City Entwined

About

It brings together a selection of independent and emerging* artists, galleries and project spaces from across London in a two-part exhibition that offers not so much a survey of this creative scene, but rather a subjective snapshot intended to embody its spirit.

Pairing each exhibiting artist with an affiliated gallery, it showcases the diverse, geographic, productive, economic, ideological and affective relationships between artists and the creative networks that surround them. Like a mycelial network, this complex web of connections structures a critical part of the city’s cultural ecosystem – a city entwined.

City Entwined highlights the contribution these eclectic spaces make to the life of the city.

Staged at a prime location in Mayfair, London’s blue-chip commercial art district, the exhibition also aims to introduce these spaces, many on the geographical periphery of the city, to new audiences. At a time when many projects have endured the economic pressures of the pandemic and the ever rising rental and operating costs, the exhibition underlines the role and potential of collectivism and collaboration as a constructive, progressive and resilient response to these challenges.

Mirroring the show’s foregrounding of the breadth of projects in Greater London, the work selected manifests a diverse range of practices and influences. It ranges from the computergenerated 3D worlds of Léa Porré, in which she excavates and interrogates historical events, to the fluid feminine forms in the paintings of Gal Schindler; across the sculptural practice of Blue Curry, in which he ‘interrogates the origins, characteristics and impact of the tourist experience,’ (Art Monthly, March 2022) and the high energy collaged films of multidisciplinary artist Ebun Sodipo that explore gender, race and sexuality.

Each participating artist pairs with an affiliated gallery. The galleries, diverse in type, include: sandwich-shop-turned gallery Ginny on Frederick, the community-centred, Ridley Road Project Space, which ran for six months as a fast-paced alternative space from an artist studio in Dalston condemned to be torn down, outdoor Bexhill based Gallery No.32, longstanding supporters of emerging practices and South Asian diasporic art Indigo + Madder, flat 70, a gallery built in the £4bn housing development right around the corner from the neighbouring development that claimed the directors’ childhood home, raising interesting questions around cultural capital, and Collective Ending HQ, an artist-led exhibition and studio space in Deptford run democratically by 12 people who run it. The participating spaces hail not only from long-standing centres of the alternative scene such as Bethnal Green, Hackney and Deptford, but also locations such as Thamesmead, Bexhill and Harlesden. Other galleries, such as Fiumano Clase and Darren Flook, have recently relocated to central London, while Off Site Project, a digital-media-focused programme, operates nomadically and via its website.

City Entwined takes as its starting point Credit X, an interactive map of emerging and alternative projects in London from Credit, a nonprofit project run in association with Central Saint Martins, supporting London’s emerging* art scene through creative, discursive and structural interventions. The exhibition will also be accompanied by a public programme of talks, performances and events put together collaboratively with Credit.

10% of income from sales will be donated to Credit to support the project’s development. 10% of income from each sale will be collected by its affiliated gallery irrespective of whether they formally represent the artist in question.

PART I 25 March - 9 April

San Mei Gallery - Laila Majid & Louis Blue Newby / Kupfer - Romeo Roxman Gatt / springseason - Florence Carr / Collective Ending - Billy Fraser - Gobyfish Collective / Off Site Project - Léa Porré / Ruby Cruel - Blue Curry - Bruce Cayonne / Ginny on Frederick - Jack O’Brien - Gal Schindler / Darren Flook - India Nielsen / Gallery No.32 - Erika Trotzig - Gabriela Pelczarska

PART II 14 April - 7 May

Harlesden High Street - Andre Morgan - Joe Cool / TACO! - Alex Frost / flat 70 - Ebun Sodipo / Fiumano Clase - Shadi Razaei / Indigo + Madder - Amba Sayal-Bennett / Filet - Sam Creasey / French Riviera - Nicholas Pankhurst / Commonage Projects - Taro Qureshi - Simone Mudde / Ridley Road Project Space