Edition VI APRIL 2021 Editors Damian Rayne Gosia Malawska
Whats on
3...................................................Residency Competition 4..............................................................The Box Gallery 5...............................................................Naira Mushtaq 6-7..........................................................Lawrence Calver 8-9..................................................Joanna Ciechanowska 10......................................Claudia Boese, Jane Frederick .................................Gosia Lapsa-Malawska, Mary Romer 11...........................................................Yuichiro Kikuma 12....................................................Nicholas Cheeseman 13..............................................................Buy Art Online 14-15......................................................................KCAW 16-17....................................Meike Brunkhorst | factor-m 19.............................................The Galleries Association 20..............................................................................IMA 21..........................Piers, what’s on your mind? | lechoux 22..........................................................Portobello Dance 23...........................................................Portobello Radio 24..........................................................Tavistock Festival
About... In our online version, we focus on partner organisations, guest artists and residents to bring you a preview of ‘what is’, and ‘what’s to be expected’. We also have links to a wealth of online content this month, including: sound art files for music producers, virtual tours and interviews with our partner organisation (The Galleries Association) and a cross section of counter-culture to be found in West London. The Muse was established in 2003 as an artist-led organisation, supporting both gallery and studio elements. Our gallery is situated in the heart of North Kensington, amongst the Georgian houses of Portobello Market. We host an annual residency programme with subsidised studio space and further show opportunities for recent graduates. Throughout the year we open our doors to artists, curating the space to present a balance of emerging and established professionals.In 2020 we are proud to support three new residents and a diverse list of national and international artists. We hope you enjoy a collection of work in this periodical; hopefully collectable images, whether online or printed — accessible art for our readership.
2021 continued... ENTRY POLICY Private views have been adapted to meet social distancing regulations. We are inviting visitors to book timed slots. These will comprise a fifteen-minute tour of the gallery, supervised by an associate, and with light refreshment available. Exhibiting artists are invited to attend where possible and at their discretion. Booking details for the private view will be published as part of the marketing campaign for each show, three weeks in advance of the opening date. During regular opening times, visitors may enter the gallery in couples, with a limit of up six people at a time. The best way to keep up to date is to subscribe to our mailing list here: www.themuseat269.com/subscribe OFFICIAL ACCESS TO THE MUSE IN MAY Opening hours in May: Thursday/Friday / Saturday/Sunday 12-6pm Please check our website for up to date information
The MUSE Gallery (UK Charity for the arts No.1162300) 269, Portobello Rd. London W11 1LR www.themuseat269.com info@themuseat269.com Twitter: Muse_Gallery Instagram: Muse_at_269
Cover: Andreea Mandrescu, Far, 86cm x 106.5cm, Black pen on paper
The Muse Gallery & Studio
Residency Competition Group Show 2021
Maiada Aboud . Kelvin Atmadibrata . Marie Aimée Fattouche José García Oliva . Shir Handelsman . Camilla Hanney Louis Loveless . Naira Mushtaq . Catriona Robertson Jessica Wetherly
www.themuseat269.com
Anthony Mallow
Welcome to the smallest gallery on planet earth… an annexed space curated by a full spectrum of arts professionals. Throughout the year, visit us for new work (albeit one piece) from the best of contemporary visual artists working in London. Our events and outdoor openings are every two months with occasional live performances from spoken word artists and street musicians. To book or browse go to:
www.thebox.earth
Naira Mushtaq
Lawrence Calver Lawrence Calver works closely with extremely rare and beautiful textiles sourced from all corners of the world. He hand dyes, manipulates and stitches fibres together creating calm, minimal works of art. Inspiration for Calver is at times drawn from marked or stained cloth, (often leaving his found textiles in its original state), showing its own passage of time that can make the viewers eyes & mind wander, question even.
crown and castle (2021), 240cm x 200cm, dyed/stitched cotton
Andreea Mandrescu
The interplay between light and shadow in the ever changing natural world is beautifully depicted in the infinite pen lines of Romanian born Andreea Mandrescu’s black pen and paper drawings. Andreea’s drawings, at first, evoke the innocent simplicity and honesty of the unspoiled environment but quickly draw the eye deeper into a far more intimate and complicated world. Tinged with the unmistakable poignancy of distance and time casting treasured memories into stark relief, Andreea invites us to explore the connection between our environment, those we love and those we have lost.
