I can’t be writing a serious review of Attract, we put it on, my art featured in it, I hung the show, we selected the artists, swept the floor, even we can’t get away with blowing our own trumpet that much. But then, if we don’t blow then who the hell will? As we keep on saying again and again (and again), lots of exciting art going on if you bother to go search for it, the London art media don’t dirty their boots, most of the London art shows we cover on these fractured pages are only ever covered by us, week after week, exciting art shows pretty much uncovered and undocumented, not only do we artists have to put the shows on ourselves, we have to be the media and cover these events as well everything else.

And so Attract happened, a short sharp maximalist group show, a Cultivate takeover of BSMT Space gallery over in Dalston on the edges of Hackney and East London, twenty or so artists gathered together for the first Cultivate show of the year, another Cultivate group show, another contemporary art show, a hopefully healthy mix of cutting edge painters, of abstract thought, a show featuring a touch of print, a small amount of text on a penny or two from Quiet British Accent, some animation in the form of an installation from the team that is Davies Monaghan and Klein, a rather large quilt (or is it a wall hanging) from Jessica Scott mostly the show was about painting this time – contemporary painting, a touch of pop, a hint of the street, a couple of painterly photographers (Yi Zhang and Sofia Martins-Gray) and twenty of so artists gathered together under the Cultivate banner in one space for yet another group show. Hopefully by now you have some idea in terms of the busy cross-pollination at a Cultivate show; the maximalist attitude, the punk rock edge, the encouraging of contradiction. Cultivate is run by artists for artists. as well as for those who like to engage and explore art in a more friendly inviting way..

Attract wass curated by Cultivate’s Sean Worrall and Emma Harvey the show featured some old friends as well as some new names – DAVIES MONAGHAN KLEIN, EMMA HARVEY, IAN BAILEY, JAMES BELL, JESSICA SCOTT, LENNIE LEE, MADELEINE STRINDBERG, QUIET BRITISH ACCENT, SAL JONES, SEAN WORRALL, SOFIA MARTINS GRAY, STELLA WHALLEY, TONY BERKMAN, TWINKLE TROUGHTON, VESNA PARCHET, VINAY HATHI, YI ZHANG and YULIA ROBINSON

Here then is a bag load of fractured photos from the opening night, we’ll be along in with a few more thoughts on the Cultivate website in a day or two, for now, here’s a flavour of how things looked and how things went….  (sw)

Click on an image to enlarge or to run the slide show…