And on it went again, a bright and not so cold kind of day, the clock didn’t strike thirteen, no muse ran up any clock, neither did a typomouse and on with Part Five of last weekend’s self-congratulating self-serving London Gallery Weekend thing. Saturday morning, last Saturday now or some Saturday in the near past, the days all run together and there’s been so many galleries since then and it was the double-good morning after the night before and the rather selective Gallery Weekend had been gloriously (rather than rudely) interrupted by Earth Ball, their avant jazz-flavoured no-wave improv noise experiments and the Canadian band’s brilliant guerilla raid on the bandstand at East London’s Arnold Circus late last Friday afternoon. It wasn’t too long an interruption, we were back on the Gallery weekend trail once Earth Ball had got away with their thing, back to a Friday evening exploration in and around the bigger galleries and the establishment spaces of the Cork Street area of the the West End. Do we need to cover events in and around Cork Street? Well yes, that Eileen Agar show at Redfern gallery, scene of the recent show Florence Hutchings show, was a glorious delight (the unassuming Redfern Gallery is rapidly becoming our favourite of the current Cork Street Galleries), we shall get back to what we found on the Friday evening with a revisit minus all the Friday night crowds in a day or two. Tune in later for more on Cork Street (if we ever find the time, we probably won’t), right now we need to get on with last Saturday and the further exploring of the East London part of the Gallery Weekend and Victory Gin and . Or do we? Do we actually need to do any of this? Do you want any of it? Who cares? We’ll do it anyway, it is a dirty job but someone has to (or at least should, for the sake of those Garbage Pail Kids that no one loves if for nothing else). Faith no more? Nah, the day started with a return to the back alley behind Broadway Market here in Hackney and the Lot Projects space, a quick return and a second visit to Dessy Baeva’s rather colourful Portals show without the opening night crowd we found in there on Thursday evening, covered in part one of this Gallery Weekend adventure so we don’t need to go there again. Is it an adventure? Is it just pretty much the same as you can find on any given London weekend? We still haven’t quite figured out what this weekend is about, we have questioned the hype and the self-congratulation already, we won’t do it again, well we might. Seems our questioning  might have upset a few, we’re not one of your set of pet art critics and oh whatever you do, don’t be questioning those galleries or these formal self-celebrating events, no need to question it any more here, go read the first four parts, on we go for what any of this is worth…

We’ve covered the rather alive Dessy Baeva exhibition already, it was good to see it all again without the people standing in front of the brightly coloured positively raw paintings, on to the Hackney Road, that no-man’s land of a gap where Hackney, Bethnal Green and Hoxton collide, on to Sherbet Green – “Sherbet Green is a contemporary art gallery based in East London since 2022. It occupies the once-loading zone of the luggage company Boris Bags. The gallery’s primary focus is to promote great artists, aiming to participate in creating space for outstanding, thought-provoking, and challenging art” – I think we can say we’ve been to pretty much every show in the modest space since it opened, I think we can say we have been artistically challenged on occasion although most shows have gone by without us really feeling the need to mention them, a little hit and miss shall we politely say? Not un-good but never really double-good, there is enough in what the gallery shows, even if a lot of it is rather conservative and annoyingly by the art school book, there is enough to make us want to go back and check out the next one. I think I might be tempted to say that this just opened Marieke Bernard-Berkel show and especially the  tar-coated semi-sculptural work from invited collaborator Tom Bull makes for maybe the best exhibition so far in the still relatively new space. The work of the two artists sits well together, the floor installation and the wall hung pieces work wonderfully well together, the rich colour and the sheer amount of paint on the paintings, the shine of the even thicker black black non-more-black tar under foot. 

All the world’s a stage is the second solo exhibition at the gallery from Marieke Bernard-Berkel, featuring new paintings on wood, canvas and fabric by the artist, alongside several tar-coated sculptural works. The show is billed as a Marieke Bernard-Berkel solo show featuring Tom Bull, we’re told that “this new body of work continues Bernard-Berkel’s investigation into landscape painting. Building on multiple canonical references, including expressionism, post-impressionism and psychedelic art, she utilises wild, overabundant colourways and impasto to convey a contemporary lens on the medium. The paintings begin with small drawings or photographs from books of predominantly-European countryside views, which the artist then paints over extended periods of time, layering and distorting them until they give way to new realisations. Equally underscored by her background in set design, the works exhibit a certain theatricality in their built-out, maquette-like forms, and anti-naturalistic palette. The acidity with which she portrays these landscapes captures the sentiment of human subjectivity within a rapid, consuming, modern-day society” – I’m happy to go with most of that although it does rather feel like a two artist show and how strong the work of each of these two artists would be in here without each other is up for debate.

