Richard Lindvall was commissioned to effect the change, and a visit to some factories in Poland gave him ample inspiration (and the name, which is Polish for “cheers”) for the job. Although the existing rawness of the garage remains, Lindvall has added plenty of personality and a bit of much-needed comfort to a place where, after all, people are going to be eating and drinking. The dark concrete floors have a pleasant sheen and contrast nicely with the paler seating. Touches of colour and lustre come in the form of a copper fireplace and the custom made copper light installations and piping that heats the place. Vintage pendant lights from a factory in the Czech Republic and Tolix chairs add to the robust atmosphere. Nazdrowje has too much flair to be labelled truly brutalist, although the deer on the wall might disagree…

Photography, Mattias Lindbäck

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The Londoner’s photographs hum with colour, his women are knockout beautiful… so why does something feel so wrong? Super-glitz meets kitchen sink drama, Aldridge is always asking questions of his viewer, never letting them get comfortable with what he shows them, corroding the perfect gloss with an acidic coating. Somerset House in London is staging the biggest exhibition of the artist’s work to date, from 10th July – 29th September, and if you’d like to get your mitts on an Aldridge, the Brancolini Grimaldi gallery (also in London) is holding a selling exhibition concurrently, 12th July – 28th September.

Miles Aldridge,
Rizzoli New York,
2013

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The colour scheme of the store, a pale, neutral one of greys and blues, mirrors that of the brand’s clothes, starting with the sky wall mural by Polish artist Dariusz Fiet, over which smallna put its pipe logo, and more pipes are used throughout as clothes displays. The studio also looked to Risk’s clothing materials – the signature fabric is reused in the inflatable sofa clinging to the ceiling. There’s a dedicated room just for stuff from the 1930s to the 80s, plus it can be used for a bit of office work and a booth for the odd DJ when the owners decide to have a party in the shop. Off the wall…

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Mr Clement, where are you based?

I am based in London, but during the last nine months I was living in Hong Kong. That’s where I am originally from. I decided to leave at the age of 22. I really wanted to see Europe.

Where’s your favourite spot in London?

Curzon Soho. It’s just a cinema, it’s not very cool or trendy but they have a bar, and it’s easy and casual and very central. I always like to meet there…

So why the alter ego ‘Mr Clement’?

It’s a long story actually. I got this name from an old French lady. Many years ago I travelled to France where we met, and ended up travelling around together. It was really fun actually. She couldn’t pronounce my Chinese nickname, which translates to ‘Clementine’ so she started to call me the English ‘Clement’. I added the ‘Mr’ myself to keep it a bit more formal. Everyone calls me Mr Clement now, even at graduation they asked me if I wanted it written on my scroll.

Your ‘Petit Lapin’ features heavily in you work, why a bunny?

When I was a teenager I used to draw in a Manga style. I took inspiration from the French artist Moebius, which I really liked. I just copied them really. But it was too repetitive and I needed to find my own style so I stopped drawing completely for two years and enrolled in a theatre school. I wanted to do something completely different and complex. That’s where I learned about moulding and making sculpture. After a few years I quit – even though it was interesting, I wasn’t making what I wanted to. Then I went back to drawing, I had forgotten all the Manga style and wanted to draw something really simple. Everyday I drew the lapin for a girl I liked and I would put it in her pigeonhole at uni. The lapin just stayed.

What did you want to be when you were small?

(laughs) When I was very young I wanted to do be a criminal because I wanted to live in a jail. I’d watch programs on the TV where people in jail could sleep, get food and play basketball all day. I thought this life was great! And they didn’t need to study. I hated school. It was so boring. You had to sit on hard chairs, do a lot of exams and it was really horrible!

You’ve been quoted in saying you want to soften traditionally highbrow art, why is that? Is there no room for ‘highbrow’ art?

Yes. This is what I want to do. Especially when I lived in Hong Kong because the art world is so different. The same small group of people go to the museums and galleries – they are all upper-middle class. The lower classes don’t really get involved in that world. I want to make art for everyone.

