Peckham Takeover at Victoria & Albert Museum TONIGHT

We are all getting used to the Peckham art kids appearing everywhere we go these days! Hannah Barry and her team created the wonderful Palazzo Peckham in Venice this year and now this evening Peckham force is taking over the Victoria & Albert Museum for the second part of a four-part series of Friday Lates at the museum (first one was Dalston Takeover in June). For these special free admission nights, the museum invites London's creative communities to take over the museum for an evening, presenting a range of music, art, design, architecture and more. Here is what you can expect from this evening, but be warned the list is long!

MUSIC & PERFORMANCE

Al Dobson Jr

Grand Entrance 18.30 – 22.00 Join Al Dobson Jr as he spins a selection of soul, African, highlife, jazz, funk, and reggae, as well as performing a percussion ensemble in between sets. Listen out for Al’s own productions as well as music from his extended family in Peckham.

Rhythm Section

John Madejski Garden 19.15 – 21.30 Rhythm Section is a twice monthly Peckham-based community; a friendly place to dance your troubles away, all night long. It advocates simplicity at its heart; vinyl only, no set times, no photos and no nonsense. Founder, DJ, host and programmer Bradley Zero brings his records to the Museum, capturing the Rhythm Section ethos and spirit.

Reprezent Radio

Fashion, Room 40 18.30 – 21.30 Tune in to a live set by Peckham’s hot young under 25s DJs. Reprezent 107.3FM broadcasts across the capital to young Londoners and across the world online. Featuring DJ Neptizzle amongst others, join them as they bring their unique line up of house and afrobeat to the Museum.

City Love

Lucy and Jim are alone. To the world they seem to be OK: They have jobs, friends, and ambitions (well sort of). However, their chance meeting on the number 12 night bus in Peckham spirals them into a world of love, pain and (mis)communication. To celebrate their forthcoming production of City Love by Simon Vinnicombe at the Bussey Building, Peckham-based theatre company The Orange Line Collective presents an extract from the play in pop up locations around the Museum.

TAKEOVERS

Day Job

Medieval & Renaissance, Room 50a 18.30 – 21.30 Peckham-based illustration collective Day Job take over an area of the Museum, inspired by their home turf of Rye Lane. Experience the buzz of a bustling and multicultural high street through a playful installation, juxtaposed with the elegance of V&A sculptures. Alternatively, exchange a drawing or object for some Bank of Day Job Peckham Pounds (Pecks) at a value negotiated by a pawnbroker. Watch them displayed over the course of the evening in Day Job’s Pawnshop window.

Hannah Barry Gallery

John Madejski Garden 18.30 – 21.30 A staple of Peckham’s burgeoning reputation as a hub for contemporary art, Hannah Barry Gallery brings the work of three South London-based artists to the Museum. Collectively, these three demonstrate the variety of approaches to art-making embraced by the Peckham movement.

• Tom Barnett performs as Colden Drystone: uniformed in a future-age suit created by Lee Roach, his performance incorporates the recital of poetry and found texts, Dada-esque sound pieces of the artist’s own composition and patterns of repetition and feedback.
• James Capper designs and builds functional sculptures that mark the environments in which they are deployed. Incorporating the strategies and techniques of mechanical engineering, Capper’s work describes a physical relationship to the place in which it is stationed.
• James Balmforth presents a beautiful short film exploring his preoccupation with the fragility of objects and symbols, a concern he also pursues in his sculptural practice.

The Bussey Quarter

Sackler Centre Reception 18.30 – 21.30 Get involved in The Bussey Quarter, a cross-disciplinary collaboration presented by Lou-Atessa Marcellin gathering a selection of creative practices together from the Bussey Building in Peckham. Engage and interpret the notion of portraiture, through literature, set design, photography and locally crafted music by DJ Tristram Bolletti.

• Doost Studio run by Lou-Atessa Marcellin, will present a pop-up photo-booth with a cardboard throne designed by Sarah Medvedowsky, emphasizing the visual and spatial identity framing the sitter.
• Lucie Beauvert and Paol Kemp (LBPK) create a unique atmosphere interlacing the context of the V&A and the practices within the Bussey Building.
• Library of Independent Exchange (L.I.E.) run by Christopher Green and Mark James, will display individual collections of books that reflect readings by local artists throughout the evening.

