London Police come to XLarge

Mike D's XLarge is still going strong in Silverlake. The upstairs section was a Grand Royal record store in 1997, then it later converted to Fat Beats, and now in 2007 it's been reborn as the Upstairs Gallery.

Until 10th May, the Upstairs Gallery is presenting a special London Police exhibition. I never quite understood the name of the trio...all I knew was there was an Amsterdam connection...so what's up with the 'London' name?! Well, Freddi C explained one of the founding members is from London...ahhh, I see said the blind man!

Anyway, that trivia aside, the clown-ish black and white characters pasted/painted by London Police are called 'Lads'. They feature heavily in this show, but I don't think that the canvases are strong - they seem to lack a real vision and execution finesse. The Chinese characters just look sad and haggard. There was nothing new to see here for me. Even the clean, strong 'Lads' looked shy in the Upstairs Gallery. May be London Police should've forgotten about canvases and just spent the time to completely trick out the gallery space like the collaborations in Japan. The Tokyo collaborative show pictures look really strong!

If you were at the Upstairs Gallery you might have got one of the limited-edition (sold out) cushions or t-shirts. The gallery will produce items for each show under the 'XLarge Gallery' label. Cool! I'm looking forward to the next one...

The Dutch are coming: Kirstin and Karin will be in town to see this show before it closes...it's kinda ironic for the Dutch to travel 5,000 miles and go see a Dutch art show. Umm...may be we'll skip it ;-)