Sherbet Green‘s gallery statement goes on to tell us that “Bernard-Berkel has invited Tom Bull to exhibit a body of sculptural works as part of the exhibition. In parallel to her own practice, Bull pulls on tangential histories and associations to enact a tension between the language of an idealised rural environment, where he spent nineteen years of his life, and urbanisation. In recent works, he utilises the semiotics of countryside, combining it with materials such as car batteries, plastic cable ties, nitrous oxide canisters, and tar. These deliberately obtuse encounters fuse objects associated with the Shakers, mock Tudor, and cottagecore with matter evocative of the changes to rural life from the 18th century onwards, as well as the emergence of rave culture and the discussion it raises around ritualism and ownership”. Yes, we get to experience some of that in this show, a hint, a positive one, there is a sense of there being a lot more to explore, to watch out for maybe? More than just stuff hopefully? And well, yes, the stuff coated in thick black tar and the thick paint of the stuff on the walls made for interesting enough stuff, I kind of liked this stuff, yes it was good, it certainly wasn’t un-good, it wasn’t quite double good, And on we go, (the show at Sherbet Green goes on until June 29th, do check the opening hours, they are rather limited)

On past the entry to that industrial estate where you find the challenge, already covered in part three, that is the Christiane Peschek exhibition at Annka Kultys, on past the door to that other place where Annka Kultys Gallery once was, forget what they call their art space now, Plop or Poop or whatever the hell that aloof set of unfriendly unwelcoming middle class recently spewed-out rich-kid art-student types who look at you like you’re shit on their shoes and block the way up their stairs telling you you don’t look like you’re interested in art call themselves, I very much doubt I shall be stepping through their door again (I will keep bringing it up though, these attitudes give us all a bad name and an apology is still owed). Onward  back down the Hackney Road past Plop’s front door, towards the Cambridge Heath end of Hackney Road, turn right by the well known supermarket and there’s Soft Opening in the beautiful Minerva Street art space that has had a number of names and housed a number of galleries (includingVilma Gold), over the last dozen or so years.

There’s a Dean Sameshima exhibition called being alone in the final throws at Soft Opening, a quick second visit for the sake of the weekend and clarity, it does still look impressive when you walk in for a second time, all stark black, white and minimal on those stripped back industrial walls and “In each of the twenty-five black and white photographs that comprise Dean Sameshima’s recent series being alone, the outline of a solitary viewer sits bathed in light emitting from the glowing screen of a Berlin porn theatre. These cinemas offer the kind of encounter that has been described as an “anonymous being-together”, a space wherein an individual can project not only his own desire and sexual fantasy onto the screen but disidentify with the confining projections of the external world” and yes, I guess the the anonymity says something that someone needs to say and the images look, well, if not exciting then stylish enough for the viewer to want to stand there and debate the shape of things to come and go, the dream city film club of it all, something said about that which is hidden or concealed as we politely walk around in the almost-silence of the space before exiting for a double back up the Hackney Road towards Shoreditch, past the space used by Moosey (sometimes rather well) in recent times, looks like they might have vacated their Hoxton space now (?), they do still have their Islington place (and their Norwich home), shame about the Hackney Road space though. On towards Hales Gallery and then Redchurch Street’s last standing gallery Studio 1.1 which, alas has shot itself in the foot by not being open on London Gallery Weekend.  

They’re going big on the London Art Gallery thing at Hales, the official salmon pink branding on their door and their web, they’re into this thing at the old school establishment thing that is Hales – and they are very (very) old school, almost but not quite defiantly so – “Hales Gallery is a contemporary art gallery with an international roster of established and emerging artists across galleries in London and New York”. Hales is the sort of space we don’t dare cough in, a place we have to be respectful in, to quietly respectfully walk around stroking our chins, a cold-hearted place, reverential when there’s a good show – “Hales is delighted to announce, Of Silence and Slow Time, a solo exhibition by Carole Gibbons. Her debut show at the gallery exhibits still life paintings spanning a ten-year period from the mid-1970s to mid-1980s. The show at Hales London follows on from Gibbons’ inclusion in Women in Revolt! Art and Activism in the UK 1970-1990, which originated at Tate Britain and tours to National Galleries Scotland (25 May 2024-26 Jan 2025), as well as Gibbons’ first solo exhibition in the US at White Columns, New York” and well a title from a John Keats poem and a six decade career, odes to a Grecian urn and paintings that need more light on them (is it me or is the lighting always a little on the dull side on Hales?), I really want these paintings to be brighter, the subconscious, oh look, they are tender, they are very inward looking, they speak of time, of objects that will be there long after the dust has settled on you or me, the question of an objective impermanence as it is put to us and look what we’ve become and over the road from all the Saturday afternoon noise and the dread that is Boxpark and whatever the kids are consuming over there it is good to spend a peaceful reflective moment or two in there with the slowness of these pieces before that battle with the streets recommences… 

