Saturday, Hanging in Mestre...

I went to Mestre to meet Alan, Nic and their super dooper kids, whom beat me at table football. I watched a bit of 'chitty chitty bang bang'. I forgot just how brilliant, this film was. I remember being really scared of that child catcher. I spent the afternoon looking at Alan's artwork, which was a real treat. Alan Bowman makes artworks using various fun and interesting processes, partly inspired by Fluxus, but mainly derived from his very own unique perspective. His work includes specific observations at what is often overlooked. Making banal objects and events into beautifully crafted: drawings, sculptures, musical scores, collages and assorted ephemera. He makes art by looking at the world sideways. A drawing made by placing a pizza on some newsprint, a musical score derived from a knitting pattern, a mathematical graph made from a persons name or a series of straight lines drawn when running, after drinking six bottles of wine. Alan takes a situation or thing, mutates it, chews it up with child-like curiosity and spits it out again as art. Alan's work has a boundary-less and boundless abundance, with a reverence of simple everyday human behavior. He changes words using code, he plays art games and he has a well-crafted lyrical understanding of word play. I would have as a guess there probably nothing, which Alan couldn't or hasn't made art out of. Because it's those little things that most people pass by without thinking of, that Alan makes us see again in a new way, to enjoy again. I speak with Alan about his work and about whether he's thought about showing this work as a big solo show. We discuss ideas to do with presentation. In my minds eye I can see how his work would work as a kind of mini retrospective. He really is a hidden gem, waiting to be discovered. Later that night, I'm invited to a party, held by some of Alan and Nic's friends. My first Italian Party. Wow. The people at the party were brilliant. Really friendly and fun. I felt instantly at home with them, I got really quite drunk and also very jealous of Diego's commodore 64, which he paraded in front of me. I was very bow legged on the boat that took me home!