As always, there was lots and lots (and lots) of good art is 2024, there was lots (and lots) of art coverage here on these (often fractured) pages during yet another very (very) busy art year, I guess it could be argued that there really is a need for the return of the almost traditional end of year round up as we head into a new year isn’t there? Yeah yeah, I know, we didn’t actually write one of these look back list pieces at the end of 2023, we did write look-back art year retrospectives in previous years (and yes, there was a complaint or two about the lack of one at the end of 2023, we get far more complaints when we don’t write something than thanks when we actually do! This is mostly a thankless task). Last year? Well last year just wasn’t that rewardIing or exciting, the London art scene has become a little disappointing in recent years, a little more conservative than it once was – small c, maybe even big c? Maybe a lot more conservative/Conservative? The more underground Artist-led scenes have taken a bit of a battering in recent times, the more mainstream galleries have been in the ascendancy and well, they do tend to play it all rather safe. Pulling together a best of 2023’s art? Well there just wasn’t enough to make a decent list. So here we are six or seven days into 2025, and what of 2024? Was there enough to pull together a best of like we last did in ’22? Sure there was? A quick flick through these Organ pages says there just might of been although what has happened to the street art/urban art scene(s) in the 2020s? How conservative and unadventurous has all that become? All limited edition print releases and getting underwear in a twist about a rather boring Banksy stencil or two, that and mostly very very conservative cliched gallery shows that we mostly went to but didn’t feel inclined to cover. Was the urban/street art scene mostly treading water while talking about “smashing it” or “being the bomb”? Come on, surely it doesn’t have to be so predictable? Not sure if there was anything worth mentioning in terms of so called urban art in any kind of 2024 round up? We certainly went to enough shows, walked enough streets, where was it in 24? The galleries we regularly covered really played it safe last year and yeah, it costs me to say so, but hey, that’s how it flows, obey their rules now, be polite, be the bomb, smash it, sell that print, bring out the coffee table book, the best t things we saw onthe actual street were almost all extremely old school retro, Hackney’s Andre Street evolved nicely in terms of proper graff rather than street art…
So yes, there are pages and pages of time consuming thankless mostly taken for granted pages of art coverage on this site, this Organ thing, this Organ that has now been around for more years then most we cover have been alive. I think we can claim to have been out at more galleries and art events than most people again in ’24, it does feel like we cover a lot of art shows that just aren’t covered anywhere else by the (dare we say) more formal (stick up their arses?) art media sites and publications. We don’t claim to have been to everything, of course we don’t, and yes, on the whole the policy here is to only cover the art we feel positive about or at least feel critically engaged with. We go to a lot of (very) underwhelming shows, we do see a lot of bad art (some might say we make some of it, I’d disagree but hey…) and we do tend to focus our time on the smaller shows rather then the major galleries or museum spaces – I really see no point in pulling small shows apart, we’d far rather spend our time cherry picking the highlights and not getting too angry here on line (we do get angry with some of what we see, some of the attitudes, some of the frankly ageist and sometimes sexist gatekeeping, we could say a lot lot more about some of the really rather boring shows that go on for far far too long in some of the small galleries around here, sure a month is more than enough for a small gallery show? Surely a month is too much, and don’t even get us started on the things the Arts Council choose to support that clutter up the much needed art spaces!).
