East London’s Emalin tell us they are “pleased to announce 118½, the inaugural exhibition at The Clerk’s House, the gallery’s second exhibition space in London. Opening on 13 January 2024, 118½ is a group exhibition including works by Tolia Astakhishvili, Alvaro Barrington, Matt Browning, Laura Carralero, Nicholas Cheveldave, Adriano Costa, Matias Faldbakken, Stanislava Kovalcikova, Ceidra Moon Murphy, Karol Palczak, Matthew Peers, Coumba Samba, Vunkwan Tam, Sung Tieu, and Marina Xenofontos.

The Clerk’s House sits tantalisingly on the side of St. Leonard’s Church in Shoreditch, bearing the street number 118½ – a half-place between the church grounds and the secular world since the 16th century. Its current form, overlooking the cemetery and Shoreditch High Street, has been preserved since 1735. It is believed to have formerly been a watchhouse from which an invigilator looked out for body snatchers during the social, urban and moral turmoil of the 18th and 19th century’s East London.

Emalin has existed in a number of East London spaces over the last ten or so years, has it been Ten now? Maybe not, it seems like we’ve been covering events in there spaces for quite a few years now – still waitning for them to really engage with the artists based and still working in the increasingly embattled once artist-rich lands of East London though.  The gallery now has two spaces, they’re hosting Galerie Neu with Megan Plunkett and Manfred Pernice as part of the already previewed  Condo 2024 from January 20th at their Holywell Lane space

“For the upcoming Condo London, Emalin is pleased to present works by Megan Plunkett (b. 1985 in Pasadena, CA, US) alongside sculptures by Manfred Pernice (b. 1963 in Hildesheim, DE), presented by Galerie Neu, Berlin. Megan Plunkett lives and works in Los Angeles, US. She graduated with a MFA from the Bard MFA Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts in 2017. Solo exhibitions have been held at Sweetwater, Berlin, DE (2022); Emalin, London, UK (2021); F Gallery, Houston, US (2020); The Gallery at El Centro, Los Angeles, US (2019); and Shoot the Lobster, New York, US (2018). Plunkett’s work has been included in group exhibitions at Park View / Paul Soto, Los Angeles, US (2022); The Wig, Berlin, DE (2022); Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn, DE (2022); MOSTYN, Llandudno, UK (2022); DREI, Mönchengladbach, DE (2021); and Reena Spaulings, Los Angeles, US (2019)”. Do you get bored with these lists? 

Here’s a photo of the The Clerk’s House from last weekend when a long standing East London based artist left one of the 43 paintings that makes up his current piece of work that makes up his laster s month-long #43Leaves art drop. 43 paintings on found unwanted recycled material picked up off the street, Material picked up, cleaned up, painted on and then left hanging back out there on the street (always on nails that are there already, “I don’t go knocking nails into buildings” said the artist) for people to just take. There is said to have been something like three thousand leaves left over the last dozen or so years now by the artist who has pointed out on a number of occasions that East London gallery curators tend to show very very little interest in East London’s artists.  We look forward to seeing what Emalin do with The Clerk’s House in 2024, exciting ot see the intriguing building put to good use at last.   And yes, Emalin have been about since 2016, just saw that on the press release, eight years of exciting artists from New York, rural Russia and all over the globe in their various East London spaces 

“118½” opens at 118½ Shoreditch High Street, on Saturday 13th January, 1pm until 6pm and runs until 17th March 2024. 

www.emalin.co.uk