Sunday 5 July 2015

POOL at Cafe Gallery Projects London

POOL

CGP London
Southwark ParkLondon SE16 2UAUnited Kingdom
8-26 Jul 2015



 My installation Jane Conquest Rings the Bell is included in the POOL group show at CGP London.

A Bermondsey Artists’ Group Exhibition
Exhibition: 8 - 26 July 2015 | Wed-Sun 11-5pm
Preview: Sunday, 5 July 3 - 5pm
Elisa Alaluusua | Caspar Below | Cecilia Bentley Bortoluzzi | Claire Blundell-Jones | Frances Coleman | Jane Colling | Jane Deakin | Gail Dickerson | Sean Dower | Stephen Dunn | Beth Elliott Tony Fleming | Charlie Fox | Michèle Fuirer | Caroline Gregory | Vivien Harland | Jonathan Hood | Sophie Horton | Malcolm Jones | Daniel Lehan | Miyako Narita | Anne Robinson | Louise Sheridan | Sisters from Another Mister | Harald Smykla | Lewis Paul | Martin Pover | Sarah Sparkes | Sarah Taylor | Karin Wach | Carla Wright
The buried presence of the Southwark Park Lido (1923-1986) mirrors recent transformations of North Bermondsey/Surrey Quays (née Docks); a ghostly trace marked by the decommissioned fountain and the presence of the original lido café (transformed into a gallery by The Bermondsey Artists’ Group in 1984 to become what we now know as Cafe Gallery - totally rebuilt in 1999-2000). The extraordinary history of the Pool of London and the growth of industry it supported has been slowly erased, to be re-built in another form. Nevertheless, the traces and scars of this story remain to be revisited, retold and remade.
POOL refers to this exchange and transformation; how the intersections and collaborations between artists both describe and resist the story of this transformation. The pooled activity of artists can sometimes offer other potential histories hidden beneath the surface: the watery world of Anthias (Sisters from Another Mister) suggests another world where the lido swimmer plunges underwater and begins to dream; threads pull apart just as they seem to pool together, echoing the contested artistic histories and ideas that have been born out of thirty years of working with and within Southwark, illustrated by Malcolm Jones’ local mural study for a painting commission that is now erased (Water Table/Estuary, 1985). Other works allude specifically to these marks of change and socio-economic transformations such as Carla Wright's banners and Karin Wach's photo traces of now demolished buildings and Anne Robinson’s Thrashing in the Static which explores psychic time travel and disorienteering The Thames.
POOL offers insight into how conversation and dialogue can cluster together ideas that can be both nourishing but also resistant creating a dialogue amongst works that re-present the world back to itself, creating allusions and ideas that ripple from the centre and bounce back. Looking down into the mirrored surface of a pool we begin to see other possible worlds beneath the surface.

1 comment:

stevenjared0853 said...

Thanks my friend for sharing these details regarding Cafe Gallery Projects London. I also wanted to attend this event but couldn’t make it. Anyway, I am going to be the part of such a gallery event very soon at some domestic event space. I hope I’ll get to see such great stuff there.