East End Review

Tag: Hackney Wicked

Gavin Turk gives cautious welcome to plans for dedicated ‘artist zones’

Artist Gavin Turk at Hackney WickED. Photograph: Anna Maloney

Plans to ringfence dedicated zones to offer protection from developers and rising rents have been given a cautious welcome by Hackney Wick artist Gavin Turk.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan’s culture chief Justine Simons is working on proposals to stem the numbers of creatives being priced out of the city through the creation of a “creative enterprise zone”.

But Turk, who is considered one of the Young British Artists whose work gained notoriety at the Sensation exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art in the mid 1990s, told the London Citizen that there were pros and cons to such schemes.

He said Simon’s proposals were “all good” but that they “might start to create an unfortunate situation where you say one artist is worth keeping and another isn’t”.

Turk added: “There is culturally a problem in this country where the arts are seen as a Sunday activity, and accordingly artists are an underclass who aren’t very well paid.”

He also warned there could be “problems with the idea of government legitimation of art”.

He said: “When I was doing a residency in Paris back in the late 1980s, the government there were keen to protect artists in certain areas – so in the Bastille you had artists running away from the government’s patronising [of them] because they felt it undermined the creativity of their practice.

“There’s a massive contradiction there, and it’s a very difficult thing to approach.”

But the 48-year-old artist praised Ms Simons for taking steps to stop artists being priced out of London.

“UK culture is quite bad at seeing and respecting art, but the country actually does quite well by its creative cultural production: design, art, advertising, film and music,” he said.

“So it’s good that she [Simons] has made a call and said ‘let’s go appreciate these artists and make an investment in them’.”

Turk’s current exhibition at Hackney Wick’s Béton Brut Gallery tackles the subject of gentrification.

“It’s a story that’s told over and over: artists go to cheap places, they create an energy, and people start to be drawn to these areas, and then property developers see that attraction and excitement and start coming in to build flats,” Turk said.

“It’s funny, because in a way artists are actually part of the gentrification process. There’s actually an economic value to their cultural capital – artists are financially valuable.

“Developers should almost be paying them, but how do you do something like that legislatively? Maybe there could be studio spaces on the bottom floor of these expensive flats? But then, I’m not sure artists would be interested.”

Professor Simon Robertshaw from the University of East London is among those who have given their backing to the idea of protected areas for artists.

He said: “The way in which London actually supports its artists isn’t great. I think we’ve got to start having protected zones for artists’ rents.

“My staff who are artists are now moving out of London to Margate or Folkestone or Hastings because that’s what they can afford.”

September 16, 2016
Discover a ‘creative labyrinth’ at Hackney WickED DIY Open Studios

A visitor perusing the work of freelance sculptor Wilfrid Wood at Hackney WickED’s open studios. Photograph: Anna Maloney

Hundreds of artists are to throw open the doors of their studios this month for the annual Hackney WickED DIY Open Studios event.

Members of the public are invited to explore the “labyrinth of creative spaces” in what is famously the world’s most densely-populated area of artists during the last weekend of July.

The annual event allows the public to view art in the environment in which it was made as well as providing the chance to meet and talk with local artists.

The launch party on the evening of Friday 29 July explores subversive culture, with an opportunity to get ‘greased up’ at Mick’s Garage in Queen’s Yard, with live art performances from the likes of Strontium 92, Stray Transmission and the London Sound Painting Orchestra.

Through the weekend, artists across 20 buildings will be displaying their wares, and there will be immersive live art performances taking place spontaneously across Hackney Wick and Fish Island.

L-R: Artists Megan Broadmeadow, Victoria Myatt, Matthew Faulkner, Jamie Shaw, Bernadette Ehl at Hackney WickED 2013. Photograph: Eleonore de Bonneval

Artists’ studios in Hackney Wick such as those on Wallis Road have come under threat in recent years, so the ethos of the Open Studios event is “let’s enjoy it while we can”.

Hackney WickED director Anna Maloney told the Hackney Citizen last year that “change is the only certain thing, so we want people to come to the area, see the art, check out the boundless talent and enjoy what we have”.

Site maps will be available for collection at Mick’s Garage in Queen’s Yard.

HackneyWickEd Open Studios, 29–31 July

July 20, 2016
Hackney WickED art prize won by ‘erosion painter’

Hackney WickED art prize winner: Mick Dean

The inaugural Hackney WickED art prize has been awarded to painter Mick Dean, whose large-scale oil paintings of the local environment are on display at Unit G gallery in Well Street this month.

The Hackney Wick-based artist beat off competition from 20 other local artists to win a solo exhibition at the newly-opened gallery.

“When you reach your 70th year there aren’t too many surprises left, but winning this prize was certainly one of them,” he said.

Dean describes his work as being about erosion and the second law of Thermo dynamics.

“I paint man made things that are slowly eroding and breaking down,” states Dean on his website.

Copyright Mick Dean

Dean has been painting scenes of East London for the last 15 years but only recently discovered that both sides of his family are from Stepney.

