Ten years ago this month it was almost all about Hackney Wick, the thousands of people who flocked there and the bits of Hackney WickEd that were hanging on as an annual artist-led thing, it was about the ever evolving walls of the then shell of the one time Lord Napier pub. The almost derelict outside walls that had been painted on many times by many people by then, Hackney WickEd’s best years were already behind us and 2016 wasn’t far off a last stand for the real Hackney Wick as gentrification and the fallout from the 2012 Olympics really started to really kick in. That year most of the Wick’s energy was pasted up on the walls of that old East London boozer, we documented it at the time, we’ve been documenting these things for years (and years), we’ve been documenting the walls of the Lord Napier for years, we noted Aida Wilde and her gang’s activities that year as one of the best (London) art things of 2016 – ORGAN THING: The Top Ten Art Things of 2016? Kembra? Aida? Rocco? Here then are the London art things that excited us most in a busy 2016…
These days the old boozer is back and fully functioning as a rather gentrified East London pub covered in rather politely sanitised street art and graff. These days the walls policed, curated and hardly ever change, it kind of sums up what Hackney Wick is now as it serves the rather heartless new build tower blocks of what is now coffee drinking cocktail bar central rather than the factories and the working class homes it did once serve. The art of Hackney Wick mostly comes in nice polite frames these days and gawd knows where the actual heart of the place has gone? There is still graff but we have kind of seen it all before (when did anyone paint anything that challenging on a Wick wall?). There is very little else besides the over slick seen it all before graff by numbers unless you want coffee, designer tank bar breweries and Friday night beard-growing parties, the ship probably has sunk..
The old building, the old Lord Napier building was painted on for years before the 2016 paste up riot and all that eye-popping dayglo. The first time I encountered the pub was on the weekend of that now infamous early 80s Heavy Metal Goes To The Dogs festival that Motorhead headlined at the long gone Hackney dog track come speedway stadium, there’s whole stories to be told around that one. A festival policed by the Hell’s Angels and a boozer right by the train station that was full of locals not liking the long-haired invasion that much.
Next time I saw the pub it was looking rather like it was all but gone, not much later it closed down and by the end of 90s it had pretty much gone to the dogs itself. By the time 2016 swung around the old shell of a building had been painted on, tagged and battled over for more than a decade or more, the pub (that had been there since the 1860s) actually closed in 1995 and from that point on it the walls were pretty much an un-policed canvas for the writers and then the street artists and later the (damn) paste up artists and for a couple of decades or more the walls were constantly evolving in an exciting ever changing free-form manner.
For a good few years it did become a focus point of free expression both inside and out, squat gigs, illegal raves (until the insides were secured). by 2016 the place was thick with layers of paint, names like Sweet Toof, Mighty Mo, Edwin, Mobstr, Dscreet, Stik, Malarky, Static, Teddy Baden, Sony, Xenz, Done and many many more has left their mark, some of us painted on the walls, some of us hung art on the walls (some of us did both), some of us did it for years and years…
Aida Wilde’s curated July 2016 piece on those already paint covered outer walls of the Lord Napier (that involved a couple of dozen or so artists) was, at the time, an exciting ‘symbol of protest against gentrification’; it was in reality, more of a symbol of a last stand.
Art in Hackney Wick these days is a controlled, policed, mostly slick and rather sanitised, even the graff feels a little slick and sanitised and if there are a token handful of studios they’re certainly not run on the artists terms. The pub has been reopened for a good few years now, it was repainted especially (actually, as far as things go it doesn’t look too bad, a nice stop off point for the street art tour leaders and their paying public I guess), I’ve passed it a million times, I still can’t bring myself to actually go in for a pint (or indeed hang a leaf outside). By 2016 the annual artist-led DIY fest that was Hackney WickEd was already a little past a sell-by date imposed by the Olympic regeneration that was already seeing art spaces, studios and more being pulled down. There was still that spirit of togetherness that held the Wick community together ten years ago but it was fading, it was starting to get a little stretched around the edges, that spirit was still there though, that network of positive creativity, unity, pulling together to make things happen rather than the everyone for themselves we have today. There was just about still an idea of people coming to make things happen, the notion that supporting each other as artists was the (almost natural) thing to do.
The walls of the Lord Napier in 2016 were still exciting, what Aida and her crew did that Summer was exciting, the idea of artists coming together on their own terms, even if it was curated (the first time we’d heard that word in terms of the pub walls), was exciting. Ten years on, and for those of us still hanging on as artists in Hackney, the Wick is a very very different place; “it ain’t for the likes of us scumbags any more” said one WickEd regular recently….
There is some kind of ten year anniversary event celebrating that 1016 Aida Wilde takeover going on this month in some kind of slick unfriendly gallery, one of the new generation of art spaces mostly there for the coffee drinkers who want a slick talking point of a name-dropping print for their walls to go with their Banksy coffee table books and their new tattoo. There is some kind of show on this month but that mostly appears to be a case of a poacher turned gatekeeper affair and all laced up with the bullshit that comes with a so called open call these days (we did tell them we had hundred of photos and bits of footage gathered since and indeed before the turn of the century, they weren’t that bothered).
2016 was a long time ago, way more then ten years ago. Hackney WickEd was exciting back there, busses trapped by impromtu street raves, bands on the street, art everywhere, studio doors thrown open, by 2016 it was all fading, it was still there though and what Aida Wilde and her crew did on the then derelict walls of the Lord Napier, even if she did paste over one of my pieces, was really exciting. It was challenging, it was a statement, it was defiance, it was one ofthe best art things to happen that year and it probably was a last stand. It was beautiful, it was a long (long) time ago… (sw)
Previously
ORGAN THING: Hackney Wicked is upon us, Aida Wilde and Edwin are Left Outside….
13 QUESTIONS FROM ORGAN: Aida Wilde, demonic Print maker…
ORGAN THING: Aida Wilde strikes again, “Daddy I want to paint a lousy mural in Shoreditch…”
ORGAN THING: Gentrification? It was Aida Wilde’s fault! Damn artists, creating a community!
ORGAN THING: blowing trumpets and 43 pieces of art hung around Hackney Wick…
Oh there’s loads more on these pages and via previous formats of Organ…
THE ORGAN 