The Bread and Jam series gives artists the run of a near-empty, soon-to-be-remodelled house in Brockley. In the third show, eleven artists explore the territory between order and disorder, potential and realisation, unformed and defined.
Each has chosen a shape to insinuate or impose – to varying degrees – in advance of the fuller reshaping to come. There’s no suggestion that conventional family living will follow on, though: none of the artists define themselves as purely a man, although Brian Dawn Chalkley does gain the rare distinction of featuring in all-male (Chercher le garcon at Mac/Val, Paris) and no-male exhibitions in the same year. Ten men are, however, busy doing the washing in Claire Macdonald’s film Launderette, and Frances Richardson is fully in control of moulding the phallus. What can it all mean for the shapes we’re in? Jennet Thomas’s film threatens to provide an answer, but it keeps slipping away…
In Bread and Jam at 52 Whitbread Road, artists are invited to bring their ingredients to a soon to be refurbished house to make something new and start a conversation in their work, between rooms/other artists, and with the viewer not only pushing what they can create and make in response to the house but to challenge and question what role a gallery has and where and how art should and could be experienced.
Presenting work in a domestic setting directly provokes the audience to consider the spaces we live in, where we choose to inhabit and call home and what we surround ourselves with and decorate our lives with. Experiencing work in this curious domestic setting makes it relatable, immediate and disarmingly accessible.
Artists include: Alicja Dobrucka – mushroom shape | Oona Grimes – toast | Brian Dawn Chalkley – leaf Frances Richardson phallus | Emma Cousin – heart | Rana Begum – quadrilateral Selma Parlour – trapezium | Natasha Kahn – rectangle | Claire Macdonald – circle Miriam Austin – nonagon | Jennet Thomas – amorphous shapes
The exhibition is curated by Paul Carey-Kent, Paul sets out a rolling ten recommended contemporary art shows in London now. He currently writes freelance including for Art Monthly, The Art Newspaper, Frieze, State and Artlyst.
Bread And Jam: Address: 52 whitbread Road. Brockley. SE4 2BE
Private View: Fri 13th Nov, 6-9 pm Open brunches: Sat 14th/Sun 15th & Sat 21st /Sun 22nd 12-6pm Artist and Curator Talk: Wednesday 18th November 6pm Open by appointment until 22nd November 2015 https://breadandjamwhitbread.wordpress.com