February 2026
Twenty years ago today, I hit “Publish” for the first time. Didn’t realize I was creating what would be the longest running blog covering art exhibitions.
I didn’t do it to build a “brand” or to become an “influencer.” In fact, those words barely existed in the way we use them now. I did it because I was tired of forgetting what I’d seen. I was tired of walking out of a white-walled gallery in Chelsea or a dim basement in London and having the names of the artists and the visceral feeling of the work slip from my memory.
It took an architecture-adjacent exhibition, on Le Corbusier’s furniture designs, to make me stop and photograph what I saw so that I would have access to it later.
So this blog started as a digital notebook, a place to park my thoughts so I could find them later. I never expected it to become a twenty-year map of my life.
The Ghosts of Galleries Past
Looking back through the archives is a trip through a version of the art world that mostly exists in memory now. There are reviews here of galleries that folded during the 2008 crash, pop-ups in neighborhoods that have since been completely transformed, and “emerging” artists who are now household names (and a few who vanished entirely).
It turns out that when you keep a notebook for two decades, you accidentally become a historian.
The Evolution of the “Eye”
If you go all the way back to the early blog (I don’t encourage), it’s frankly a bit cringeworthy. My “eye” back then was different, my biases were different. But that’s the beauty of a 20-year trail. I can see exactly where I learned to appreciate what I appreciate, where I fell out of following certain trends, and how I found my own voice as a viewer (if that makes sense).
A note to my 2006 self: You didn’t properly cover that one show, but your enthusiasm was exactly where it needed to be. It got this rolling.
To Those Who Stumbled In
To anyone who has been reading since the early days of RSS feeds, or anyone who just found this notebook via a random search for an obscure exhibition: Thank you. This space is still just a notebook. It’s a place for me to remember. But knowing that there’s a community of fellow observers peering over my shoulder has made the process of looking more rewarding.
Here’s to twenty years of white walls, strange installations, and the endless pursuit of seeing something that changes the way we think.
What’s next?
I’m not stopping. The notebook is still open.
-Smokychimp
