“Welcome to the scene said one gallarina to another, are you going to Condo tomorrow?” yes replied the second gallerina “I have to be seen on the scene”, we’re in a Cork Street Gallery, not in the gallery we are here in the street for on this dull Friday afternoon in the middle of January, that was Flowers and the first day proper (rather then the opening night and the scenester clutter) of the rather strong George Blacklock show, more on that elsewhere on these pages, we’re in a different gallery right now overhearing a rather loud conversation while we’re quietly tying to look at paintings. Is it all just about being seen on the scene then? And that has always been the feeling with Condo really, especially since the yearly event came back after two or three years off during the times of Covid. A feeling that Condo is the London establishment congratulating itself when maybe that congratulation isn’t that deserved? A rather blinkered rather insular scene that does like to celebrate itself while it keeps most of us at arms length and yes, I am being rather cynical, but then this isn’t my first Condo ride. How many years have we been covering this scene the gallerina so desperately needs to be seen to be part of now? Covering these London art scenes. Ah come on, cynical smiles aside, we haven’t even left the Organ bunker yet, a morning’s painting must comes first, this constant writing about art and far more than just the galerina’s scene, the other ones as well, all the writing is but a mere side issue, a dirty job that someone has to do, I am a painter first, a London-based working artist who probably been doing this longer than that gallerina and her overloud friends have been on this planet. 

Condo in recent years has been somewhat underwhelming to say the least.  The idea is a damn good one, London galleries hosting overseas galleries and curators, in theory it should be different, it should be exciting, it should bring things we don’t usually see, in reality previous years have mostly been, with a couple of exceptions in a couple of galleries, rather half heartedly disappointing.  It was worth the effort of walking around a good part of it last year for Erin M. Riley‘s powerful art at Mother’s Tankstation, something that ended up being featured in our Best Of Art 2025 round up at the start of this year – as well as the rather excellent paintings of Moka Lee at Carlos/Ishikawa Gallery and the engagement with Korea’s Jason Haam Gallery and yes, that yellow window at Public looked rather exciting last year even if things were a little unfriendly, unengaging, a little too cool for school and yes, rather underwhelming inside that particular space last year. Public isn’t the most engaging of London’s new breed of self-congratulating art spaces but hey, that was last year, enough of that let get out there and at least explore what’s to be found on our East London home ground on the opening weekend of Condo. Let’s go see what the East London side of the city-wide event has to offer this year. As we said in last week’s Organ preview, Condo 2026 is a collaborative exhibition by 50 galleries across 23 London spaces. Will it be any good this year? 

Will Condo be any good this year? Noisy neighbours put in their place, Red issues dealt with, the mood is good, we’re up for some art as we head out of the Hackney bunker early on Saturday afternoon. The light is already fading, the weather in always dull for Condo, well it is early January, it is the London Art Scene’s first real event, the dullness of January never does Condo that many favours, but then it is a new year, a new start, let’s get up and at ’em, lets get out there on those East London Streets, let’s go find some exciting art, let’s have a good one and hey hey hey, as Sgt. Esterhaus would say, let’s be careful out there. 

We’re heading for The Approach first, along Approach Road and past that still evolving piece of street art that’s been at the top of the street that houses the gallery for quite some time now, the one attempting to show the ordinary people of Gaza some love, a tiny bit of a positive statement, not that anyone in Gaza would have seen it (or maybe they have?). Of we go, down Approach Road from Victoria Park, past not the greatest graff in the world, off to the gallery above the pub. Now most of these participating spaces are (understandably) only giving up part of their spaces to their guest galleries, a lot of the participating spaces are also opening new shows of their own, The Approach is one such space…   

“In parallel with Condo 2026, The Approach is pleased to present Diversions, the second exhibition in the main gallery by Brussels-based artist Hana Miletić (born 1982 in Zagreb). The exhibition features a site-specific installation comprising suspended jacquard-woven curtains and new floor works from her ongoing hand-woven Materials series. As with her earlier exhibition at The Approach, Patterns of Thrift, this exhibition also hints at the location of the gallery in Bethnal Green, which has a rich history connected to weaving and textile production…”  

We’ve deliberately avoided any advance online publicity or previews this year, we have no idea what we’re going to encounter in any of the spaces this year,  Hana Miletić‘s rather large installation more than fills the big room at The Approach, it is a rather enjoyable shock actually, rather unexpected, although why it should be unexpected I don’t know, we’ve seen The Approach space used in many way, who was it who turned the whole place black about half a dozen years ago? in all honesty, after the initial rush, I’m not really sure what I make of Hana Miletić’s installation, what I make of walking though it, what it says to me, not sure if it does connect with East London’s rich textile history (that doesn’t really extend to this part of East London does it? More of a Brick Lane thing surely), I’m not sure that anything that happens at The Approach connect that much with East London

