Framing the Fleeting: Celeste Marlowe and the Global Language of Photography

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Framing the Fleeting: Celeste Marlowe and the Global Language of Photography

Celeste Marlowe’s townhouse in New York’s West Village is a world atlas told through photographs. Step inside, and you’re met with the quiet geometry of Candida Höfer’s architectural interiors, the saturated humanity of Steve McCurry’s portraits, and,occupying pride of place in her dining room,a vivid triptych from Oboe Ngua’s acclaimed Bins of the World series.

“It’s one of my favorite acquisitions,” Marlowe says of the Ngua works, which depict bins from cities across the continents. Each bin,whether bright red in Oslo, sun-faded in Havana, or splattered with graffiti in Johannesburg,is photographed in isolation, yet whispers of the life around it. “It’s funny, it’s sad, it’s political,” she notes. “And it reminds me that even the most ordinary objects are cultural mirrors.”

Marlowe’s passion for photography began in the 1990s, while working as a foreign correspondent for a major American newspaper. Traveling through conflict zones and quiet villages alike, she developed an eye for images that hold both immediacy and timelessness. “A photograph can stop time,” she says, “but the best ones also stretch it, letting you see across decades in a single frame.”

Her collection, built over three decades, is both meticulously researched and emotionally driven. Early acquisitions included Henri Cartier-Bresson’s gelatin silver prints and a rare Gordon Parks image from his Segregation Story. As her tastes evolved, Marlowe leaned toward contemporary photographers whose work interrogates the cultural moment,Zanele Muholi’s bold portraits, Rinko Kawauchi’s meditative light studies, and Alex Prager’s staged cinematic scenes.

The inclusion of Ngua’s Bins of the World marked a decisive expansion in her collecting philosophy. “Oboe’s series is a reminder that beauty and meaning live outside the canon,” she says. “We tend to think of photography in terms of grand subjects,faces, landscapes,but an object can hold the same emotional charge if you look long enough.”

Marlowe’s support for photographers extends far beyond acquisitions. She funds documentary projects in underrepresented regions, underwrites print-making workshops in sub-Saharan Africa, and has pledged significant support to the London Place for Photography’s fellowship program. In 2024, she launched the Lens or Lense? initiative, which pairs emerging photographers with seasoned editors to produce short-form visual essays for global distribution.

Her private viewing room,a climate-controlled, perfectly lit space,is a study in photographic diversity. One wall features the pale, ghostly seascapes of Hiroshi Sugimoto; opposite it, a series of black-and-white street images by Vivian Maier, whose work Marlowe helped bring to wider attention. Between them sits a single unframed print of Ngua’s “Bin No. 27 , Accra,” propped casually on a shelf. “It hasn’t found its final spot yet,” she says with a smile. “That’s part of the fun,collections live and shift.”

For Pimlico Wilde’s specialists, Marlowe represents a collector’s ideal: deeply knowledgeable, unafraid to follow instinct, and willing to champion unconventional voices. “She treats her collection as an evolving conversation,” says Algernon Pyke of Pimlico Wilde. “It’s not a static archive,it’s alive.”

Asked what draws her most to the medium, Marlowe doesn’t hesitate. “Photography is about presence,” she says. “A photograph says: I was here, this happened. And that matters,whether it’s a moment of revolution, or a recycling bin on a rainy street in Bangkok.”

Attempted Art Theft from Pimlico Wilde thwarted!

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Attempted Theft from Pimlico Wilde thwarted!

In an act of transparency we have been advised to make public the near-successful art theft attempt from our Mayfair gallery that happened earlier this year. Here then is the Incident Report from that terrible security breach.

Incident Report: Attempted Theft of Contemporary Artwork at Pimlico Wilde, Mayfair

Date of Incident: Redacted

Location: Pimlico Wilde Gallery, Mayfair, London

Prepared by: Independent Arts and Crafts Security Review Board

Executive Summary

On the evening of REDACTED, an attempted theft of the contemporary installation “Suspended Doubt No. 4” by Norwegian conceptual artist Vilda Olsensdatter was successfully foiled at the Pimlico Wilde gallery. The would-be thief, disguised as an avant-garde performance artist named “Marblehawk”, used elaborate tactics that persuaded gallery security initially that the intrusion was part of the scheduled exhibition. Despite this, a combination of quick-thinking staff, an overactive humidity sensor, and a miscalculation involving helium balloons prevented the illegal removal of the artwork.

