Tuesday

TANK: On the Road





The TANK girls also had their first official excursion last weekend; a kind of Thelma and Louise meets 24 Hour Party People. We took off on our weekend roadtrip in a battered red Mercedes Vito arriving in the middle of the night at the village of Aldermaston, just outside Reading. The party was held in a huge tent on the forest-like grounds of an out-of-the-way private estate. Great djs and a contagious funky vibe meant we pitched up our tents and, after some costume changes, partied like it was '99 all over again. Hopefully, we'll report back to you from more of these 'field-trips'!

Ma

Art in the Trenches?



By Ma Rainey: triangle player and daydreamer extraordinaire.


The new threads exhibition has gotten off to a roaring start, if the opening night was anything to go by. We had spoken word from Jason Shelley's The Romance; several accomplished performance poets; we had a live Dr. Seuss reading by the Cat in the Hat (my very favourite performance of the night!); and my own contribution blowing bubbles for the children in the audience, who promptly arranged a coup of sorts and took over. There was definitely a very relaxed, welcoming atmosphere at the gallery even as 'hoi polloi' rubbed shoulders with the great and good of the artworld, which promoted some controversial whispers. "I can't believe this is Ladywell," a merry guest or two thought aloud, "this feels like the East End." And in a sense, perhaps even a very large one, they were right.

There are a plethora of art galleries and spaces in East London full of Bright Young Things, with an active and involved audience for the work that they produce. It would be absurd to claim that South-East London is devoid of such talent (artists do not grow only in the concrete jungles of Shoreditch), nor, I feel justified in writing, would anybody stand behind such a claim. But it appears that we are felt to be on the fringes. Migration for those who are serious about being taken seriously is standard practice. The downside, however, to being closer to the bright lights of the big city is often that 'art-makers' become disposable fodder for a great Machine; discovery and success resting more on who you know and the luck of the draw, as opposed to the art piece speaking for itself.

I think it is this point that our guests were intrigued by. Art south of the Thames is as brash and challenging and, well, inspired as anything in the East. It only comes without the ribbons and bows of pretension; the South-East manages to successfully combine style and substance in equal measure, where Shoreditch, Hoxton and other trendy hubs of creative activity often become overly enamoured of the former, to the detriment of the latter. At the threads opening, everyone crowded into the downstairs space to watch, hear and be moved - lions sat down with lambs and shared discourses on postautonomy and the many faces of Vincent van Scoff... TANK Gallery and places like it are the life-blood of underground scenes, offering valuable exposure to artists who can't or won't take their art out of context. Art is an inevitable by-product of living; and those who live hardest feel most.