You work with all sorts of materials, which is you preferred medium?

At the moment I prefer working with fiberglass. I like the process and the touch of the material. Making sculptures is relaxing and you have to concentrate a lot. With drawing if you make a mistake you can rub it out, with sculpture it’s not as easy. Sculpture gives me a bit of distance in a way because I can’t rush it.

Some of your work looks a little sad. Is that a reflection of you?

I can’t say I am a very happy person. My life I guess is a little lonely but not because I can’t make friends, I have lots of people around me. The loneliness is installed in me. Human beings are individual and alone. The best stories tend to be sad.

So what is next for you?

I’m publishing a book about the little bird when I go back to Hong Kong. It should be out in the summer. In May, Pictoplasma have a group show in Madrid in Spain where I will show my sculpture.

***

Images courtesy Mr Clement

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Mounting the dissected paper body parts on linen, Farmer uses wood and metal as a skeleton on which to attach his harvested bits and pieces, creating a legion of figures marshalled into a small three dimensional army of collage and assemblage. More piecemeal than the creations in his previous work Leaves of Grass, The Surgeon’s patients are unrecognisable from their original state, and instead of a gallery of famous faces we have a collection of almost puppet-like oddities which require if anything even closer scrutiny than those in Leaves… The Barbican art gallery is acting as stage to Farmer’s work until 23rd July.

Photo, Alessandro Quisi

Photo, Alessandro Quisi

Photo, Alessandro Quisi

Photo, Alessandro Quisi

Photography, Jane Hobson,
unless otherwise stated

Geoffrey Farmer,
The Surgeon and the Photographer, 2009–13 (detail).
Paper, textile, wood and metal.
Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery.
Purchased with funds from the Jean MacMillan Southam Major Art Purchase Fund,
Phil Lind, Vancouver Art Gallery Acquisition Fund,
Canada Council for the Arts Acquisitions Assistance Program
and the Michael O’Brian Family Foundation.

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Back in the olden days, however, it wasn’t so easy to put yourself out there in a music industry that held tight control of the purse strings, the vinyl presses and the distribution networks. Undeterred, there are a coffee table books-worth of singers and bands who refused to let their lack of a record deal stop them realising their dream, and Enjoy The Experience: Homemade Records 1958-1992 – edited by Johan Kugelberg, Michael P. Daley and Paul Major, and published by Sinecure Books – has collected their fascinating, inspirational and at times frankly hilarious efforts in one ironically essential tome. We don’t like to poke fun just for the sake of it, honestly we don’t but really, if you’re going to make album covers like these, you’re fair game in our eyes.

The custom vinyl press came into being in America around ’58, and died a death in the early ’90s with the advent of the compact disc, but in between came a legion of wannabes (and possibly shouldntabeens) pressing their own cases for stardom. The book contains over 50 biographies by people who take the collection of such rare records very seriously, so we are expecting a barrage of complaints starting five seconds after publication of this article. But we don’t care. Among the barely-believable visual highlights are the self-proclaimed Hawaiian giant Dick Jensen, who due to an unfortunate piece of shadowing looks like he’s pissed his white jumpsuit, The Links (The Three Stooges’ recording soubriquet), and of course Dave Lee Howard, who would these days be posting his own specialist films on adults-only internet sites. Hats off to Dave and his fellow heroes of amateur musicianship.

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Japanese architecture. It’s all dinky little houses made of wood with paper doors, right? No, hang on, it’s all one neon megalopolis of tightly-bunched, towering skyscrapers, isn’t it?

Actually its a bit of both, as We Heart discovered during its week-long trip to the Land of the Rising Sun with the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra and partner BMW. As well as supporting the orchestra, BMW whisked a group of journalists (and me) around to see a bit of the country when we weren’t watching the MPO do its thing. Jolly nice of them.

While there are some examples in between, it’s tempting to pigeonhole Japanese architecture (at a tourist level, at least) into two broad categories of traditional and modern, and we got to see both during the few days we were there. Perhaps the most evident contrast was to be found between the cities of Kyoto and Tokyo. The two may be co-anagrams but there is a marked difference in their atmosphere, in part due to the inhabitant’s cultural attitudes and in part due to the urban landscape in which they live.