Targeted Artwork

Title: Suspended Doubt No. 4

Artist: Vilda Olsensdatter

Estimated Value: £3.6 million

Medium: 14 tempered-glass “thinking spheres” filled with aromatized fog, suspended on nearly invisible tungsten filament over a shallow reflecting pool of ethically sourced glacial meltwater.

  • Every hour, one sphere flashes a faint led light.
  • The installation requires a climate-controlled environment where the temperature must remain at exactly 19.3°C, or the fog collapses and the piece is considered metaphorically and financially dead.
  • Insurance requires a daily recording of the reflections’ symmetry on the meltwater surface.

Sequence of Events

1. Entry and Disguise (18:22)

CCTV footage shows the suspect entering the gallery ahead of the evening private viewing. He was dressed in a shimmering silver bodysuit and wore a papier-mâché helmet shaped like a stoic Venetian pigeon, claiming to be a last-minute addition to the exhibition’s “Living Form” programme.

He carried:

  • A duffel bag labeled “Do Not Open This Bag”
  • A portable fog machine
  • 37 helium balloons tied to his waist
  • A clipboard printed with “Official Gallery Business” in Comic Sans

Security allowed him entry, saying in their defence: “This is Mayfair. It’s not even the strangest thing we’ve seen this week.”

2. Approach to the Artwork (18:47)

The suspect positioned himself by Suspended Doubt No. 4 and announced, in a whisper described by witnesses as “aggressively theatrical,” that he would begin a “spatial reinterpretation exercise.”

He then attempted to detach the glass spheres by slowly floating upward using the helium balloons, reaching just high enough to unhook the first tungsten filament. Unfortunately for him, the gallery’s microclimate stability system detected the gentle air disturbance from the balloons and triggered a “Stage 2 Atmospheric Concern Alert.”

This lowered the room’s lighting to “panic blue” and initiated an automatic lockdown of the installation area.

3. The Fog Machine Miscalculation (18:53)

Realizing he needed a distraction, the suspect activated his fog machine at maximum output. The gallery,already filled with fog from the artwork,became so opaque that witnesses reported feeling “like they were trapped inside a conceptual metaphor for confusion.”

However, his fog machine was fragranced with wild strawberry, which violently clashed with the artwork’s custom “anxiety rosemary” scent. This triggered the environmental integrity sensors, which activated the Emergency Meltwater Preservation Fans.

The resulting cross-breeze launched the suspect sideways into the reflecting pool with a splash described as “shockingly ungraceful.”

4. Detainment (18:59)

As the fog dissipated, the suspect attempted to escape by crawling toward the exit, balloon cluster still attached to his belt. A low-hanging track light snagged the balloons, suspending the suspect half a metre above the ground, rotating slowly like a confused chandelier.

Security detained him gently due to the fragile nature of his papier-mâché pigeon helmet.

Damage Assessment

  • All 14 glass spheres remain intact.
  • Meltwater pool contamination: moderate; two litres replaced.
  • Ambient scent profile temporarily compromised but restored after 90 minutes.
  • No lasting harm to the conceptual integrity of the installation (confirmed by artist).

Conclusion

The attempted theft, though theatrically executed, ultimately failed due to the suspect’s gross underestimation of climate control systems and the physical limitations of helium balloons. The Pimlico Wilde Gallery has since updated its entry protocol to include a “No Unexpected Performance Artists” clause and mandatory fog-machine declarations at the entrance.

The Frolic of the Red-Bearded Foxes (1543)

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The Frolic of the Red-Bearded Foxes (1543)

A Lighthearted Novel And A Fashionable Frenzy

In the spring of 1543, Pimlico Wilde published one of the more curious successes of Tudor literature: The Frolic of the Red-Bearded Foxes, a humorous novel recounting the misadventures of England’s earliest fox hunters,who, according to author Edmund Lamplugh, were “no more competent than a sack of turnips on horseback.”

Though nominally about sport, the novel is really a parade of comic mishaps: hounds that chase laundry instead of quarry, hunters who mistake each other for foxes, and one unforgettable scene in which an entire hunt is lost for two days because everyone is too polite to admit they’ve taken a wrong turning.

