Olympia Scarry
It's not often you get to purchase a whole building of prime real-estate right in the middle of London's artworld just so you can support your friends' artistic bent. But Alex Dellal - who opened '20 Hoxton Square' last Friday - is, after all, the grandson of 'Black Jack', the property and gambling tycoon. That's not to say this is an ex-public school free-for-all - Dellal and Adam Waymouth, old friends and co-curators of this enormous new space, say this will be a gallery that "legitimises guerrilla art shows."
Chivalrous of them to want to help and not just use the property to make a few more generic Hoxton lofts. "Our physical set-up is comparable to a mainstream space, without the complications and constraints of a mainstream gallery," says Waymouth. "Even though this is one of the biggest gallery spaces in London, ironically, we want to be considered as the opposite of the bigger galleries. We want to be approachable to people who haven't any backing or support at the moment." Twenty-seven artists, some undiscovered, some better known, have already found them approachable - and are exhibiting new work for this inaugural über-show.
Freya Wood
Olympia Scarry built a giant box of mirrors that became the centrepiece of the main hall. In it she has hung silver underwear that would have looked good on a trip to the moon. Henry Hudson was spelling out grotesquerie with plasticine again - his disturbing image of two men doing something unspeakable with a sausage (I think it was a sausage) hung in the doorway. Freya Wood made some delightful watercolours - David Hockney pairing up with Van Gogh - in a darkened room at the back of the building. Down in the cellar were a hundred wedding veils hanging against a wall; the sculptor of such melancholia was Andrea Byrne. She'd also covered another dank cellar-wall with fifty or so old-fashioned hand mirrors, on to which she had painted thick black silhouettes against a thick white background. All rather sad and eerie. Back upstairs, Liesel Marie Thomas' paintings of 'gypsies' fishing and preparing food and Seb Humphry's ominous darkening-sky photographs also stood out.
Liesel Marie Thomas
As if they needed more space - the building consists of two halls (one gigantic), a screening room and
several smaller cellar rooms - the boys still intend to look outside for interesting plots to exhibit in.
"We won't schedule shows in advance or necessarily know where the next one is. Our strategy gives us an
opportunity to stay current and let projects and artists develop organically," they say.
Katie McLeod
Seb Humphrys
It all sounds very free and easy but Friday's private view was remarkably organised, and buoyed along by the appearance of half of East London and certain members of the glitterati. Camilla Al Fayed and Charlotte Casiraghi (daughter of Princess Caroline of Monaco) could be spotted threading their way through the crowds, reading copies of the newspaper that was printed especially for the opening night.
Despite the aristocratic flavour, Delall was keen to point out that the gallery has come about to support
all walks of life, all backgrounds. "We want all the unsigned artists we know and all the artists we discover in the future to feel as if they are in the same boat".
The inaugural exhibition will run until 18 May (Tuesday- Sunday, 12-6pm)
20 Hoxton Square, London N1 6NT
www.20hoxtonsquare.com
T: +44 (0)7788 556159
Laura K Jones
Laura K Jones is a London-based journalist and a regular news correspondent for the Saatchi Gallery's online magazine.
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