And on we go, back out of that Mile End Road yard, past the Chinese supermarket again, back down to Whitechapel, off to find what might be on offer in terms of Condo at the galleries known as Union Pacific and Public Gallery, then on beyond those two spaces to explore Emalin and wherever else we can get to before the first day of Condo 6pm closing time…

Part Two then, back down to Whitechapel from the rather fine Moka Lee exhibition at Carlos/Ishikawa Gallery and if you haven’t read Part One, it probably would make sense to start where we started a couple of thousands words ago and the first part of our Condo opening day adventure. This is Part Two, we’ve already been to eight or nine galleries and now we’re heading past the always rewarding Whitechapel Market and those white vans and all those hundreds of oranges for a quid, on past those empty billboard spaces that have been taken over in an impressively (accidental?) minimalist way by a graff writer or two. Here’s Part One – ORGAN THING: Exploring this year’s Condo London Pt.1 – We’re East at Soft Opening, The Approach, Erin M. Riley at Mother’s Tankstation, Moka Lee at Carlos/Ishikawa Gallery, Liam Gillick, Jason Haam Gallery and lots more…

Down to the bottom of Whitechapel, a quick drop into Stolen Space Gallery and that rather stylish Jerôme Masi show that has nothing whatsoever to do with Condo, a show that I was just about to tell you was coming to an end but it seems to have been extended until February 16th and as we said in Part One of this piece, we’re working our way around the opening day of Condo London 2025 and if we happen to be passing a gallery that isn’t part of it, well we’re not going pass it with our noses in the air are we? Facing the Future, a solo show by French artist Jerôme Masi, showcasing his minimalist approach that apparently “distils the essence of his surroundings. Capturing subtle details of everyday life and translating them onto canvas” is happening in Stolen Space Gallery right now. What’s not to like about the way Masi’s work resonates with both simplicity and a touch of depth? Stolen Space is mostly a coffee table urban art kind of space, they mostly like it on the slick side of the street, it can often be a little too safe, it can be a rewarding space, actually we’ve seen many a fine show over the years in the gallery just around the corner from Aldgate East Tube station. They probably have no idea what Condo is at Stolen Space but then the Condo people probably never go anywhere neat Stolen Space, two art worlds that never quite collide. If you have a moment then the rather subtle Jerôme Masi show is well worth an eye, his work is rather positively enjoyable in an almost graphic kind of pop artish forward looking kind of way. 

On past Whitechapel Gallery, no time today though, as tempting as it is to grab just one more final look at that very fine Peter Kennard celebration that will have come to an end by the time you read this – hey don’t moan at us, we covered it several times on these pages including that excellent opening night some half a year ago now, you had plenty of warning and more than enough time to check it out, thousands did and we need to get to Union Pacific and quite few more before the 6pm Condo opening day closing time – “For Condo London 2025, Union Pacific hosts Blank Projects (Cape Town, South Africa), and Gypsum Gallery (Cairo, Egypt), presenting works by Zayn Qahtani, Velma Rosai-Makhandia, Dineo Seshee Bopape, and Nada Elkalaawy” – Velma Rosai-Makhandia’s rather large celestial bathhouses is probably the stand out piece in the one room group show that, without ever being bad, doesn’t really truly grab us…

There’s a Delaine Le Bas exhibition that looks like it is either still being installed or maybe in the process of being taken down at Yamamoto Keiko Rochaix gallery on the corner between Union Pacific and Public Gallery, the lights are all on, it looks rather exciting, the space is all lit up, it is also locked up so we’re looking through the big front window, it really does look rather good in what is now the late afternoon darkness of this cold wet January Saturday. According to the gallery website the show has been on since last year and goes on until February 11th, better go have a look when the space is actually open, as we do keep saying, this really is a non-stop operation. We’re in the Petticoat Lane area of Spitalfields now and what’s that over there? That looks rather interesting, is that an art thing or a rather creative window dresser that the shop have brought in? 