Joanna Ciechanowska
www.joanna-ciechanowska.com
Against the Odds Nobody could really imagine it, let alone predict it. Everybody thought it would just pass. And then, it all went wrong. Even now, it’s hard to see the light. Some say, ’you are lucky, at least you have something to do, you can paint’. Except that it is not really about ’having something to do’. I walk, paint, sleep, paint, eat, paint, wash, paint, talk, paint, watch, paint, think, paint…. Can’t help it. It had always been like that, so what’s so different now? Quiet. The night falls but the beasts won’t go to sleep. Old ghosts coming out of the closet and wander around the studio, fighting their way onto the canvas. The old memories I never knew existed, suddenly coming to the surface. My mind drifted to Svalbard and the cold island of Spitsbergen, which I was lucky to visit few years ago. Somehow, it came to occupy my imaginary landscapes and all I could do was to transfer it onto the canvas. The format changed, too. All of a sudden, it shrunk and became smaller, as though I was trying to capture the essence of one thought at the time. Painting at night, in pyjamas, forgetting what is the time, the day, the week, the month… The year? Where has it gone? Being on my own I tend to walk everywhere. Shadows crossing through the park, the river trail, the lake surrounded by old willows, swans paired for life. Lockdown unleashed my primitive, predatory instincts for collecting images. I steal them from the parks, the river, the sky at night. I became the thief of peoples faces, expressions, fleeting words overheard in passing. I look at the sky, Lapis Lazuli, the earth under my feet, Paynes Grey, river mixing Indigo with streaks of Ultramarine, the sun exploding in Cadmium Yellow. But maybe it had always been like that, I just didn’t notice. I’ve lost three friends and haven’t been able to go to their funeral. It seems that people don’t die, they just disappear, erased, painted over. I forgot the cat. The Cat is gone too, but she creeps into every painting now and again, refusing to leave. Day by day, months disappear, autumn or winter, or…. is it summer now? Nothing what seemed important is important anymore. Exhibitions disappear, galleries closed, it seems we can live without them, but…. can we? The importance of close contact have never been made so visible. Can Zoom replace all that? Virtual reality is becoming our reality but suddenly the real world fights back. What is really important? Zoom or doom? Suddenly everybody is talking, talking, talking…. ethics, politics, social engineering, protests about everything. I feel like leaving, disappearing, evaporating. There is this feeling that I don’t need anything anymore and nothing is important. My doctor friend said, ’viruses need a chance, too’. I listen to Leonard Cohen. There is no one left to blame. I don’t need a reason for what I became. Art is not a distraction, not the ’something to do’, it has suddenly made it to the altar, bare, stripped from decorations, fake pretensions. I want to do it that way, and don’t give a flying f… And I still have a lot to do, all of a sudden. No excuses left anymore, no more ’I don’t have time because I have to go to…..’, because there is nowhere to go. So, back to basics. Back to what I really want to say. I think, the art I produce has always been connected to storytelling. I found an old magazine with an interview where I finish: ’I would really like to tell the whole story’… and that article was written before my travels around the world. Right now, I feel like I have a pile of old stories that need the power of image to bring them back to life. This is really what lockdown has brought out; the inside is out. I hope it doesn’t look too frightening. So, because it’s broken, it gets real. Precious, scars visible, but still living, like the Japanese art of Kintsugi.
Joanna Ciechanowska, Against the Odds
Encounters 10-27 June Claudia Boese, Jane Frederick, Gosia Łapsa-Malawska, Mary Romer
The Muse Gallery presents Encounters, the combined voices of four women painters; portraying their visual concerns with nature, identity and the environment. A shared fascination with the aqueous forms of our planet is manifest in these new works by Claudia Boese, Jane Frederick, Gosia Lapsa-Malawska and Mary Romer. Water gushes from elaborate Baroque fountains, surges across the skies in tumultuous cloud formations, or lies in still pools reflecting trees, branches and vegetation. Shadowy figures appear in mysterious landscapes, conjuring up emotions that fill and colour the distance between artist and viewer, portraying a sense of our ephemera on earth. The fluidity of painted surfaces has been drawn from diverse cultural influences. Informed by the simplicity and subtlety at the core of Japanese aesthetics in the case of Gosia Lapsa-Malawska. Jane Frederick draws on multiple disciplines, dissolving digitised images into the liquid materiality of paint. Mary Romer has used the Covid isolation to experiment. The fusion of pigment and waterpooling on the surface has created veils and skeins of tinted colour, expressing sensations of light, vapour and mist, in the cloud-skies above. Claudia Boese’s visceral works are shaped through the manipulation of painting materials themselves.
