The Other Art Fair: what caught my attention

Only the most cultured and artiest of people could be spotted at Marylebone Road's Ambika P3 on Sunday. Then there was my family. 

I was given a handful of tickets to the third bi-annual Other Art Fair so I forced my reluctant siblings to join me: 'I'm going and y'all are coming with me!' We passed a heap of disused broken toilets and I wondered what on earth we were heading to. This could easily have been one of those moments my sisters found new teasing material. But when the organisers say it connects art lovers of all tastes and experience they certainly know what they're talking about. In fact, they're not making it up at all.

In May, the three day event attracted just over 7,000 visitors from gallerists and seasoned collectors to first time buyers, art fanatics and even art amateurs. Of the over 100 emerging and unrepresented artists who were on show this weekend, here's my 5 most interesting:

Orson Kartt
Clever, witty, multimedia.
The book title, story, text layout, image printed on top and message beneath a red barcode, all work to send a single message. Take time to carefully look at them. I think they could be for lit, film and art lovers alike and have huge commercial possibilities. Wouldn't they make great framed gifts this Christmas?

Rutie Borthwick
Nostalgic, emotive, people.
"My work is of people removed from their landscape. With no context to tell their stories, we are forced into a state of heightened empathy for the characters, building our own landscape around them and weaving our own stories into the space left for them on the canvas."

Rosie Emerson

Fashion, portraits, mixed media.
"I've always been interested in fashion. I started doing landscapes and one morning I just stripped it right back. It's about knowing when to stop and going back to basics."

Alberto Fusco

Paper sculpture, 3D, magazines.

Nadeem Chughtal

Cartoon, people, stories.

"The characters that you see in my work represent souls of the human species". 

Why you have to see V&A's Hollywood Costume exhibit

Hollywood Costume sponsored by Harry Winston, 2012, copyright V&A images

A month into the show, Dorothy's genuine red slippers have returned to the Smithsonian and the hype may be slipping back. But don't lose interest if you haven't seen it yet! This exhibition is incredible and the sold out advanced tickets until December and winding queues at the V&A's ticket desk is a testament to how great it is.

It's NOT just a clothes exhibition. 
I've never seen an exhibition on fashion quite like this; it's a full film experience. At the entrance, a huge cinema screen plays a montage showcasing the costumes you're about to see. Items are put in the context of its film using projected animated scripts, movie clips, interviews and installations. For example, Harrison Ford's iconic Indiana Jones costume is set against a video which deconstructs every detail, from how they trimmed his trilby hat and sat on it to the 1930s aviator-style jacket they created and aged with blades. For Oceans 11, an animated table explains the design process as if it's being brainstormed right in front of you. Matching image or video heads are suspended above most mannequins.

In September, I visited the Warner Brothers Studio Museum in Los Angeles, which is home to their most famous costumes, props and memorabilia such as The Dark Knight Rises, The Big Bang Theory and Harry Potter. It felt like the best thing I'd ever seen. But if that was a high, Hollywood Costume is like Felix Baumgartner's skydive. It's moving and gripping, carrying a true cinematic essence.

They've got the most iconic costumes you can imagine.
Marilyn Monroe's white dress (as The Girl in The Seven Year Itch, 1955), Holly Golightly's little black dress and pearls (Breakfast at Tiffany's, 1961), Dorothy's gingham pinafore (Wizard of Oz, 1939), Charlie Chaplin's suit and the Darth Vadar outfit. There's no exaggerations here. For the first time ever they're being showcased in one exhibition space.

There's something for everyone.
Some will be in love with Cecilia Tallis's (Keira Knightley) green dress in Atonement (2007), others will remember Scarlett O'Hara's (Vivien Leigh) green curtain dress in Gone With The Wind (1939). If not them, then perhaps Batman's (Christian Bale) suit in the Dark Knight Rises (2012) or Brad Pitt's patterned shirt and leather jacket in Fight Club (1999)? Across 130 costumes every film fan will be pleased.

You'll appreciate film all the more.
As the Guardian put it, "It's an exhibition about film not fashion". Every costume is complimented with an anecdote, explanation and context. For example: they went through 20 copies of Jason Bourne's purposely forgettable jacket because they were damaged in fight sequences; upon seeing Eliza Doolittle's ragged costume for the first time Audrey Hepburn "was so moved that she gulped," and the low-cut yellow dress Kate Hudson wore in How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days (2003) was created once the costume designer asked Harry Winston to create a necklace with that blazing yellow diamond.

