Any other business

  I don't actually feel like I'm getting much done, but December has got off to a lively start, with quite a few exhibitions (not all mentioned here), as well as a quick trip to Toulouse. First of all, there was a resident artists' open day at the Fondation Fiminco, a place I've written about before on this blog . Three of the artists there this year caught my eye (in addition to Pooya Abbasian, someone I've known for a while now). Two of them, interestingly, are graduates of fashion, not art, schools, and working in textiles, which seem to be booming in contemporary art these days. Célia Boulesteix' work is greyer and grittier than that of Darius Dolatyari-Dolatdoust, which is more colourful and, in part, performance oriented. As usual, I was drawn to his smaller-scale works inspired, so at least I thought, by Iranian traditions. Unfortunately I didn't have a chance actually to meet Nicolas Faubert, who if I understand correctly comes from a hip-hop backgr