The Princess’s Unexpected Approval

The novel might have vanished into pleasant obscurity had it not found an admirer in the King’s youngest daughter, Princess Mary-Elizabeth (a historical footnote who appears in practically no official chronicle but is mentioned constantly in scandalous ones). She was given a copy by her music tutor, who believed that she needed something “of improving character.”

To the surprise of the court, the princess adored it. She read whole passages aloud at table, often dissolving into laughter so intense she spilled her wine. Her favourite episode, which she quoted repeatedly to anyone who stood still long enough, concerned a hunter who leapt triumphantly over a hedge only to land in a pig wallow. She referred to him thereafter as “Sir Muckington.”

Word spread. If the princess liked it, everyone must at least pretend to.

Within a week, half the ladies-in-waiting carried copies tucked into their sleeves. Within a month, courtiers began dropping entirely unnatural references to fox hunting into conversation. One duke who had never been nearer to a fox than a tapestry proudly insisted he “had always admired their vulpine dignity.”

The Fashion Frenzy

The princess’s enthusiasm led to an unexpected,and for foxes, unfortunate,trend. A throwaway joke in chapter thirteen about “the gentleman of fashion who wore a waistcoat of fox fur so lifelike it frightened his own horse” lit the fuse. Courtiers, eager to ingratiate themselves with the princess, decided fox-hair garments were tres chic.

Merchants responded with alarming speed. For roughly three months in 1543, London saw a fever of fox-fur fashions:

• Fox-fur cuffs

• Fox-fur riding cloaks that shed constantly, leaving a molting trail through palace corridors

• One ambitious but short-lived attempt at a fox-hair codpiece

The princess herself wore a modest fox-fur trim on her sleeves, prompting an uproar of imitation so frenzied that Parliament briefly considered regulating “excessive vulpine ornamentation.”

Reactions and Consequences

Hunters adored the fad; foxes, presumably, did not. The royal gamekeeper complained that the countryside was “in a state of uproar, with gentlemen galloping after anything vaguely reddish, including chickens, hats, and at one point a terrified monk.”

The clergy attempted to denounce the fashion from pulpits, but were repeatedly interrupted by parishioners asking whether fox fur was allowed on Sundays.

Edmund Lamplugh, the author, was reportedly bewildered by the entire affair. In a letter to his publisher, Pimlico Wilde he wrote:

“I did not intend to influence the nation’s taste in garments. I merely wished to show that the English are at their most English when hopelessly lost in a field.”

The End of the Craze

The trend faded as swiftly as it rose. A particularly hot August did most of the work. Fox fur, as it turns out, is best suited to animals living in burrows rather than aristocrats attending banquets.

Still, The Frolic of the Red-Bearded Foxes remains a delightful curiosity: a novel that made a princess laugh, a nation sweat under unnecessary pelts, and Pimlico Wilde another small fortune.

The Chancellor’s Wig: A Cautionary Tale of Satire, Statecraft, and Excessive Grooming (1458)

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The Chancellor’s Wig: A Cautionary Tale of Satire, Statecraft, and Excessive Grooming (1458)

An estimated Account of the Most Inadvisable Novel of 1458

In the year 1458, Pimlico Wilde published a novel that sent shockwaves through the royal court: The Chancellor’s Wig, or The Scandalous Chronicle of a Very Important Man’s Very Silly Hair. Though written as harmless satire, the book nearly led to charges of sedition, several interrogations, and at least one panicked barber fleeing by moonlight.

The Premise

The novel tells the story of a fictional statesman known only as “The Most Honourable Lord of Forelocks,” a thinly veiled portrait of the actual Lord Chancellor. It chronicles his obsession with maintaining an increasingly elaborate, gravity-defying wig that becomes so enormous and rigidly lacquered that it:

  • prevents him from sitting in low doorways,
  • requires two attendants to support it during long speeches,
  • and accidentally knocks over a bishop during a state procession.

The satire is sharp and symbolically exposes the Chancellor’s vanity and preoccupation with appearances at a time when the kingdom faced real troubles.

