Organ Thing Of The Day? There’s not enough hours, there’s a backlog of things we intended to cover, no time for a Thing today, we’re busy wearing our Cultivate hats and part four of the Columbia Road takeover, the show opens tomorrow night, here’s what we just said about it on the Cultivate website….

I saw it First, I want It Worse, Columbia Road, September 2018 –

The fourth and final part (probably, unless something spontaneous comes together on the final weekend) of the Cultivate Columbia Road takeover opens this Thursday October 18th, 6pm until 9pm, entry is free, everyone is welcome, none of that getting your name on a list nonsense, Bring your own refreshment, I expect we’ll have some but hey, we’re artists, all our money goes on paint and gallery rent and studio rent and such, .

The Artist line up for Part four, a group show called I;m Gonna Ask You Again. a group that mostly focuses on painting but also features installation, photography, a painted penny or two and well come and see what we have four you as the gallery walls evolve again. Artists for part four are EMMA HARVEY, JAMES BELL, JOANNA GEORGIADES, JOHN GATHERCOLE, MADELEINE STRINDBERG, QUIET BRITISH ACCENT, SALLY JONES, SARAH KOGAN, SEAN WORRALL, SUZIE PINDAR and YI ZHANG. We expect more artists to join in as the show evolves over the two weekends down by all the noise and the colour of the East London flower market, I expect new pieces will be added during the two weeks as some pieces leave, the whole takeover has been about evolving walls and refreshing things…

I saw it First, I want It Worse, Columbia Road, September 2018 – Sean Worrall

Rather looking forward to part four and hanging all the work from the artists we’ve invited to join us tomorrow morning, I love hanging art shows and other people’s work. We’ve really enjoyed the takeover at Shipton Street Gallery, the space is actually an old greengrocers shop that apparently closed many years ago and was saved as a space by the current gallery owner when it was earmarked to be turned into a residential flat (we do like that the till and some of the old shop fittings are still there), do really like this space, we do like taking Cultivate to different spaces, space like that big warehouse where Play happened in 2015 or that working Edwardian Dress shop we held a show in last year, or that railway arch or those Hackney offices we managed to grab for a weekend before they became office spaces again. We do particularly like this old shop space by Columbia Road, hopefully we’ll be back for more in the space at some point

Most gallery shows are about the opening night, this one has, as we expected, been mostly about the Sundays and the crowds and the colour of the flower market, we’ve had some great weekends down by Columbia Road, things have been very busy. What we didn’t really expect though is all the positive engagement with the people who still live in the area, every space you show art in is different in terms of the feel of the gallery and in terms of who comes in – some spaces will all be all about the people who are aware of the show and the gallery and make a point of travelling to it and you never see the locals, the BSMT Space shows we’ve done have been very much like that, packed openings and then very few of the locals coming down the stairs while the shows are on, just people who already know travelling in to see the art from artists they are mostly already aware of. Some places are about the art crowd who know the area and are out exploring the collective of galleries and shows, Vyner Street was very much like that, constant flow of art-aware people for all the galleries and not just one, Shipton Street has been about the people strolling around the flower market as well as the people, familiar faces, Cultivate followers who we’re always pleased to see making a point of travelling from other parts of London to see the show, but much more than that, and what we didn’t expect is all the interaction and engagement with the people who live in the area. The Gallery is actually part of a excellent looking block of old social housing that I’d guess dates from the 50’s or maybe earlier? There’s a real community there, we’ve met some brilliant people (and some forceful local cats), we’ve had some great conversations with the school kids about punk rock and Riot Grrrls and painting and stars on their way home from school, we had a great chat to with a man who revealed he worked as Thatcher’s old butler and worked at number ten and tales I can’t tell and how he liked his punk rock, and yes he was aware of Crass at the time (it was the Crass references on a Jessica Scott piece that brought him in), we’ve had quite a few great conversations with people spotting Emma Harvey’s Riot Grrrl paintings of Jessica Scott’s quilt through the star-filled window, and James Bell’s pieces of golden luxury have been attracting lots of opinion, engagement and indeed a fair amount of selfie taking.

I saw it First, I want It Worse, Columbia Road, September 2018 – Sean Worrall

What will that James Bell plinth feature for Part Four? No idea until he comes in with his next piece, we gave him the plinth space and left it with him to do what he wants with it We’ve had some great conversations with the people who live in the flats above and around the gallery who come in to ask about art or to talk about art or to just bring us cups of tea and pieces of cake (there;s been some great people, invitations to Sunday lunch and more, brilliant), there’s been some great conversations with the people who work on the flower market who listened to John Peel back in the 70’s and went to see the Beatles or The Who – there’s been lots of talk about music during the show, the gallery space is actually owned by a musician with an interesting history. Sadly no one from Nelly Duff has bothered to come over and say hello, they’re got a great Pablo Delgado show on the first floor of their space on Columbia Road right now, the only people who never comes to our shows are the people who run the other galleries in the area (although they do often bugs us to cover their shows on the Organ web pages and such). Anyway, the engagement during the takeover has been rather positive, rather brilliant actually, I’ll write more about it once the run is over and I have a moment to stop and think about it all, for now, Part Four opens this Tuesday evening and goes on on the Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays of the next two weekends (on until until we close and leave the space at 5pm on Sunday October 28th). do come have a look, come see the art and say hello, come be part of it…. (sw)

I saw it First, I want It Worse, Columbia Road, September 2018 – James Bell, Jessica Scott, Emma Harvey