your extra hour.

1.) A tattoo of a clock with no hands represents time served in prison.

2.) According to superstitious souls it is a sign of death if a clock strikes when it has stopped running.

3.) Christian Marclay's award-winning work 'The Clock', 2010 is co-owned by the Tate, the Pompidou Centre and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem and is composed of over ten thousand clips of clocks. 

Epic fog

The epic London fog obscuring Barbican's sixties monoliths Cromwell, Lauderdale and Shakespeare earlier today. 

Monday portrait: Dirty White Trash

This creepy crawly projection we found on Barbican's pinterest reminded us of artistic duo Tim Noble and Sue Webster's self portrait. 'Dirty White Trash', top.

Monday portrait: Ernest Hemingway

...in the bath. Photographer unknown.

Grayson Perry table mats

The Grayson Perry mats we made with the artist for Yoox have landed! Available here.

GRAYSON PERRY: “ Why have I chosen to have my tapestry images made into a set of table mats? The Vanity of Small Differences is about taste and class in British society and table mats, like net curtains, caravans, tattoos and having a clean car seemed to be one of the clearer symbols that divided the socio economic classes … when I researched taste for my television series I encountered table mats in all parts of society, protecting a glass coffee table in a hairdressers house, pseudo-ironically arrayed on a vintage dining table and casually strewn ready for breakfast for a man who owns a castle and six thousand acres. So who knows , buy these without fear.”

O'Keeffe

How lovely is artist Georgia O'Keeffe's OK brooch?

O'Keeffe watches over the office in a photo taken by Ansel Adams sent to us from Yosemite earlier this year.

Monday portrait: Sarah Bonetta Forbes

As it is the beginning of Black History Month, this week's portrait is of the fascinating Sarah Bonetta Forbes who was given as a 'present' to Queen Victoria aged 8.

Jil Sander v. Practicality

For his last collection at Jil Sander, Raf Simons re-invented the classic American grocery bag. They look fantastic but their prohibitive expense and impracticality doesn't bear thinking about. 

Naturally, they are sold out.

The thinking man's Supreme hat

Monday portrait: Lee Miller by Man Ray

War photographer, artist's muse and adventurer Lee Miller photographed by Man Ray in 1930.

Detroit x2

Photographer and Detroit local Kevin Bauman has spent years documenting the city's abandoned homes. In contrast to Bauman's poignant images, fellow Detroit artist Tyree Guyton reinvigorates the city's deserted homes with blasts of colour and kitsch. Guyton's weird and wonderful Heidelberg Project stretches across two blocks, transforming them into a community art space. 

See more here.



Kusama eat your heart out.

Kevin Bauman images courtesy 100 Abandoned Houses 

Heidelberg Project images courtesy Flickr: jbcurio

Red Arrows!

The Red Arrows flew past us this lunch time and we lurched out of the window to get this shot. Congratulations to all our Olympians and Paralympians!

Monday portrait: Andy Warhol by Bert Nienhuis

This week's offering is photographer Bert Nienhuis' portrait of Andy Warhol looking both sedate and shocked.

(We had him down as unshockable.)

Taken in 1980 when the artist was 52.

Damien Hirst umbrella

Beautiful, amore, gasp, eyes going into the top of the head and fluttering (painting)...

 The umbrella we made for the Hirst exhibition at Tate Modern was featured in Stylist magazine's art special!

Monday portrait: Louise Bourgeois

Louise Bourgeois by Helmut Newton

John Stezaker

Congratulations to John Stezaker, one of our favourite artists, who was been nominated for this year's Deutsche Börse photography prize despite not exactly being a photographer...

  Love, 2006

Siren Song, 2011

  Mask X, 1982

Images courtesy the Whitechapel Gallery.All nominees are currently on display at the Photographer's Gallery.

arRIBA!

Our collaboration with Rick Mather Architects for the shop design at Oxford's Ashmolean Museum has won a RIBA prize! 

David Shrigley

This Venn diagram by David Shrigley is pleasingly relevant to most things...

War Horse goose

After a lengthy development process the rolling flapping and squawking (if only in our heads) goose puppet is on sale! Devised by Sato Hisao and produced by Kit Grover it is £30 at the National Theatre / online. 

Cerith Wyn Wyn Evans

Pleasingly, the first person that comes up when you google 'Wyn Evans' is not the mustachioed Welsh artist Cerith but Cambridge Astrophysics professor Wyn.

We wonder how they'd get along...

Site of the month: Kiosk Kiosk

KIOSK KIOSK is a New York based shop that sells products the owners have picked up on their travels. It is truly worthy of the overused term 'eclectic'.

IS GREAT BECAUSE  they sell pretty much anything. That is not to say their tastes aren't discerning, far from it. Sourcing products from around the world, Kiosk Kiosk are particularly good at finding unusual objects that are often beautiful and occasionally practical. Expect to find multi-coloured pipe cleaners, a traditional Japanese carpenters knife and 'Nun calms', a German remedy to alleviate nerves.

Arguably the best thing about the site is the highly entertaining approach to product descriptions, Kiosk Kiosk subscribe firmly to the 'why use one word when you can use 5?' school of copywriting. We would particularly recommend the $28 fly whip description HERE.

OUR FAVOURITE PRODUCT IS the American Lottery ticket (actually from Sweden) which is as beautiful as it is useless to the average person. Wouldn't it make a fantastic necklace?

The Kiosk motel-style key ring came a close second. It is stamped with their details and a promise to guarantee postage.

The theory is that if you lose your keys, some kindly soul will pop your keys in the post, you call KK and eventually you get your keys back. Very clever.

Vanity of Small Differences

The Adoration of the Cage Fighters

The Agony in the Car Park

The Expulsion from Number 8 Eden Close

Grayson Perry's latest show has just opened at the Victoria Miro gallery.

His modern take on Hogarth's Rake's Progress charts the rise and fall of 'Tim Rakewell' - from humble beginnings to enormous wealth and celebrity to a grisly death. 

The tapestries are littered with modern indicators of class and style, as in traditional Vanitas paintings, and many  references to early Renaissance artworks. In the third tapestry the poses of Tim (who bears more than a passing resemblance to nineties class-investigator Jarvis Cocker, see Common People) and his girlfriend echo Masaccio's Expulsion c1425, left.

Look out for an upcoming Vanity of Small Differences-related project from Kit Grover!

The Annunciation of the Virgin Deal

The Upper Classes at Bay

#Lamentation