Peckham Springs

Sackler Centre (1st Floor) 18.30 – 21.30 Peckham Springs is an art gallery and bar situated in two railway arches beneath Peckham Rye Station. The gallery programme features a range of exhibitions, film screenings and live art events by exciting new artists, alongside a bar which serves a range of carefully crafted cocktails. Peckham Springs invite you to experience a typical evening at their space with a selection of work from past and future shows at the gallery and a Peckham Spring Water cocktail in hand.

INSTALLATIONS

Churches

Grand Entrance 18.30 – 22.00 Take in photographer David Spero’s quiet and contemplative photos of unassuming churches in often surprising locations – revealing the lesser known and invisible structures, lifestyles and architecture of Peckham.

Rye Lane Khanga, Gele and Aso Oke

Fashion, Room 40 18.30 – 21.30 A collaboration between South-London design label Chichia and Rye Lane Market dress shop, Pachito: Chichia London College of Fashion graduate and Chichia designer Christine Mhando showcases pieces from her upcoming collection, fusing East African Tanzanian Khanga with contemporary stylings. Pachito Self taught African dress maker Patricia demonstrates a range of African head wraps, including the iconic Nigerian Gele, Aso Oke and Ghanaian styles, using bespoke Chichia fabrics.

Peckham Rising Revisited

Lydia and Manfred Gorvy Lecture Theatre 18.30 – 21.30 This installation revisits the exhibition Peckham Rising, curated by urbanist and curator Paul Goodwin at the Sassoon Gallery in Peckham in 2007. Experience a temporary space of contemplation exploring black urbanism and the other side of Peckham through a critical assemblage of street photography, sound and text. Featuring the works of Daniele Tamagni and Thabo Jayesimi and Janine Lai.

WORKSHOPS

Garudio Studiage

John Madejski Garden 18.30 – 21.30 Join Peckham-based creative collective Garudio Studiage in a duo of workshops:

• The Lucky Skip: A Very Peckham Lucky Dip

  Rummage through the delights of a very Peckham lucky dip, through a handmade skip, with a chance to win a dizzying selection of prizes. All prizes are handmade or hand selected by Garudio Studiage, wrapped in hand screen-printed wrapping paper.

• Nation of Shopkeepers

  Create your own fantasy shop for Peckham’s Rye Lane. Using pens, pencils and crayons, customise blank line drawings of every shop on the street, which took over 500 man-hours to draw. Watch the street grow as the evening goes on, and take part in re-imagining this diverse and changing London neighbourhood.

Peckham Space – Peace Blanket!

Sackler Centre Reception 18.30 – 21.30 Peckham Space presents the interactive artwork Peace Blanket, created by Camberwell College of Arts graduate Mhairi Macaulay and over 700 participating residents from Peckham and beyond. In August 2012, Peckham Space invited visitors to stitch a square for peace to celebrate the wall of post-it note messages for Peckham which grew on Rye Lane in response to the riots of 2011. Take a look at the original sayings on the Peace Blanket and contribute your own through the course of the evening.

Peckham Print Studio

Sackler Centre Art Studio 18.30 – 21.30 Installing a series of custom built screen printing units, Peckham Print Studio will transform the V&A Art Studio into their own working studio. Pull your own print and engage with the process from start to finish. The studio will also be joined by a selection of artists and illustrators who will produce a series of custom works to be printed at the event.

Illustrate Camberwell

Lunchroom 1, Sackler Centre 18.30 – 21.30 Firmly rooted in the border between Peckham and Camberwell, Camberwell College of Art has built up a formidable reputation within the area. Enroll as a fresher, learn how to illustrate with current Camberwell BA Illustration students, hang your final work in your degree show and see what grade you get. Don’t forget to top off your newly acquired degree with a photo in your graduation robes.

TALKS & FILM

Artist Maps

Prints & Drawings Study Room (Accessed via the Sackler Centre) 19.30 – 20.15 Inspired by Tom Phillips’ Map Walks Nos. 1 and 2 which focus on the artist’s relationship with the Peckham and Camberwell area, V&A Senior Curator of Prints and Drawings Gill Saunders walks us through the enthralling world of the artist map. Take an intimate look at specially selected maps in the Museum’s collection.

