Many years ago, well several Prime Ministers ago anyway. at least four or five dubious Chancellors ago, oh lifetimes ago, actually it was only at the start of September, about fifty days ago, back when we were all younger and electricity was much cheaper, back when we were all in the Sunshine enjoying Camden Inspire, a two day street festival alive with street art, street music, street food, DJs, people, live painting and lots more, it really does seem like several lifetimes ago now, was it really just under two months ago? We did run a kind of review at the time – ORGAN THING: Two days of street art, music and more, did Camden inspire?

Camden Inspire at Camden Open Air Gallery, October 2022 – Back at the start of September a whole load of artists were invited to come paint on boards set up on the wall on a street in Camden, North London, artists from Wales, from Leeds, from all over London, I came from Hackney, yeah yeah yeah, another damn trumpet blowing review of something I’m part of, I’d say sorry if I was sorry about it, but hey, I’m not. So, back at the start of September we all painted boards on the street as people stood watching, people took photos, people asked questions, people drank beer as well as some strange cocktail that involved Pinky and The Brain, and then we all went back to Leeds or Wales or Hackney or Watford. And then, this morning, while the Liz Truss dalliance was still hanging by a thread, hanging on as almost certainly the most embarrassing Prime Minister we’ve ever had, and she’s had to work hard to win that title, there’s some stiff competition over ther last few painful years from Benny Hill and his Eton mes as well as the smug one from the Bullingdon Club who did something with a pig as well as setting off the whole Brexit mess in the first place and the other one who once ran through a field of corn and we could go further back and that one in the hat who ran off to New Zealand after the whole canal mess, oh yes we’ve had some awful Tories lying and cheating their way to the top and this review or feature or what it was going to be has now fallen off the rails faster than a Kwasi Kwarteng budget plan. Well it really isn’t a review is it? More a case of me telling you about something that happened today and something that’s going on until November 6th in an art gallery in Camden

So anyway, this morning, while Liz was still clinging on, something like halfway through the morning, somewhere around Hackney on the edge of Dalston and heading for Camden with the red bats behind us, riding a red shark of a train and heading to Camden because we’d got a message to say that some of the paintings from that festival that seemed like something that had happened several lifetimes ago (when it really was only last month), were now up in that indoor gallery in Camden (not far from where we had once chased Mint 400), a gallery that goes by the slightly odd name of Camden Open Air Gallery (actually the name makes perfectly good sense when you see what they’re doing in there). By the time we got to the North London borough the Prime Minister had gone and the headline on the first edition of the Evening Standard was well out of date, and oh dear Camden, t-shirts with the Queen wearing Bowie’s Ziggy make up? Really? Who thought that was a good idea? Camden may have been tarted up a bit but it is still very much bad taste Camden and there’s the gallery, on the main strip waiting for us. 

There something like 14 or 15 of the paintings up on the gallery wall (and up for sale), they don’t look quite so exciting up on the cold off-white walls as they did out on the street with all the graff, not so feral, tamed you might say, but there they are, still looking good, some more than others, you be the judge, I couldn’t possibly say. Here’s some photos, I like the one they didn’t have an artist’s name for – apparently someone turned up on the first day of the festival and there was a spare board, she borrowed some paint and painted a great abstract piece and no one got her name, and well, there’s her piece on the wall in the gallery and standing out (stop press, we jsut heard from her, she goes by the name of C). There’s some photos on this page, there’s a whole load down at the foot, the paintings are up on the walls, I think the gallery said they were going to be up on their website with the price details and such in a day or so, the paintings themselves are up there to go see until November 6th, there in the back room behind the big Tom Blackford pig, not the one Cameron, no let’s not go there, he was still better than Truss and maybe she didn’t have time to be as bad as Boris, she probably was a little more corrupt and a little less entitled and thinking she was born for it than Johnston and the next one will probably be even worse and the general public will just let it all happen and say stupid things like “you never gave her a chance, and bring back Boris, I liked him, he’s a character isn’t he!” while they kill off what’s left of the NHS and line their pockets some more and well, that was my day and there’s the (photos of the) paintings and this really isn’t a review, and I really was just wanting to tell you that the paintings from the festival are now up on the gallery wall in Camden. (sw)

Camden Open Air Gallery is at 216 Camden High Street, London, NW1 8QR. The Camden Inspire paintings are up until November 6th and then the gallery kick in with and exhibition called Bittersweet by Leo Sweron and Jeru Kinnaird that opens on November 11th.

Previously – ORGAN THING: Two days of street art, music and more, did Camden inspire?

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