The Sound of Belgium

I wrote about the excellent new documentary The Sound of Belgium for The Guardian Guide. You can read it here.

Curating Nathan James' PUNCHLINES

I helped to stage the recent PUNCHLINES exhibition by the painter Nathan James at East London's KK Outlet.

More photos from the exhibition's opening night, here.

Artphaire

I'm now one of the main writers for Artphaire, the excellent contemporary art site produced by the Park Hyatt hotel group. Loads of brilliant articles on the modern art world, here.

House Magazine 26

September's issue of HOUSE magazine for the Soho House group: read worldwide, edited by me, printed in Bow.

Politics for AskMen

I now write the weekly politics column for the excellent, newly-redesigned AskMen website. The column goes live every Friday, analysing the main news story of the week. Recent popular ones have been on The EDL, this one on Neil and Christine Hamilton, this one on Piers Morgan and this one on the Phillpott family and Britain's underclass.

Guardian Guide: Singles Reviews

I reviewed the singles for the Guardian Guide, including the latest from Walls, A.M.E., All Dom Wrong and the XX. You can read the reviews here and listen to the Walls track on the Souncloud link here.

House Magazine #25

Summer's issue of House Magazine: The Words Issue. Edited by me, cover by Candida Höfer.

Curating Nathan James' CREEPSHOW

I staged the acclaimed London exhibition, CREEPSHOW, by Canadian painter Nathan James at The Cob Gallery. The work was recommended by Monocle, Port, Phaidon, Monolith, The Huffington Post and Time Out There's a free book of the work available to download for iPad at the iTunes store. For sales inquiries on any of the paintings, contact info@justinquirk.com.

VICTOR by Hasselblad, Book 2

Volume two of Hasselblad's photographic biannual, VICTOR is out now. I worked as editorial director on it. You can see more at the Hasselblad site, here.

House Magazine, issue 24

The spring issue of House Magazine for Soho House, Design and Interiors special, edited by me. Cover shot by Tom Mannion at the Hayward Gallery's LIGHT SHOW exhibition.

Writing people's websites

Teo Connor Studio is a brilliant graphic design studio based in East London. I worked with them to write the text for their new website. You can see it here.

Ewen Spencer's books

I helped to edit the text in Ewen Spencer's two brilliant photographic books, OPEN MIC and THREE'S A CROWD. The former covers his work documenting London's grime scene, the second is a record of his long-term working relationship with The White Stripes. You can buy them both at his site.

House Magazine # 23

The winter issue of HOUSE magazine is out now; the Science, Technology and Future issue. And there's a beautiful video of it being made, here.

VICTOR by Hasselblad

I edited VICTOR, the new photographic biannual from Hasselblad.

House Magazine # 22

Autumn's issue of House Magazine, the Photographic issue. Edited by me.

Kenny Everett - All In The Best Possible Taste

Tonight sees Kenny Everett receive the BBC4 biopic treatment, following the likes of Kenneth Williams and Sir Clive Sinclair in being dramatically immortalised. In some ways it’s surprising that it’s taken this long for Everett’s life to be dramatised as it lends itself so well to a narrative: feeble, artistic child, chafing against his working class upbringing, turned furious, boundary-pushing talent; arriving just in time to crest the wave of popular culture’s takeover and constantly rubbing shoulders with legendary cultural figures, but repeatedly prone to bouts of self sabotage. Having wrestled with his sexuality to the point of entering into a straight marriage, before eventually coming out and finding some kind of happiness, Everett was then swept away in the AIDS epidemic less than four years after his friend Freddie Mercury (who appears in the film as a sort of liberated Virgil to Ken’s more buttoned-up Dante).

As with all films of this nature now, the story is preceded by a warning that certain liberties may have been taken with the truth. But really, Everett’s story requires little colouring up. While the film has certain flaws – lead Oliver Lansley doesn’t quite nail Everett’s voice (a problem when he was such a unique aural presence) – it does a good job of capturing what was so exciting about him as a performer. Endlessly inventive both creatively and technologically, apparently hard wired to irritate anyone in a position of authority and genuinely anarchic, Everett doesn’t just seem weird with hindsight, but always seemed strangely out of step with the times. Apparently distrustful of the communal piety of the sixties pirate radio scene, he found more of a berth in the seventies, essentially playing a corrupted version of the DJs from his fifties youth. With his enunciation and mildly creepy ‘Hello boys and girls’ delivery Everett was like a pervy, pill-fuelled take on a Home Service announcer (David Bowie, who appeared on Everett's show in this memorable clip, was doing something similar with Ziggy Stardust, recreating a supercharged version of a fifties archetype having failed to get along with the hippies).

A commercial success and popular with a huge demographic at the time, Everett has been somewhat forgotten since. Partly it was that his febrile nature meant he never found a long-term role on any of the BBC’s flagship shows. A lot of his material hasn’t aged brilliantly in isolation – particularly in his later TV work, the joke started to take second place to the technological innovation. But he pioneered much of what now passes for standard fare in broadcasting – the fourth-wall breaking and knowing deconstruction of the premise, the involvement of viewers and crew, the cross pollination between TV and pop music, and the figure of an uncontrollable but hugely popular, desk-driving egomaniac which Radio One still struggles with to this day. Cuddly Ken was a genuine one-off who pursued his craft and his vision at no little personal and professional cost to himself, and a performer who instinctively understood that an artist’s job wasn’t to be a pet of the establishment. We could do with a little more of that spirit nowadays.

Soho House Berlin Apartments book

I wrote and edited the new promotional book for Soho House Berlin's new Apartments. The book was designed, produced and art directed by London's MATERIAL ORGANISATION.

Hardy Amies and The Queen for Sunday Times Magazine

My features debut for The Sunday Times magazine was a long feature about how one of the Queen's couture Hardy Amies dress turned up on Ebay, and the rise, fall and rise again of the Great British fashion house. Behind the Times paywall, so subscribe here.

VICTOR for Hasselblad

I've been working as editorial director on VICTOR, the newly relaunched photographic biannual book for Hasselblad. It's currently on the press, in all its multi-lingual glory.Design by Mark Jubber at South Union.

House Magazine #21

The latest issue of House Magazine came out in late June. It was a sports special, and you can read it here.