Collapse at Safehouse, Peckham, London SE15 – 3rd until 6th October 2024 – Went to six shows today, I shall probably only tell you about two of them, maybe three, the accusation levelled at us here is that we like everything, we are actually rather picky about what we fill our pages with, why waste time and space on the disengaging, the unrewarding, the mundane, on the clutter? We are your cherry pickers and only the best will do. Do like that big fish upstairs, part of Collapse, another group show at one of Peckham’s Safehouses (of which, as I’m sure you know by now, there are two, semi detached and just about intact enough to host art exhibitions and such). Another overseas trip today then, over the water to South London, desert the mean streets of Hackney for a couple of hours as we dance on the cusp of Frieze Week.
Back to the dust of Safehouse for yet another group show, but it is such a good place for an artist-led group show, not so much in the bad lighting of an opening night, more one for your daytime exploring, especially at this time of the year – “Being is a state of porosity. Just as our breath is also the air. Just as the redness we see when facing the Sun with our eyes closed is our body collapsing with a star. The artworks presented in this show contemplate the merging of the inner and outer worlds of the body, framing the idea that separation is an illusion and that nothing exists in isolation. Inviting viewers into an intersubjective, rather than object-based, perspective of the world, these seven artists challenge the illusion of difference, separation, and value. Together they celebrate experience as a web of relationships and connections — as profound and radical entanglement. If we are inherently undifferentiated, if our connections are irrevocable, then our bodies and selves inevitably collapse out to the social, political, and ecological dimensions of our world”. A worthy statement if you want it, what we actually have here is seven artists sharing the space and having some really rewarding conversations across the two floors of the almost falling down space.
And oh look, labels! I can just admire that wonderful painting right there and just look down and, without ever imposing on anything, a small label, a name and a title, Paul Sullivan, Upon The Darkening Flood, simple! That’s all we need, armed with everything required to go find out more about Mr Sullivan and his rather excellent paintings of which there are a number of rather powerfully demanding examples in here. Never heard of him before, there we go, a label is a beautiful thing (I still don’t know who painted those wonderful paintings I saw last time I was in this same venue for a group show), Upon The Darkening Flood, all the drama of a Van Der Graaf Generator song, a timeless painting, some might say a proper painting, not all about the moment in the making, not the action of the painter, this is, as dark as the flood is, a refined considered thing, it isn’t about the angst of the painter, it is actually all about the painting and not the how it came to be or the rest of it, just a proper old school painting that invites you to read it, to explore it. Oh how glorious a label on a piece of art is, I can now follow Mr Sullivan’s social media and see where he might next show a painting, that is all I want from a group show, a door opened. I say all this because apparently my unfashionable raving about the lack of labels has hit home, apparently the labels were there just for me (I’m sure that is an exaggeration, maybe I should complain about about the lack of a man following me around with a find bottle of malt while I view the works and see what that brings)
There’s been some strong group shows at Safehouse this Summer and this is another one, yes I know we’re at the start of October now, Summer has gone with the cricket season, the clocks haven’t changed yet though, and I’m not tramping to Peckham in a big coat or indeed any coat quite yet, the last great artist-led group show of the Summer on the weekend before the Frieze circus kicks in. Seven artists, all of them rewarding, we already admire Kika Sroka-Miller and the way she uses paint, the way she approaches paint, the nuance, the hints, actually I really like her sense of colour, her palette is just a little different, pieces you can get lost in for a moment or two. Good to see a number of pieces not seen (by me anyway) in the flesh before. I like the way she fills, or indeed doesn’t fill her canvas, they way things are exposed, there’s a depth that doesn’t take too much searching for.
Those Miranda Pissarides pieces hanging from the ceilings of various rooms are fun, they’re playful, but then they’re far more than that. In here they break up the lines, they add to the mood rather than swing it, they’re great, you kind of want to touch them, push them, make them sway. Her hangings play with the rest of the room, they tie it all together and then you look at the floor and she her other pieces, or the ones in the remains of the show cubical and once again you want to know more about these pieces, about her, about her whys and wherefores, you start to look before the bright colours and the glitter and the fluff, you go beyond the fun without ever losing the grasp, Miranda made me smile, that can sometimes be a good thing
Do like this show, do like the mix, the balance, nothing is collapsing here, do like the seriousness, the serious playfulness, the darkness of (some of) the paint, the fun (and more) of the fluff, do really like that fish and that bird at the top of the ladder there, and yes, I admit it, I failed to check the label on that fish with the feather inside – We are always within a bigger story than we realise… – it is actually the work of Nagasiddhi, as is the bed hanging downstairs.