Our natural ground is the back streets of East London, the train rides over to Peckham or Deptford, there are of course regular visits to Cork Street and the West End, the bus rides to Bermondsey and yes as much as we like to champion the smaller shows and spaces, and as unfashionable as it might be to say so, it is rather difficult to look past Tracey Emin’s White Cube show, as establishment as both parties night be now, as the highlight of an art year where admittedly we hardly got a moment to leave London. For the record we did actually leave London quite a few times, London is where we’re based though and London is where we explore on a daily basis, we are an East London based publication and East London based working artists and have been for years, London is our place…
And where once London was an exciting playground alive with possibilities, with available empty spaces that didn’t come with gatekeepers and their now very conservative art school rules, where once there was a London that was far more alive with the art and the attitudes and events of the genuine risk takers, alive with spaces to really make things happen in. The capital city is now a rather frustratingly conservative place to be as a working artist as well as someone who likes to go to lots of art shows. The few new galleries and spaces that we do have emerging now appear to mostly be in the hands of a new set of gatekeepers, a new breed of rule-following by-the-book curator degree at art school money-enabled types who seem to be taken as the only way to do it all now, what has happened to art schools? We have new set of gatekeepers, dare we say rich kid curators, who might just quite possibility maybe just be even more annoying and frustrating then the old ones ever were. And any available space that there is now is mostly firmly the hands of organisations (one in particular) seemingly hell bent in controlling it all and anyone who doesn’t fit in and bend to their very conservative way of doing things is simply not welcome (and in these days where Instagram is seen as all, quite often blocked for asking nothing more than a polite question). It is getting tougher to exist and challenge anything (including yourself) as an artist in London now and and it really is. as a viewer, an art fan, it is getting harder to find the genuinely exciting shows, artists, to find the alternatives, the genuine risk takers, to find the curators prepared to not play it all quite so safe, to find the exhibitions that really do engage and at least try to challenge. Dare we say the London Art Scene is feeling rather conservative and just a little too politely safe right now? A little? The scene is tediously conservative, come on! wake the flip up, challenge those damn rule makers and gatekeepers, get together, make things happen, when you/we do then the most exciting shows happen like they did at Safehouse in 2024 when artists did dare to take a risk to two…
There has been good shows though, there were still pockets of excitement to be found, there were challenges here and there, there were things to be found if you made an effort. Yes, rather like 2023 before it, 2024 might not have been a vintage year, but there were good shows, there surely was enough for us to pull together an end of year retrospective best of list? Let’s have a look. Back in 2022 we posted a The twenty art things that stood out in that year, a list that included that year’s Upfest (Upfest did return to Bristol in 24 but it was a pale imitation of the glorious thing it was in 2022), there was a Ken Currie show on ’22’s list alongside shows and events featuring SaiakuNana, Caroline Coon (we’re looking forward to her January 2035 opening next week), Kevin Sinnott, Lee Maelzer, that I Just Can’t Think Straight show and Margate Pride’s Turner Contemporary takeover, the was Jeffrey Gibson in 2022, his solo show at the start of 2024 was a highlight of the year we’re dealing with now, as was this year’s Ken Currie exhibition at Flowers, there was enough for a list in ’22, there simply wasn’t enough to justify a list in 2023, let’s give 2024 a go. Enough of this way too long editorial, you know we don’t do editorials, here’s the list, here’s our art year, bring on the next one…
1: Tracey Emin‘s White Cube show back in September was, well at the time our headline read something like this – Tracey Emin, I followed you to the end, opening night at White Cube Bermondsey – it isn’t loud, it isn’t dramatic (although it obviously is), it is almost hushed, intimate, I can’t say beautiful but those lines and the way she moves paint, the sense of the loaded brush and the energy spent… It is hard to look past Tracey’s show (although I expect you’re going to tell us how wrong we are as soon as this goes up)
2: Jeffrey Gibson – there was the boldness of Jeffrey Gibson’s solo show back in February, we’ve said lots about Jeffrey Gibson’s art on these page inthe last few year, his February opening was a genuinely exciting event, as was quite exploring his show a number of times in the weeks that followed – Jeffrey Gibson at Stephen Friedman Gallery, Cork Street, London – all his Let my fly away with you sentiment, all his embracing warmth, the uplifting possibilities of it all…
3: Lee Bae and that very (very) black wooden sculpture that you so want to touch, that giant wooden piece that’s actually a bronze and his pulling us into the abysses of that blackness as you walk around it again and again, his different ways of exploring the same subject that Johyun Gallery from Busan, Seoul are showing at Frieze this year. The big big sculpture, big in so many ways, that Brushstroke Sculpture (a bronze edition of three) that you just want to spend the whole day with, his blurred lines somewhere between very big drawings, painting, charcoal, those panels that play some kind of support act to that sculpture and turn the whole booth into what really is a powerfully rewarding installation… “Based in Seoul and Paris, Lee Bae focuses on the expressive potential of charcoal as a medium”, he really has won Frieze, he’s also got some work in Frieze Masters we are later to discover – okay no, no one won, art is not a vote or an award or a competition, Lee Bae’s work excited me most this year though… – Frieze Week, the obligatory top ten, Lee Bae’s blackness, Jo Messer, Collapse back at the very start week, over in Peckham, Stéphanie Saadé and Mafra, Susie Green at Union, that Ken Currie opening at Flowers, Carol Bove and…
