I've never understood why this isn't done more often. What's not to like?

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I never met Augus Fairhurst, but it always seemed to that he was one of those artists who was never finished with his work, but always striving, looking for more answers. While some of his contemporaries were content bask in their success (modeling for Vivian Westwood or commissioning a diamond-studded skull), his work continued in flux, while retaining a strong themes of loss, confusion, disappointment and ennui. He has a show up at his dealer, Sadie Coles, which just closed.

It’s instructive that he was shown with Damien Hirst and Sarah Lucas in In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida at the Tate in 2004. It seems to me that he had a achieved that unenviable position of the totem or mascot of a group, while missing out on the notoriety and fame (though judging by what I’ve heard of his antics in Minneapolis for Brilliant at WAC in 1996 he was just has hard to control). His work was constant in its inconsistency of form, but solid in its exploration of the human condition. He’s long over due for a re-assessment, which, sadly, now might happen.

You can see one of his iconic gorilla sculptures at The Chambers in downtown Minneapolis. These were cast at the Pangolin Foundry in Stroud, and last time I was there, a while ago, I saw the Chambers piece being cast.

I could run through the exhibitions that featured Fairhurst, from Freeze, to Modern Medicine, to the pilot issue of Freize Magazine (with Fairhurst’s hilarious commission/intervention), to Brilliant, to Sensation, to Apocalypse. However it was the show, at The Serpentine in 1994 that really did it for me. It had some great work that really contextualized the yba pieces, it was that loony who poured ink into the Damien Hirst sculpture, but it also had the best exhibition title ever; Some Went Mad, Some Ran Away, (the great majority remained faithful unto physical death).

The catalogue says that it’s from an essay by Fairhurst written in 1989 (when he had just left Goldsmith’s?). I can’t find anything more on that essay online, but the phrase itself is a superb piece of apocalyptic mysticism. It comes from, I think, the Book of Margery Kempe,  a life of the C14th mystic and refers to Julian of Norwich, an earlier mystic and anchoress, the phrase itself describing the life of the hermit (I can’t check this, since most of my medieval books are still in store in the UK). It’s inspirational to me that a contemporary artist can use the resources to inform their work, yet also desperately sad, considering his lonely death. Or maybe there’s some hope there; I suppose don’t know, but we'll all eventually find out.

"...All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well"

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We've got new coin designs, courtesy of a witless competion launched in 2005 by the Royal Mint. Winner is 'graphic designer' Matthew Dent. There is so much wrong with this that I can barely even type. *sigh* Chairman of the Royal Mint Advisory Committee that made the selection was Chris Frayling. Makes sense. I've sat on selection committees with him and he's not got the sharpest sense of appropriate aesthetics.

Regarding b*ggering about with the coins of the realm I'm tempted to post my article for the Public Art Journal from 1998 on the Two Pound Coin, but I can't be bothered. It's not that I'm against re-designing things that work perfectly well ('renew and reinvigorate' say the Mint) simply for the sake of a spurious notion of 'change' (or AM I?), it's just the re-design of a vital piece of the UK's public artistic infrastructure looks so cr*p. And the way a currency looks and the way that it is treated IS important.

The best thing about this is? That the Tories have pledged to un-do the re-design (un-design?) if they get elected. Haven't we all got better things to do with our time, elected leaders?

For my American readers I feel exactly the same way about your ridiculous 'collectors edition' collect-em-all Presidential dollar coins, and the silly new 'sideways-facing-Jefferson' 5 cent coin. So there. I'm going back to bartering.

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For a while, Sleaze Nation was our bible. It is even still being published? Anyway, here's more on Scott King....

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Well, of course, if we're talking post-human comic strips then no one beats MNFTIU. David Reees is the boss.

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