Rob Bevan

Tim has been thinking about creative partnerships again, after we joined the crowds at the Hirst show at White Cube yesterday. I followed this up today by going to see Candice Breitz’s video installations at Modern Art Oxford. One piece in particular struck a chord: Double Karen (Close to You) 2000 which samples video of Karen Carpenter singing a stripped down version of (They Long To Be) Close to You. One of a series of ‘duets’ (the others feature Olivia Newton-John, Annie Lennox and Whitney Houston), the work consists of two identical monitors facing each other over a stairwell, showing one Karen singing only the words “me-me-me” to the other Karen who sings “you-you-you” in reply.

Jim Bengston, my uncle, has a new show. Most of these images are from the three months of any year Jim spends traveling the US in his Airstream (he’s originally from Illinois, but has lived in Oslo since the 70s) but there are a few from times and places I recognise, like the one from New Years Eve in Berlin (we all climbed the Teufelsberg, a hill made from all the rubble left in the city after WW2).