In April a group of young artists got together and decided to take their 'careers' into their own hands and did a collaborative project.

I say young artists, I mean aspiring artists aka art students. And I was one of them.

We got some sponsorship together, hired a real gallery space in the heart of Sheffield's art scene (Sheffield's answer to Chelsea in NYC or Vyner St London) and went out to fool the community.

So I’m home now from my life changing vacation of working in galleries and my New York extravaganza, art-worldly living for 5 weeks. And what have I learnt?

From the files: This is my statement for a solo exhibit at Meyers/Bloom Gallery in Santa Monica in 1992. "Chiasmic Symmetry" was a visual element in the paintings but, looking back, I should have made it more of an element in the installation except, of course, that would create a black hole in the universe situation -- an impossible installation.

Tjorg Douglas Beer
Salonu Istambul/Observation Deck
Produzentengalerie Hamburg

While Tjorg Douglas Beer’s works previously collaged disparate iconography, confuting the viewer with abstracted associations of power versus the everyday, in the Salonu there is a distinct predominance of Islamic characters and militaristic residue. Of course, the artist might contend that as his studio was located in a Muslim region of Hamburg, Shemaghs and Hijabs (head scarves) are fashion and religion alike. And there is an interesting sensitivity in this; that in order for iconography to denude itself, to exist in its most malleable state, it must shift in context to cultural characteristics.

Several of my coworkers speak Spanish fluently and one speaks Italian so I decided to brush up on my high school French to pick up the slack with our customers and because if you can speak with them in their native tongue they buy lots, lots more stuff.

The great collage artist and accidental avant-garde father of found-footage, Bruce Conner died July 7th 2008. His legacy in Library of Congress and in collections among major art institution the world over. But long before he certainly had been immortalized on YouTube, and that of course bears an amusing double-irony. Some might interpret it as "giving back" others as "stealing from a thief".

The other day I dropped my PowerBook while making the bed and though it survived -- a tough little laptop, I once got my leg caught in the power cord and send it flying across the room -- I no longer had my WiFi connection. Since it landed, closed, on the front end I figured the card dislodged but, um, where the hell was the card?