Cut back through to the now mostly redundant (in terms of art) street that is Redchurch and the locked door of Studio 1.1, the only gallery left on the street, they’ve not opened their space for the Gallery Weekend, they’re not big on joining in or communicating or anything much at 1.1, the once bright red now dour green door is firmly padlocked, last week’s show poster is still up, no sign of a mention of the show that opens next week, things feel a little tired at 1.1 at the moment. Past the padlocked door and on to Benjamin Rhodes Arts then, a gallery on old Nichols Street and another space that you could argue was old school in the most proper of ways and, without being insulting, very much the establishment. Not part of the Gallery Weekend though, don’t ask us why, not much of it is making sense to us, still, the Weekend looks good on social media and that’s apparently what counts in the art world there days, don’t worry about the reality, just check the Instagram feed and count the “likes”.  

Sharon Hall has an exhibition at Benjamin Rhodes Arts a show perfectly named, a show called Meeting Points, there’s this one gorgeous painting where she has everything just so right, that isn’t to pour scorn on the other pieces in this fine show, but that one painting just has ‘it’. You need to see, you can’t catch the freshness in the catalogue reproduction or in any of the photos on line, you can’t get the zest of those greens, those lines, those edges, those meeting points, a painting called Across, a painting that just feels so alive, so right – the painting is only 40x30cm and it not even on one of the main walls of the small gallery, there it is modesty hanging to the side while the others grab the spotlights but it is a painting so so right, so beautifully refreshing, so so right there and the thing is it isn’t that different to any of the other paintings in the show but it is just so so right. The whole show feel right. I mean normally, an exhibition of paintings of this nature wouldn’t really do much for me but a fine line has been crossed here, is it her intuition? Her sense of the right amount of colour in just the right place? The discipline of it? The indiscipline and the let’s try and see maybe? The finding out? The calm of it all? Each of these paintings work so well within the space of the canvas, something about the economy of it all, mostly something about intuition. Meeting Points is on until June 29th at Benjamin Rhodes Arts. Wonder why this space isn’t part of the Weekend? Surely if any gallery should be then this one should be? 

Onward, past the annoyance that is that Global Street Art sign, everything about that organisation and the way they think they can police things of the street is annoying, past a rather fine This One piece that uses the building so well, onward down Brick Lane, past the gallery that bares that name (the less said about that space and the cynical way they treat the mostly out of town artists who fall for it all the better), on down the lane, down through Allen Gardens, more of a graffiti space than a street art thing these days and all the better for it. The ever evolving walls that run around the gardens, The main walls run along the railway line at either side where once the brilliant Nomadic Community Garden was on one side and Allen Gardens itself on the other. There’s a number of writers at work, there’s a dad teaching his young kids, there goes one of those walking tours, there’s someone shooting a music video, a rap thing, I like this walk (a couple of #43Leaves pieces are left), the slightly edgy scenic route to Three Colts Lane and those relatively new galleries at the end of Herald Street, but that’s for Part Six is there’s time for Part Six? Hey, I haven’t got time for all this thankless stuff (neither have you), I’ve got a show in Peckham this coming weekend, there’s paint to sling, that Safehouse is calling… (sw)

Previously –

ORGAN: London Gallery Weekend pt.4 – Adelaide Cioni’s True Form at The Approach, Ana Viktoria Dzinic at Nicoletti’s final Vyner Street show…

ORGAN: London Gallery Weekend pt.3 – More of those questions at Annka Kultys Gallery, this time asked by challenging Austrian artist Christiane Peschek and a rather strong show called The Girls Club…

ORGAN: London Gallery Weekend pt.2 – Rosemary Cronin’s boots steal Transition’s Hard Candy show over here in Hackney…

ORGAN: London Gallery Weekend pt.1 – the paint is alive at Dessy Baeva’s Portals show at Hackney’s Lot Projects, and not a Cobra in sight…

As always, do click on an image to see the whole thing or to run the slide show..