It's once in a lifetime.
It took five years of sourcing, identifying and securing objects from across the world. There won't be something like this for a long while.

Tickets are £14 (concession available), runs until 27 January 2013. Visit vam.ac.uk.

Art does Gangnam style: 5 things you need to know

The art industry switches brushes for Gangnam style.

It was already huge. From Eton boys to Britney Spears, everyone's had a go at the loveably goofy dance routine. A quick update: it's YouTube ratings have now hit 780 million making it the second most viewed YouTube video ever and Psy, the South Korean pop artist, has become a global icon. But no one's adopted the horse-move quite like the art world. 

Two art giants have made their own parody. 

Art Review's 'most powerful artist in the world', Ai Weiwei, created a version with himself and his team last month, drawing attention to the injustices in his home-country, China, by swinging handcuffs. Last year he was placed in secret detention for 81 days, allegedly due to his online activism. 

The 55-year-old's video was pulled off the internet in China.

Now, the renowned sculptor Anish Kapoor (who also designed the Orbit tower in the Olympic Park), has posted his own video to continue Ai Weiwei's message of freedom and endorse Amnesty International. 

Major museums are behind them. 

The video features appearances from staff at the MoMA, Guggenheim, Smithsonian, Serpentine Gallery, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art and New Museum. And briefly the Channel 4 news team. 

They're for a good cause.

Holding a sign reading "Stand together for human rights," Kapoor has used the fun fad as a symbol for freedom of expression and human rights. 

They're fun too.  

Watching art crews do the cheesy dance is a classic. 

The moment Katniss Everdeen shot that arrow whip-fast through an apple in a pigs mouth to get the Hunger Gamesmakers' attention, I kind of fell in love with Jennifer Lawrence. I've still yet to see her Oscar-nominated debut Winter's Bone, which is probably a bit embarrassing, but under the film's trailer on YouTube, 101 people have 'liked' in unison: 'I came here because of Katniss, I stayed because of Jennifer'.

She's the answer to everyone who is bugged by Kristen Stewart. She's strong but pretty, her look is bohemian-cum-californian but she's so fresh I can only categorise her as the cool. And she can nail a character like that shot to an apple. So accurate and clean there's no way in hell you'll forget this girl. (Don't forget she played the fiery Mystique in X-Men First Class). So when Silver Linings Playbook (SLP) came out in previews I had to see what character she was up to next.

SLP was first on the list in Entertainment Weekly's Oscar's buzz round-up in September. "Were any of you in the audience at Toronto International Film Festival premier of Silver Linings Playbook starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence?" Dave Kruger, began writing. "Well, the movie's writer-director, David O. Russell, would like you to see the film again – you were laughing too loudly."

Russell recalls thinking, "Bob De Niro had some big lines that weren't heard. In another moment they cheered and they missed the next five lines". That's because the dialogue churns out sharp one-liners and underlaid wit consistently. SLP is a rip-roaringly funny film that is also incredibly moving.

"This is what I believe to be true. You have to do everything you can and if you stay positive you have a shot at a silver lining."

Synopsis:
Set in a residential neighbourhood, Pat Solitano (Cooper) has just been discharged after 8 months in a mental institution and moves back with his parents. He's determined to reunite with his wife and in turn live a positive, happy life. Problem is, a restraining order is keeping him from speaking to her. Meanwhile his parents hilariously represent the dysfunctional or typical – depending on how you look at family – part. His father, Pat senior (Robert De Niro), is an American football bookie so obsessed with the Philadelphia Eagles that he's banned from attending games because of past brawls. His mother, Dolores (Jackie Weaver), is the tip-toeing wife who nods at her empathic husband and keeps the beers coming. Pat jogs and reads to find contentment, until he meets Tiffany (Lawrence), a strange sister of a best friend's wife, who's experiencing an unstable sense of loss herself – her husband died in an accident.

Though her hair is darker, her nails are painted black, her clothes are black and she dons a black beaded crucifix pendant, Lawrence is as bright and gripping as ever. Likewise, Cooper successfully shreds off the image of The Hangover and you can put your full faith in Pat. The pair work towards a dance competition and as unrealistic as this sounds, it actually fits in such a lovely way, you'll be rooting for them all the more.

