Typewriter artist Keira Rathbone at the Old Cinema

Keira Rathbone is one of my lovely fellow tenants at Chiswick's Pavilion Studios. She creates artworks using her collection of vintage typewriters. Her work mixes art with performance; watching her create, fingers busy across the keys, is a sight to behold.

Last week she took a typewriter to the Old Cinema, a huge vintage/antiques store in Chiswick. And while she "typed" some of the quirky objects on sale, I took some shots of her in action.



What was strange was that no-one seemed to bat an eyelid that someone in vintage-style dress, looking like an extra from the secretary pool in Mad Men, was busily typing away in the middle of the shop.

Westminster College in this week's Building Design

I was commissioned to get some shots of City of Westminster College, which have been published on the front page of this week's Building Design. It's a gargantuan £102m project designed by Danish architect Schmidt Hammer Lassen.

It's quite a showy building, with its seven storey stepped facade and dramatic atrium. However, the surrounding trees on Paddington Green make it impossible to get a decent view of the whole building, except from this one corner.

You can read about it on BD's website>

With the current economic climates and cutbacks galore, we won't be big projects like this - or Zaha's academy school in Herne Hill - for a long time yet.

Mind that building!

Back from seeing the folks in Warwick. The town was this weekend host to its annual Mop fair, which takes place in the main streets and squares.

Did I hear you ask what a Mop is? Well, for the uninitiated, it's a traditional 'hiring' fair where labourers and servants would gather near to Old Michaelmas Day to find employment. They would carry an item to identify their trade. And if you had no particular skills, you would hold a mop head. Various stalls providing food and entertainment were set up in addition to the Mop's main function as an employment dating service.

A week later the town hosts the Runaway Mop, which would have offered those people unhappy with their new jobs - or for employers disappointed with their new staff - a second chance to find work.

These days, the Mop is no longer an outdoor job centre, but simply a funfair. Warwick's dates back nearly 700 years, and I have fond memories of visiting as a kid. The close proximity of the old buildings adds an extra thrill that you don't find at regular fairgrounds. There's nothing like the prospect of plunging headlong into the roof of a Georgian townhouse to excite the senses, as this video shows... Apologies for the poor quality, but I just grabbed it on the hoof.

Mops are held in a small number of old market towns, mainly in the Cotswolds/Midlands area. Expect Iain Duncan Smith to pilot 21st century Mop jobseeker fairs in the near future.

Back from Wiltshire

Some snaps from a week in Wiltshire. It rained most of the time, so there wasn't much opportunity to get out and take photos. We were staying in a cottage on the edge of the Stourhead Estate, which includes an excellent Spread Eagle Inn with great local ales. The Estate itself is an incredible piece of 18th century landscape design, and much of it can be accessed by public footpaths.



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We were also in walking distance of some stunning rolling downland scenery, and I enjoyed walking up Whitesheet Hill, which is topped by a multitude of hill forts and burial mounds.









We enjoyed visiting Frome, which felt like a very creative town with loads of vintage clothing stores, the Garden Café veggie restaurant and excellent Black Swan Arts centre.

Düsseldorf Quadriennale

We've had biennales, triennales... so now welcome on stage the quadriennale. But having visited a couple of shows at Düsseldorf's Quadriennale 2010, I'm only left wondering "Why have it so infrequently?"

While many German cities have amazing art musuems, Düsseldorf has really outdone itself. Everytime I visit the country I seem to stumble across an incredible art show that feels miles better than most we get here in the UK. During my recent brief trip to Düsseldorf I got three.

To get around all of the city's main galleries would take several days, with contemporary art particularly well represented with the K21 (a gallery of 21st century art), the newly refurbished K20 and even KIT, an art gallery in a tunnel under the Rhein.

I visited two Quadriennale shows, which despite having some overlapping content offered interesting insights into Düsseldorf's art scene, with particular regards to photography. The city's art school has produced some of photography's most celebrated names, with an emphasis on architecture and urban imagery. Many of these – Andreas Gursky, Candida Höfer, Thomas Struth, Thomas Ruff and Bernd and Hilla Becher – are among my favourite photographers, so it was exciting to visit the city that inspired them.

At the striking 1920s' gallery NRW-Forum was a show called "The Red Bull", addressing the transatlantic influence on photography in the 1970s and 1980s. Key to this cultural interchange was the relationship between American photographer Stephen Shore and the Bechers. Their common story began when the Bechers purchased a photo by Shore featuring a red VW campervan. They forged a strong friendship, and this exhibition examines how students on Bernd Becher's photography course at the Düsseldorf art school were influenced by US subjects and image concepts, largely introduced through this relationship.