“I’ve traced them back to 1842,” he said. “I’ve always been drawn to the area especially the riverside from Wapping to Limehouse.”

During Hackney WickED’s open studio weekend last year, Dean’s work was singled out as a contender for the new prize.

Judges praised the artist’s “appealing use of colour and composition, revealing the essence of otherwise typical local streets and waterway landscapes”.

Copyright Mick Dean

The directors of Hackney WickED said: “We’re overjoyed to be creating real opportunities for artists based in Hackney Wick, introducing artists to galleries and curators, which enable them to raise their profile, put together shows of their work outside the area in well-positioned galleries such at Unit G.

“Hopefully it will lead to increased exposure and ultimately sales of their art. We’re looking forward to creating more opportunities like this going into the future.”

Street Entropy by Mick Dean is at Unit G gallery, 12a Collent Street, E9 6SG until 31 March.

Copyright Mick Dean

March 15, 2016
Hackney WickED art festival is cancelled

Cancelled: Hackney WickED. Photograph: eatingeast via flickr

Art festival Hackney WickED has announced it will not be going ahead this year due to “ever-increasing” production costs.

The annual festival, which has been running since 2008, is taking the year off to “re-evaluate and adapt to the changing nature of Hackney Wick”, and will instead be curating a programme of smaller events.

In a statement, the festival organisers said: “The festival faces ever-increasing production costs that are necessary to manage the event in line with requests from authorities and our own desire to present a safe, professional event.

“Thousands of pounds have previously been spent on waste disposal, security, street cleaning and the general infrastructure required to manage the 30,000 plus crowds that attend the festival each year.

“Hackney WickED greatly appreciates the sponsorship and funding received to date. However, the festival still has to rely heavily on in-kind support from suppliers, the management team and a volunteer network – and this is no longer sustainable for an event of this scale.”

Anna Maloney, one of Hackney WickED’s six directors, told the East End Review earlier this year that “for Hackney Wicked and other local organisations the police and council have made it quite difficult for us to put things on.

“[This] has actually created the expense because they made us responsible for the security of the whole of Hackney Wick and Fish Island.”

All is not lost, however, as Hackney WickED now aims to evolve as an organisation by supporting local artists and creating more art events across London and beyond.

It has also been awarded Arts Council funding to conduct research to measure the value of Hackney WickED to the wider community, which will help map out the way forward.

Hackney WickED was formed by artists living in Hackney Wick as a “defiant uprising” in the face of the London Olympics.

Since 2008, it has promoted creativity in Hackney Wick and provided a platform for local artists to showcase their work.

April 24, 2015
Hackney WickED celebrates community of artists

WickED ways: Anna Freeman Bentley with her paintings at Hackney WickED 2014. Photograph: Eleonore de Bonneval

The first time I went to Hackney Wick was for a party in the autumn of 2009. It was late, it was dark and I was by myself. I felt anxious walking by the A12 among isolated warehouses to reach Fish Island. Back then the area was referred to as ‘the desolation on the edge of the East End’ for good reason.

But on reaching the party, I soon realised I had stepped into the life of a vibrant community of artists, who lived and worked in warehouses, and maximised their potential by creating, experimenting and collaborating with each other. Performances were raw and challenging.

This is a side of Hackney Wick many visitors at this month’s Hackney WickED festival might never have seen or heard about. The weather was glorious with uninterrupted sunshine and the vibe on the streets very relaxed. Parents showed up with their kids, people walked their well-behaved dogs while revellers tucked into offerings from innumerable street food vendors.

Of course, the festival is all about art, and visitors embraced this by visiting artists’ open studios. Heading for a beer at the Crate Brewery in The White Building, you might have come across Gretchen Andrew, wearing a light blue Google Glass. The contemporary painter was showcasing work she has been producing during her three months’ residency at Space Studios using Google Glass to “record the creative process and translate the physicality of it to my viewers”.

It was curious to see how many artists were influenced by their family trades. Jewellery maker Clarice Price Thomas’ father was a clockmaker. As a child, she looked on with wonder at clocks’ mechanisms and is now combining traditional clock making techniques and machinery in an innovative take on jewellery design.

Anna Freeman Bentley’s dad was a civil engineer. “I grew up looking at structures and building sites” she explains, which feeds into her paintings. She is currently looking at Hackney, how the area is changing and the impact of gentrification on the physical environment.

Over two days of exploring the festival, I was surprised to see that beyond official studios, few alternative work/live spaces opened their doors to the public. In almost a voyeuristic way, I missed stepping inside artists’ living rooms and bedrooms and being able to confront the honesty of their art within the intimate context of a home setting.

It meant that the festival lacked the thought-provoking, authentic experiences that I, for one, had come for. At the same time, people were willing to shell out £25 on the door of a warehouse to get into the Tuckshop Summer Carnival on Wallis Road.

As, privately, artists complained to me of having to leave their studios next year due to regeneration plans, I gained a sense of how sanitised the Wick could become.

Hackney WickED ran from 1–3 August

August 8, 2014