YUICHIRO KIKUMA VARIATIONS
22 July - 8 August The Muse Gallery 269 Portobello Road, W11 1LR, London www.themuseat269.com
Nicholas Cheeseman
Three Cliffs Bay - Nicholas Cheeseman 250.00
Buy Art Online
Prague Man and Gulls - Chris Dawes from 345.00
Paul Smith - The Gallows I 550.00
Star Script - Richenda Court 300.00
Derek and Sand - Chris Dawes from 345.00
Paul Smith - Summer Painter 550.00
Choral Currents Richenda Court 250.00
Nude Pool - Chris Dawes from 345.00
Paul Smith - Inclined 550.00
Awakened Chime Richenda Court 250.00
Kensington + Chelsea Art Week (KCAW) celebrates the rich heritage of the borough by opening doors to local creative spaces along with leading organisations in the area to facilitate further public engagement in the local culture. KCAW21 will take place from 24 June – 4 July, and will be an opportunity to discover anew the outstanding cultural variety of the royal borough, driving traffic to those creative spaces and businesses who have been adversely impacted by the lockdown. Feature your venue or project and join other local creative spaces and cultural institutions in an eleven-day celebration of arts and culture in West London, encompassing visual arts, poetry, theatre, film, food, music, dance, literature, and much more – in person or online. We welcome submissions of digital projects, from virtual exhibitions to online workshops, social media events and more. There has never been a more important time for KCAW to promote the work of our community, foster collaboration and support the local culture. In light of this, we offer to all KCAW participants enhanced online visibility, via the interactive Culture Map, a new year-round online ‘What’s On’ weekly calendar and newsletter, more opportunities for collaboration and participation in the KCAW core programme. Register by 30 April 2021 Contact: info@kcaw.co.uk Visit: kcaw.co.uk
www.kcaw.co.uk
Meike Brunkhorst | factor-m We’ve just passed the first anniversary of the world locking down. Memories of life before corona are starting to fade, many of us have hardly been outdoors after dark for months, and we may have to relearn our social skills from scratch. The Muse team asked me for my post-lockdown predictions, here are some thoughts and observations. Public Art | Sculpture | The Great Outdoors Visiting art galleries between lockdowns has been as essential as reconnecting with people in real life, still socially distanced yet so uplifting. And with doors shut for months on end, public art has helped stave off my hunger for culture in the meantime. And I don’t really mean statues of historical figures that have come into disrepute – even though the attention paid to white men on plinths may well have added to a renewed interest in more contemporary alternatives. We had an exciting collection of temporary displays across West London last Summer in addition to the permanent sculptures installed across parks and squares. While true street art has been banished from most postcodes, it is good to see that property developers are recognising the value of art by adding abstract sculptures to new developments, or by commissioning artists to decorate hoardings or shop windows. Creative Use of Commercial Properties | Pop-Ups | Collaborations It’s difficult to predict quite how many shops will stay boarded up once businesses are allowed to open again. I’m excited by plans for empty spaces put to good use. Westminster Council recently announced a scheme that offers unused premises to artists, while Hypha Studios was set up to match creatives with free studios and project spaces across London and beyond. I’ve also already heard from several artists who are working on independent pop-up exhibitions, and others who have been occupying deserted offices throughout the pandemic. I can’t wait for artists to reveal what they have been working on during lockdown and how they will respond to the new normal once this reveals itself, or preferably help define it. We may well witness the birth of a new art movement, with artists and thinkers responding to the immediate crisis and the many underlying factors that have bubbled up and can’t be suppressed again. Blockchain | Digital Art | NFTs And then there are NFTs, which – despite their innovative positioning - seem to seamlessly