Last week I decided to venture forth from my natural habitat and go gallery hopping in Mayfair. There were two exhibitions I was desperate to see - Rob and Nick Carter's Chinese Whispers at The Fine Art Society and Joseph Kosuth's Amnesia: Various, Luminous, Fixed at Sprüth Magers.

 

I loved the concept behind Chinese Whispers. It's like a visual version of that childhood game, where a message is whispered around a group, passed through each person, until by the end it's just nonsense, like 'purple monkey dishwasher' or 'Ben likes Katie' or something. The Carters commissioned a Chinese artist to reproduce various Warhol images. The reproductions were then passed onto another studio and who then copied them and sent their versions to another studio. This was repeated twenty-eight more times. The Carters then arranged the images from first to the thirtieth picture. Each artist made little mistakes or alterations that eventually eroded the original image until the final reproduction looks nothing like the first or very much like anything really, just a lot of lines and dark patches.

 

This was done for all sorts of Andy Warhol greats - the soup can, the Coca-Cola logo, even Da Vinci's Last Supper.

 

According to the blurb, the exhibition is all about truth and authenticity. This is a big sticking point in fashion. The majority of people don't have access to a wardrobe of one-of-a-kind pieces. We buy off the rack. Granted, an item can look completely different depending on who's wearing it and how but there's always a risk of bumping into someone wearing the same thing. (Oh, the horror!) The High-Street takes a lot from high-fashion designers, who in turn find inspiration from all sorts of sources, from muses to trends past to cinema. By the time it's got to you, it can be hard to disentangle your individual style thumbprint (what I see as authenticity) from the web of fashion.

 

So after this, I went to look at some lights. 

Looking in at Sprüth Magers from the rainy street outside.

 

People are going to start saying I have an obsession with neon lights. Well, maybe I do. But these are a million miles away from The God's Own Junkyard exhibition I went to a few weeks ago. There's no sex, no rock'n'roll, no Soho.

 

The first thing I noticed was the noise. It sounded like a beehive. A beautiful, glowing beehive.

Well, if you don't even know, Kosuth...

 

Language is central to Kosuth's work. Statements like 'Language must speak for itself.' and '"I see (hear, feel, etc.) X"' were translated into neon. The room downstairs featured a sort of timetable version of Joyce's 'Ulysses' - the lights said 'Sirens 4p.m.' and 'Cyclops 5 p.m.'. Fab

 

While going around looking around galleries, I wore some clothes:

 

{Headband, H&M. Jumper, Topshop. Trousers, Topshop.
Shoes, Topshop.)

 

A marvellous song if ever there was one and the sort of music video that makes you question everything: R.E.M's Imitation of Life.

Art Laure London Stripes

Wear: The Gallery {The Fine Art Society & Sprüth Magers}

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Brick Lane should come with a health warning: don't come anywhere near it when tired. It's sensory overload on 100% volume, with a strobe light and the taste of curry on your tongue.

So I've lived in London for a year and a half now and I feel I know the city pretty well. I know the difference between North, South, East and West. I can successfully nightbus from A to B. I have a map of shortcuts in my head. Tick. Tick. Tick. Perhaps the most the important lesson I've learnt about the city is that it'll never stay static enough for you to completely understand it. London can always catch you off-guard, like a good magician. Or a seasoned mugger.

Brick Lane is a bag of such surprises. The area's known for a few things: it's status as Banglatown, vintage shops, offbeat cafes. But it's also home to some of the most impressive street art in London.

You can spend a day roaming Brick Lane and still not See It All, so I decided to get some insider knowledge. A few friends and I booked ourselves onto an Alternative London Tour. It's a great company - the tours are conducted by street artists that work in the area and you only pay as much as you think the tour is worth.

Our guide was the London artist Josh Jeavons and over the course of two hours, in extremity-obliterating temperatures, he showed us his favourite pieces around Brick Lane.

For Jeavons, the area was an exhibition space. He spoke about how different pieces of street art became more prominent as the light changed or as streetlights were turned on. Although he led us to the usual attractions, such as Roa's giant bengali crane on Hanbury Street, Jeavons also drew our attention to more subtle graffiti: little bronze figurines on the tops of streetlights left by Jonsey or the message '99% of people won't notice this' on a wall tattooed with all the incarnations of 'Je suis Charlie.'

{At one point in the tour, the guide broke-off to say,"Alright, Russ." The group turned around to see Russell Brand, who briefly joined us. Only in London.}


{A soon-to-be knocked down VHil}


Transience is a big feature of street-art, whether the work's illegal or commissioned. Jeavons described it as a piece's 'lifetime'. Even if the council or property owner doesn't paint over it, graffiti can be easily covered by another tag or a mural altered by another artist. The artist Lily Mixe even works in paper pasted onto walls that, organically, weathers away. A lot of the work is politically charged, so it makes perfect sense that there is some sort of visual discussion happening. The more respected the artist, the more untouched his or her work tended to be.

The last stop on the tour was the work above. Jeavons's described it as a 'game-changer'. The artist, who's tag name is VHil, had chip away at a wall to create the face - the depth of colour and shadow you can see is just the difference between exposed brick, plaster and whitewash. But in two weeks it won't exist anymore, as the building is scheduled to be demolished to make way for something new: a trend in the increasingly gentrified east.
  

{Hat, Topshop. Coat, Vintage C.1970s. Shirt, Vintage C.1990s
Skirt, Topshop. Shoes, Topshop [included in this edit]}


London's spectacular attempt to become artic demands the sheepskin. Horrendous bed-hair (the curse of the curly) requires the hat. 

Here's one to listen to while on a street art safari: Kill Them With Colour, Always Something.

Art Laure London Pattern

Wear: The Area {Brick Lane}

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I really should spend more time with Soho. Going there is like when you have your iPod on shuffle and this disco-great comes on, that you completely forgot you even had and you realise that you should be listening to it all the time. Love me some Soho. Get in those grooves.



The ‘God’s Own Junkyard’ exhibition at Lights of Soho celebrates the work of the late neon-sign maker Chris Bracey. The pieces address Soho’s hedonistic side: ‘Girls, Girls, Girls’, ‘Sexy’, ‘Love’ and even ‘Sex, Drugs and Bacon Rolls’ shine off walls. Bracey was commissioned to produce work for Eyes Wide Shut, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and four Batman films but it was in Soho that Bracey made his name. At one point, he was the main producer of neon signage for the area’s famous sex shows.

Yet it’s not sordid – it’s carnivalesque. The vibrant designs can be enjoyed in themselves, as a celebration of colour, light and indulgence. As I looked at a fluorescent ‘Lucky’  above an old bicycle, a little girl ran up to statue of Christ on a pedestal of lights: "Look at Jesus, Mum!"

Upstairs, the walls are plastered in signs but when you step into the basement, the pieces become sparser. It feels a bit like a storage area. Perhaps the most arresting piece is a neon-framed mirror in the shape of a coffin, a reminder of Bracey’s absence.


I decided to channel Bracey's enthusiasm for Americana today. I call this ensemble: 'because there is nothing more Rock n Roll than novelty knitwear.' Take notes, Jagger.



{Srunchie, American Apparel. Shirt, ASOS. Cardigan, ASOS.
Jeans, Topshop. Socks, Topshop. Shoes, Converse}

Speaking of Disco greats - Pointer Sisters' Jump.

Art Laure London Slogans

Wear: The Gallery {Lights of Soho}

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