POP 001/ Tuesday, 26 May 2009
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Today’s Pop is Ms Mayfair who currently dreams of new Nina Ricci shoes and, "all these weeks of work on 36
"Toaster deluxe deconstructed" , © Richard Hamilton. Courtesy of 26
On a grey Tuesday morning in London, only the Pop team can bring out the sun: a quick 9.00 AM catch-up meeting over some Elixir of Life (aka coffee) with the whole of thepop.com team and the grand fromages at Pop’s Grosvenor Street HQ. With a little time between appointments, I ran over to see the Richard Hamilton show at Gagosian on Davies St. After a couple of recent weekends of gallery misses, I now get to have some intimate time with a TRUE POP RULER.
I won’t bore you with any Hamilton history or tenuous Pop Pop Pop rant. Just go and see this show before it closes at the end of the month. Richard Hamilton has reworked his iconic "Toaster" of 1967 into a stunning "Toaster De Luxe" series. But what makes this show really worth 10 minutes of your time is the solitary "Deconstructed Toaster", which I’ll be making a return visit to salivate over again later in the week. I have to go see this thing again and again now. After all, the lovely lady at Gagosian tells me that Hamilton will be keeping this particular work for his own private archive. (Apparently he hardly ever sells his key paintings and works. Classy.)
That gorgeous, huge Yves Saint Laurent boxset from Christies currently takes up most of my bedroom floor, and on first clapping eyes on "Deconstructed Toaster" I found myself immediately imagining Yves sprawled out beneath this artwork on an effortlessly chic ottoman. I think this new Hamilton work is stylish beyond belief. The fact that it is also the vision of an 87-year-old makes it all the more special. How the hell do you stay that considered/clever/cool right into your last decades? The Queen should write him a letter now rather than wait until he’s 100.
[interlude.. bit of Wikipedia and a chat to the Pop HQ...]
Richard Hamilton is not CBE, MBE, OBE or some super Sir because he’s fiercely anti-establishment and turns that sort of thing down. The Queen might as well not bother writing to him, although he does collect interesting postcards. Game over. Richard Hamilton: the first word and the latest word in effortless POP chic.
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- Published:
- 26.05.09 / 1am
- Category:
- ART, POP OF THE DAY
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