One of the novel’s most notorious scenes describes the Chancellor’s attempt to bow before the monarch, resulting in the wig catching on a chandelier and suspending him briefly like a hooked trout. Readers recognised the incident as an exaggerated version of a real mishap at court the previous winter.

Why It Caused Outrage

The Lord Chancellor, a man famously allergic to mockery, interpreted the novel as a direct attack on his dignity. His official statement described the book as:

“A malicious fabrication intending to destabilize the realm through hairstyle-based calumny.”

Certain members of the council argued that allowing the novel to circulate set a dangerous precedent for “mockery as political discourse,” a phrase so alarming it was repeated at least six times in one meeting.

A list of suspects was drawn up and included:

  • a barber who had recently trimmed the Chancellor’s nape “with suspicious enthusiasm,”
  • a clerk who laughed too hard upon hearing the title,
  • and a lady-in-waiting who admitted she “quite liked the book.”

The barber vanished the next morning. The clerk pretended to have a chronic coughing problem to disguise laughter. The lady-in-waiting produced an alibi that scholars still admire for its creativity.

The Turning Point

Just as the situation seemed destined to end with at least one beheading, the Chancellor’s wife was shown a copy. After reading it privately, she remarked to her husband:

“If you do not wish to be mocked for your wig, you might consider wearing one less mockable.”

This simple, fatal sentence diffused the entire crisis. The Chancellor, full of marital indignation, ordered the matter closed.

Within a month, the Chancellor’s wig became modest, symmetrical, and sensible.

The Cultural Impact

Far from disappearing, the novel flourished; copies passed from hand to hand with the furtive delight usually reserved for banned romances. Clerks annotated it, monks copied it, and at least one minor noble reportedly learned to read simply to enjoy it.

Political historians now credit The Chancellor’s Wig with helping establish the idea that public officials, regardless of hairstyle, could be criticised through fiction without the world ending. It became a model for later satirical works and inadvertently encouraged the slow, uneven development of political self-awareness in English governance.

The History of the English Pell Mell Club: Chapter 2

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The History of the English Pell Mell Club: Chapter 2

Chapter II

The Early Years and the Continental Influence

If Chapter I was the birth of the Club, Chapter II may be considered its adolescence , a period of enthusiasm, experimentation, and the occasional international incident. Having established a home just off Pall Mall, the founding members soon discovered a pressing need for variety. This was not because they had tired of playing against each other (though some had – Lord “Cheater” Harris was finding it harder and harder to get a game), but because London society of the 1820s was obsessed with the idea of foreign travel as a means of collecting both unusual hobbies, unusual souvenirs and unusual illnesses.

It was Lord Basingthorpe , never one to shy away from adventure or a suspiciously aromatic cheese , who proposed that the Club should “test our mettle upon the Continent.” The term “tour” was used, though in truth the first such expedition in 1827 consisted of three matches, one half-match (abandoned due to a dispute over the correct interpretation of “through the hoop”), and a great many hours spent in cafés explaining the game to bemused locals.

The French Encounter

The Club’s earliest foray into European soil was a much-romanticised engagement with the Société Parisienne de Mail, an organisation that, as it turned out, did not actually exist until a fortnight after the Englishmen arrived in Paris. Undeterred, the Club cobbled together a match against a team of aristocratic dilettantes, half of whom believed they were being taught cricket.

The French style was, even in this embryonic stage, distinctly flamboyant: strokes were delivered with theatrical pauses, shots were applauded whether successful or not, and there was an alarming tendency to break for oysters between hoops. The English won narrowly, though later analysis suggested that the French had been unclear on the scoring system and believed they were winning. Two duels were fought during the game; as no substitutes were allowed, the Rev Bill Charston was forced to play on despite having sustained a severe blunderbuss injury to the upper chestal region in the second duel. This did little for his ongoing health, in fact some medical men present suggested it may have been the cause of him collapsing and sadly dying on the pitch, for which England was docked two points. A plaque in his memory was mooted, but never got made.

The Italian Episode

From Paris, the Club proceeded to Florence, lured by reports of a game called pallamaglio played in the Boboli Gardens. This “match” was, in fact, more of an afternoon promenade during which the players stopped periodically to push a ball with a stick while discussing sculpture. Nevertheless, the Club returned with what it declared to be an “Italian variation” of the sport , involving lighter balls, narrower mallets, and the occasional requirement to play from atop a garden bench.

