Art on the tube: Stop, look, listen! performance at Bermondsey tube station; Bottom right: Ladyrinth by Mark Wallinger
As the art world gets ready for Frieze and many other alternative art fairs next week, a newly launched Art Licks weekend took place 2 weeks before the art craze week.
Art Licks is an artist-led organisation aiming to promote the London art scene and its emerging artists. Interestingly, most of the new galleries are located either in the east around Hackney or south of the river in Bermondsey and Peckham. During the weekend, many free events and performances took place at galleries across the city.
I was curious to find out more about the new art scene esp. in unlikely areas such as Peckham, but due to engineering works ( I wonder if there is an end to this?), I decided to join an art tour in Bermondsey instead.
When I arrived at the tube station, we watched a live performance called “Stop, Look, Listen!” performed by two artists. It was an interesting concept and definitely attracted the attention of many commuters. But when it ended, I realised that my group had left the station without me (!), so I had to call the tour leader and catch up with them!
Top left: a person as a live outdoor installation; top middle: a straw man greeted us at the park; Middle right: Alex Duncan’s Cove at Vulpes Vulpes; Bottom left and right: Nick Crowe and Ian Rawlinson’s Sacrifice, Fetish, Goddess, Priest; Bottom middle: Vanessa Maurice-Williams’s Portal.
While chatting to another person in the group, we both found the walk rather random and disorganised. There were some outdoor installations and street performances ( I still couldn’t figure out what the guy/ woman covered in straw was all about), but there was also a problem in regards to the long distance between the galleries/ studios ( and we were even lost at one stage). Luckily, there was some interesting work to be found … I especially like the setting of Vulpes Vulpes, and indoor landscape installed by Alex Duncan made up of polystyrene collected from the coast and riverbanks. These man-made materials are eroded and reshaped by the environment and appear to look more and more like natural stones! It’s an intelligent delusion.
Subjecting objects at Acava studios
The last stop was the Acava studio ( the Association for Cultural Advancement through Visual Art, is an educational charity providing a range of visual arts services across London and abroad), featuring an exhibition, “Subjecting Objects”. We were able to walk around the studio to see where the artists work, and enjoyed yet another incomprehensible performance by an artist.
Apart from the disorganisation, random and odd performances, I thought that some of the art works are still rather ‘amateurish’ and need to be developed further. I wish I had more time to visit other areas, but it was an interesting experience to find out more about this new emerging art scene. Now I wonder how this would compare to the art fairs next week? We shall see.