Yes, she has used a Jacquard loom to produce the giant curtains that are breaking up the gallery space so dramatically, and yes that loom allows Hana Miletić is to create more complex patterns, and at a much quicker pace, compared to her regular technique of weaving by hand. And yes, historically, Jacquard looms used punch cards to automate the production of woven patterns, and it was from this lineage that the binary system of 0s and 1s evolved to become the fundamental organising principle for early computing. The chequered pattern is based on the transparency grid found in image editing software such as Photoshop and yes it is faster than getting all tangled up in the hand weaving of a regular loom (and yes, I did study textiles way back in the last century at some art school or other). Yes, Miletić intentionally leaves some of the warp and weft threads partially untethered from the woven structure, and yeah, we all claimed it was intentional – I jest, it obviously is intentional here and well, yeah, here’s here’s another #43SecondFilm, you need to walk through it yourselves really, let’s go see the Condo bit in the little side shoebox Annexe space at The Approach, the big curtains were interesting to walk through, fun I guess, more than that? Well, um..

The Approach is hosting Margot Samel Gallery in their Annexe area, the New York gallery is in turn presenting works by Leroy Johnson and Olivia Jia. Johnson and Jia apparently shared a friendship in Philadelphia, and this presentation brings their work together for the first time. A small exhibition in the rather small shoebox Annexe space, Leroy Johnson’s work takes the eye first, not that the works of the two artists are competing, there is certainly harmony here, conversations between the two, an understanding of each other. I know nothing about either of them…

“With a documentarian’s eye but a poet’s gaze, Leroy Johnson (1937–2022, Philadelphia, PA) surveyed the pleasures, hardships, and contradictions within the Philadelphia neighbourhoods where he spent his life. Through his occupations as a social worker, rehab counsellor, teacher of disabled youth, and school administrator, Johnson pierced the fabric of collective human experience more deeply than most. Constructed largely from materials found during his daily commutes, his house sculptures are replete with the textures of reality. Johnson represented the city as an accretion of marks. Intentional declarations graffitied on walls hold equal weight with the subtle beauty of the residue of life, of signage and surfaces worn and sun-bleached past legibility – their degradation becomes, through Johnson’s attention, painterly abstraction authored not by a single artistic hand but by the vast social forces at play. These sculptures are labyrinths of referent and possibility”.

Now this does connect with East London, they are very Philly but they could be East London pieces; those same layers, that decay, that and yes, the “subtle beauty of the residue of life” that is all around us here in this part of East London – something that hasn’t really found itself welcome inside the Approach before. Dare we say when we East London artists explore those same layers found on our streets, The Approach aren’t that interested? These Leroy Johnson layers are full of life, full of so so much, they’re exciting, they are artistically poetic, they are so much. Small but these Leroy Johnson pieces are so so big in so many ways. They demand you walk around them, crouch down to find different angles, to look through, around, to the let the detail draw you in…   

Meanwhile; “painted with what she describes as a “nocturnal” palette, Olivia Jia (b. 1994, Chicago, IL) creates works with a somnambulant quality, appearing as if scenes encountered in a state between sleep and waking. Frequently depicting imagined books and ephemera, each painting is constructed around a tableau that the artist has arranged, incorporating material collected by herself or held by family members, alongside references to American and Chinese art histories. Informed by Jia’s own diasporic identity as the child of Chinese immigrants to the United States…” The Olivia Jia pieces work well up on the wall alongside the tales woven into Leroy johnson’s layers, it makes perfect sense that they should both be together here (in East London) sharing space and sharing with us, a small taste of two artists from Philadelphia well worth your time…

And hey, is that a sign telling people who don’t know just where the gallery is? Things are looking up, the Approach usually like to hide above the pub and if you don’t know the gallery is there then tough. Whatever next, someone from the Approach actually saying hello?! Heaven forbid no, how many pages of documentation of their shows are there on these pages now? People do tell us, they’ve gone to the gallery on the strength of our coverage. You’re welcome as they say. 

We’re off to a good start, but then didn’t we say they a couple of years ago when The Approach hosted a gallery from Beriut called Marfa’ Projects, the Beriut gallery was showing a number of oil paintings on the Annexe wall back in 2024, the work of a London-based Beruit artist by the name of Talar Aghbashian that turnedout to be one of the highlights of that rather underwhelming year’s Condo. Wonder what became of Talar Aghbashian? Yes, New York’s Margot Samel Gallery and the work of Leroy Johnson and Olivia Jia has got 2026’s Condo off to a good start.  

