Stuck Inn X
The film Boogie Woogie drops the hyphen in the title and is set in London. Richard Clayton in the Sunday Times, recorded the observations of Johnnie Shand Kydd, photographer of the YBAs, that there were “a few people a wee bit nervous about how they were going to be presented” and that “You can sort of see people being vaguely recognisable”. Art adviser Nathalie Hambro found “they were hardly disguised.” Duncan Ward, the film’s director, let slip the characters were “a collage of a number of artists”. An anonymous collector opined that Spindle’s black framed glasses, identical to those worn by Jay Jopling, were “a bit of a giveaway.” An equally anonymous “art-world source” pointed instead to the dealer, Anthony d’Offay.
Charles Thomson dissects the Boogie Woogie franchise.
Capitalist Realism
I guess I’d argue that there is a radicality and a weirdness about these cultural objects any way, especially in current conditions. I’m interested in what I’ve called popular modernism — the way that avant-garde ideas can be recirculated through popular culture. I’d argue that high modernism was retrospectively justified by its filtering through into popular culture via paperbacks, pop and television. This kind of filtering didn’t have to involve any kind of dilution; there was often a condensation which intensified things.
Joe Kennedy interviews Mark Fisher about Capitalist Realism.