These themes were further explored with a show at the K21 looking at 1980s' art from a Düsseldorf perspective. Needless to say, there was some repetition, but it was interesting to see photographic work placed in a wider context of painting, drawing and sculpture. Ten Düsseldorf artists are juxtaposed against international artists including Jeff Wall, Cindy Sherman, Richard Deacon and Jeff Koons.

A blockbuster like Tate Modern's Exposed feels bloated, cliché and too focused on featuring star names to get people through the door whether they fit the exhibition's remit or not. While not formally part of the Quadriennale, Intensif-Station ("Intensive Care") at the K21 Ständehaus gallery in Düsseldorf is a collection of 26 artist rooms that shows how a huge show can alternately thrill and challenge. I particularly enjoyed the Burn film installation by Reynold Reynolds and Patrick Jolley – very disturbing. Hanging in the lobby is Monika Sosnowska's The Staircase (pictured), remniscent of the Tate's Turbine Hall commissions.

Der Rote Bulli runs until 16 January, 2011
Auswertung Der Flugdaten: Art of the 1980s from a Düsseldorf Perspective runs until January 30, 2011
Intensif-Station runs until September 4, 2011
Mokica Sosnowska's The Staircase is on view until April 15, 2012. So plenty of time to get over there and see it!

Portrait of Tim Ronalds and images of Asplund's Gothenburg Law Courts Extension in this week's Building Design

Some photo shoots feel like a real privilege. While studying at LCP I spent a day photographing Arne Jacobsen's St Catherine's College in Oxford, and was almost overwhelmed by the excitement of gaining access to such an incredible example of modernism.

It was a similar feeling to shoot Gunnar Asplund's extension to the Law Courts in Gothenburg, Sweden. Architect Tim Ronalds had chosen the building as his 'inspiration' for the fascinating ongoing series in Building Design. The interview is published in this week's issue (1 October).



While admittedly not much from the outside – the building went through many incarnations and revisions and the final result is rather underwhelming – the interior is a real gem of Scandinavian modernism. It was  completed in 1937, and is full of sensuous curves and timber fixtures and fittings. The design is deliberately informal yet retains a strong and dignified civic presence, something that designers of many of the new generation of PFI law courts should do well to study carefully.



The building is currently unused, but journalist Pamela Buxton had arranged access. It remains fully furnished, and there was something strange yet thrilling about having the entire building to ourselves. Tim had visited the building on two previous occasions, but his excitement and passion for this modern masterpiece was still much in evidence, and he was an excellent tour guide with lots of interesting information about the project.

Back from Germany

Former shop sign, Shadowstrasse

Just back from three excellent days in Germany, specifically the cities of Cologne and Düsseldorf.

I was primarily there for the huge Cologne photography trade fair Photokina, but also visited the Düsseldorf Quadriennale (yes, they do exist).

I'll post separately about Photokina and the Quadriennale, but thought that I'd briefly share my thoughts about Düsseldorf.


Vodafone Tower

Although I've been to Cologne on many occasions, I've never made it to nearby Düsseldorf. First impressions were that it's a bit underwhelming, but during the course of a few days the city really gets under your skin. The inner suburbs seem to consist largely of low-rise 1960s apartment blocks; if you are familiar with the city shots by photography Thomas Struth then you will know exactly what I mean.

It's a place of designer fashion - the Königsallee boulevard is lined with fashion boutiques that reminded me of Paris or Omotesando in Tokyo. In fact, the Japanese influence is everywhere, with a Japan quarter and lots of large department stores that are more downtown Ginza than western Germany. It's testament to the city's status as an international business hub.


Rhein promenade
Right at the heart of Düsseldorf is the cutesy old town, its streets lined with a multitude of bars and restaurants. The Aldstadt faces directly onto the Rhine, which is spanned by a series of cable-stayed bridges which seem to be the favourite type of crossing in this part of the country.


Refurbishment to Town Hall in the Aldstadt


You can never have too many cable-stayed bridges


Düsseldorf's Media Harbour is like a mini Docklands, but with far more interesting modern architecture, by the likes of Alsop & Störmer and David Chipperfield, not forgetting Frank Gehry's fantastical Rheinhafen arts and media complex. Nearby is the TV tower, an obligatory feature of most German cities.











But Düsseldorf's real jewels are its art galleries, and it's a real mecca for photography lovers thanks to its art school, which produced such luminaries as Andreas Gursky, Thomas Ruff, Candida Höfer and Thomas Struth, under the tutelage of the Bechers.