Hey, what’s that over there? Now that does look good, an inviting inciting old shop window right next door and completely taking our attention away from the formality of Public Gallery, what is it? Something in the old Hello Dolly shop that sadly must have closed. Hello Dolly, that brilliant fabric and haberdashery shop that sold all those very colourful African fabrics in one of those stepped row of shops that run along the ground level of Petticoat Square on Middlesex Street, a no beautifully dated social housing estate built in the late 1960s. Is it something to do with Public Gallery? Who knows? Information is vague, the front window looks exciting. What is going on here? The window looks really considered, thought about, engaging, inviting, some kind of installation? Who knows? What’s going on inside? In we go, there’s a guy on his phone behind one of the shop counters, he says nothing, ignores us completely, there’s a piece of what is some kind of assemblage or sculpture standing on one of the other redundant shop counters. The shop fittings are still there, there’s no stock, the place is empty, picked over, the carcass of a once living breathing fabric shop that it really was a treat to go in to. Nothing much of anything on here, just a painting or a piece of art propped up or hanging around here and there on the redundant fittings. Someone comes in and asks unengaging phone boy behind the counter something about when are they going to close ’cause he wants to go for pizza? Still no one has said a word to me and my enquiry to art student type phone boy or his mate pizza boy about what might be going on is met with silence. There’s no info, no signs, no labels, there’s probably a bloody QR code hidden somewhere? The window looks brilliantly inviting and rather exciting, from the outside it really is something and if they’re too cool to actually say anything (they both ooze that annoying art student attitude that currently seems to be the way) we’ll just go ahead and explore until someone says different. 

There’s an interesting piece of sculpture under the stairs, is there more up the stairs? I hope no one from the council comes in, heath and safety would have a blue fit about that not fit for purpose hand rail. There are more pieces hanging in a nonchalant kind of way upstairs, just kind of haphazardly hanging on the abandoned shop fittings, there’s people up here checking things out, there’s a couple of really interesting paintings over there but hey, no names, no labels, no information for us to pass on and a rather unfriendly attitude that kind of has us wondering why they’ve bothered to put this half formed art show on? It isn’t until later when we get back to base that we discover via a piece we’ve found on line that Public Gallery have indeed expanded into the sadly closed down (after four decades) shop next door and yes, it is a group show in the space, something called  00:00:01 and that piece of interesting sculpture under the stairs was by Ignacio Gatica, a piece called The Enjoyment of Laughter, (2017, Cement). Still don’t know who’s paintings we were looking at?  

Public Gallery itself has occupied the three floors of the shop next door to Hello Dolly for sometime now, they’ve had some rather decent shows in the three small formal white walled spaces over the three floors, they long since made it clear they’re not interested in anything we have to say. The new breed of gallery don’t like to be questioned in any kind of way, they don’t like it if you do anything other than blow smoke up their arses and constantly tell them how brilliant there are. I like Public though, they’ve shown some good art in their various spaces. Once again they don’t seen that interested in engaging with East London’s declining number of working artists, but that’s par for the coarse around there parts these days and hey, in Public’s more formal space next door, they’ve got some rather rewarding art to show as part of this year’s Condo. Public Gallery is hosting The Breeder (from Athens) and Martins & Montero (Brussels/São Paulo). Actually things are a little more friendly inside the more formal white walled Public space itself, did someone actually say thanks for coming as we walked out?! 

What’s happen in Public then? Well The Breeder is presenting something called 𝘕𝘰𝘵 𝘈𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘥 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘈𝘭𝘨𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘮𝘪𝘤 𝘈𝘶𝘥𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘴, part of a rather powerful project by Kyriaki Goni. once again a big film taking the entire wall of an empty gallery, no one in here besides us, but this is interesting, this is strong, challenging. Apparently, for the past decade, “Kyriaki Goni has used diverse media to explore the political, emotional, and environmental impacts of big tech, focusing on themes like extractivism, surveillance, and alternative networks centred on care and community. Her installations span websites, textiles, ceramics, drawings, videos, sound, and text, creating interconnected ecosystems that blend the local with the global and the fictional with the scientific” and in here, up on the very big screen an AI generated virtual assistant’s warnings to humanity that you kind of need to go engage with rather than have me try to dance around. Public and The Breeder have delivered here with Kyriaki Goni.