There a couple of really rewarding Benedict Johnson pieces once more, kind of need to see more of Benedict’s work together in one place now, a room of his own. Actually should this exhibition work as well as it does? And it really does work as one whole thing again. I mean the work is really diverse, art from all kinds of places, different flavoured minds, it is hung so well, there’s some fine curation here and a show that really really shouldn’t work actually works really really well, another rewarding group show over there in Peckham, another blink and you miss group show, another show well worth your time if you can spare it. All seven artists are worth checking out and once again I am rather rushing this up in the hope of telling you while there is still one of the show’s four days to go…
And by the way, the temptation is to lump the two shows that are often happening side by side at Safehouse One and Two together in one review or piece, that would be very wrong this week, Tracy McBride’s Elemental really does deserve a piece dedicated just to it, as does Collapse, Tracy’s show happening next door, both well worth your time… Both shows end on Sunday 6th October – ORGAN THING: Tracy McBride, Elemental at Safehouse Two, Peckham, London, SE15 – You would think a show in a house in Peckham, South East London, a rather fallen down part of the capital city, wouldn’t be the place for this, it is though…
Artists featured in Collapse: Anna Arbiter, Beverley Hood, Benedict Johnson, Nagasiddhi, Miranda Pissarides, Kika Sroka-Miller, Peter Sullivan and Yuhong Wang
Peckham Safehouse 1 and 2 are both found at 137 Copeland Road, Peckham, London SE15 3SN.
Nagasiddhi – ‘Night Sea Voyage’, 2020, 80 x 23 x 10cm, wood and feather.
THE ORGAN 
24 responses to “ORGAN THING: Collapse at Peckham’s Safehouse One, another rather powerful rather rewarding artist-led group show as we head into Frieze Week…”
[…] Road, Peckham, London SE15 3SN. Iimagine the show goes on until about 5pm as does the excellent Collapse group show next door, both are rather recommended – Tracymcbrideartist.com / […]
[…] Several of the shows currently installed in galleries officially involved in this so called East End Day have been visited already, The Approach had a Saturday evening opening ahead of this Sunday thing. The meticulous detail of pavements and such underwhelmed, surely someone has to ask why? Why spend your time engaged in the meticulously painting of the surface detail of pavements or kitchen tops? Has anyone stopped and ask why? Berlin-based artist Helene Appel has an exhibition of new paintings in the normally rather rewarding Approach, she apparently wants us to consider the mundane things we ignore, but why? Meanwhile Amsterdam’s Germaine Kruip has a throwback of an installation called Two Circles, Mirrored in the small Annexe space of the gallery that “explores the interplay between a geometric form and its reflection. This mirror-polished stainless steel ellipse, positioned on the floor, casts a perfect circle of light onto the wall”, and well, ummm, is it 1972? It was kind of, ummmmm, well… I guess I kind of enjoyed it for a moment, a little more than the pavement paintings anyway. Saturday evening really did not reward like the afternoon visit to Peckham’s Safehouse had done, that South London visit to see the short sharp artist-led Collapse show has been fuelling us since Saturday lunch time, the paintings of Kika Sroka-Miller and especially Paul Sullivan, that fish of Nagasiddhi, Miranda Pissarides and her colour as well as Tracy McBride’s Elemental in the other half of space, Saturday afternoon at Peckham’s Safehouse is why I always leave here excited by the prospect of art – Collapse at Peckham’s Safehouse One, another rather powerful rather rewarding artist-led group sho… […]
[…] Several of the shows currently installed in galleries officially involved in this so called East End Day have been visited already, The Approach had a Saturday evening opening ahead of this Sunday thing. The meticulous detail of pavements and such underwhelmed, surely someone has to ask why? Why spend your time engaged in the meticulously painting of the surface detail of pavements or kitchen tops? Has anyone stopped and ask why? Berlin-based artist Helene Appel has an exhibition of new paintings in the normally rather rewarding Approach, she apparently wants us to consider the mundane things we ignore, but why? Meanwhile Amsterdam’s Germaine Kruip has a throwback of an installation called Two Circles, Mirrored in the small Annexe space of the gallery that “explores the interplay between a geometric form and its reflection. This mirror-polished stainless steel ellipse, positioned on the floor, casts a perfect circle of light onto the wall”, and well, ummm, is it 1972? It was kind of, ummmmm, well… I guess I kind of enjoyed it for a moment, a little more than the pavement paintings anyway. Saturday evening really did not reward like the afternoon visit to Peckham’s Safehouse had done, that South London visit to see the short sharp artist-led Collapse show has been fuelling us since Saturday lunch time, the paintings of Kika Sroka-Miller and especially Paul Sullivan, that fish of Nagasiddhi, Miranda Pissarides and her colour as well as Tracy McBride’s Elemental in the other half of space, Saturday afternoon at Peckham’s Safehouse is why I always leave here excited by the prospect of art – Collapse at Peckham’s Safehouse One, another rather powerful rather rewarding artist-led group sho… […]