4: Ernest Cole – There was a number of significant shows featuring the work of Ernest Cole in 2024, the South African’s studies of segregation and apartheid in his home country shown at the Photographer’s Gallery were really something but it was his show at Autograph that grabbed – Ernest Cole’s A Lens in Exile at Autograph, Rivington Street, East London – a highly recommended must see, much more than just powerful photography documenting New York City during the height of the civil rights movement…
5: Those artist-led shows at Peckham Safehouse – There were a number of rather strong short-sharp artist-led group shows at Peckham’s Safehouse in the Summer and Autumn of 2024 that really did 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, Miranda Pissarides, Jolene Liam, Gill Roth and Kika Sroka-Miller. The two adjacent Safehouse spaces in a falling down house are almost the last of the few almost affordable spaces left in a city that that is now blighted by the new breed of gatekeepers, the Hypna policing of any empty space and such, it is a battle to find space t oreally do it yourself in London now…
6: Working Girls at Gallery 46 back in the heat of July was powerful in way more than just a couple of ways, some powerful art, Daddy Bears, those gloriously rich red paintings of AJ Bravo, a number of powerful statements, challenges thrown out – 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…
7: Bianca Raffaella‘s one day show and talk back in June on one of the hotest days of the year (with a joyous Tracey Emin) as part of Flowers Gallery’s rather adventurous Summer set of one day shows was something rather uplifting and positive – Bianca Raffaella, Artist of The Day at Flowers Gallery, an exciting painter, there’s a real need to see more and with upmost respect for what is happening here, not just what Tracey Emin has (joyously) selected for us today…
And good that this has now happened – Flowers Gallery have just announced their representation of painter Bianca Raffaella and the upcoming debut of her first major solo exhibition, Faint Memories, at their Cork Street space in London in the New Year, this is excellent news…
8: Sadie Hennessey‘s Tasty Tasty in the last space left of Redchurch Street was more than just fun – Sadie Hennessey’s Tasty Tasty at East London’s Studio 1.1. Tempting; enticing; Is alluring a compliment?
9: Ken Currie features in our end of year list again, maybe not quite so powerful as he was in the much bigger now sadly rather under used and never open Flowers space in East London, his show at their Cork Street space was still something special and very much a highlight during Frieze Week – ORGAN: Frieze Week – Ken Currie’s The Crossing, dark drama on Cork Street, big paintings, people’s extremes, that horse…
10: Peter Kennard‘s opening night of Archive of Dissent certainly was an event back in July, the extensive greatest hits show is still on, it finally closes on January 19th so you still have time. Now we’d like to say this has been a rather timely exhibition, but has there ever been a time when the idea of a major show from Peter Kennard hasn’t been timely? – A rather packed and positive opening to Peter Kennard’s Archive of Dissent at Whitechapel Gallery, East London, last night. Is triumphant the right word? It was certainly strong…
11: Carol Bove (and the man with the blue carper sweeper) at Frieze – Bove’s installation comprised of a group of nine approximately ten-foot-tall abstract sculptures titled Grove I–Grove IX. Each slender, vertically oriented form incorporated a chain, a painted disc, or one of the artist’s now-familiar painted and partially crumpled square-profile stainless-steel tubes – Frieze Week – The Fair itself, Part Four and we’ve made it to the big dog that is Gagosian and those Carol Bove installations via Nancy Spero’s underwear, some Martha Rosler and the bloke with the blue carpet sweeper…
The question was, was the man with the blue carpet sweeper sweeping around Carol Bove’s pieces part of it? Part of the performance? The blue was surely no accident?
11: Jo Messer‘s panels at Frieze London, are we going to call them panels? A big piece of work, several big pieces of work, an offering that demands your time, an offering from the New York artist… Jo Messer at Frieze…
12: Frieze London itself, it was rather conservative again this year, it seemed to be a little more conservative every time, they were good things though, of course there was and really, where was everything else this year, where were the alternatives to fair that never hides what it is actually about? There was Lee Bae’s black abyss, Nour Jaouda’s layers, those two Chang Ling paintings, Jo Messer’s intrigue, Peter Uka’s hints and a bit of Peter Buggenhout at Holtermann Fine Art as we get going on it all… and there was lots of coverage of Frieze London 2024 on these pages, there were numerous positives in there with everything that is wrong about the whole circus. – Frieze Week, the obligatory top ten, Lee Bae’s blackness, Jo Messer, Collapse back at the very start week, over in Peckham, Stéphanie Saadé and Mafra, Susie Green at Union, that Ken Currie opening at Flowers, Carol Bove and…
13: Norman Ackroyd – we didn’t know we were going to lose Norman Ackroyd during another of his wonderful solo shows at Eames Gallery back in September, as we have said several times on these pages, Norman’s work was and is always rather special – Norman Ackroyd’s Notes on Water at Bermondsey’s Eames Fine Art. Sadly we lost Norman this week, he was one of our finest landscape artists and although not intended to be, this is a very fitting celebration of the man and his beautifully powerful work, do go and see it if you can…
14: Susie Green‘s large paintings, her rather deliciously wet playful paintings made us smile back in September – ORGAN THING: Susie Green’s Play Time at East London’s Union Gallery – they do demand a smile and yes, the colours are far far brighter than those that usually fill the darker world of dominance and submission...
