Thursday 29 March 2012

Agora: Block336, Coldharbour, South London Gallery

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"Institutions collapse from lack of funding, they do not die from lack of meaning. We die from lack of meaning." ~ G.B. Shaw via Dave Hickey

This Brixton trip was brought on by a tweet from Justin Hammond (@artcasual) about a new artist-run space opening up at 336 Brixton Road. Block336 is in the basement of an enormous Lambeth Council office building, set for rejuggification at some point in the near-distant future. It's a super cool space, despite a total lack of natural light, and a nice chat with co-founder Lucie Pardue gave me great hope that future programming will be interesting and varied. Their first show is called 1, which appeals to the no-nonsense-art-speak campaigner in me, though I don't think there are plans to title every subsequent exhibition sequentially. Since it's such an enormous space, they've been able to hang nearly sixty works without crowding. There's a room full of sculptural works by Andrew Hewish that I rather liked, and some lovely little paintings by Alex Virji that would have been more lovely had they not been on stupid canvas shapes.

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Back on Brixton Road. Sun. Sun!  Glorious sun. More wandering, dithering, trying to decide whether to eat something at Brixton Village, but nothing appeals after a walk around, so carry on walking up Coldharbour Lane. Something about the sunshine makes everyone chatty. Or maybe it's just Brixton. One guy wants me to go back to his place; someone wants to give me directions; an old lady wants to know why I'm taking pictures of the hideous Fabrik apartment building on Coldharbour Lane; and a car pulls up next to me outside of Loughborough Junction station: a teenage girl wants to know where I bought my boots. In Italy. She looks unimpressed and drives off. I know how she feels. I've just been from Coldharbour London Gallery. Boring, boring, boring. Cowardly. The exhibition press text lettered onto the gallery wall is full of rubbish art speak which puts me in a foul mood and makes me less generous than I otherwise might have been. Why did the curator put the works of Keke and Kate together? Why did she give the exhibition such a stupid title: "The Inception of Line". What line? A Platonic Line? No, that's ridiculous. What does "The work of art exists within a trajectory or line, marking a point of communication between viewer and work that refuses to repeat itself." mean? I wish the curator would have at least had the courage to go with just one artist - Kate Terry - and fill the entire space with neon-coloured string. A sort of happy Chiharu Shiota. That would have been nice.

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Thence to South London Gallery, which I'd especially been looking forward to given that I hadn't eaten any lunch and was ravenous. It was 4pm and the cafe wasn't serving any food until 6pm. What is this tyranny with prescribed meal times? It's like being on the continent. I'd come all the way there, so I thought I'd better at least have a look at the exhibitions before fainting of hunger. Alice Channer in the main gallery. No, no, no, no, no. Artists, please learn when to stop, when to say no, that's enough, this show doesn't need any more crap. The enormous drapery, printed with stretched images of classical statues, dripping like candle wax from the ceiling was quite appealing. Intriguing, even. But the mirrored stainless steel and marble pieces scattered all over the floor looked like something someone might buy in the housewares department of TK Maxx. I know the "dangers" of beauty in art, but I love it and long for it anyway. Not beauty exclusively, but political and cultural criticisms can still be delivered via a beautiful vehicle. I want more than anaesthesia offered by "the therapeutic institution". More than "mirrored stainless steel".

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Luckily, I had a look in the first floor galleries before stumbling out to find food. It was a video piece called Inside. I heard song. Great. I hate video pieces, especially ones with contrived soundtracks. I sat down. I watched the video. I waited to feel the bile of dislike rise up, but it didn't. My mind whirred with all the delicious sensations of a struggle to decipher the stimulus. This is nuts, I thought. It looks fantastic, the narrative is mental, and I LOVE THE SONG! Edward Thomasson, you bloody brilliant person. Your video is awesome.

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