Where next? Off towards the Hackney Road and the gallery known as Soft Opening, off past the uninviting dullness of the front of Auto Italia – we are following the Condo route but we’re not going to ignore the galleries and spaces that aren’t part of it – although, Auto Italia is looking extra uninviting this year, and a quick head poked inside, reveals the same show that opened back in November, a show that will go on until almost the end of February (surely everyone who want to see it has already?), there’s darkness inside and a film playing to no one just as it was last time we looked in to the Arts Council space that seems to be mostly about annoying Instagram stories and grand exhibition statements and well, we’ve tried, oh how we’ve tried, all those years of going into Auto Italia, going in there hoping for something, some kind of engagement. On to Soft Opening, on past that ever evolving concrete barrier road block at the end of that street, one of the best pieces of ever evolving brutalist art around, on past that East End Peeler, on over the busy crossroad and the 10 Foot tagged railway bridge )aren’t they all?), on passed that Poop place, have they gone under now? Who cares. On past the sign that that’s been there for ages telling us Annka Kultys Gallery has moved – it will probably still be there when we walk past during Condo 2027. On passed that Cabinet Maker’s sign above the layers of graff and tags and those layers of East London lives that Leroy Johnson might have stopped to look at,  on to Soft Opening and the next Condo-hosting art space…

There’s a new show opening at Soft Opening, a Sam Lipp exhibition, an exhibition called Base; “Base looks toward the foundation, to the degraded, stepped-over core of existence. The culmination of a decade’s development of material practice, Sam Lipp’s new series of paintings use the artist’s signature combination of oil on steel, including one work on a steel medical box. A third medium, frottage – Lipp’s distinctive process of mark-making through friction with sidewalk cement – emphasises these paintings’ unusual sturdiness while also testifying to ideas of bodily vulnerability and decay” – does the gallery mean pavement cement? Then again Sam Lipp is a new York based artist (via a spell at Goldsmiths that the artist seems to have survived), most of the artists encountered in this East London space recently have been from the USA (just sayin’), do any of these East London galleries ever take any notice of East London’s artists? Sam Lipp’s show isn’t the Condo part, the Sam Lipp exhibition is in the main body of the gallery, the Condo part is in the hardly ever used besides once a year for Condo bit at the side (hey, wild leftfield idea, maybe they could use that space that only opens up for Condo to show the work of an East London artist or two, bring in a curator who might know what’s going on, nah, that would never happen, no chance) 

Sam Lipp then, we have seen the artist in this space before.  What have we got here? Paintings, flesh, is it desire? Damage? All of that? Well it is busy in here, that opening day hum of people. Sam Lipp’s paintings demand time, there they are, up on the wall this time; the grotesque elegance of self-harm scars? There is an elegance here in amongst the revealing, if indeed that is what it is? Stars on the back of hands, decaying wood as canvas, to quote the gallery notes (and indeed use on one their quotes); Lipp’s practice excels in drawing attention to how, in Christopher Chitty’s words, “the commodity form has transformed the essential coordinates of human sexuality.” There’s something here, I want to say a strength but as strong as this work is, that isn’t the right word, there’s something here that invites us in and at the same time doesn’t quite want to invite us in. Is it fragile? Probably not? Mirrors? Individuality? Is he toying with us? Does he know he is? They are beautifully painted, elegantly so, all those fault lines, those imperfections that maybe do draw us in? Whatever it is these are paintings you want to quietly talk to, that you want to engage with, and yes, paintings you want to enjoy in the safe surroundings of a white walled gallery. I like this show, I like that I’m thinking about this show, that I want to go back and see it again, that it makes me give a shit about Sam Lipp when most of the time I really don’t give a shit about a painter. I have no idea who Sam Lipp is or what he thinks, in a lot of ways I don’t want to know anything beyond what I think I know from his art right now. I probably like the mystery, the idea of who he might be, who the person who bothered to make these meaningful paintings might be, who the person who made me care about these paintings, about this show, about these people is. Not that anyone gives a shit about what I give a shit about but for what any of this is worth, this is a recommended show, one to go to, or in my case, one to go back to. yesterday George Blacklock’s paintings grabbed us in Cork Street, today Sam Lipp’s paintings have done the same back here in East London, dare we say we’re off with the art year?     

Shall we take a break and come back with Part Two in a minute? Come back with Soft Opening’s bit of Condo that’s sharing the gallery with the rewarding Sam Lipp exhibition in a moment? Yep, back in five minutes for Condo Part Two…       

The Approach is found on the first floor above the pub, 47 Approach Road, Bethnal Green, London E2 9LY, Access to the gallery via The Approach Tavern pub, there’s a brown door at the end of the left side of the bar. The gallery is open Wednesday to Saturday 12–6pm or by appointment. The Hana Miletić exhibition goes on until February 21st 2026, so does their hosting of Margot Samel‘s Condo show. Previous coverage of things at The Approach

Soft Opening is found at 6 Minerva Street, London E2 9EH. The gallery is open Wednesday through to Saturday, midday until 6pm. The Sam Lipp exhibition is on until 14th March 2026.

As always, so please click on an image to view the whole thing or to run the slide show…