Every child dreams of being a superhero, and unsurprisingly I was no different. With a bin bag cape and underpants outside my trousers I was ready for anything, including the dastardly super villain that was next-door’s Jack Russell. The devil in dog’s clothing.

Not a lot’s changed really, I’m still cautious of very small animals, and often struggle to dress myself properly. But it was obvious that a career as Spiderman’s successor wasn’t calling me. Something I’d quite forgotten about until, that is, I popped in to the art gallery, Generation POP!

This kitsch little gallery situated in the Northern Quarter of Manchester recently paid tribute to comic book history – with a six week exhibition of the official Marvel fine art collection. As I strolled past the gallery’s long glass front (smeared with the steamy finger and face prints of excited geeks), my childhood excitement was quickly rekindled.

Read more…

At the weekend I finally had the chance to go to the Cornerhouse and view an exhibition called Unrealised Potential. This is a collaborative group exhibition brought about by artist-curator Mike Chavez-Dawson. The show is an active investigation into the potential of unrecognised, unfinished or unfulfilled ideas, blurring the lines between artist, curator, visitor and producer.

Back in 2003, Mike Chavez-Dawson presented a series of certificates under the title, ‘Potential Hits’. Each certificate stated the name of the individual artist, the title and idea of an unrealised exhibition. Chavez-Dawson then invited a number of contemporary artists to contribute to Potential Hits by answering the following:

Read more…

The great thing about a Bank Holiday weekend is that it gives me a chance to catch up on the exhibitions or interesting places that I have on a list to visit. One of these places is often my home town of Bradford as that’s where the fantastic National Media Museum resides, which is a place you can always rely on to have some interesting and thought-provoking exhibits.

Recently, various news sites highlighted a report conducted by Ofcom (The Independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industries) which stated that Consumers are spending almost half (45 per cent) of their waking hours watching TV, using their mobiles and other communications devices. You can read the full report here.

Read more…

So after partaking in some fine ale at the Newcastle Beer Festival and catching up with some friends I found myself waking up in my hotel room in Newcastle with a slight headache. I now had the day to kill in Newcastle, and certainly one port of call had to be to the gallery which sat opposite my hotel… The Baltic Flour Mill, which for some reason had a bizarre message emblazoned on the side of this impressive gallery. The message simply read ‘The beginning of the war will be secret’. Which when placed on such an imposing looking building, certainly peaked my interest.

The message on the side of the gallery was of course advertising the work of Jenny Holzer, who is currently exhibiting at the Baltic in Newcastle/Gateshead until mid-May. A brief synopsis in the hotel guide had me hooked… as a writer and someone dealing in snappy headlines and slogans, I simply had to see this exhibition.

Read more…