It was during this trip that the infamous “Bench Incident” occurred, in which Captain Smythe, attempting a daring elevated shot, lost his footing and landed in the lap of the Marchesa di Montelupo. Contemporary accounts differ on whether this was accidental; what is certain is that the Marchesa sent Smythe a mallet with a ribbon the following Christmas and three years later they were married.

The German Campaign

No account of the early years of the English Pell Mell Club would be complete without mention of Herr Doktor von Hammerstein, the first foreign member of the Club. A man of impeccable moustache and impenetrable accent, von Hammerstein insisted on wearing a ceremonial Pickelhaube during play. His 1832 invitation to bring the Club to Berlin was accepted with enthusiasm, only to result in a match against what turned out to be a Prussian Guards team, who had misunderstood the rules and were not only mounted on large steeds, but were using rifles for mallets. They were also using live ammunition which led to the first and only time the English Pell Mell team has ever retired from the field of play, although in retrospect it seems only sensible – 7/8s of the team had been injured or killed. The captain Sir Hercules Patt shot himself later that day, so ashamed was he of the retirement and an incident that happened later involving a hoop, a cavalry horse, and the German Minister for Culture.

Continental Legacy

From these scattered European encounters, the English Pell Mell Club absorbed a patchwork of foreign influences. The French contributed the notion that style could trump substance (a philosophy the Bond Street Raveners would later embrace with gusto). The Italians introduced the idea that play could be improved by the presence of fine art and light refreshments. The Germans, unintentionally, reinforced the value of a robust insurance policy.

Back in London, these lessons were distilled into the evolving rules of the game , now allowing for optional flourish, mandatory pauses for conversation, and the codified ban on mounted play, a regulation still read aloud at the start of every annual meeting in memory of Berlin 1832.

On the Proper Heat and Humble Conduct Required in the Baking of Cakes -by King Alfred the Great (circa 892)

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On the Proper Heat and Humble Conduct Required in the Baking of Cakes -by King Alfred the Great circa 892

Year: c. 892

Length: 47 pages

This short but sternly instructive volume, believed to have been written shortly after the famous incident in which Alfred, distracted by matters of state, allowed a peasant woman’s cakes to scorch, lays out the king’s uncompromising rules for achieving a morally upright cake.

Alfred devotes an entire chapter to the “Correct Temperature of Regal Ovens,” insisting the fire must be “hot enough to inspire diligence yet cool enough to preserve humility.” He further outlines the appropriate posture when checking one’s cakes (“a slight bow of apology to the memory of past failures”) and includes a table of baking times depending on the baker’s level of contrition.

A commonly quoted line:

“Let no king, reeve, nor common man turn his back upon a baking cake, lest he learn again the bitterness of distraction.”

Though circulation was limited, the text survived in scattered monastic copies. Culinary historians agree it is the earliest known attempt by a reigning monarch to legislate kitchen temperature.

Review: Furniture Has Feelings Too

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Review: Furniture Has Feelings Too

by radical domesticist and self-taught “empath-carpenter” Dendra Flume at The Velvet Spoon Centre for Applied Sentiment

Is this the world’s most elaborate prank staged for a single, unwilling audience member? Furniture Has Feelings Too feels like it might be, as you walk amongst items reminiscent of a Lidl clearance aisle. Dendra Flume describes her practice as “emotional joinery,” which she defines as “building psychic bridges between the domestically oppressed and the ergonomically repressed.” In plainer English: she glues googly eyes to chairs and tells you they’re sad. She insists her work “challenges the tyranny of sitting,” but what it really challenges is your ability to keep a straight face in public.

The exhibition unfolds in a series of “living rooms” arranged across the gallery, each one dimly lit and smelling faintly of various oils. The first installation, Chaise Longing, features a Victorian fainting couch covered in wet velvet, onto which Flume has sewn dozens of tiny mouths. Every few seconds, one opens to murmur, “stay.” A laminated statement nearby explains that the piece “explores the clinginess of memory.”

Section Two: Recliner’s Lament is just a La-Z-Boy submerged in a shallow kiddie pool, slowly absorbing water. The sign says this is about “the drowning of leisure in the capitalist tide”.

