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Invader at Lazarides, 1 Rathbone place 10 vs Derren Brown at 28 Charlotte Street 2; Fitzrovian Galleries London

From:     Rodney Ward
Category: Art
Date:     22 August 2009
Time:     07:15 PM

Review:

In the fabled terrain of Soho's Boho, north of Oxford Streets source Rathbone Place with Lazrides
(Gallery) reproduced and stamped from across the road at Greek Street, would it exist if Mr Hirst
took a punt on the academia he so brazenly poo poo's rather than fancying the chances of this
measured anarchy "style" gallery, Invader is pretty as well as slick, both spaces please the anti
interior designer who is non-the-less, still a designer. Like many of these post Warholian
appendages there's an awful lot of post Warholian liberties taken as visual references which satisfy
not the taste of one seeking an authentic representation, even an absolute generality would suffice.
However, here we be asphixiated by the the stinking corpse of Rock Music, like the last determined
echo to return to the scene of the crime, this time with clever use of Rubricks Cube, for a one
trick treat it is very persuasive indeed and I at least had a ball in that little Rathbone Place
Gallery deluding myself that it was all continuing after what? an hiatus of thirty years or more but
Other Criteria are playing open tuned guitars to the same crowd and this is no time to doubt the
Brown Pound or Barclays Banksy I know you will love it too.
Up the road about a metre or so theres a place called Fitzrovia where one size fits over you
regardless of your actual girth, a visit to Rebecca Hossack Gallery, 28 Charlotte Street focuses
upon an artist of some standing in the shape of Derren Brown, now I'm all for celebrities explaining
that they paint to a guffawing David Letterman as to the chagrin of the hapless Dennis Hopper when
Letterman replied to Hopper by stating "It's good for a man to have a hobby" followed by Hopper
stuttering his justifiably hurt feelings about Warhols factory and He and Mapplethorpe etc etc,
David Bowie, Paul McCartney Paul Simonon, all now claim to paint et al fine by me but please do not
assume that as public receptives we need to be shown these works, it is just embarrassing to have
them shoved desperatly in your face as if to say "theres so much more to me, so very much more, and
with Derren Brown who is Cliff Richard to David Blain's Elvis its a lot worse because Derren paints
caracatures of CELIBRITIES , well I'm damned, so you don't paint interesting faces of ordinary folk
then Derren? I mean, if I were Bowie or anyone with a sizeable art collection I would want to
concentrate my own daubings for me and me alone in the cossetted knowledge that I can add work by
(other) artists to my collection for my own edification As a gallery 28 Charlotte Street must have
blasted holes through the soles of their own boots many times by hosting understated geniuses of
arts and contemporary crafts one minute and banal gaffs the next no wonder there are no puddles in
Fitzrovia, well, not filled with rain anyway.


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