3: Frieze – Welcome to Purgatory…

Yesterday’s Organ Thing of the Day was about exploring the monster that is the Frieze Art Fair, they welcomed us to what they said was purgatory, we didn’t quite see it like that. What was obvious was that the world of Frieze is a world that never looks beyond their own safe smells, their own pristine cubes of whiteness, their safe gallery world. Nothing really exists outside the Frieze bubble, yer man from Blum and Poe might have an MC5 logo on his wall but he does he really want to really kick out the jams?

““We are a challenge to Frieze because in many ways we don’t exist…” so said curator and (slightly stressed-out artist-juggling) organizer Vanya Balogh last week ahead of the opening of We Could Not Agree.- well actually that was what Balogh said one year ago when we covered the We Could not Agree show at down there in that fume-filled Cavendish Square car park.

Pop Up, F**k Off, did it exist?

“We Could Not Agree is an ambitious art show, a show that opened last Monday evening in a delightfully brutal concrete celebration of an underground multi-storey car park. An art show down underneath the almost peaceful greenery of Cavendish Square, just west of the retail hell of Oxford Street. An expansive art event just about within spitting (gobbing?) distance of the giant marquees of Frieze….” (Organ 2014)

There’s a new show opening tonight, 16th October 2015, in that same car park, a show called Silent Movies, last year’s show was mostly ignored by the London art media, it was covered here of course, indeed we made a film of it (the sound down there was wonderful)

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“The glue that holds together the hundred plus artists, the ten curators and this very agreeable We Could Not Agree event is the sense of artists really coming together themselves, people making things happen rather than waiting for things to happen for them – a whole thing that in many ways, in terms of Frieze and the art establishment really really does not exist….” (Organ 2014)

Does it exist now? Does tonight’s show exist? Well no, not really, in the same way that that Pop up Fuck Off show didn’t exist, or that Play show didn’t exist or that Pablo Delgado show show that’s on right does not exist or that English Magic show didn’t exist or…

Play, in an East London warehouse, June 2015 but did it exist?

So much to really ignite excitement, so much to question, to enjoy, to dismiss, to want more of, to want less of, a whole body of disagreements agreeing with each other in so many positive ways – a thrilling show, a buzz of a busy opening, wonderful sound down there, and yes, a show that it really is exciting to be taking part in. Survival may be tough, but these are exciting times to be making art in this city of ours. We Could Not Agree exists, exciting that it does, go explore, things are more exciting when you go peel back the layers and explore for yourself. (We Could not Agree Organ review 2014)

We Could Not Agree, 2014, did it exist?

We Could not Agree happened one year ago this week.  There’s an Organ interview with Vanya Balogh here and there’s a film, made by Marina, here at Organ, photographed and animated on the opening night.  There’s 164 photos from the opening night here and some more from a second visit here.

Vanya Balogh, Cedric Christie and Geoffrey Leong bring together a group of curators and a whole load of artists to present Silent Movies, the latest London Car Park show, on Level 3 of Cavandish Square Car park this weekend, it opens tonight Friday 16th October, 7pm until 10pm). Will it really exist? Do we exist? Did we even write those reviews, make that film, take those photos or write those words? Or one year on is it just an insular scene that exists to do little more than celebrate itself ….?    (SW)

A car park in Liverpool – did it exist?