Born 1891, Gaudier-Brzeska moved to London from France in 1911. He was poor, worked as a clerk, and lived in rented locations in Fulham with his on/off older girlfriend/wife. He became popular and influential amongst his contemporaries who helped him with occasional sales and materials but otherwise he resorted to sourcing off-cuts from a nearby stone mason’s yard. Consequently he worked small making a feature of this limitation with a series of ‘pocket sculptures’ inflenced by Netsuke, African and Polynesian art. These also doubled as knucke dusters – he liked to fight and modeled himself a ‘noble-savage’. His drawings were expressive and economical, influenced by Japanese pen/brush and ink.

If his sculpture looks Epsteiny, if that’s a word [it's not a word] it’s because Gaudier-Brzeska and Epstein were friends. They with Ezra Pound the poet and the painter Wyndham Lewis invented “Vorticism”, Britain’s first avant-garde movement. The Vorticists lasted less than 4 years before Gaudier-Brzeska died in 1915 at the age of 23. The influence on later generations is very clear – especially with Moore and his macquette’s, abstracting natural forms. Or the industrial/military impacting nature – as with Paul Nash.

Jim Ede bought a significant proportion of Brzeska’s work from his wife’s estate on her death in 1925, including letters between the artist and his wife. These formed the base of Ede’s book, Savage Messiah, which in turn inspired a 1972 film by Ken Russell.

He was also a legendary drinker. He didn’t do sport. His friends were Richard Dawkins, Martin Amis and Salman Rushdie. The book is full of great quotes – here’s one on death that is typically dry: “I do not especially like the idea that one day I shall be tapped on the shoulder and informed, not that the party is over but that it is most assuredly going on – only henceforth in my absence.”

Anyway, there are loads of great video clips of Hitchens giving it to endless religious poseurs. Here’s a good collection by The Guardian. Below are some typically self-deprocating pictures of Christopher Hitchens.

The original sketches were drawn in dip pen and iron gall ink onto hand made 17th century recipe paper. The images were then reduced, re-drawn onto film and exposed onto litho plates. The print is an edition of 35, aprox A3 size, in 3 colours: pale grey/blue, autumnal brown and blue/black. It will be available at our open studios – Saturday December 10th and 17th. Price TBC but roughly £70 unframed, £130 framed.

Thanks to Jenny and to Mary, the new printer at the Curwen and a graduate of the Royal College of Art printmaking course.

Over the Summer I started researching a personal project around non-designer forced invention – constructions and objects made to fulfill a need using only those materials immediately to hand. For example, a shelter or den created by kids in a wood using branches and sticks. The urban equivalent made by the homeless using cardboard and plastic. The results are often ingenious and beautiful – in such situations, the form really does follow function. It’s also a very English obsession which permeates every level of culture – Necessity is the mother of invention. Heath Robinson. Make Do & Mend. The results are devoid of pretension and style, they are authentic and to a purpose. The first stage of the project comprises a series of drawings, photographs and objects. More to follow…

#2 Laid Hedge

Branches bent and staked to create a natural barrier.

#3 Tree House

A treehouse of sorts, built in a big willow tree next to a footpath which runs behind a car breakers yard in the Essex coastal town of Walton-on-the-Naze. The platform is made from scraps of wood, palettes and tyres. It hangs above a rubbish filled pond used by fly tippers which offers a variety of building materials to local children – mattresses, sofas, trolleys, prams and bikes.

#4 Rope Swing

Ora-Ïto

Taking inspiration from the tread of Reebok’s RealFlex shoe, French designer Ito Morabito says “It’s like a landscape.” Aa single three meter long relief using LG Hausys’ Hi-Macs, an acrylic material similar to Corian.

Fabio Novembre

Life size polyurethane black horse/wave sculpture inspired by the ZigTech sole.

Partizan

My favourite piece of the show was a ceiling of hanging dried couch grasses being wafted by a series of motion sensitive fans. Alex Griffin: “The noise of the fans add a sense of reeds blowing in the wind, to create an ambience that is more natural than mechanical, which perhaps suggests the sensations experienced when running outdoors”.

A-Cero Architects

The Spanish designers “transformed Reebok’s EasyTone shoe into a sculptural piece.” A wooden structure, covered in rubber paint.

Christoph Behling

Concept for futuristic running experience where the energy created by runner on a track is used to power an intelligent shoe sole that adjusts to the wearer’s running style and anatomical needs.

The exhibition includes the big names – Disney, Hanna-Barbera, Ardman, Studio Ghibli and Pixar but also less predictable and experimental work. Once again the curation of the show is subtle and inventive – divided into digestible sections: 1.Apparitions; 2.Characters; 3.Superhumans; 4.Fables & Fragments; 5.Structures; 6.Visions. Large screen rooms show continuous loops of popular mainstream cartoons inc. The Jetsons opposite Akira. Another room is given over to a large screen of Jurassic Park’s T-Rex scene with supporting smaller monitors running Gertie The Dinosaur and similar early monster animations. A display of animation objects includes a skeleton warrior model by Ray Harryhausen from Jason & the Argonauts (below) and an allosaurus from One Million Years BC. Also cells from the 1954 British animated (CIA funded) version of Orwell’s Animal Farm. The maezzanine level houses more avant-garde offerings – some examples below.

Neighbours – Norman McLaren, 1952

Oscar winning stop-motion filming with live characters the influence of which can be seen in Talking Heads 1985 video for Road to Nowhere.

Tango – Zbigniew Rybczynski, 1980

A montage of individual figures builds to create a crowded room – as above the style appropriated by REM in their 2001 video for Imitation of Life.

SwanQuake: House – Gibson/Martelli (Igloo), 2007

The London based performing/visual artists create an immersive virtual East End underworld using gaming technology. Brick and floor board printed graphics are applied to the walls of a small room, complete with naked light bulb hanging from the ceiling to create a dark and dingy atmosphere – mirroring the environment that can be explored through a modified dressing table with mirror/screen, illuminated light button controler and tracker ball.

LED Figures – Julian Opie, 2007

Animated figures on LED panels are dotted around the Barbican Centre.

Quick look at architect Junya Ishigami’s subtle installation Architecture As Air at the Curve and finished with an amble round Tate Modern permanent collection.