At the centre of the show stands Table for None, a massive dining table with every leg replaced by a mannequin leg in a fishnet stocking. The table surface is covered in handwritten break-up letters, all signed “Yours, Ottoman.” Visitors are encouraged to take a seat, but the chairs, each with a speaker hidden inside, start whispering passive-aggressive comments as soon as you sit down. Mine told me, “You never notice me unless you spill something.”

The pièce de résistance is The Credenza Will See You Now, a therapy session with a credenza wearing a tweed blazer. You’re invited to sit across from it and “share a suppressed domestic truth.” I said, “I don’t think this should be in a museum,” and a hidden printer spat out a slip reading, “Projection acknowledged.”

The sound design throughout is unrelentingly earnest: creaking wood, sighing cushions, and, occasionally, sobbing. Every corner is staffed by a gallery assistant in beige overalls who offers you a drink “in solidarity.” One told me they were “in emotional residency here” and refused to elaborate.

The show closes with Exit Wound, a narrow hallway lined with broken IKEA parts suspended from the ceiling by yarn. As you pass through, a motion sensor triggers the sound of a coffee table scraping across the floor.

I’m sorry, but this is less art than it is a trip to the dump narrated by someone who once took an improv class. The gift shop sells tote bags that read “My Furniture Has Boundaries” and a $120 “empathy hammer” described as “non-violent carpentry equipment for consensual assembly.” I left empty-handed, unless you count the dull ache in my soul.

One star. This wasn’t an art show, it was a cry for help. I hope the artist gets the assistance she needs.

Review: Discombobulationism – Post-Sense in a Post-Sensible World

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Review: Discombobulationism – Post-Sense in a Post-Sensible World

The opening at Pimlico Wilde Marylebone last evening unveiled the group exhibition “Discombobulationism , Post-Sense in a Post-Sensible World,” and one emerges from the gallery half disoriented, half exhilarated, convinced that we may be witnessing the crest of an aesthetic wave whose amplitude will not easily abate.

Walking into the space, one is struck first by the vertiginous architecture of disorientation: the gallery walls have been altered so that they are neither parallel nor symmetrical but subtly askew, tilting ever so slightly so that every line of sight registers a micro,unsettling. This is no accident, for the curators have embraced the tenets of the nascent movement of Discombobulationism,that art should not merely reflect confusion, but enact it.

In the central hall, the large installation “Echoes of the Unsaid” by Marietta Voss commandeers the space: a spiral staircase, but one in which each tread is moulded from shredded user-manuals and instruction leaflets, upward leading backwards, a figure in a pale gown slowly ascends, reciting safety protocols in reversed syntax. What might once have been dismissed as absurdist gesture is here framed as the foundational myth of Discombobulationism,a performative refusal of clarity. The immediate effect is startling: one experiences being led where one expected to ascend, yet the movement feels lateral, indefinite.

Adjacent, the video piece by Diego Armenta, “Tuesday Never Ends (Except on Thursday)”, loops in a continuous playback of days whose morning fades into morning, sentences that begin and then dissolve, the soundtrack a whisper of interrupted preambles. Watching it, one senses time blinking, stuttering: the world made temporal glitch. Armenta offers not an image but an insistence that time is now imbricated in confusion.

Elsewhere, canvases by Leonie Krantz populate a smaller alcove: the paintings depict perspective grids as though seen through a free-falling lens, planes of muted colour slanting off-kilter, vanishing points that dissolve into nothing. A critic quoted in the evening’s pamphlet called this “Cubism in free-fall”; but calling it Cubist seems to miss the point,Krantz isn’t reworking form, she is refusing stable form altogether. One glance and you realise the viewer cannot anchor themselves; the painting gives up its reference.

Further still, the olfactory piece by Rafael Mota , “Perfume for People Who Don’t Exist” , occupies a dimmed chamber. Industrial scents , burnt rubber, synthetic rose, chlorine , swirl invisibly. Visitors emerge blinking: the effect is physical, unsettling, bypassing the intellect and delivering disorientation straight to the nervous system. It is here that the exhibition achieves its boldest ambition: confusion not as concept but as sensation.