15: Dillwyn Smith‘s intriguing use of materials in a rather painterly wall based way at the recently opened Kearsey & Gold was rather strong – ORGAN THING: Three London art shows to catch while you can, Kehinde Wiley’s Fragments from the treasure house of darkness is currently at Cork Street’s Stephen Friedman Gallery, that rather intriguing Dillwyn Smith exhibition at Kearsey & Gold and Alejandro Ospina at Upsilon Gallery…
16: Elsa Rouy and (not just) that one big painting as the art year came to an end is a positively challenging way – ORGAN THING: Elsa Rouy’s A Screaming Object at Hackney’s Guts Gallery is something you really need to see…
17: Florence Hutchings and her seriously playful paintings back in May – Florence Hutchings and her Dressing Room at The Redfern Gallery, Cork Street – not throwaway playful, if these pieces are playful then it is most definitely seriously playful, these are serious paintings…
18: Alice in Hackneyland and Alice’s group show back in April was almost a throwback to East London a dozen years ago when things like this regularly happened, when artists were left make things happen without the Gatekeepers we’ve mentioned already (these days spaces like the Star a few and far between, when they are there then they then to policed and strangled by those previously mentioned at the star of this feature) – Alice Doesn’t Live Here Any More at The Star Of The East, an old pub in Hackney, East London was genuinely exciting back in April – Alice is back in Hackneyland, she doesn’t live here any more but she does have an exciting set of installations and a rather excellent immersive exploration of memory through objects and spaces for one weekend only. Catch it if you can…
19: Richard Kenton Webb and Emrys Williams and their two artist shows that ran through to January – A two artist show, Luminous, two painters, two properly proper painters and the anticipation of light, colour and imagination. Richard Kenton Webb and Emrys Williams at Benjamin Rhodes Arts, East London…
20: Frank Auerbach‘s remarkable series large-scale drawings at the Courtaud this year were of course the best thing we saw by a long long way in 2024, I am a massive admirer of everything he did and said as an artist, not sure if you really need us covering things like Frank Auerbach exhibitions of Francis Bacon shows or…. Put sinply, Frank Auerbach was one of the finest of properly real artists, an artist who really mattered and will always matter. We lost Frank Auerbach this year, we still have his art and thankfully his words – ORGAN THING: R.I.P Frank Auerbach, one of the finest and indeed most challenging painters of the postwar era, has died…
We lost a number of artists this year, we can’t let the year part without remembering those we did lose, as well as Frank Auerbach, we’d especially like to remember and celebrate the lives and art of Sarah Cunningham and Dan Hillier…
And before we start looking forward to the first openings and shows of 2025, here, in nothing other than alphabetical order are a few more things worthy of mention from a very busy (mostly stuck in London) 2024…
The best of the rest in nothing other than alphabetical order
Andre Street‘s old school graaf on those cave doors and walls – Andre Street’s cave walls, up to the Guts of it all again, AJ Bravo’s paint, the Purity and Danger, that and Lily Bunney’s girls peeing on cars…
Rosemary Cronin – London Gallery Weekend pt.2 – Rosemary Cronin’s boots steal Transition’s Hard Candy show over here in Hackney…
Marc-Aurele Debut – Black Tape and chains shape Marc-Aurele Debut’s rather demanding Cornered exhibition over at Bomb Factory in Holborn, London WC2…
Stanley Donwood and Thom Yorke – Stanley Donwood and Thom Yorke’s Logical Absurdity down London’s Cork Street, an intriguing exhibition, intriguing in a rather different way, an unreal very real way…
Ana Viktoria Dzinic – London Gallery Weekend pt.4 – Adelaide Cioni’s True Form at The Approach, Ana Viktoria Dzinic at Nicoletti’s final Vyner Street show…
The Future Is Now – The Future is Now Part II, a powerful group show at London’s CasildART Contemporary, a gallery dedicated to addressing the under-representation of black artists…
Glenn Goldberg – From the Bronx to East London, Glenn Goldberg’s rather enjoyable repeated motifs and mark making at The Approach Gallery….
Emma Harvey – 43 photos from the opening of Emma Harvey’s I Am The Beast I Worship exhibition at WIA Gallery…
Jonus Lund – Jonas Lund at Annka Kultys Gallery, or was he? Futures? Time? Have we got the time?
Julia Maddison was everywhere in 2024, hit the search engine, her installation in the window at More Cake was one of many highlights – Cultivate’s More Cake? Maximalism, chocolate caterpillars, Zelpa, scarlet ribbons, an artist-led art show in an old East London Shop, how was it for us?
