Show Notes: January
Let’s talk about Qatar, the gilet-ification of Lost, Freud’s couch, and other observations from the art industry and beyond.
Forgive my Show Notes relaunch. In the name of finding a work/life balance, I’ve decided to allow myself a monthly column rather than a bi-weekly one, mainly so that I have more time to actually look at the art that I’m planning on covering for the void (all 80 of you). Here is the perennial writer’s predicament: the necessity of both solitude and subjects. Plus, unlike a few other writers I know, I actually like going out.
I started 2026 with a tarot pull of The Tower (upheaval, chaos, awakening, difficult lessons). At the time this felt pretty disconcerting, but I’ve since learnt that the stripping away of excess and realignment of priorities can be quite liberating. Perhaps the art world could learn something from this: as traditional, institutional systems of art crumble and more and more galleries suffer the tribulations of expansion (see Stephen Friedman), it might be time to reconsider old market models. Art isn’t a reliable way to make money–we all know that by now–so imo, the industry needs to reposition itself as something exciting/a scene/the magic that it really is. Ten sustained, engaged collectors could be more valuable than fifty speculative ones. Fun is my (optimistic) word of the year.
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Other observations from month one:
Lost, the no-phones nightclub in the old Odeon on Shaftesbury Avenue–posited as London’s newest it-club–has been taken over by West Londoners. A trusted source described waiting for two hours to enter last weekend’s event behind a group of economics students wearing Polo Ralph Lauren. I knew there was something strange about a “highly secretive” nightclub being profiled in the likes of Vogue, THE FACE and The Nudge… it was never going to last. Plus, did anyone else see the pro-Kanye Instagram story posted on their private account (before being deleted very quickly) last weekend?
How did Art Basel entice the art world to Qatar? The art world’s line is to defend Qatar’s human rights abuses, censorship of the press and LGBT+ rights by comparing it to crackdowns on freedom of expression within the US. I’m not convinced. In Qatar, same sex sexual activity, as well as the gender expression of trans people, is punishable with years of imprisonment. The fair is being partly funded by state-linked entities. Go figure. Isn’t art meant to be about self-expression? That being said, Sheikha al-Mayassa’s words in the FT last week–‘We’re a very conservative society, but we’re tolerant’–seem to sum up the fair’s attitude pretty well. Queer artists didn’t seem totally unwelcome within the walls of M7: Almine Rech presented a solo booth of ceramic works by Ali Cherri, for example, and the third line presented a body of work by (my favourite) Sophia Al-Maria. I’m looking forward to reading the post-fair roundups and market reports. The big question: are we going back next year?
Goodbye Jane Dabate. This month marked a loss for London, the queen of the seductive transatlantic drawl and one of my favourite Americans: Jane Dabate. Jane is the epitome of true contemporary glamour and wit, and I feel so lucky to have met her–in the manner of a true modern love story–over Instagram DM, when I asked her if she’d read in a charity event I was hosting. She’d never met me but she said yes, because she’s an angel. Jane is friends with everyone but somehow also makes you feel so special in her company. She’s also one of the best writers I know.
Going outside
Things worth seeing/ doing/ eating etc. etc.
Women’s History Museum (WHM), Mattie Barringer and Amanda McGowan, are currently presenting a fabulously seductive series of works as part of CONDO London at Soft Opening, hosting Company Gallery. There are prewar, torpedo busted mannequins wearing casino chips, bobcat fur and clear leather, as well as a haunting, disembodied figure lying in leaves on the floor, her torso pierced with porcupine quills and legs made from poison bottles. The press release mentioned the “self-imposed bondage” of being a fashion designer–to me, it speaks to modern girlhood more broadly: we love the things that hurt us.
More CONDO favourites–you have one week left to see them: Inès di Folco Jemni at Nicoletti (a theatrical retelling of feminine spirituality, love), sans titre at Sadie Coles (a huge, inflatable ecstasy pill).
Another belated visit: Joseph Beuys at Thaddeus Ropac. Titled ‘Bathtub for a Heroine’, the bathtub in question is nightmarish and grotesque, made intensely affective by both the tortured history that underscores it and its affinity to hulking, murderous machinery. I also have a longstanding, intense and highly inconvenient fear of old bathrooms which made the experience even more visceral. Beuys remains proof that intense and immediate emotion need not come at the cost of intellectual complexity and rigour.
Last weekend I went to the Freud Museum for the first time, to peruse its namesake’s illustrious collection of antiquities alongside friends, and also Caroline Polachek. Highlights included: Egyptian mummy bandages, Pompeiian penis amulets, and a bronze statue of Athena, smuggled from Vienna by Princess Marie Bonaparte (I wonder where they were originally smuggled from). Low points included: the addition of a creepy, multi-boobed, baby doll-looking figure on Freud’s favourite desk (the contemporary art of Cathie Pilkington, but not clearly labelled as such). Luckily, the talismanic tits didn’t do much to dispel the unsettling, shamanic energy in Freud’s analysis room, and we wondered out loud whether lying upon his famed couch might cure us of our ills or invoke them.
Not art related, but a January highlight nonetheless. There are few activities I find as relaxing as a sauna, which may not have any quantifiable medical properties, but is certainly unmatched in its hangover-curing abilities and nervous system regulation. I’d quit therapy for a sauna membership any day. Though my heart still lies with the community saunas, I tried the new canalboat sauna in Hoxton for the first time, and… I didn’t hate it. I was worried it’d be claustrophobic, but actually the barge was bigger than my flat, and it was full of Irish people, which I liked.
Media diet
I’m still on my sound art shit. I’ve been seeing more and more articles pop up about the phenomenon–like this one on Ocula about music at Art Genève– and I’m convinced that there’s a story to tell about its proliferation signalling the imminent turn of the art industry towards primarily cultural, rather than financially lucrative, investment. Trust me, it’s everywhere– since my last mention, Tarek Atoui was announced as the Tate’s next Hyundai Commission artist for the Turbine Hall.
I watched the Laura Poitras/Sy Hersch documentary on Netflix, Cover-Up, which made me feel a lot more motivated about the importance of journalism, although I can’t say that exhibition reviews are quite as urgent as breaking the story of the My Lai massacre. Highly recommend.
Again, not art–but artistically rewarding, imo: I discovered the ‘This Jungian Life’ podcast approximately two weeks before it featured on London’s favourite scene-sletter, so I’m not going to try and gatekeep. I promise it’s not edgy, it’s very wholesome and cosy. I loved the episode on angels–since listening I see them everywhere, in small moments of serendipity and human acts of kindness. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a visitation, but if you have, hit me up, I want to hear about it.
I’m also now reading Modern Man in Search of a Soul, because I want to start deciphering my SSRI-induced lucid dreams.
Parting thoughts
I want a column where I profile all the mysterious men of the London art world… the ones with impenetrable senses of humour/ without jobs, who religiously attend openings and just as devotedly message girls twenty years their junior on Instagram… who ARE they all? I know they’re not collecting. I want to know the skeletons in their closets.
And with that, I’m off to the Peak District for the weekend, to remind myself that there is more to life than warm wine in unheated galleries on Tuesday nights and pre-planned French exits.
Welcome to Show Notes, my monthly dispatch of recommendations/ news/ gossip from the art industry and beyond.
Next time: Wuthering Heights, a Woolf-inspired ballet, new magazines, etc.