Highlights 2024:
Memories of the year are sketchy but here are some things: Listening to Sway of the Verses on NTS; reading John Banville’s Benjamin Black novels, something I began in the warmth of the summer; talking to my son about gaming, ethics and the world; Mike Kelley at K21, lunch at Kushi-Tei of Tokyo, Düsseldorf; Jochen Lempert’s mysterious photographs at BQ, Berlin; Paul P at KW, Berlin and coffee with Scott Treleaven, as was outdoor conversations with Alexander Gorlizki and Aino Lintunen; visiting the amphitheater at Trier; Khanate’s brutal and beautiful set at Berghain, Berlin; Rebecca Warren at Max Hetzler, Berlin; Hallie Rubenhold’s deeply humane The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper; walking on Shooter’s Hill in London with Michael Hill; Matt Connors at Goldsmiths, London; having time to look at Inge Mahn’s drawings over an extended period of time and the hours spent at the Bibliothek Günther Förg in Weidingen; Portals, Art and Spirituality at the Swedenborg Society, London; Annie May Demozay’s Cry Boy Cry’s echoes were felt through my year; Tommy Tiernan being interviewed on the Bill Burr podcast; Trails Of Uncertainty: Mark Buckeridge & Vivienne Dick at the Complex, Dublin; Séance at House, Berlin; Tal R at Max Hetzler, Berlin; Akihiko Okamura: The Memories of Others at the Museum of Photography, Dublin; Mark Swords and Alan Phelan at the Casino Marino, Dublin and seeing the echo of Paul McKinley’s Casino show at the Rotunda in Dublin and wishing I had seen it in situ and John Graham at Highlanes in Drogheda and the vegan sausage roll eaten on the much delayed train journey home; Matt Marble’s The American Museum of Paramusicology; walking on Sandymount Strand on a cold Sunday; Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy at Pierre Boulez Saal, Berlin; delving Stephen Ellcock’s ever changing image collection which makes the internet a better place; Sinéad Gleeson’s Hagstone; Zia Mohiuddin Dagar & Zia Fariduddin Dagar’s 1968 Bombay recordings on Black Sweat Records, Decoy and Joe McPhee and an equally beautiful set by Marilyn Crispell in Berlin; the music of Meredith Monk; the Sacred Harp Singers, Berlin; B Wurtz’s You Know, This Is How He Is, published by Tutto, making its way from Australia to my bookshelf; The Wire magazine; The Sacred podcast and a weird dive into the world of Catholic podcasting, offering both highlights and several lowlights of my year, which relates to a bleak but also hopeful conversation with the artists Bergman & Salinas; St. George’s Bookshop, Berlin; looking at Nicolas Poussin at the National Gallery, Dublin; Frans Hals, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin; the Panta Rhei blog; walks through the little gardens near to where I live; cafés; my friend Jay Hōdo Roche giving a talk at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios; seeing the Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis deal with the room as it is at the Lido, Berlin; apologies received and given; Alan Moore’s The Great When and Alan Moore and Steve Moore’s Bumper Book of Magic; Blood Incantation, Absolute Elsewhere; Rotting Christ’s work, discovered through the lecture Black Metal By Fenriz; Marian Balfe’s playing cards and the replica of Austin Osman Spare’s Tarot Deck, published by Strange Attractor; Niamh O’Malley at Shtager&Shch, London; Robyn Denny, Vardaxoglou, London; getting to see some Carpaccio paintings at the Stastsgalerie, Stuttgart; John Rogers The Lost Byway films on Youtube and that medium has thrown up so much that I have enjoyed, including Stefan Milo’s pre-history channel and Simon Roper’s videos on linguistics, which are endlessly fascinating, Emma Thorne, Atomic Shrimp, the Majority Report and Novara Media; Aileen Murphy’s generosity in public conversation with me at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios and the breadth of Indian classical music, which has been my constant companion throughout the year.
Lowlights:
Many people died this last year, and many in the art world, I was particularly sad at the passing away of Terri Thornton, artist, and former Curator of Education at the Modern in Fort Worth; obviously the ongoing wars in Palestine and Ukraine and the growing right-wing lunacy of much of the aforementioned Catholic podcasting, the delusion of many of those tuning into Joe Rogan and the obscene rise of Elon Musk.