She was on your TV, then in OK, then in Hello and now she can be in your living room. Ladies and Gentlemen- Jade Goody.

It had to happen. The late UK reality TV star Jade Goody, who died in March from cancer, has been immortalised on canvas by the British painter Sarah Maple. The work, astutely entitled Fame, is available for £10,000 at SaLon Gallery in London. A gallery spokesman told The Art Newspaper that “Maple uses her vantage point as a Western-raised Muslim woman to speak of pop culture and religion against the backdrop of a narcissistic and celebrity obsessed society. Her work unabashedly questions the viewer's own cultural boundaries and asks where those are ruptured/united with other social realities.” Maple has a solo show coming up at the Chelsea Art Museum in New York in December.

Whether or not Goody deserves a posthumous portrait can be debated. The fact of the matter is, her story captured people worldwide. She was known for being in a reality TV show, and for being horribly dumb on that reality TV show. Regardless of this, many women around the world were compelled with her story and identified with her plee. She made money with her death, more than she ever made in her life, and although this might be a morbid concept, for someone known for her stupidity, the idea isn't bad at all. These questions provoke a probing into today's media, the way audiences can be brought to tears for someone they don't know, how celebrities can manipulate people's emotions. The world's reaction is one that should be remembered and analysed. It is this obsession with celebrity that Maple captures.

So maybe Maple has hit the nail on the head. The painting encapsulates the fleeting superficial emotions in our lives. Will Goody remain in people's memory? They certainly seemed to care as they shed countless tears and brought Hello Magazine, but have they forgotten about the blonde cancer victim now the tide has passed? Maple doesn't leave us a choice.

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Art triumphs over media in this depiction of a woman many were enthralled as she died. People have now payed for her kids's education and little has been done for the many women out there still suffering from the disease. This painting is an icon of the nonsensical 21st century celebrity cult, a perverse development of what Warhol had done in the 60's with Marilyn Monroe.

Seizure to Cease? Catch it before it does...

One of the most high-profile installations to be launched in the UK last year is set to re-open on 23 July. Roger Hiorns’s major sculptural project “Seizure” - a derelict South London flat transformed by the UK artist into a cavern coated in copper sulphate crystals – first opened late last year. The work led to Hiorns being nominated for this year’s Turner Prize.
“After the project opened, 157 Harper Road became a site of pilgrimage. Every day hundreds of people would make their way across the capital to go inside this anonymous flat near the Elephant & Castle,” said a spokeswoman for Artangel, the non-profit public art facilitator who commissioned the piece.
Hiorns pumped over 75,000 litres of copper sulphate solution into the abandoned housing complex to create a thick, shiny, jagged crystalline growth (visitors are required to wear Wellingtons) on the surfaces of the building.
The council is set to pull down the housing complex which means that Seizure will also be demolished.
Artangel’s other current London project, Mens Suits by Charles LeDray (until 20 September), takes place at the Fire Station in Chiltern Street, W1. For further information: www.artangel.org.uk

Fashion's Night Out- Vogue takes marketing initiative.

Simon Doonan, Barney's creative director in New York, recently declared that it was time we re-thought who reigned in the fashion market. He criticised designers who put celebrities at the forefront of their campaigns and showered them with presents in order to promote their brands. He says it's become clear that the customers are being shunned from the marketing aspect of the brands in favour of celebrities who most of the time don't even pay for the clothes in the first place. He urged that with the current economical situation, if designers wanted their clothes to sell, the customer needed to be cast in the spotlight, not the celebrity. He also added that despite the critical recession, fashion devotees are still buying. If they are convinced the product is quality, they'll buy it. What's changed is that instead of 5 pairs of Jimmy Choos, you're buying 2. There is still room for business and more importantly, expression through fashion.

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It is with this in mind that Anna Wintour, Vogue's astute editor in chief, announced yesterday the launch of Fashion's Big Night Out to be held in New York, Paris, London,Tokyo, Madrid and Mumbai amongst other cities. The concept? A night where all fashion stores stay open until 11pm to the sounds of live entertainment, delightful canapes being served to clients and Vogue staff on hand giving style tips and fashion advice to all customers. A T Shirt will be sold to promote the event, of which 40% of its proceeds will go towards the September 11th Museum Memorial Fund. In the UK, all the money raised will go towards the charity Crisis, the UK charity for the homeless. Designers and celebrities will make appearances so as to encourage the client to go to their favourite stores and mingle with the best of them.

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The lineup includes Alexander McQueen, Prada, Gucci, H&M, Topshop and many more in London and Alexander Wang, Philip Lim and Tory Burch in New York. For these small designers who are most affected by the economic dowturn, events like this will prove vital to renew interest and revive consumer participation. "This worldwide activity is to remind us all that fashion is to be enjoyed and to mark the contribution that the shopping environment makes to all our lives," Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman said. "We're delighted to be in a position at Vogue to undertake this enterprise and to bring retailers and shoppers together in central London for this unprecedented feel-good occasion."

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All in all this little scheme is most cunning...Customers are lured into a comfortable and exciting zone of entertainment where they are partying with models and celebrities 'in the name of fashion'.They may come out with a few pennies less, but at least they'll have had a good time and a new dress (all the Vogue hostesses will no doubt have been briefed to tell the customers just 'how beautiful it looks dahling'). Vogue promotes its magazine, singers their songs, and designers their brand. Cheaper than an advertising campaign and probably more effective in the short term, this might be exactly what the fashion world needs to boost its morale (and turnover). Pourquoi pas? We wouldn't want Mr Blahnik to go bust now, would we?

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For more info on Fashion's Night Out go to: http://www.vogue.co.uk/news/daily/090521-fashions-night-out.aspx.