Sofia Martins Gray – Cultivate Presents Sofia Martins Gray – Diachronic Suspension(s) – an online art exhibition…
Material Syntax – ORGAN THING: Material Syntax at Kearsey & Gold, Cork Street, London – a group exhibition alive with conversation…
Toby Mott – Artist and writer Toby Mott’s Cultural Traffic Soho pop up for one week only…. and Catch a Lith Li DJ set at the launch of Toby Mott’s new book “Prelude: Transgression In The UK” at London’s Horse Hospital, this Wednesday…
Carol Robertson and Trevor Sutton – Carol Robertson and Trevor Sutton, Heaven Earth and Human Beings at The Grey Gallery, Hackney, East London. This is a beautiful show, beautiful use of colour, crisp, precise, almost graceful. Pieces and relationships that are warm rather than the cold thing geometrical painting can sometimes be…
Sasha Stiles – Artist Sasha Stiles at London’s Outernet, her language, her poetic style, her future-shock, her warmth as part Digital Art Week… and Sasha Stiles has her five-minute poem-movie Cursive Binary: Fragments playing throughout the day tomorrow, Thursday April 25, on Outernet’s four-story LED screens, right across from Tottenham Court Road Station, London…
David Tucker – Painter David Tucker at East London’s Gallery 46 – Intense, deeply personal, at times rather beautiful…
And there was Cultivate and More Cake as well as those online Cultivate shows as well as Switch The Other but hey, we can’t be blowing out own trumpets too much, then again we do like to actually walk it rather than just talk it – Cultivate’s More Cake? Maximalism, chocolate caterpillars, Zelpa, scarlet ribbons, an artist-led art show in an old East London Shop, how was it for us? or And so Switch The Other happened, a carefully Cultivated art show in a glorious space in Crystal Palace… or Cultivate presents Mixtape No.8 – an online art exhibition… or Cultivate presents Mixtape No.7 – an online art exhibition…
There was more, lots more, use our search enging or hit the Art option to explore more of what we covered in a busy 2024. We do all this because we are way too often the only ones bothering to cover these things, because someone has to make a record of these things or view them from a working artist’s point of view, because some of this really needs to ber said however much it may annoy some (yes some of this does get me banned as both an artists and a viewer from some galleries), because some of it needs to be celebrated or just pointed at while they still actually happening…
I spoke to one self-celebrating London art website recently, their editor seriously asked me why he should have go to or cover small shows or artist-led shows, he presented it as a serious question.
It wasn’t a vintage year, it was a tough year for artists, curators and galleries, it was a little bit more positively rewarding than 2023 was and yes, we are still heading out of our Hackney bunker on an almost daily basis on our way to galleries full of hope and a touch of excitment, good art does excite, maybe more than ever, Yes, the new gatekeepers and theit attitudes might be strangling so much, their new set of rules might be as as annoying and they might just be even worse then the old gatekeepers, they certainly congratulate themselves far far more, we’re still heading out there full of positive anticipation though, art is brilliant, standing in front of a good challenfing painting is special and there’s always another one waiting, bring on the art of 2025 and see you out there… And yes, someone can write about those bags or 2024’s #43Leaves pieces… (sw)
Previously…
And on into 2025…
THE ORGAN 
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[…] to. It is feeling rather ageist out there right now (as we kind of said in that bit about the best art of 2024 the other day) . I guess Skin and company are aiming their shots at those who keep gate for the […]
[…] to. It is feeling rather ageist out there right now (as we kind of said in that bit about the best art of 2024 the other day) . I guess Skin and company are aiming their shots at those who keep gate for the […]
[…] ORGAN: The twenty art things that stood out in 2024 – Tracey Emin, Lee Bae, Ken Currie, Jeffrey Gi… […]
[…] ORGAN: The twenty art things that stood out in 2024 – Tracey Emin, Lee Bae, Ken Currie, Jeffrey Gi… […]
[…] ORGAN: The twenty art things that stood out in 2024 – Tracey Emin, Lee Bae, Ken Currie, Jeffrey Gi… […]
[…] ORGAN: The twenty art things that stood out in 2024 – Tracey Emin, Lee Bae, Ken Currie, Jeffrey Gi… […]
[…] ORGAN: The twenty art things that stood out in 2024 – Tracey Emin, Lee Bae, Ken Currie, Jeffrey Gi… […]
[…] ORGAN: The twenty art things that stood out in 2024 – Tracey Emin, Lee Bae, Ken Currie, Jeffrey Gi… […]
[…] ORGAN: The twenty art things that stood out in 2024 – Tracey Emin, Lee Bae, Ken Currie, Jeffrey Gi… […]