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East End Art
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By: Rob McFarland, Issue 35 – Winter 2008
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(London, England)
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ONCE A GANGLAND HANGOUT, NOW LONDON’S EAST END IS WHERE THOSE IN THE KNOW HEAD FOR CUTTING EDGE ART.
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When we enter Hales Gallery on London’s Bethnal Green Road, I’m immediately drawn to a large neon sign on the wall. It was made by the artist Dan Shaw-Town, who used tob work at the Saatchi Gallery in County Hall. It refers to the question he was most commonly asked by visitors when confronted with Richard Wilson’s famous installation piece 20:50 (a walkway through a room filled with recycled engine oil). It reads: “Do I just walk in and come out again?” If nothing else, it shows that a lot of us find contemporary art a little baffling. Which is the very reason Royal College of Art graduates Sarah Douglas and Mimei Thompson set up Exhibit-K tours two years ago. They provide artist-led tours of studios, galleries and project spaces around London’s East End and have recently teamed up with the Andaz Liverpool Street (formerly the Great Eastern Hotel) to provide a package for guests.
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Since Brit Art darlings Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin appeared with their brash, confrontational works in the mid 90s, East London’s art scene has exploded. There are now over 350 galleries east of Liverpool Street Station and an estimated 10,000 artists living in the suburb of Hoxton alone. Finding these galleries among the confusingly chaotic backstreets of East London is another matter, though, which is why being ferried around by someone who knows where they’re going is such an appealing option.
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Our first stop on the two-hour tour is V22 Ashwin Street, a converted warehouse in Dalston and one of the largest galleries in the East End (although you’d never guess from the tiny sign outside). It’s showing a solo exhibition by Kirsten Glass entitled The Body in the Library. Her paintings are large, flamboyant works incorporating collage, sculpture, glitter and feathers. I casually enquire how much they cost. “Around £10,000 each,” replies Sarah. I mutter something about not having much space in my flat. From here it’s on to Hales Gallery where Shaw-Town’s neon sign is part of an exhibition of five emerging young artists. The displays range from a rack of beach towels, to a video installation of a man in a suit clinging to an empty water-cooler bottle in a swimming pool. Where possible the guide arranges for the artist or the curator to explain each of the exhibits, and it is this insider info that really brings the works to life.
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Between stops Sarah explains some of the commercial realities of London’s art scene. Promising art graduates are often approached by corporations and offered a fixed sum of money for all the work they produce over the next five years. This provides the corporation with a ready supply of artwork to decorate their foyers and boardrooms and there’s always the possibility of astronomical returns. One institution did particularly well out of a Peter Doig painting they bought for a few thousand pounds in the midnineties. In February this year it was sold for £5.7m.
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Transition Gallery in Hackney is supposed to be our third port of call but after we stop outside what looks like an abandoned industrial estate, I can’t help thinking that Sarah might have made a wrong turn. We cautiously follow her in the lift up to the second floor and there on a large steel door is a small sign bearing the gallery’s name. Even if I’d left unravelling a large ball of string, I doubt I could have found it again. Borrow + Burn is the title of exhibition and a leaflet informs us that the artists Peter Lamb and Joby Williamson, “are picking paths through the stuff we choose to have close to us and the bits we push away”. Which translates into displays of flattened polystyrene cups that have been run over by cars, and multi-coloured pre-owned plastic buckets.
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Our final stop before retiring to the Andaz for brunch is The Approach, one of a series of East End pubs that have converted their upper floors into exhibition spaces. On show is a projected animation by Haluk Akakce called The Garden, which consists of intricate computer-generated models moving slowly across the wall. Staring at the revolving shapes proves to be surprisingly hypnotic and I’m sure we’d have stayed longer if Sarah hadn’t casually mentioned that brunch includes unlimited red and white wine.
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What I found refreshing about the tour was that you were never made to feel bad for not ‘getting’ something. Even after hearing the explanations behind certain pieces, I still didn’t really see the point of them, but that was OK. Sarah emphasised that it’s all about what strikes a chord with you as an individual. As someone who would very likely have asked “Do I just walk in and come out again?” that was reassuring to hear.
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Details:
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Andaz Liverpool Street
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