Gift shop, Kyoto

Shinto shrine, Kyoto

Kenninji Gion Maruyama

Our journey begins not in Kyoto, but in Japan’s second city of Osaka, about an hour’s drive from our first destination. Osaka’s importance grew out of its geographical location; beginning life as an important port, it has evolved into Japan’s commercial and industrial powerhouse. To be honest, it looks like just that – an uninspiring concrete jungle surrounded for miles by a concrete swamp of warehouses, factories and docks – but once you are free from its sweaty grey clutches all the beauty of Japan is waiting for you like an embrace in the countryside that separates Osaka from its much more attractive neighbour.

Kyoto was once a big noise in the political geography of Japan, but is now a somewhat more peaceful city, the seventh largest in Japan, which retains a good deal of charm thanks to the profusion of stereotypically traditional housing, shrines and temples of the Shinto and Buddhist religions. The Ginkakuji shrine is a beautiful example of the former, folk-based religion that is recognisable by its bright orange gates and pavilions. The walkways of the shrine are encased with wooden pillars which have been bought by worshippers and which each bear the name of their donor. Praying correctly at a shrine involves a fair bit of choreography, and there are stands bearing paper fortunes and stones which also foretell the future of the lifter depending on how heavy they feel.

In contrast to the brightly coloured wood of the Shinto shrines, the Buddhist temples are a much more sober affair, being constructed of dark wood and having a more generically “Asian” look than the quintessentially Japanese form of the Shinto shrines. The Kiyomizu Temple stands at the top of a steep network of streets thronged with tourists buying paper fans and green tea ice-cream, but this is the real deal. Set in a wooded forest on the edge of a cliff, the temple includes a celebrated (now thankfully inaccesible) suicide spot. Those who survived the drop from the wooden platform into the gorge below were said to be blessed with good fortune (no kidding) and those who didn’t…? Meh, there’s another life straight after this one for the Buddhists anyway. Easy come, easy gooooooo.

Tokyo

Kenninji Gion Maruyama

Shinto shrine, Kyoto

Hidden (at least to people who can’t read Japanese characters) in one of the traditional style buildings in the Old Gion area of the city is restaurant Kenninji Gion Maruyama. Owner and head chef Yoshio Maruyama treats his guests to authentic dishes of old school Japanese fare – we are talking things like sea urchin, broiled conger eel, angelica tree buds and salted cherry blossom tea – which are as much works of art as they are dishes, presented with such precision and care that you feel guilty spoiling the effect by eating it.

The capital city Tokyo is as far removed from the charm of Old Gion as you could imagine. Yes, it has temples and shrines – notably Meiji Jingu, resting place of Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken – but the emphasis here is on modern, earthquake-resistant office and residential towers that ease the burden on this very crowded city which is home to a tenth of Japan’s 130 million person population. Having said that, Tokyo is not as towering as one might expect, with a lot of the high-rise buildings being limited to the limits of safety at the time of their construction.

It’s no wonder the traditional building material is wood in a country that regularly has earthquakes capable of razing homes – you would, given the choice, rather be buried under a paper wall than a pile of concrete rubble. The most modern examples are more ambitious in their scope and their design, but you have to go looking for them, as opposed to other major cities who shove their impressive structures in your face from the outset. I came to the conclusion that Tokyo is a city best seen from the back of a car, but if you haven’t got a chauffeur-driven 7-series at your disposal, be prepared to do plenty of walking and steel yourselves for the game of sardines the Japanese call an underground train journey. They even employ people to push commuters onto trains at peak times. Honestly.

Japan, then, seems like a country of contrast – horses for courses you might say – and we didn’t even get as far as exploring the winter sports scene, or venture off the main island of Hokkaido. If you have the time and money to see it all, Japan offers something for everyone, but if your time is limited, choose your destination carefully.