Meanwhile, in another of the upstairs Public spaces, Martins & Montero present an exhibition by Brazilian artists Ana Mazzei and Rebecca Sharp. “Mazzei’s sculptures are motivated by her search for other worlds and imaginary universes and by a need to tell and re-signify stories. Sharp’s paintings explore the coexistence of antagonistic realities vying to manifest themselves in a context riddled with uncertainty. Each reality represents a fully-fledged place, a potential society that resists the opposing forces that attempt to suppress it”.

Back downstairs at street level, the non Condo part of Public, there’s a rather intriguing set of wall based pieces by Greg Carideo, an American artist based in New York, you do feel the New York element is important to the work that is something to do with threes by the looks of things? The pieces kind of feel like the shells of buildings, cages, bird cages, I’m sure they’re not bird cages – awnings as urban cloisters? Spaces, models, spaces that hold things, places to keep things? To keep life, existence, bits of fabric stretched over handmade structures, New York structures, “fragmentary glimpses of contemporary urban existence”, skeleton-like. Actually both Public and Union Pacific are a little busier on this first day of Condo, maybe because it is now later in the afternoon and the sun (not that there was even the slightest of hint of the sun being anywhere near the sky at any point in the day), or maybe because we’re not so far East now, we are a lot more central and off we go again, off we go feeling rather positive about Greg Carideo. 

We’re skirting the edge of the City and those skyscrapers now, past a Formula One Grand Prix car in the window of one of the City’s big bank offices that’s getting more attention than most of the art we’ve seen today. That Aston Martin hammer head shark shaped front fin is beautifully sculpted when you get up close like this, that bit of the car probably does deserve to be in a gallery. Past that Pinot and Picasso place where drunken hen parties are giving painting ago, once you’ve looked in the window and seen the horror it is impossible to un-see it. We’re circling around and heading back up past Liverpool Street Station, back towards the bit where Shoreditch wants to become Hoxton again, heading for one of the two current Emalin spaces. 

Emalin are hosting Antenna Space (Shanghai) as their part of Congo (or even Condo) in their Holywell Lane space just over from that Boxpark monstrocity. The gallery are apparently “pleased to present Evidence, an exhibition of works by Aslan Goisum (b. 1991 in Grozny, Chechnya; lives and works in Berlin) and Peng Zuqiang (b. 1992 in Changsha, China; lives and works in Paris and Amsterdam)”. Emalin are billing the show as being “organised with Antenna Space”. hey, this upstairs space is rather busy, at last a properly heathy crowd in one of the Condo spaces for the opening day but then Emalin openings are always very well attended. 

“The exhibition brings together two artists who use image as a medium – moving image and still image, image caught with a phone camera or film alone without any camera at all. Their works comprise scenes that have been staged or found, restaged again or improvised, accompanied by empty space or pierced through with its light. Both artists deal with the notion of affect and subjectivity – that is to say, for example, what is understood as true feeling and whose experience of the self is understood to be genuine. Our recognition of subjecthood in others is muddled with history and interpretations that we carry with us and project onto what we see – Goisum and Peng create works that reflect and refract these assumptions with oblique image-making strategies, either letting slippages of light in or closing down to render them almost completely opaque” – all well and good, thing is though, besides the crowd, there doesn’t seem to be too much happening in here. I guess there might be some kind of “notion of affect and subjectivity” if any of it was to actually try and break the ice with the viewer? There’s lots of people standing around talking to each other while throwing back the opening day refreshments, there’s a black and White image or two on the wall over there, there a projector pointing at a small screen but the film isn’t running, maybe it was about to? Maybe the projector was a piece of art in itself? There’s three videos running on three screens above the stairwell but hey, with all the coming and going and the beelines for the free beer we didn’t really feel that inclined to hold our ground and stick around long enough to find out if that projector did eventually flicker into action. Nobody much is looking at what is on the walls, it seems to be an inconvenence that some of us might actually want to see the art, then again there really wasn’t that much to see and well, let’s get out a camera phone and make a #43Secondfilm about the notion of affect and the subjectivity of it all and head back down stairs and out the doors and make for Kate MacGarry’s place around the back of the now almost art-bereft Redchurch Street for our final Condo encounter of the day…  