connect with the old world order of attaching price tags rather than value. The underlying blockchain technology is exciting though and may well disrupt the traditional art market: by enabling systems to pay artists royalties as work can be tracked on entering the secondary market; or by providing the backbone for creative collaborations across borders – in a recent series on DAOWO (Decentralised Autonomous Organisation With Others) the Goethe Institute and Furtherfield introduced some fascinating prototypes. Virtual Viewing Rooms | Physical Art | Collecting At the time of writing Jeremy Deller’s NFT hadn’t met its reserve on OpenSea. Unlike other drops, ‘The Last Day’ takes a critical look at this latest hype and was conceived as an experiment with proceeds dedicated to charity. Coincidentally, it was an edition by Jeremy Deller that first got me interested in collecting digital art. I have since amassed a fair collection that sits in a virtual vault only accessible via an app. That first Deller piece – aptly titled ‘We Sit Starving Amidst Our Gold’ - was free and can’t be resold. As I collect to keep rather than invest to flip, this isn’t an issue. I just hope there isn’t any inbuilt obsolescence in the platform – I’ve already lost a chunk of my music collection to compatibility issues. I haven’t seen any official figures on this but my guess is that the vast majority of art sold via virtual viewing rooms has been physical rather than digital. This is certainly true for the Artist Support Pledge with many artists proactively offering their work for sale on Instagram. I am optimistic that the success of the scheme will have a long-term effect and that artists won’t return to being shy about selling their work. At the same time I hope that Instagram will return to being an enjoyable source of discovery and inspiration through high quality images that tell a story, rather than becoming the digital equivalent of free sheets full of classified ads.
Working From Home | All Zoomed Out | Business Reboot My home is not designed for desk-based work, it doesn’t have a desk and the laptop has become far too true to its name. But I’m grateful for the wealth of resources made available online and for the extra time to read and learn. The books are piling up and I’m still working through all those course notes. I’ve made good use of all that extra time, networking behind the scenes, exchanging thoughts and ideas with coaches, consultants, curators and others that all inform my own work. My aim has always been to make my experience and knowledge available to others and translate the tricks I learned in the corporate world into workable and affordable solutions for artists. Looking at the bigger picture can help to identify those adjustments necessary to make a difference. Meike Brunkhorst | factor-m I will start on my website refresh once I have reclaimed my office space with its larger screen and comfortable desk chair. In the meantime, please don’t judge me on my tired old site but do sign up to my mailing list if you would like to hear more – about how I work and about the projects I support. There are some exciting news in the pipeline. factor-m is a marketing consultancy for independent artists. www.factor-m.co.uk | instagram.com/meikebrunkhorst | facebook.com/factor.m.london | twitter.com/art_consult
Paul Smith
THE GALLERIES ASSOCIATION
www.thegalleriesassociation.co.uk
coming back in 2022... Galleries on the Tour David Hill Gallery 345 Ladbroke Grove, London W10 6HA davidhillgallery.net Design Museum 224-238 Kensington High St London W8 6AG designmuseum.org Elephant West 62 Wood Lane London W12 7RH elephantwest.art/ Frestonian Gallery 2 Olaf Street W11 4BE London frestoniangallery.com Graffik Gallery 284 Portobello Road W10 5TE London graffikgallery.co.uk
Japan House 101-111 Kensington High St London W8 5SA japanhouselondon.uk The Muse Gallery 269 Portobello Road W11 1LR London themuseat269.com Serena Morton Gallery 343 Ladbroke Grove London W10 6HA serenamorton.com Unit One Gallery|Workshop 1 Bard Rd, London W10 6TP unit1gallery-workshop.com Whitewall Galleries Central 100 Westbourne Grove London W2 5RU whitewallgalleries.com
re-IMAgining the Art World www.imastudio.org | @ima_studio_uk
COMMUNITY PIERS, what’s on your mind?
