When: 28th Oct. – 31st Dec.
Where: Projekts Mcr
36-40 Edge Street, Northern quarter, Manchester.
Tel: 01618325677
Web:www.projektsmcr.com
James Dawson presents a series of recent paintings looking at small architectural spaces regularly visited by skateboarders around Manchester.
“When I began skateboarding I began to become more aware of my environment around me and to see the various possibilities of the city.”
Using the pallet and materials of graffiti art, the medium is turned on its head. By selecting a location where a graffiti artist may finally present his piece and like a more traditional landscape painter he works from drawings and photographs he makes at the location and takes them to his studio to be worked on further. In his work James questions the use of the urban environment and the different ways in which the spaces can be viewed and utilised.
The 88b gallery below the CIDE Skateshop plays host to the wonderful art skills of David Earl Dixon Dist.One known in the skateboard world for his unique graphics with The Harmony skateboard company. The opening night at the gallery will also feature a London premier of the debut Harmony Skate DVD, so yet another excuse for turning out for this one.
Digesting a lovely vegetarian curry and smoking a fruity hookah pipe, I watched the screen with glazed eyes. A pile of dirty dishes were strewn between the table, couch, desk and sink, and ash had slipped and crumbled onto the carpet. In this decadent yet resolved décor, not much could bother me except the taxman or a sudden drop in body lotion stock.
This was one too many late night shocks for my liking, plus Khadhafi’s military outfit was far too loud for my flatscreen pixels to deal with. The World was going to shit with people dressed like that in power! Surely he was an open target with camouflaged colours like that? Unless the Colonel spent all his free time at carnivals and Mardi Gras conventions..? Ummm…
However, any foreigner will let you know that an Englishman cannot hold his drink (with the obvious exception being Americans who down Proof piss by the litre!). Plus, being the great socialite he is, anything that might enhance the Englishman’s bear hug grip of friendship on a stranger, or push him to prove the Eurovision judges wrong with his odes and ballads of football rivalry, must be stopped!
Just the other day I was re-living that great scene from A Bronx Tale- you know, that film where DeNiro is trying to keep his son on the straight and narrow during the Mob/Race hate era of the 50’s…Yeah, so I’m sitting in the backseat with my New Era pulled low, black camoed down, eyes focusing on an uncertain future. My camarades are more relaxed and joking around me. One of them mock sings a verse from some hip-hop song about “Still not caring…” I don’t remember who the rapper is.
When I scan the screens and pick up the airwaves, witnessing the tear of social fabric in France somehow none of it surprises me. When I moved to France, the coffee and croissant charade was soon squashed and replaced by the stale baguette and odd flavoured milk. I didn’t run the Champs Elysées with a beret and string of onions like many a tourist, I walked the back alleys with an army of Lacoste shellsuits and stolen scooters. Despite their garish outfits (peaked hats, bright coloured tracksuits and dazzling white Stan Smiths), my co-hosts were ignored and avoided by the rest of French society.
Fighting words in a volatile situation usually ends in hostilities. The only problem here is that nobody’s listening. The kids don’t understand the political rhetoric and the politicians can’t get to grips with the back-slang. Add to that the fact that a lot of the estates are no-go areas for social services, and an immigrant’s son can’t take two steps out of his ghetto without being stopped and searched by the fuzz, and there is definite communication breakdown.
There was talk of curfews being installed across the land, and distant communities taking up the cause elsewhere… We didn’t care.