Sad to see the big Newcastle/London gallery building has now been demolished, Studio 1.1 is still bravely hanging on though (wish the door was still bright red), once again the show at Studio 1.1 is nothing to do with Condo, their annual This Year’s Model, a group show that comes in two parts, is on in the long-standing Redchurch Street Gallery. Part One is on right now (the second part opens on February 6th). There never ever seems to be anyone in this rather strange space, by that I mean no looking after anything, no one to look you up and down when you walk in, no one to ask questions of, no one running the show. And there’s never any labels on the work, just a piece of paper that sometimes if you’re lucky makes some kind of sense and we can see some of Dominic Blower‘s work over there and is that his on the plinth as well? That looks like Ruth Philo‘s work over there, someone else comes in and starts asking me about the show, reasonable seeing as no one else is in here. Never have got any sense out of this gallery, attempted to communicate with them many (many) times over the years both as an East London artist and in terms of writing about their shows (including Sadie Hennessey’s Tasty Tasty that was one of out standout art shows of last year), never once got a hint of a response from the gallery about anything and I must have been in here hundreds of times and outside of an opening night and never ever found any sign of a living breathing human. This Year’s Model is, as it is most years, a rather decent group show though, some art we might like to have known more about. Dreadful gallery website as well, none of the work labelled on there either, looks like it was designed in the last century, although the good news is you can still buy a 2021 calender for ten notes, says you can send a cheque or postal order in if you want one, can you still get postal orders? Hang on, a glance under the hood tells us it was Amanda Benson on the plinth, well her work is anyway, rather liked that piece on the plinth, if Amanda herself had been on the plinth with could have asked her about the rest of the show, Dominic Blower is just on the wall, we’ll leave them all to it… On with the Congo around Condo, off around the back to Kate MacGarry’s place…   

Kate MacGarry Gallery is hosting Tanya Leighton Gallery from both Berlin/Los Angeles with a joint presentation of new work by John Smith. Busy in here as well (wonder if things got busier in the largely empty Condo-hosting galleries we were in earlier in the afternoon?). The centrepiece of the exhibition is a film, Being John Smith (27 mins, 2024), a personal work in which the artist reflects on the ordinariness of his name and its profound impact on his sense of self. Through a mix of humour and melancholic self-reflection, Smith navigates his lower middle class roots and his rise to prominence as an influential avant-garde filmmaker. Alas (well alas for us anyway) the viewing room is packed, can’t get anywhere near seeing anything.

“John Smith was born in Walthamstow, London in 1952 and lives and works in London. He studied at North-East London Polytechnic and the Royal College of Art, after which he became an active member of the London Film makers Co-op. Inspired by conceptual art, structural film, and the immersive power of narrative and the spoken word, Smith has developed an extensive body of work that subverts the boundaries between documentary and fiction, representation and abstraction. Often rooted in everyday life, his meticulously crafted films examine and expose the language of cinema itself” and hey if you want more go to the gallery website. We clearly need to come back on a less busy day when we can explore properly. hey, I’m not fighting through here, do you know how many galleries we’ve been in in the last three hours or so, we’ll come back when the space is quiet…

The First Saturday of Condo is coming to an end for us, not sure if we’re enthused enough to go out of our way to see the rest of it? I mean if we happen to be passing we’ll go in, but then it is almost impossible to pass any gallery, well there are one or two we’ve almost complete given up on but it is on the whole impossible to pass an art gallery. And talking of passing, there were a few places on the way back to the bunker, a slight detour took us past the now rebranded Bunny Contemporary, Pure Evil’s place which is still mostly full of Pure Evil‘s own work, his ever evolving pop art trademarks, there’s a bit of Kelly-Anne Davitt‘s ultra photorealistic retro sweet-wrapper pop art over there, a group of Rhys Brown pieces on another wall, it is mostly Pure Evil in the Bunny warren though, I was kind of expecting a little bit more variety what with all the rebranded Bunny Contemporary trumpet blowing that’s been going on. Next up for Bunny Contemporary in early Feb is a Pure Evil solo show (oh for the days of mini bus rides to Mad C shows in secret locations)