[…] riot grrrl flavoured boys club observations or those Kika Sroka-Miller paintings seen at Peckham’s Safehouse last weekend alongside those Paul Sullivan paintings (Paul Sullivan, a new name to us until that group show at […]
[…] riot grrrl flavoured boys club observations or those Kika Sroka-Miller paintings seen at Peckham’s Safehouse last weekend alongside those Paul Sullivan paintings (Paul Sullivan, a new name to us until that group show at […]
[…] riot grrrl flavoured boys club observations or those Kika Sroka-Miller paintings seen at Peckham’s Safehouse last weekend alongside those Paul Sullivan paintings (Paul Sullivan, a new name to us until that group show at […]
[…] riot grrrl flavoured boys club observations or those Kika Sroka-Miller paintings seen at Peckham’s Safehouse last weekend alongside those Paul Sullivan paintings (Paul Sullivan, a new name to us until that group show at […]
[…] riot grrrl flavoured boys club observations or those Kika Sroka-Miller paintings seen at Peckham’s Safehouse last weekend alongside those Paul Sullivan paintings (Paul Sullivan, a new name to us until that group show at […]
[…] pieces of art, are we flagging yet? Actually the Saturday before East End Sunday was that excellent Collapse at Peckham’s Safehouse One, another rather powerful rather rewarding artist-led group sho…k alongside that equally as good Tracy McBride, Elemental show at Safehouse Two, Wednesday was […]
[…] pieces of art, are we flagging yet? Actually the Saturday before East End Sunday was that excellent Collapse at Peckham’s Safehouse One, another rather powerful rather rewarding artist-led group sho…k alongside that equally as good Tracy McBride, Elemental show at Safehouse Two, Wednesday was […]
[…] pieces of art, are we flagging yet? Actually the Saturday before East End Sunday was that excellent Collapse at Peckham’s Safehouse One, another rather powerful rather rewarding artist-led group sho…k alongside that equally as good Tracy McBride, Elemental show at Safehouse Two, Wednesday was […]
[…] art fairs last week, there was those six galleries including The Approach here in East London and Collapse over in Peckham last Saturday, there was all the art in a dozen or so on Sunday’s so called […]
[…] fairs last week, there was those six galleries including The Approach here in East London and that Collapse show over in Peckham last Saturday, there was all the art in a dozen or so galleries on […]
[…] fairs last week, there was those six galleries including The Approach here in East London and that Collapse show over in Peckham last Saturday, there was all the art in a dozen or so galleries on […]
[…] fairs last week, there was those six galleries including The Approach here in East London and that Collapse show over in Peckham last Saturday, there was all the art in a dozen or so galleries on […]
[…] fairs last week, there was those six galleries including The Approach here in East London and that Collapse show over in Peckham last Saturday, there was all the art in a dozen or so galleries on […]
[…] ORGAN THING: Collapse at Peckham’s Safehouse One, another rather powerful rather rewarding artist-… […]
[…] stand out. Shows pulled together by collectives of artists, shows like Here There Be Monsters or Collapse or Blink or All I Ever Wanted, artists like Sarah Barker Brown, Benedict Johnson, Paul Sullivan, […]
[…] stand out. Shows pulled together by collectives of artists, shows like Here There Be Monsters or Collapse or Blink or All I Ever Wanted, artists like Sarah Barker Brown, Benedict Johnson, Paul Sullivan, […]
[…] stand out. Shows pulled together by collectives of artists, shows like Here There Be Monsters or Collapse or Blink or All I Ever Wanted, artists like Sarah Barker Brown, Benedict Johnson, Paul Sullivan, […]
[…] stand out. Shows pulled together by collectives of artists, shows like Here There Be Monsters or Collapse or Blink or All I Ever Wanted, artists like Sarah Barker Brown, Benedict Johnson, Paul Sullivan, […]
[…] stand out. Shows pulled together by collectives of artists, shows like Here There Be Monsters or Collapse or Blink or All I Ever Wanted, artists like Sarah Barker Brown, Benedict Johnson, Paul Sullivan, […]
[…] stand out. Shows pulled together by collectives of artists, shows like Here There Be Monsters or Collapse or Blink or All I Ever Wanted, artists like Sarah Barker Brown, Benedict Johnson, Paul Sullivan, […]
[…] ORGAN THING: Collapse at Peckham’s Safehouse One, another rather powerful rather rewarding artist-… […]