The Terminal Bar at TROVE

The most recent show at TROVE was pretty intense, this time curated by Morgan Quaintance as opposed to the usual Trove-y duo. What we saw can best describe like this;

...but black and white. We had to use double strength art detecting fluid due to the vast number of images on display. And we're pleased to announce that it got a midway-between-decent-and-awesome in all our tests.

1970s o'clock.

We just got in from a pretty intensely hot scanning at Ikon Gallery. Well, actually, we got in about 2 hours ago. And we might have stopped off after Ikon at the pub. But aside from that we we went to the opening of Ikon's 'This Could Happen To You'. We're not so sure it could, not without a time machine anyway, and although we have one, it's a little dusty and rusty, so we'll stick to the point. The show was pretty fine. It refers to the birth of Ikon in the 70s, possibly from some kind of gigantic artistic gallery womb-come-mothership. Here's a picture of two of our operatives closely examining the show;

Now at this stage there are two possible conclusions for you to choose from. We suggest tossing a coin to decide which. So

Heads - Most of our agents weren't alive in the 70s - Who was?! And in that respect, what we saw was the perfect example of art from the time. Great!

Tails - Pretty sure that if this had been a true representation of the 70s the pieces would've been mounted atop much more hideous walls than at Ikon.

The show runs till some time in the future. Go. You've probably stopped reading by now anyway, but it's alright, really, quite alright.

Book Show at Eastside Projects.

We spent quite a while writing a complex and reasoned discussion as to why our detectors gave Book Show (or BOOK SHOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! as they seemed to prefer shouting on the website) at Eastside Projects a marginal fail. We then stumbled across a book which expressed it better than we ever could. Here it is;

As much as initial long review would have been suitably tedious and in that way reflective of the show, we opted on this occasion to use literature to convey our point. Something it feels Eastside Projects didn't bother with.

Don't get too down about it though arts-fans, we saw a super show just around the corner. A review is winging its way towards you.

A blast from the not too distant past.

We love self promoting one heck of a lot. After all, we know how great we are. But it does feel even sweeter when someone else seems to be as understanding and appreciative of the invaluable service we provide to the world. We've pretty much posted this everywhere, on ourFacebook and Twitter, but here's the link to the A.N. review we got for our ARC show just over a month ago.

Now. On to detect the show at ARC tonight. Oh yeah!

Jeremy Wood - Traverse Me - Warwick Arts Centre.

The other day we stopped by at the Mead Gallery in Coventry to check out whatever was on there. We didn't prepare, so when we discovered that the show was a Richard Long-ish Land Art show called 'Traverse Me' by artist Jeremy Wood, I'm sure you can imagine the look on our faces. We set the detectors to super-generous, despite which, the results were disappointing for lovers of Land Art, though truly representational of the tedium we encountered. Inspired by what we saw, we grabbed our GPS tracker and got on our lawn mower and went for a ride. Here's the result;

If you look carefully, you might notice a hidden message in the path we took. The show is on until the 3rd of July. If you're in Coventry and looking for some decent art to see over the next few days, here's our advice; get on a train and go to London. Just kidding, there are some decent happenings later this week in Birmingham. It's less far and less rah than London. Watch this space for reviews. We'll be there.

Arty Fortnight.

We've been and seen a fair bit over the last few weeks, some of which we'll inevitably forget to mention. Luckily though, the majority was definite bad art so you'll not be missing much. Highlights were Florian Hecker and degree shows at Margaret Street and Nottingham Trent University. Watch this space next week for an ingenious new review system we'll be rolling out. Maybe here, maybe on our Facebook. Now...back to the spanners.

A quiet few weeks.

At this time of year, as I'm sure most people with arty interests know, is the time when a glut of dreaful art braves the real world in degree shows throughout the land. We've been to a few so far, and will continue to do so over the next week or so. If you've got any top shows or absolute howlers let us know, we've just finished applying for a bunch of stuff that will hopefully come through soon, but until then, we're using this as a chance to keep our calibration up to date.