Haricot Gallery is still open in the very late afternoon/early evening January darkness on Blackall Street, they’ve got a group show on at the moment, sixteen artists and a show called Two and we probably have looked at too much art by now but hey, in group shows like this there are always one or two pieces that grab a touch more attention than most of the pieces that make up the exhibition. Lydia Hamblet‘s triptych stands out in this one and upstairs there’s a couple of rather big, rather ambitious, rather alive, rather exciting Hetty Douglas paintings that really do stand out. It has been like this at Haricot for most of their exhibitions, group shows that almost always have one or two pieces that stand out amongst what have been rather decent, rather youthful, rather forward looking group shows. Once again not everything here in this show works, some of it is a little, well shall we politely say a little hit and miss, there is once again, enough positives to focus on, no need to be negative, cherry picking in the thing at a Haricot show. Always worth dropping in and exploring the rather unpretentious welcome of Haricot if you happen to be passing which indeed was the case on the long first Saturday of Condo… 

Time to head home, hang on though, something has popped up over there, over there is Mare Street, we’re back on Hackney ground now and an empty shop over there on the corner is lit up and demanding we cross the road to investigate further. The sign above the front window reads “All These…”, a temporary exhibition by an artist called Faisal Hussain apparently – “I’ve always wanted to put all of them in the same space. I know it’s a bit of a dark and exhausting time, particularly now….but we must keep it moving. Find a space for freedom that is yours”. it looks intriguing in the dark and all the street lights, it looks equally intriguing in the day light when we go back again the next day, powerful statements, a positive 

–  “London, Birmingham, and Coventry — From January 20 to February 2, 2025, Faisal Hussain’s temporary exhibition, All These…, will be on display at Buildhollywood’s cultural venues 1 Quaker Street and 85 Mare Street in London, accompanied by a city-wide poster campaign supported with their billboard space across London, Birmingham & Coventry” – You’re kind of bombarded by the brightness of competing shop signs, by slogans, by words, a kind of Piccadilly Circus of colourfully positive information. slogans, takeaway bites of thought, of visual fast food challenge 

– “the exhibition, spanning over ten years of Hussain’s creative exploration, confronts inequality, identity, and racism through text art, light boxes, and photography, reflecting the artist’s lived experiences and observations”.  The space isn’t open, this is an extensive brightly lit installation taking up the entire floorspace of a locked-up corner shop. And yes, as it is just over the road from us, we have witnessed people just looking at it, staring in, taking photos on a number of occasions 

– “Anti-semitism = = Islamophobia, directly responds to recent displays of prejudice and indifference in the public and private spheres, exposing the persistent normalization of Islamophobia and the resurgence of anti-Semitism” says Faisal Hussain, “The last year has shown us the indifference and racism of so many in power. Yet, I take much respite in the solidarity of those working hard against hate. I hope my work continues to address and advocate for inequalities across the UK and beyond.” 

Faisal Hussain’s installation made for an uplifting positive exciting conclusion to what was a long long mixed bag of an art exploring day, a sometimes rewarding day, a sometimes frustrating day, a now and again infuriating day. Besides Faisal Hussain‘s locked up shop, a day rewarded by Erin M. Riley at Mother’s Tankstation, by Moka Lee‘s bold paintings at Carlos/Ishikawa Gallery, by the front window of Public’s Hello Dolly space as well as Kyriaki Goni, by those two rather exciting Hetty Douglas paintings at Haricot and let’s leave it part two right there with the positives of the day. There are always positives when you go out to explore art, art, to almost quote Sean Scully, is almost always a force for good and Condo has, if nothing else, woken up London’s art year… (sw)

Condo London 2025 goes on until February 15th

Previously – ORGAN THING: Exploring this year’s Condo London Pt.1 – We’re East at Soft Opening, The Approach, Erin M. Riley at Mother’s Tankstation, Moka Lee at Carlos/Ishikawa Gallery, Liam Gillick, Jason Haam Gallery and lots more…