Peckham Past and Present

Seminar Room 1 19.30 – 20.30 Listen to local resident, architect and Peckham Vision conservation specialist Benny O’Looney in conversation with Ben Eastham (Hannah Barry Gallery/The White Review) and Biz K, editor of The Peckham Complex: A Cultural and Social Snapshot of Inner London, as they discuss the area’s cultural scene, architecture and social history.

Peckham Vision

Seminar Room 2, Sackler Centre 20.40 – 21.25 Join local resident and co-ordinator of community group Peckham Vision Eileen Conn as she chairs a Peckham Vision community meeting, starting with a visual tour of Peckham’s diverse parallel communities and economies. Get involved in a lively discussion about wider issues of connections, integration and realising the potential of our town centres.

Aesthetica Magazine Presents

Hochhauser Auditorium 19.00 & 20.00 (50 minutes) Aesthetica presents a screening of films from Aesthetica Short Film Festival (ASFF) 2012, providing a wider context to Peckham as an area. Paper Mountains shows a young girl’s love of ballet in the midst of a hard and difficult life but also presents her aspirations for the future. Notes from the Underground is a portrait of life on the tube, whilst the remaining films question morality and depict the hardships of addiction. The reel aims to capture vignettes of everyday life, offering a glimpse into the lives of others.

Hendzel and Hunt’s Peckham Yacht Club

National Art Library 20.30 – 21.15 Join Peckham-based design studio Hendzel and Hunt as they present their latest project, L’Abeille Noir des Porquerolles. Specialising in working with reclaimed wood, they joined forces with landscape architects Elinor Scarth and Etienne Haller. The group embarked on a three week adventure in the south of France where they built and sailed a seven meter long boat entirely made from scavenged materials.

Peckham Social Archives

Sculpture, Room 21a 18.30 – 21.45 Explore the local entrepreneurs of Peckham’s diverse community, first screened at Peckhamplex as part of Chelsea College of Art and Design’s Consume Peckham event. Chaz Hairdressers by Tom Brushwood, Didi Blackhurst and Shraddha Depala, follows George the owner as he reflects on the history of his shop in Peckham. Born and Bread by Jack Haslehurst, Isabel Gibson and Joe Myers, is a day in the life of a wholesale bakery in Peckham.

Hot Young Heir to the American school of Pop

Since his New York debut last year at Joe Sheftel Gallery, Alex Da Corte has been getting much attention in the art scene and keeping busy!  A graduate of the prestigious MFA program at Yale, Da Corte has been named as a hot young artist, an heir to the American school of pop. But his Americanism comes with a taste of South America (where he spent part of his childhood) especially with his appreciation of bright colors, swirling surfaces and celebratory life-and-death imagery.

Sheftel, who met Da Corte while he was still at Yale, says, “I think there are very few people interacting with objects the way he is.” Da Corte’s work ranges in different media, but his favorite is sculpture. He hunts grocery stores, street corners and IKEA for materials for his assemblages that utilize everything from Coca-Cola bottles to fingernails – basically anything what we, as a culture, consume and discard.  For his debut show at Joe Sheftel, one of the found objects was a video for Soul for Real’s 1995 song “Candy Rain” --- we look at this thing that was number one on the charts and now it’s completely foreign! For his abstract paintings, Da Corte re-purposes everyday products like discount shampoo, and by doing so asks the viewer to re-examine the items placed closest to their bodies. He is a painter and a consummate collaborator who grays the lines between collecting, absorbing and embedding.

Da Corte has been getting a lot of press, as well as having two exhibitions on this summer! One is a solo show “Fun Sponge” at the Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art, and the other in a two-person solo show at Oko Gallery in New York. Read here an interview from June 2013 where Da Corte talks about his art and inspirations.

Vodou Inspired Art

Tired of seeing all similar art works, themes and names? If you are looking for a different flavor in the arts, why not stop by London’s Riflemaker for a very interesting show straight from Haiti!

There has been much focus on Haitian art recently, with Nottingham Contemporary staging the first comprehensive survey of Haitian art in the UK, and with Haitian vodou flags included in the group show curated by the celebrated American artist Cindy Sherman as part of the Venice Biennale this year. In the previous edition of the Venice Biennale, the Republic of Haiti made their first presentation with works from three artists who are part of Atis-Rezistans, the artistic collective from the Grand Rue neighborhood.

