The Cock Tavern Paintings - Part I

The Cock Tavern Paintings - Part I

Ben Westley Clarke / Ladette Space

A5, 24 photocopied pages on green paper. Hand stitched binding. Edition of 50.

£3.00

Another zine produced by the prolific Ladette Space - continuing their gallery in the home experiment. This was published to coincide with an exhibition of Ben Westley Clarke's observational paintings made in the Cock Tavern in Somerstown (You can see a few of those paintings here). The pub is a stone's throw from the haunting weight of the artistic and literary history stored in the British Library. You can feel that creative struggle, familiar to most writers and artists, in The Cock Tavern Paintings.

Faithful to his choice of location Clarke focusses his attention on the regulars: the perpetual loners; the elderly who have passed their years in the same seat night after night; the ever friendly, ever vigilant landlady. He captures well the threat of violence, and the slip (sip) into alcohol dependence.

All in all it is an interesting little zine - buy a copy, shove it in your pocket, and read it down your local over a pint. Then share it with someone sat on their own. That's what zines are for of course. 

Buy a copy here: ladettespace.bigcartel.com/product/ben-westley-clarke-the-cock-tavern-paintings-part-i

Review by Nathan Penlington

Infinite beatitude of existence!

Infinite beatitude of existence!

Rebecca Jagoe / Ladette Space

A5, 16 colour photocopied pages with an a3 b&W photocopied text piece. Presented in a transparent polybag. Edition of 50

£2.50

This zine is produced by Ladette Space, who kindly send me a package of publications a couple of months ago, they are making some very intriguing work (See previous reviews of Crow Town, The Belfie Annual, and Gorge). Their mission statement, or manifesto of sorts, is this:

Ladette Space is an experiment in making a gallery in your home and a home in your gallery
Ladette Space is a solution to a problem
Ladette Space is an invitation to our party
Ladette Space is open to suggestion

The Ladette Space experiment has me hooked. I'm interesting in the intersections of the personal and the public, where 'real life' ends and the 'maker/artist/performer/writer' begins - that intersection forms a huge part of my own work. And it is that which really interests me about zine makers - what you show and tell, and what you hide and reveal. Making your living space into a gallery is a brave move. 

The Infinite beatitude of existence! was produced to accompany Rebecca Jagoe's solo exhibition in June 2014. Sadly I missed the exhibition, but thankfully we have this - the zine. As with some other work I've reviewed I don't want to reveal too much. The joy is in discovery. I am willing to say it is a mediation on flies, thought, existence, Buffy the vampire slayer, Edwin A Abbott's Flatland, and the consequences of having a Tinder account.

You can buy a copy here: http://ladettespace.bigcartel.com/product/rebecca-jagoe-infinite-beatitude-of-existence-publication

Review by Nathan Penlington

Crow Town

Crow Town - Drew Forrest Hoad

A5, 28 photocopied pages on 80gsm acid free Fabriano paper. Hand sewn binding.

Edition of 50. Published by Ladette Space, edited by Daniella Valz Gen.

£3.00

It bodes well when the first page of anything quotes Charles Fort, obessive collector of the obscure, the unusual and the unexplained, free-wheeling absurdist writer with a healthy resistance to dogma in any form.

Drew picks up this mantle with Crow Town - a psychogeographical exploration of psychic, mystical, mythic, proto-historic connections and deviances - combined with personal and literary coincidences - to create a map of an unseen, unsuspected, occultic magick London. Drawing heavily on the work by luminaries of alternative history such as Iain Sinclair, and the maverick work of Stan Gooch Crow Town leaps through definitions and meanings of place names - a fictional and actual etymological analysis of name and space. 

It is an interesting if at times dense read, it feels like to get the most from it you need to disconnect the rational and embrace the supra-natural aspects of the brain. 

Buy Crow Town here: ladettespace.bigcartel.com/product/drew-forrest-hoad-crow-town

Review by Nathan Penlington

Gorge

Gorge – Elena Colman

Produced by Ladette Space

A5, 16 photocopied pages on black paper with separate page of text printed on A4 tracing paper. Sewn binding. 

Limited edition of 30. 

£3

This is a really hard zine to review, not because I don't have anything to say, but because I don’t want to give anything away. There is always a huge joy in exploring, of not knowing, and in surprise. I just want you to get your hands on a copy, and when you first start to turn the pages examine that feeling. 

Understandably your response will be different to mine, but for it me, this zine contains the essence of early of JG Ballard, condensed to a haiku-like artist’s book. 

Gorge was produced by Ladette Space - 'an experiment in making a gallery in your home and a home in your gallery'. It is a project enthusised by a diy aesthetic, that carries through to handmade publications and zines. Ladette Space were kind enough to send me a huge package of zines, reviews of which will follow over the next couple of weeks. 

I'm dissapointed though to have not known about the exhibition that accopanied this zine. According to Elena's website it consited of: 

gin and tonic fountain, artificial cave, black light, crepe paper, ferns, sequined fabric, humidifyers, pink light bulbs, looped video. 

I know, right? Sounds amazing.      

Buy Gorge here: ladettespace.bigcartel.com/product/elena-colman-gorge

Information about Elena's work can be found here: thecolmansingularity.com

Review by Nathan Penlington