Skid marks

Yes, it is still spring and us mortals still have to survive the miserable weather of this year.

Yes indeed; I started this blog writing (well, moaning) about transport by I have become a weather freak. All I do right no is check the forecast daily just to make sure that is it terrible confusing, inaccurate and totally useless.

But still, us London inhabitants, have to keep ourselves moving and finding philosophical reasons for life in this big and dark spider web that is Londinium. I chose to collect photos from all the London Underground Network and any free event happening in the city for free.

Yesterday I chose East London again, so right before 7 pm I took Jubilee Line towards the East and connected with our beloved Overground. Shoreditch High Street again, yes, where my not-so-hated-anymore pop up mall is, but this time to Sclater St.

Tony's Gallery, known by me for previously hosting a yarn-bomb exhibition and some Malarky's, this time was exhibiting Velodrawing. I am not a particular fan of cycling or of abstract art, but when I read about the (free) exhibition of a chap painting white canvases skidding with his bike, I decided to leave my guitar practicing for a day and pop around with my friend R to see what was going on around. The catch was actually that the artist promised to make a live exhibition at 7:30 pm on the nearby parking space to get a better vision of his art.

Without trying to turn myself into an unbearable art geek, it must be said that the pieces were good although too consistant. The place was quite small but enough for the, not even, a dozen pieces exhibited betweem both floors. Valued in around £2000/£3000 each, I must admit that HIS was a very good idea: white canvases, double sided tape to stick it to the floor, a bike, and some sort of skill to be able to skid and not fall and break your teeth. Total cost: the price of a tyre maybe for every three pieces and private medical insurance for possible broken bones. Good stuff.

After trying to become social with the people inside the gallery, refusing the £1 beer and trying to forget about the pouring rain that was about to spoil the live show, we walked around the area until show time.

It is funny how dodgy can look Brick Lane without the hipsters and the market going on.

We popped around the good RichMix to grab some arty free magazines and leaflets to get a grasp of what's going on at the moment and hopefully find the next entertaining bits for the following weeks. Just in time, we headed back to the parking lot, fortunately dry by that time, and conviniently just in the same spot as the Night Street Food Festival (Street Feast, that has been taking place the last couple of months, that now, by the way, has moved to Camden.

Just like in a procession, visitors followed religiously the artist, carrying himself his pristine white canvas, just like a Spanish Easter Procession where the pilgrims carry the Image. Ok, leaving the exaggerated comparisons aside, we all headed to said parking lot and positioned ourselves around the inmaculate canvas and waited for the show to start.

There he was, Christian Grillitsch, Austrian nice chap based in Berlin, with his perfectly normal city bike ready for the action. iPhone's, cameras and iPads popped out of bags and backpacks to capture the performance of the artist.

Skid by skid, very relaxed, although with a couple of stumbles (we heard some comments from somebody about the possibility of how good some blood from a potential fall would look on the piece  -????-), the white canvas turned striped and end up as his signature piece that looks like a monochrome branched bush.

It was good.

However, probably the best bit is when half a dozen of little kids showed up in their own little bikes and contemplated, like us, the artist's piece. It was totally indescribably their faces when somebody explained to them how you could do some 'paintings' just by skidding with their bikes. Their minds where blown up. I am pretty sure they went straight home to tell their mates (and annoy their mums).

But yes, on and all, it was quite an interesting Wednesday evening, adding the fact that there is WiFi connection on Oxford Circus (!!!)

Such a shame that I am always rushing there.

But that's another story.