Haiti is especially known for the art of its urban and rural poor and the show at Riflemaker brings together sculptors from Haiti’s Grand Rue neighborhood of Port-au-Prince: Celeur Jean Herard and Andre Eugene, presented with Haitian Vodou flags by Silva Joseph and Edgard Jean Louis who are both Vodou priests. These flags are in fact ritual ‘drapos’ originally made for ceremonial use but now part of Haitian contemporary art. Their bright colors make a great contrast with the haunting works of the Grand Rue sculptors, which are made out of ready-made and recycled materials with references to Vadou that evoke a cyberpunk sci-fi vision.

“Kafou: Haiti, Art and Vodou” at Nottingham Contemporary that just closed in January of this year, was a big show including works from different media -- 200 works of 40 artists from the 1940s to the present day. It was able to display these artists’ vivid creativity, especially powerful in works inspired by Vodou - the religion which has been a central part of people's lives since Haiti became the world's first black republic in 1804. Speaking of the exhibition Alex Farquharson, director of Nottingham Contemporary says:

“Haitian art is often shown in a folk art context, which is unfair. If I didn't feel that this work stood up to a lot of work that I think is most interesting in contemporary art then I really wouldn't be showing it here.”

There is still time to go and see the show at Riflemaker, which closes end of the month, and make your own mind if you think Haitian art is as interesting!

We are all Curators

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=cGGit4_oeGE Fondazione Prada and Qatar Museums Authority have joined forces to launch the new Curate Award which is open to anyone! You don't have to be in the art world. They are more interested in answers to these questions: Can you take an idea and build an exhibition? Will the elements you put together make people think? Would your message be provocative and culturally significant?  There are no restrictions for application and the winning curatorial idea will be realized in an exhibition in either or Qatar and Italy. Exciting!

Art World Stars in Jay Z's new Music Video

World famous rapper/Samsung pitchman Jay Z just completed shooting his music video for "Picasso Baby" at the heart of the New York art scene, Pace Gallery in Chelsea. The song's lyrics is full of references to the art world (scroll down for the lyrics) and it feels only appropriate that several art superstars make guest appearances, including Marina Abramovic, Lawrence Weiner, Dana Schutz, Marilyn Minter, and Performa founder and director RoseLee Goldberg. Mickalene Thomas shared a dance with Jay Z, and Sanford Biggers sketched furiously while PS1 founder Alanna Heiss spun around the gallery with a cast on her leg. Dustin Yellin performed an impromptu break-dance. Ryan McNamara pulled people from the audience to the bench at the gallery’s center, and Rashid Johnson traded jabs with the hip-hop superstar. Sounds like a great party and wish we were there too!  It took 6 hours to shoot the video, watch parts of it here.

Picasso, Baby

I just want a Picasso, in my casa No, my castle I’m a hassa, no I’m an asshole I’m never satisfied, can’t knock my hustle I wanna Rothko, no I wanna brothel No, I want a wife that fuck me like a prostitute Let’s make love on a million, in a dirty hotel With the fan on the ceiling, all for the love of drug dealing Marble Floors, gold Ceilings Oh what a feeling – fuck it I want a billion Jeff Koons balloons, I just wanna blow up Condos in my condos, I wanna row of Christie’s with my missy, live at the MoMA Bacons and turkey bacons, smell the aroma [Hook] Oh what a feeling Picasso Baby, Ca Picasso baby Ca ca ca Picasso Baby, Ca ca ca Picasso baby Oh what a feeling x2 [Verse 2] It ain’t hard to tell I’m the new Jean Michel Surrounded by Warhols My whole team ball Twin Bugatti’s outside the Art Basel I just wanna live life colossal Leonardo Da Vinci flows Riccardo Tisci Givenchy clothes See me thrown at the Met Vogue’ing on these niggas Champagne on my breath, Yes House like the Louvre or the Tate Modern Because I be going ape at the auction Oh what a feeling Aw fuck it I want a trillion Sleeping every night next to Mona Lisa The modern day version With better features Yellow Basquiat in my kitchen corner Go ahead lean on that shit Blue You own it *break* [Verse 3] I never stuck my cock in the fox’s box but Damned if I didn’t open Pandora’s box They try to slander your man On CNN and Fox My Miranda don’t stand a chance, with cops Even my old fans like old man just stop I could if I would but I can’t I’m hot, and you blow I’m still the man to watch, Hublot On my left hand or not Soon I step out the booth The cameras pops niggas is cool with it Till the canons pop Now my hand on the Bible On the stand got your man in a jam, again Got my hands in cuffs I’m like god damn enough I put down the cans and they ran amok My hairpin pierce skin, ruptures spleens Cracks ribs, go through cribs, and other things No sympathy for the king, huh? Niggas even talk about your baby crazy Eventually the pendulum swings Don’t forget America this how you made me Come through with ‘Ye mask on Spray everything like SAMO Though I won’t scratch the Lambo What’s it gonna to take For me to go For y’all to see I’m the modern day Pablo Picasso baby [Hook 2x] XX

