Want to see lots of free exhibitions, jump in the sea, and eat Peter’s fish and chips because it’s August and the sun is still shining? All along the coast, there are carnivals and an explosion of seaside joy happening in very British style because it’s LGBTQ+ season, and that now includes Margate, the pumping art heart of the South.
How do you do, Margate? Very well, thank you – Sophie Parkin
Many people had never heard of Margate before @TraceyEmin put it on the map, that doesn’t include JMTurner, who came for the Sunsets, the high, vast skies and the light that permeates everything. The Turner gallery is dedicated to him, though most think of it as part of @Tate. It has its own separate identity, not always successfully. Most will visit it if they come to Margate, but if all you do this weekend is go to the @Turner, visit a Michelin-starred restaurant @Sargasso and enjoy the #Pride free after-party at Dreamland, you’ll still be missing out. This year, Margate has outdone itself with enough shows and exhibitions to make London blush a fizzy pink. Here are my highlights, but there is a Pride Art map with 78 locations on it, if you get my gist… You could spend a week visiting all the shows and have a damn fine holiday.
@Liminal_ Gallery – a tiny space opposite the Turner, but essential. Louise Fitzjohn is consistently showing some of the most excellent exhibitions. Heartland by Andrew Torr is an oil paintings that look like Abstract 1970s faded postcards of suburban housing estates, questioning our humanity without a starving child in sight, and then there’s the cupboard… There is a guaranteed treat every time I visit, and I am thrilled that they were recently given ample space at Saatchi, London. Permanent. On till 30Aug.
The Shell Grotto: Magical, mysterious, imagine what you like about its intriguing interior, was it an ancient place of worship or an 18th-century shell folly, no one knows, but what a treat to be in this 2000sq ft of a mosaic cave of spooky sacredness. It has been an attraction since 1838; some things never go out of fashion. Recently, they commissioned the local artist @PaulHazelton to make a mural in the missing, damaged parts that vanish into the interior. Spot the Mural. Shellgrotto.co.uk is open every day 10-5 til 31st August, with a great shop. Permanent.
Dreamland – Live! from Tom Jones to Madness to Badly Drawn Boy, in a funfair, crazy, eh. Slip into the entrance of the funfair and the right will be drawn into the exhibition – Icons of Margate & Cliftonville by local community members by artist @CarsonParkinFairley, a real celebration of local people who come from all parts of life that Carson has encouraged to celebrate and reveal themselves and what they love in community workshops. Central is their image in which they sit surrounded by the Aladdin’s cave of their obsessions, each picture is like voyeuristically peeping into a stranger’s life, their world and loves; fascinating until 7th September.
Runt by @jamestailor.art is an incredible mash of heart pink glamour, assemblage paintings and sculptures, and a giant crate that it feels like we are all trying to escape from through the spaces between the wood, boxed in and balancing. It’s called Precipice. Across a pink wall in Polari is written – “Men and women of the jury, look well at the face of the poor man who stands before you, his legs trembling.” It is a neat composite of the gay experience (and the human one), the big bold largess we project, the endless minor sensitivities, all balancing within the queerness of existence. ProjectsKavelRafferty, The Old Post Office, Cecil Square, until 15th August.
The Soul has two eyes, a show of @Henri_armstrong-art is a mix of fine engravings of hands and feet, medusa prints and the large resin and wax appendages in pinks and oranges of a saints relics, both votive offerings and giant chained talismans that turn traditions of religion on its head into a feminine understanding of what it is to be both the object and the protagonist of gaze, and end up looking within for the answers of how to be without clasping at chains, to be free, unchained. @salon.margate is located on Northdown Road, which runs parallel to the sea in the back streets towards Cliftonville. This is Hipsville, next to poverty, Reform, next to Marxism, where cafes appear and art happens. This is Margate now, the music is everywhere, it still has great pubs, friendly people and shellfish on the harbour arm. And it’s got sandy beaches! Treat yourself, you’re worth it.
I can’t write about Margate and not mention the surreal beauty of The @crabmuseum, take your curiosity and sense of humour with you; prepare to be bewildered. Open Wednesday to Sunday.
@SophieParkinwriter is an artist, writer and curator at @Theoniongardencic in Westminster.