***

Tokyo

Kiyomizu Temple, Kyoto

Tokyo

Shinto shrine, Kyoto

Tokyo

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We recently spotted her work in the HUB Store in Berlin and in Manchester’s Common, putting smiles on city dweller’s faces who are simply sick of taking things too seriously. Here we talk to Billy (and Alex) who is making it her mission to brighten up your public space, which – in our visually-tuned eyes – can only be a good thing…

Photo © We Heart

So who’s Billy and who’s Alex? Could you clear this up, we’re a little confused…

I’m both! I’m Billy and I am Alex. Alex is just my real name. Billy my painting name. I think it confuses most people and they think I am a boy too. I think it’s quite funny because it wasn’t my intention to do that, for me it seems simple and makes perfect sense. Typing Billy or Alex individually into the internet brings up pictures of boys and dogs and girls with their tops off and basically anything that isn’t me so I joined the names up, now you can find me!

Your work if fun, bright and positive, has this always been the case?

Yes, I am a happy and positive person and I like to use a lot of colours. Lots of people are wearing dark colours and the built environment in the place I live is always rather neutral and grey. Bright colours seem to cheer people up a bit and make them smile. I don’t take my work too seriously because I have nothing too serious to take from life right now. For this reason, I feel very lucky so I’m having a lot of fun and this makes me, and my work happy. 

Photo © We Heart

Where did you go to school/college?

I reluctantly went to school for a few years in a small mining town in South Africa. I had to wear a hat to school and a bottle green hairband, the teachers would hit you with a ruler if you didn’t do you homework. It actually ended up having more of a positive influence on my life, mind and creativity than I could have appreciated at the time. I went back to England for university and studied Graphic Design in Nottingham. 

What inspires you? Food, people, stuff, locations?

The places I have been, the places I want to go to. The people I have met, the things that I have done and all the memories from living a blessed life! Music (deep and soulful drum and bass / hip hop) is a big influence in my work, I find it quite hard to paint without listening to music. I like to incorporate lyrics from the music I listen to in to the work I make. I have for a long time been inspired by the lyrics of vocalist RIYA, I painted some words she said on a podcast on a huge hangar at Fusion festival last year and sent her the pic. She was completely overwhelmed that something she had said had inspired me so much. I love stuff like that. 

Can you tell us about the collaboration with Hub Store?

I was invited through YOUR:OWN, a creative agency based in Amsterdam to take over the space for a couple of months in a kind of residency and have an exhibition at the end of it. Pictoplasma came up at the same time so I used the space to work on two exhibitions simultaneously. It was a fantastic opportunity because HUB told me ”work here when you like, do whatever you like, don’t worry if you get paint on the floor” – I think I successfully fulfilled this as best as I could!

You like to mix things up, what is your favourite surface to paint/draw on?

Walls, the bigger the better and outside so people can see them, are the best. Other than that, actually I don’t mind. Paper, canvas, floors, toilet doors…

And favourite medium to make your bold marks?

Spray paint!

Lastly, what’s next on the cards?
 
Last week was the opening of my second exhibition at the HUB store, Still Life, which is up until 23rd May. Next, painting a skate park in the UK and a summer festival painting is as far as I can plan into the future. 

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CAN, in the Tullinsgade area of Denmark’s capital, sells the colourful and charmingly naïve results of mum and dad’s art and design business. They’re inspired and helped out by the younger clan members, and there’s a palpable family feel to the business, which is both a shop and a gallery where folks are welcomed to drop by and say hello. As a sideline, Martin has a considerable collection of collectible vinyl of the pre-1994 vintage. Groovy, baby.

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Fergus and Trevor have exited stage left, but chef Tom Harris is still running the show in the kitchen. Business as usual in the smart, shuttered windowed dining room then, and the theatrical signs outside tell you what sort of things you will find on the menu. Unlisted haven’t tried to fix what wasn’t broken in the bedroom department either, keeping many features introduced by the previous regime such as the white wooden panelling – a notable exception being the flooring which is now warmer and a little less nautical. Here’s hoping that One Leicester Street enjoys packed houses under its new stewardship.

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