If you've seen the SLP poster ignore The Sunday Times's label as "The best romantic comedy of the year", because calling it a rom-com is too basic and sluggish. You wouldn't brand The Artist as a rom-com would you? The genre name's been thrown around quite often with this movie but I can't settle on it. As Rolling Stone Magazine puts it, "Pain is the subtext of nearly every interaction in this film". Everyone can be a little insane at times, including Pat's dad's irrational sports superstitions and his best friend's fear towards his own wife.

It gets that life is complicated. So when two people find salvation in each other it's emotional, warming and yes still hilarious. What I will agree with is Silver Linings Playbook is up there with the best of 2012. It'll be so toxic – to the relief of director Russell – you too will need to watch it again.

P.S. I liked it so much, I changed Still & Moving to Still & Moving Playbook.

An evening with Cameron Diaz, Colin Firth and Alan Rickman

Alan Rickman (who once studied at art school) wouldn't want to own art. He loves Michelangelo's Madonna and Child but he'd rather it stay open for everyone to enjoy. Well, his latest character isn't as humble – he's after a Monet painting.

It's not often that something big brings art and film together, and when it does, naturally, I'm excited. (Imagine Silicon Valley's coding guys when The Social Network came out.) I attended Apple's latest 'Meet the Filmmaker' event at the Regent Street store, not only because you can't skip a chance to meet Alan Rickman, Colin Firth AND Cameron Diaz, but because I had some tiny hope that this film might star a Monet painting alongside a stellar cast. However more often than not these films aren't about paintings at all. This is one of those false alarms.

Gambit (out on 21 November 2012) is a rehash of a 1966 art heist comedy also named Gambit. Power brothers Joel and Ethan Coen rewrote the screenplay, adjusting the plot so that it's no longer a carefully planned and funnily failing art robbery, but an art dealer's (Firth) revenge on an abusive billionaire boss (Rickman). Colin Firth steps in for Michael Cain, Cameron Diaz is Shirley MacLaine, and Alan Rickman stands in for Herbert Lom's part – the boss who is being tricked into buying a fake 'Wheatstacks (End of Summer)'. Here the Coen brothers flick off their serious, gritty drama switch (No Country For Old Men, Burn After Reading, True Grit) and return to farcical crime comedy.

As Cameron Diaz put it: "We're not reinventing comedy here, we're doing something that's really familiar. It's the comfort food of comedy".

And this was how the evening carried out. The lineup was in exactly this spirit, joking away when answering seriously intended questions (poor us). When someone asked if any pranks took place on set, Diaz cheekily recounted a time when Colin Firth turned up without any trousers and Alan Rickman followed him showing up naked. Did that really happen? Nope. Firth comedically insisted that 'the focus should always be on himself' and Diaz showed actor Tim Courtenay her puppy dog eyes. Don't get me wrong, there is something thrilling about laughing at a celebrity's joke in person, but you can't meet three of the world's biggest actors and go away with fluff! Here's what left me leaving with the biggest smile...

Cameron Diaz watching herself in character.
When clips from the film were played on VT screens, she watched herself so intently and discretely mouthed her script as if none of us were there watching her back. You could see her brain clogs churning away: Did I give it enough southern-twang? Am I convincing? Do I look okay? When she realised her face was flexing, she snapped right out of it and diverted her gaze in the opposite direction. To all of us she did just fine, but I bet she's one critical lady. I'd love to interview her one day.

Alan Rickman's method to picking a script. 
"Well, it's a simple process really. Somebody sends you a script and you read it and you check your availability. They've checked your availability as well and then you find out who's in it. What's the personnel going to be and who are you going to be spending the next ... because it's a big lump of your life. This is the weird thing about a movie: it's two hours to you and it's maybe 6, 8, 10 or 12 weeks to us. You want to be sure that that's going to be a fruitful period of your life because that's what it amounts to. But ultimately it's what you read on the page that makes you say yes or no. And I don't know why I do that. It's a weird instinctive thing. What did I last do? What do I want to do next? This word jumping off the page. Do I want to say it rather than read it?"

Asking someone what their favourite film is...
Cameron: "Like asking someone who their favourite child is"
Michael Hoffman (director): "I could probably tell you more easily which one wasn't my favourite"
Colin Firth: "Your children?" [everyone laughs]
Michael Hoffman: "I guess what the truth for me is when you're in the middle of them, they're just completely engaging and after they're done, I almost never ever look at them again. It's just over and I'm happy about it and really excited I took part in it but I have a tendency to look forward not back."