As the year draws to a close, here are some notes on things that struck me this year, it is not comprehensive, there were many more, but they offer a flavour of the year.
Some highlights 2023: publishing with Zolo Press and the subsequent book launch at La Maison de Rendez-vous, Brussels; Loren Connors and Alan Licht at London’s Café Oto, Mike Nelson, the Hayward Gallery, Steve McQueen at the Serpentine and Souls Grown Deep at the Royal Academy, London, in a memorable two days of looking and listening with an old friend; Richard Gorman at the Hugh Lane, Dublin; seeing the Japanese band Boris playing the Button Factory, Dublin with another old friend visiting from NYC; Berlin’s lakes; bardskull by Martin Shaw; Taskmaster; Martin Wong, KW, Berlin; the Dead C’s extraordinary 3-day residency at Café Oto, London; Moki Cherry, ICA, London; reading Ursula K. Le Guin; Evan Parker’s beautiful solo concert at St. Marien Wallfahrtskirche in Weidingen; visiting Newgrange in the sun and Glendalough in torrential rain; American Magus Harry Smith: A Modern Alchemist, edited by Paola Igliori; seeing many old friends turn out for the opening of Fronts/Backs at Complex, Dublin; Genesis P-Orridge’s Nonbinary: A Memoir; eating pizza in the open air in Weidingen; swimming at Dollymount Strand; a boozy lunch with my wife at Dublin’s Dolce Sicily; visiting Stoney Road Press; Isa Genzken at Die Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin; Backlisted podcast; Brian Maguire at Kerlin Gallery, Dublin; Richard Thompson’s memoir Beeswing: Finding my own voice; watching old films - including Harvey and Close Encounters; John Szwed’s Cosmic Scholar: The Life and Times of Harry Smith; Miroslav Tichý’s drawings at Kewenig, Berlin; St. George’s Bookshop in Prenzlauer Berg; multiple visits to the Humboldt Forum; Alan Moore’s From Hell; Algernon Blackwood’s weird ghost stories; ice cream from Rosa Canina, Berlin; Merlin James at Kunstsaele, Berlin; eating at Smartdeli, also, unsurprisingly in Berlin; Sway of the Verses’ insightful radio shows focused on Raga and Tala based music on both NTS and Balamii; visiting the David Parr House; Blank Forms beautiful monograph on Curtis Cuffie; drinking Guinness in Toner’s snug, Dublin; Nivhek at Silent Green, Berlin; A. S. Byatt’s On the Conjugal Angel; Peter Halley, Mudam, Luxembourg; Lin May Saeed’s poignant posthumous exhibition The Snow Falls Slowly in Paradise at Berlin’s Georg Kolbe Museum; the Thurston Moore Band at Festsaal Kreuzberg, Berlin; Hervé Guibert’s beautiful photographs at KW, Berlin; seeing Cecilia Bullo’s show open at the RHA, Dublin after many conversations in the lead up; listening to the music of Meredith Monk throughout the year; watching John Rogers’ films on YouTube, discovering W. Somerset Maugham’s The Moon and Sixpence; to my surprise, listening to Donovan’s I am the Shaman and watching my son devour manga. Lowlights: the destruction of much of the artist David Farrell’s archive in Italy, being ghosted by people in positions of power, hypocrisy, war and hatred.