WHITE: Four Artists With Absolutely Nothing In Common Except For Lack Of Colour

Another opening! This time at the Hope Gallery called White: Four Artists Whose Work Has Absolutely Nothing In Common Except For The Lack Of Colour on the 10th March 2009. I really like this name for the exhibition, a bit cheeky and spelling out pretty much what we were going to get, reminded me of some of the names for Martin Creeds work i've been looking at recently, e.g Blu-tack kneaded, rolled into a ball and depressed against a wall. We didn’t have a clue where the place was so we got a taxi, the driver wasn’t very helpful either and we’d given up hope when we came across this tiny gallery tucked away down a side street in the outskirts of Leeds. It seems like they didn’t want to be found either, the instructions on the leaflets they were given away weren’t exactly descriptive!

So, yes, White exhibition. We walked in to see a couple of groups standing around chatting, a very small turnout as can be expected considering its location. There were loads of milk bottles on the floor and some cow biscuits on the side, this was a piece by Alice Brooke – Smith who was clearly going for the old relational aesthetics business, the audience were encouraged to pick the bottles up, drink them, throw them away, although we wouldn’t have got this if we didn’t see everyone else doing it, I think sometimes with these relational things you need to be led by example and it turns people into sheep. On the leaflet it says she’s interested in, amongst various other things, disobedience. So this implies the artist would have liked it if we did something a bit daring with the milk, but what exactly would have happened if we started throwing it around or something, I don’t think the gallery owners and other artists would have been best pleased.

In the middle of the gallery were forms created by Leen Horsford, I never really get too interested in sculptures to be honest, the work was about processes to create forms and the physicality of materials which I guess I should be doing for this brief at the moment if I was good. They were presented from the ceiling to accentuate weight and height and draw attention to the architecture of the space. The forms were hung on metal hooks, like big bits of meat or something, so being clean and white contrasted this, I don’t know if the artist took this into consideration, perhaps a hook was just the best way to hang the material.
There were some 2D pieces on the wall, some attached to the wall using pins, displayed in an orderly manner, didn’t find these of that much interest really I was too excited about free milk. We spoke to the gallery owner for a bit, they were quite keen to give us some information towards how we can go about getting an exhibition and such, it was run by Music and Arts Production (MAP) who are supported by the National Lottery, I read into them and found they are a Leeds based arts organisation that provides alternative education for young people, providing a holistic approach in an arts environment. The work exhibited Hope Gallery ranges from community arts projects to professional exhibition from well respected artists. Yeah, seems really accessible to get an exhibition here, I liked the space and the fact that it was near impossible to find, a good way to filter out the weak and feeble ones from the audience. Good night anyway, we scored loads of free milk which we accidently left in the fridge at Carpe later on. Its alright though, we went back the next day and they still had it nicely chilled for us, thanks Carpe.