Add Some Color to Your Summer with Tate Britain Shows

Tate Britain is showing three big artists this summer: Laurence Stephen Lowry, Gary Hume and Patrick Caulfield. Amongst this three, our favorite is the one of Caulfield! We felt that the Lowry show got a bit repetitive and Hume’s exhibition somehow fell short compared to the excitement we felt wondering through the Caulfield galleries.

The Hume and Caulfield shows are in fact paired together by the museum, as two British artists of different generations both engaging with the medium of paint and who are amazing colorists. Drawing inspiration from artists such as Ellsworth Kelly, Donald Judd, Klimt and the great Old Master colorist Vermeer, Hume made his own name as one of the new generation of Young British Artists with his paintings of doors. For the exhibition entrance, he makes reference to these paintings and in fact made functioning doors for the first time!

This is a nice show bringing together Hume’s well-known works alongside recent paintings seen in the UK for the first time, all making up about 24 works charting Hume’s career since he exhibited his hospital doors paintings at the infamous “Freeze” exhibition organized by Damien Hirst in 1988.  Among the works been shown for the first time in the UK is a portrait of Angela Merkel titled “Anxiety and the Horse” 2011 that Hume completed in his home in upstate New York.

Patrick Caulfield is from an older generation than Hume. He first came to prominence in the 1960s and continued painting until his death in 2005. Similar to Hume, Caulfield’s career took off after an important exhibition. Caulfield’s was in 1964, the first of The New Generation exhibitions at the Whitechapel Gallery, where David Hockney and Bridget Riley were also included.   He never painted figures, expect for his iconic 1963 portrait of Juan Gris, the Surrealist painter, which is included in the show.

Caulfield looked up to the previous generation, to artists like Fernand Leger, Edward Hopper, and Stuart Davis who used lot of color. Caulfield was interested in the way these artists used space and light to capture a place and time. Caulfield's skills as a colorist is evident as soon as one walks into the exhibition room: you get taken up by the bright lights, synthetic colors and shiny surfaces of the modern world. We see brilliant examples of Caulfield’s grand still lives and examinations of British culture. For example, he makes references to the 1970s custom of having continental breakfast or wallpaper in the living room with photographed European landscapes - or the late 90s when every bottle of lager had a wedge of lime. As the exhibition curator Clarrie Wallis says, “He is capturing the character of modern life.”

Caulfield was one of the most admired artists of his generation: figurative painters admired him for his sophisticated draftsmanship, abstract artists for his control and inventive use of color, minimalists for his austerity and conceptual artists for his intellectual rigor. If Tate Britain show is not enough dose of Caulfield for you, Alan Cristea has put on a show of the artist's silk screen prints and they are for sale too.

Around the World with the Moon

For the past 10 years, when Leonid Tishkov packs for travel, he doesn't only bring his suitcase but also his own private moon! What began as a single installation of the glowing moon, bringing surrealist artist Rene Magritte's "The Sixteenth of September (Le seize septembre)" to life, turned into a life long project for the Russian physician turned avant-garde artist Tishkov.

Tishkov's on going "Private Moon" is a series of stylized, sentimental photographs of himself, wearing his late father's cloak, with a large illuminated crescent moon in the strangest, most unexpected places around the world. Influenced by Russian folk tales, Tishkov sees this project as a life performance where the moon is a shining point that brings people together from different cultures and countries. It gives fairytale and poetry in our world.

The world is beautiful around us, you just illuminate it with the light of poetry! And for me, the light of the moon is the perfect poetry.

Tishkov started the journey from a familiar place, his home. In the first pictures you see the artist's country house, the bed where he sleeps and writes poetry. Later he went to  places such as France, Taiwan, China, Kazakhstan, and the list goes on. Join this lonely poet on his global tour.