Come Home Again Tate Modern
(Picture: Come Home Again Tate Modern )THE TRAWL FOR NAUGHTY NOVELS
Being cancelled, in 2022, of course means the end. But for a long time getting your book banned was a sure-fire way of gaining notoriety: call it the forbidden fruit effect. It’s these tomes that are the focus of this year’s Firsts: London’s Rare Book Fair at Saatchi Gallery, so get down there and snare yourself an edition of something that will look cool in your Zoom meeting but wouldn’t even shock your grannie these days.
Until 18 Sep. Duke of York’s Square, King’s Road, SW3 (firstslondon.com)
THE CAVE EXPLORATION
Keen to understand what’s really going on in the depths of gloomy loverman Nick Cave’s mind? His new book, Faith, Hope and Carnage, written in collaboration with journalist Sean O’Hagan, is your chance to find out. Based on more than 40 hours of conversations between the pair on Cave’s evolving relationship with love, grief, music, art and more through his life, it’s the closest we’re going to get to being coddled in his arms.
£20 (Canongate)
THE SCULPTURE YOU CAN SIT IN
From Stormzy’s Brit Awards set in 2018 to the Olympics 2012 Closing Ceremony, few artists have lit up London quite as much or in as many ways as Es Devlin. Now she’s teamed up with Cartier and the London Wildlife Trust to produce Come Home Again, an installation that will grace the Tate Modern garden inspired by the 243 species on London’s priority conservation list. You can sit in its tiered, illuminated greatness, too.
Free. Bankside. 21 September - 1st October
THE HYPER-ECLECTIC DEBUT
Stop everything you’re doing: London’s ultimate musician/model/cool girl Rina Sawayama has released her second album, Hold the Girl. She’s billing it as a mix of (deep breath) ‘country pop, rock pop, industrial, garage, UK dance, 2005 indie rock, country ballad, grunge, trance pop [and] drum ’n’ bass(ish)’. We’re billing it as… excellent.
Out now on all major streaming services
THE GYM YOU NEED TO VISIT NOW
Serendipitously timed for the end of LFW, Berlin-born super-gym John Reed is celebrating a year in London by opening its doors to all. For one day only you can do classes, try food pop-ups, hear Peckham’s Mark-Ashley Dupe on the decks and sweat out the past few days in the sauna. Free. 29 Sep (johnreed.fitness/uk/club-london )
THE BALANCE READRESSING BOWIE DOC
Ah, Bowie: soundtracking B&Q adverts and providing names for Adobe tools in recent times, I see.
Well, yes. Since his estate flogged off the rights to his music, he has been popping up quite a lot. But worry not: Moonage Daydream is here to remind us that David Bowie was first and foremost A Serious Artist.
How so?
Well, it’s very… serious. And arty. There’s lots of footage of him doing avant-garde painting, him playing the Elephant Man on Broadway, him making weird noises in Berlin. And not so much of him being a massive Eighties pop star.
Right. So it’s a Bowie documentary for people who think the second side of Low is humanity’s greatest achievement.
Oooh, get you with the obscure references, Dr Rock! But yeah. Exactly. It’s non-linear, too, and the only person who talks in it is Bowie himself. Often in a, shall we say, non-linear way.
Hmmm.
Oh, it’s still a must-see in the cinema. The restored footage of him — having his nails blow-dried, the ‘Life On Mars?’ video — is just breathtaking.
Do I need to dress up?
Sure. Put on your red shoes and dance the blues.
THE FANTASTICAL PHOTOBOOK
Shocking sexuality and a touch of gentle fantasy is the premise of fashion photographer Harley Weir’s new book with culture mag Beauty Papers. Raunchy (in a weird way), Weir puts herself in front of the lens and uses fleshy latex suits, heavy make-up and suspension bondage to dig into the artificiality of women. It comes after her photograph of a woman with suspect liquid dripping down her face went viral, to which one quick wit commented: ‘Is her name Eileen?’ ‘Harley Weir X Beauty Papers’,
£50, at ideanow.online