DR - Ok Piers what’s on your mind? PT - Have we started? DR - We’ve started. PT - Uhh Well hello Damian DR - Hi Piers PT - We’re almost out of lockdown, we’re beginning to crawl out of lockdown, which I don’t know… there’s a bit of me that thinks it maybe too late for some of us…anyway. DR - What do you mean? PT - Well. It’s been quite gruelling the last three months. Even those of us who sailed through the first two lockdowns, there’s been something about this one that’s just dragged on and on and on… Uhm anyway. I’ll be pleased to get out of our current location where we’ve been recording Portobello radio via online apps during lockdown and returning to The Muse with luck, in the not too distant future. DR - We’re all very excited, we’ve felt amputated without you. PT - Aw, you’re too kind DR - It’s too true, I’m telling you.; so that’s exciting and something to look forward to (warning: cheese) PT - The idea of my life is that although people jab me in the arm on a regular basis, I appear to have caught the common cold. There’s something humiliating getting the common cold in the time of a pandemic, but I suppose I should count myself lucky. Portobello Radio has done quite well over the last two or three months though; we’ve got our house in order, we have a regular schedule for the monthly sets that our DJ’s provide on Saturday and we rewind on Sunday. We’ve had some quite exciting shows including memories of the Beatles, we have Uhhh… which went to number 20 in the community radio charts. And we’re looking forward to welcoming back the Roughler, with a special online version and another radio play, this time by ray Jones. Anymore? DR - I was going to say do you have any dates in mind when we could look forward to you getting back to normal programming? PT - We’d like to be back in our spiritual hime as soon as possible. I image it will be a while before we can go back to the open access which is the special element to doing the show out of The Muse. DR - Well brilliant, thank you very much Peirs and have a good weekend.
lechouxlondon.com I have always loved chocolate and pastries, I take that from my French heritage. Having a French Mother, we would regularly take holidays to Paris and France when we were children. During our trips , I would stare at the windows of the boulangeries and patisseries in awe. I still find it incredible, the choice of bread and stunning pastries you find on every street corner in Paris. After University, I decided to train as a pastry chef in Paris which I had always dreamt of doing. I made it my mission to train up and then to bring some of this Parisian magic back to my home town of London. I trained in Paris as a pastry chef at a Patisserie school, whilst undertaking an apprenticeship in a pastry shop for two years before working my way up in the most prestigious luxury palace in Paris, Le Plaza Athenee, under chefs Ducasse and Michalak. On return to London, I worked in an unpleasant male dominated kitchen and was extremely unhappy. I began to wonder if there was truly space for a woman in these kitchens. I reached a very low point, during which the only comfort I found was in baking at home in my kitchen for family and friends. I missed the classic chocolate religieuse and coffee eclairs in Paris. I decided to make it my mission to bring classic French ‘choux’ to London. After a few weeks of recipe development, I naively convinced my little sister to help me run a market stall in Old Spitalfields. We started selling out every day in Old Spitalfields market, the pastries proved so popular that since, we have been part of London’s booming food scene, taking part in markets and events with Kerb, various pop- ups around London as well as supplying luxurious food department stores Fortnum and Mason and Selfridges.
Portobello Radio Live, hosted by Isis Amlak, Greg Wier and Piers Thompson, is a vibrant 120 minutes of current affairs, community banter and local music. This Youtube live stream boasts a symposium of human rights, philosophy and chaos; all supporting human rights, the planet and of course an abundance of local talent, representing a counter-culture of north Kensington – the birth place of some of the best of British culture and armchair revolutionaries. Watch every Friday between 16:00 – 18:00 at: https://bit. ly/37TmmML or check socials at www.por tobelloradio.com for live links, playlists and trivia.
www.portobelloradio.com 23
K&C FESTIVALS 2021 Portobello Film Festival 2021 Portobello Film Festival, ACAVA, 54 Blechynden Street, London W10 6RJ, UK www.portobellofilmfestival.com pff @ btopenworld.com
Application Form
REF#
Due to Covid pandemic Portobello Film Festival 2021 is subject to change. All films must be submitted and include an application form before 1 June 2021. Movies may be sent via a link to raypf f @ mac.com (ProRes or H264). DVDs may also be submitted with an application form by post to address on Entry Form, but must be playable on a home DVD player.
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Movies may be sent via a link to raypf f @mac.com (AppleProRes or H264 format). PLEASE PRINT ALL INFORMATION CLEARLY IN CAPITALS. The Festival‘s decision regarding prizes, programming and inclusion is final. Please tick the box marked No Streaming if you do not wish your film to be streamed as part of the Festival, and of the new Portobello People’s TV channel, on the internet. Send any enquiries regarding to pff@btopenworld.com Portobello is a free entry festival.
www.thetavistockfestival.london
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