Ali Coco Epps

There’s a simple equation for a good private view; arresting work + appropriate location + free drink (the booze is kind of essential, not in an AA way, but you increase turnout and nine times out of tenfold attendees remember they had fun, or at least imagine they did).
Last night was Faris Badwan’s ‘Drawing a Straight Number Nine’ opening at the Book Club (in fact it was written ‘exclusively’, but I question the pretence – my name was taken at the door but I still coulda walked straight in for nachos like any other night).

The work was good – cute, archetypal felt tipping/ graphic contouring/ distended bellies/ gangly limbs – but perhaps this isn’t Badwan’s most direct passion, or perhaps it was simply that the work was let down by the inappropriate venue and drought, as the uninterrupted downstairs projections definitely stirred something more.. Never mind; the day job’s doing quite well (the Horrors got last December’s NME Album of the Year), and at least one can rest assured the night was well documented – everyone’s a polymath nowdays..

This week was Man Vs. Machine and Silent Studios’ ‘This Arcadian Bloom’ at Sketch. I popped down with my date for the night – the brilliant subversive photographer Nicholas P Elliott. I’ve nursed an oxymoronic obsession with all things holographic from when I was six and some boy gave me a Mickey Mouse postcard sticker with some of his hair glued to the back (sketchy), so I was really looking forward to some evocation.
Alas. We all agreed it would have been a beautiful view but for the fight between projected image and well-lit mid-dine restaurant space, however after spotting the delightful young man who’d tried to give me his number in the pods earlier having supper with his parents (I waved sweetly, much to his mother’s bemusement + his father’s sudden dry throat), the night suddenly became much younger.

Wednesday night saw agent/ producer CJ Donoghue and I into Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s pop-up pop-in ‘Jacques Townhouse’, just borderland from Regent’s Park. It was immaculate. Giant net bubble-gum pom-poms strung up, bell-hops hopping to Butler’s French Imperialism. But minor points; alloted two drinks over an hour and a half (I realise everyone has a differing tolerance, but 4% over full ice left me thirsty), (I feel silly, but) absolutely no cupcakes on the ‘Table of Temptation’..? I watched a friend eat dinner so I could get more cakes in later. More than half of all Hi-Si/ JSA rely on canapés for sustenance, Jacquo.

You might have been forgiven for inkling that Monday and Tuesday’s guests must have had a ball, but don’t believe everything you read! I wouldn’t trust the nutters captured by their in-house photographer (below) either. CJ described our subscribed ‘best of the bunch’ as thus; aged Shirley Temple, still dressed like she was Five, meets actress who played blonde girl in Poltergeist, in a mental home. The perfect union.

At the launch of ‘EAT ME’ – the new sweet-tooth tome from the delicious Xanthe Milton A.K.A. Cookie Girl

My 2006 thesis “The I of Power” explores aspects of surveillance, in particular Bentham’s Panopticon and notable sousveillance (underveillance, or watching the watchers). Unpublished, it gets hired out like a library reference book, allowing me partial control over my readership.
Similarly, the reason I don’t register my oyster card enables me a sense of control over the record of my movements, when leading an untypically public life.
So most exciting this week, was being aggressively confronted by extra cavalry the Tate’s ‘Exposed’ Private View for marginal unobtrusive sousveillance, following my father’s lighthearted intention to expose the irony in being thrown out of a surveillance exhibition for surveilling.
‘Exposed’ was more reportage, anyway.

In summation; below, Oliver Lutz’s succinct The Lynching of Leo Frank (2009); and us.

This week Harriet Fleuriot + I snuck round the back of the Foundling Museum in Russell sq to become saucy Cinema Usherettes in a promo shoot for Jim Dummett’s misadventure; The Lost Picture Show – its tent hammered up by super-constructivist Ashley Murray-Fowler. Naturally there were ambrosial cakes + outsized ottolenghi meringues involved

Between other such acts as Marawa The Amazing, Broken Hearts and Circus Of Horrors, Harriet and I as Stevie+Ray had a number of people in fits of hysterics with their initiation into the Centre for Intuitive Remedy + Cure by Unselfish Sacrifice (or C.I.R.C.U.S). One audience member even displayed her incontinental drift, much to the dismay of our long-suffering Arts Club barman, Alan. Although this may have been because she was quite old. A big shout out to unwilling participant ‘The Great Rodney’ for being so malleable. Keep an eye on pattyandhills.com for the upcoming video.

Tonight our new characters Stevie+Ray perform at the Chelsea Arts Club Summer Ball – Antique Circus + Traveling Freakshow – presenting their Pyramid Scheme ‘Centre for Intuitive Remedy and Cure by Unselfish Sacrifice’, or C.I.R.C.U.S.. “Stevie+Ray are the last remaining members of C.I.R.C.U.S. I’ve never witnessed such dynamism in the face of inconsiderate facial areas. They really make you stop and think about how hideous you are. They sure cured my inner freak” – Frank, Margate

I was late for the private opening of RUDE BRITTANIA at the Tate Brit.

Being rushed to the finish invariably kills the moment somewhat, but I told Doyle + Mallinson I’d check out their Death to the Fascist Fruit Boys (this was top comic pop) + Kennard Phillipps’ Photo Op 2005 allowed one to be touched comfortingly smug.. The meat of the show was all sausage, but Lucas’ satire + some old school Harrison slipped in to serve up solid cuts from the birds.

Just time for some Punch magnetics, below..

Weather-proofing the sketches at Mark’s studio before I take them back to the gallery to frame up

(The delovley Mark Titchner will be exhibiting at our FUTURE space show later this month)