The curatorial essay insists that Discombobulationism is the aesthetic vocabulary of our epoch: algorithmic overload, proliferating frames of reference, the looming collapse of narrative coherence. Where Impressionism responded to the trembling of light, and Cubism to the simultaneous fragmenting of perspective, this movement takes the fracture of sense as its very subject. It proposes that we no longer inhabit a world in which meaning is stable; rather, meaning is ephemeral, incomplete, and perhaps best apprehended via its breakdown.

Yet, for all its ambition, the exhibition nudges at inevitable questions. Is disorientation enough? At times, one wonders if the works risk recapitulating a chic confusion,confusion as commodity. In a room full of gallery-goers sipping champagne, the question hovers: does bewilderment become aesthetic stylishness? And if everyone is meant to feel lost, is the exhibition inclusive,or punishing? The space demands that the viewer surrender orientation; some may relish the abandonment, others may quietly migrate to the gallery lounge.

But these critiques feel secondary. The conviction on display is genuine. The production values hint at coherence without sacrificing the principle of incoherence. The show does not hand us answers; it offers us the experience of unansweredness. And in doing so, it achieves something rare: art that feels of its time rather than about its time.

In the final analysis,yes, one leaves somewhat unmoored,but also with the strange clarity that we may have witnessed an important moment. If Discombobulationism endures, this exhibition may very well be recalled as one of its first major appearances, a place where confusion was given form, sound, scent and motion. Here, at Pimlico Wilde Marylebone, the catalogue will, perhaps, read as an early sign: the fracture became method, the collapse became structure, and the dis-infringement of sense became the new sublime.

Vincent and the Van Goghs Sign to Pimlico Wilde Records, Announce Global Tour and New Album

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Vincent and the Van Goghs Sign to Pimlico Wilde Records, Announce Global Tour and New Album

In a move that will either delight or perplex the art world – possibly both – Pimlico Wilde has announced the launch of its new Art Music label, with its first signing none other than the cult art world phenomenon Vincent and the Van Goghs.

The band, made up of a revolving lineup of art dealers, gallerists, and one very charismatic tambourinist, have long blurred the lines between contemporary art and indie performance. Now, under the patronage of the head of Pimlico Wilde’s Art Music division, Diana Elgar, they’re poised to do it on a global stage.

Their first world tour, “The Chromatic Pilgrimage,” will kick off next spring, beginning with a site-specific concert at the Guggenheim Bilbao before spiralling through the world’s cultural capitals , including Venice, Seoul, Chernobyl, São Paulo, and a rumoured sunrise set among the standing stones of Avebury. Each performance will reportedly feature bespoke lighting installations “in dialogue” with the architecture of the venue, and audiences are encouraged to “dress in conceptual response.”

Frontman Scissors Coney described the tour as “a journey through colour, culture, and existential dread, but with a fat backbeat.”

A New Album That Defies Definition (Almost Literally)

The band’s forthcoming album bears the working title “Conceptual Still Life No. 7: The Sound of an Idea That Hasn’t Been Agreed Upon Yet.” Early insiders at Pimlico Wilde describe it as “a record that exists somewhere between post-punk, Baroque choral arrangement, and the rustling of art fair tote bags.”

Producer Marnie Delacourt, known for her work with experimental acts, says the album “pushes the boundaries of what constitutes both art and song. One track is literally silence , but very expensive silence, as we have hired the entire London Philharmonic to sit still and not play their instruments.”

Among the rumoured tracks are:

  • The Arnolfini Wedding (Remixed for Two Tambourines)
  • Mannerist Love Affair
  • The Epistemology of Echoes
  • Auctioneer’s Heartbeat (Live at Blank’s)
  • and the much-anticipated fan favourite, Minimalism (This Song Is Just One Note) , now extended to ten minutes and accompanied by a silent string quartet.

From Gallery Darlings to Global Icons

What began as an art-world in-joke on the reality show I Said Monet, Not Mondrian! has evolved into something genuinely affecting. The band’s improbable mixture of sincerity and irony , of medieval chant and indie swagger , has turned them into cult heroes far beyond the white walls of Bond Street.

“Art and music have always spoken to each other,” Diana Elgar said at the PR event in Mayfair, “but Vincent and the Van Goghs make them argue , beautifully.”

If The Chromatic Pilgrimage lives up to its name, and if Conceptual Still Life No. 7 is as bewildering as promised, next year could cement Vincent and the Van Goghs not merely as the art world’s favourite band , but as the art world’s most self-aware masterpiece.

