Off up the road, off to Guts again, our neighbours, the gallery that likes to celebrate itself up the street here in Hackney, fair to say we have our issues, they don’t like us much, the feeling is kind of mutual, let’s make this about the art though, did want to see the current show in their side room, the space they called Guts Projects, it is hard to avoid all the bulshit on the Guts website, let’s try, the reason for walking up the road the day after their latest opening, their openings are always full, the lighting isn’t the greatest, they are more about the event than the art which is fine but hey, if you do want to see the art then you’re better off waiting until the morning after the night before. The new show, curated by Mathilde Friis, last seen curating that excellent Working Girls show at Gallery 46, a show that, amongst other things introduced us to the excitement of AJ Bravo and her lush use of red paint, AJ is a London-based femme artist and scholar from Bilbao, Spain, her big bold red paintings were a highlight of that show at 46, walking in to the big room at that space without knowing a thing about her was genuinely exciting, since then she’s featured in one of our Cultivate Mixtape shows and yes, it was genuinely exciting to have a chance to go see more of her paint in the the flesh.    

Mathilde Friis is an interesting curator, she comes at it in an academic way rather than an instinctive way, she throws out questions, she challenges in a thought provoking way and more importantly, she has once again pulled together an exciting group of artists and presented us with a positively challenging art exhibition. This time the scale is smaller, the pieces are smaller, part of the power of Working Girls was the scale, the boldness. This exhibition, Purity and Danger, is far more subtle, it isn’t going to hit you in the face in quite the same way, it is going to draw on your ideas of what is considered clean or dirty, sacred or profane, pure or dangerous (one of the first responses to our own Mixtape show was one of shock followed by complaint, AJ Bravo’s work wasn’t mentioned, I think we can assume though). It isn’t entirely comfortable, standing here in this room, no one else in here, besides the person at the desk, head down behind his computer taking no notice of you, you are conscious of  what you’re looking at, it does feel sacred, it is after all art on a gallery wall and not some backstreet shop in Soho, I do like that Mathilde Friis, via her artists and her writing, throws out these questions about our ways of thinking, our ways of seeing (same has to be said to some extent about Guts and their programme of shows).  

“AJ Bravo, a painter and academic, explores the relationship between pornography and eroticism in their triptych Adoration (2024) and Red Quickies series (2023). Through research into aesthetics and philosophy, Bravo’s works bring the viewer into close proximity with sexual bodies and self-pleasure, directly bridging art with the pornographic medium, and through these experiences the repetitive act of the brushstroke becomes a sacred ritual for the painter”. It was the beauty of her paint that first attracted me, that lush lush red in the brilliant whiter than white of Gallery 46, the brush strokes themselves, I don’t know what that says about me? Paint as prone? Painting as the muse? The smaller AJ pieces in here are certainly paintings to adore, and yes they do stand out but then I am a painter, paint is my thing far more than other mediums may be, it is about her reds more than anything. 

There are five strong (female) artists in this confident show, there are once again positive conversations quietly happening across the room, you are left wanting to know more about each of the artists, about the show, you do leave with your head full of questions, and at the same time you are left with the beauty, with the sometime uncomfortable beauty, the nature, as weith Working Girls back in the Summer, you are left with a whole bag full of positive emotion, the boldness of that paint, of DaddyBears once again, she’s a textile artist and sculptor based in London, of Anna Sampson, a London-based photographic artist who shoots and prints on film, of Darya Diamond, a Mexican-American artist working in print. Maite de Orbe, a London-based Spanish artist working in photography and film, mostly you left with a need to see more of AJ Bravo’s paint….

Read more about Purity and Danger here on the Guts website

Meanwhile over in the main gallery, Lily Bunney: girls peeing on cars, a show that once again opened last night, the first solo exhibition by the British artist, it is the first of two presentations of Lily Bunney’s work as a collaboration between two galleries, with the second part to open at miłość in November.  Girls peeing on cars is an expression of reverence for friendship, with the exhibition being an homage not just to the concepts of closeness, communion, mutual support and celebration, but also to Lily’s actual friends. Lily speaks of narrating her life through friendship, with her adulthood being an exploration of comfort evolving from close personal relationships.  Hey look, the show isn’t doing much for me, it is without doubt an interesting show, and yes it is kind of intimate in a semi-voyeuristic way – personally it brings a smile as it reminds me of hiding a friend in plain sight while she took a pee in the busy line waiting to get into a Tracey Emin show a few years back and you only pee in front of your best friends (well unless….), but then as an art show, as cold images on a gallery wall, vague images of a complete stranger, and yes, I guess we are invited to look, to gaze, and as I would in the street, I shall just politely leave her and her friends to positively enjoy her images and their bonds. It isn’t that I don’t like it or that makes me uncomfortable, it just, as an art show, doesn’t really do that much either way for me… 

Hey look, I do like going to Guts, it isn’t a gallery that invites indifference, it is a gallery that, however you might feel about the way they talk it, does kind of walk it, their shows (and I do think we have been to every single one of them so far) do often feature some exciting challenging rewarding art. Yes, it can sometimes be frustrating in terms of working out who’s work you’re actually looking at, and there is once again an element of ageism running through the place, yes they do feel as much a set of (aggressive) gatekeepers as those they claim to be challenging, but hey, lets keep it about the actual art on the actual walls and avoid the rest of it, there are galleries around here that I just can’t be bothered with going to, you can’t ever accuse Guts of being a places not to be bothered with. Read more about peeing on cars here if you need to.

Do like going to Guts, do like Andre Street, here’s how it was looking last weekend…

And I wasn’t reallty going to mention it but seeing as we were up in the guts of it al again this weekend and we had been there a couple of weeks ago and well if you want to know more about Bitches In Heat, there’s a link at the end…

Bitches In Heat: Lydia Pettit and Olivia Sterling – Do kind of like Olivia’s playfulness whenever we encounter it, nearly missed this show, finally caught it on the final weekend of the madness of Frieze Week, there had once again been a lot hype and I must admit to a tinge of guilt in terms of not going – and I do like Andre Street, it is one of the few places where those primitive London caves of Iain Sinclair are still thriving, where the graff is still worth exploring and one of my paint dealers are on the street, it is where you find Chrome and Black now – Bitches in Heat is, I guess, a fun show, there’s two interesting painters, this time the mass of cartoon-ness of it all isn’t doing much, the Halloween trap door and the frothing and such, hey look, I went, the Andre Street Cat said hello, the show has been and gone now, if you need to know more then here you go… (sw)

Guts Projects
 and Gallery are both at Unit 2, Sidings House,
10 Andre Street,
London, E8 2AA, Purity and Danger runs until 19 November, as does Lily Bunney’s girls peeing on cars.

Previously – ORGAN THING: A packed opening for Working Girls at East London’s Gallery 46, there’s a lot to explore here, a lot of questions thrown out…

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