Tour begins April 2026. Album release expected autumn 2026 on Pimlico Wilde Records.

A Two-Century Chronicle of the English Pell Mell Club

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A Two-Century Chronicle of the English Pell Mell Club

Readers, it is your lucky day. Next year a new Chronicle of the English Pell Mell Club will be published in a small limited edition. However you can read the chapters here as they appear.

Published by the Committee of the English Pell Mell Club

With the Gracious Patronage of Pimlico Wilde, Fine Art Dealers and Trophy Custodians

Foreword by the Current Club President

“When one joins the Pell Mell Club, one does not simply pick up a mallet. One assumes the weight of history, the burden of etiquette, and, occasionally, the Pimlico Wilde Cup , which is heavier than it looks, especially after a post-match port.”

CHAPTER ONE

The Founding of the English Pell Mell Club
(1825 , Or Thereabouts, Depending on Who You Believe)

To speak of the English Pell Mell Club’s founding is to enter a fog of polite contradiction, apocryphal diaries, and minutes written in handwriting so elaborate that even the National Archives have declined to decipher them. The official record, maintained by the current Committee with an admirable commitment to consistency and accuracy, states plainly that the Club was founded in 1825. However, a small but vocal faction of members argue for a much earlier origin , some citing 1799, others insisting it dates to the Restoration, and one particularly determined gentleman who maintains that a proto-form of Pell Mell was played by the Romans on a field somewhere in Kent, using the skulls of Picts.

What is beyond dispute is that by the early 1820s, London society had developed an appetite for structured leisure , pursuits that combined fresh air, physical exertion, and the ability to wear an expensive hat without risk of it being knocked askew. Cricket was too dusty, fencing too direct, and croquet (at that time) too unrefined and too French. The stage was set for the arrival, or perhaps the rediscovery, of Pell Mell.

The foundational meeting, according to the most widely accepted account, took place in the drawing room of the Duke of Witherstone’s townhouse in Mayfair. The Duke , a man of means and titles, with the best sideburns in London , had recently returned from the Continent with an armful of sketches depicting a curious lawn game played in the gardens of Firenze. He invited a handful of acquaintances to inspect these illustrations over a decanter or seven of port. The invitees included:

• Lord Basingthorpe, the only man to have fought a duel over the proper way to serve syllabub, (apart from the fellow he killed)

• Sir Jasper Bickerton, a naval officer with a limp, a monocle, and an ability to misremember his own war stories with increasing grandeur.

• The Reverend Cyril Plumleigh, whose sermons were said by the Archbishop to be “longer than necessary, which is hard to correct.”

• Captain Smythe (Ret.), whose past remained both mysterious and loudly discussed, and who was known to arrive at social functions via the upstairs window.

The evening reportedly began with polite conversation and ended with chairs pushed aside, candlesticks serving as makeshift mallets, and a priceless Sevres vase employed as an impromptu hoop. The game itself was, by most accounts, chaotic , at one point the Duke’s brother-in-law was struck on the shin and insisted on being carried from the room “as if mortally wounded.”

Nevertheless, something about the contest captured the collective imagination. Here was a sport that demanded accuracy but allowed for style, that rewarded cunning as much as athleticism, and , most crucially , could be played within sight of the refreshment table. By dawn, the gentlemen had declared themselves the founding members of a new institution: The English Pell Mell Club.

The first formal court was established on a parcel of ground just off what is now called Pall Mall, chosen for its proximity to both the gentlemen’s clubs of St James’s and the haberdasheries of Jermyn Street. This location, “historically perfect” as one member put it, allowed players to take the air without straying too far from civilisation.

The Club’s earliest rules were scrawled on a single sheet of paper now preserved in the archives. These initial regulations were notable for their brevity and eccentricity:

1. Gentlemen to bring their own mallets (and no mallet to be sharpened without prior warning).

2. No play to be undertaken during rain, snow, or the opening of Parliament.

3. Any dispute to be resolved by majority vote, or failing that, by a contest of hat-doffing grace.

From these beginnings, the Club began to take shape , a curious blend of sport, social ritual, and light absurdity, which has, remarkably, persisted for over two centuries.