The Rise and Rise of the East End
Words by Lou Macleod
The Whitechapel Gallery has undergone a monumental £13.5m expansion which is simply staggering. Every penny has been well spent, from the British Council Collection to the Foyle Reading room, including the bespoke, considerately designed interior. Revival of the archives has brought its rich 109 year history into sharp focus. Consequently it has become a destination in itself and has cemented its position and prominence amongst the artistic community. You can even get an overpriced coffee there, but oh, wait...You can walk a few paces down the road and get one there too. A pattern is emerging here…
The double edged sword of gentrification has been thrust into the armpit of the East end; off the back of incredible regeneration projects such as the Whitechapel rides the parasite of faceless brands, rising higher and coming faster like a tsunami of overpriced coffee. Is gentrification beneficial to the surrounding artistic communities who, I suppose, do drink coffee, or a sign that all the bells and whistles that made it the cats’ whiskers in the first place are being squeezed out to make room? After all, as George Shaw said in his recent talk at the Wilkinson gallery; ‘Regeneration is basically just knocking shit down...’
If you look at the East End of the 80s, it was a radically different place. Artist and lecturer Jeffrey Dennis graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art in 1980, and went to work part-time at the Whitechapel Gallery as a technician in arguably the most culturally significant time of contemporary art in Britain. He ate a lot of curry and got very drunk with Gilbert & George and went to the pub with Nick Serota. His reflections of that time illustrate just how different it was back then. He had a studio in Wapping, and described the East end as bohemian and very downbeat, if not a little scary. The National Front still had a hold on the area - distributing their newspapers where only two decades later trendy bars would stand. Hoxton didn’t exist as an art centre yet, there were no shops and few galleries and yet many vacant buildings - evidence of its bomb riddled past and devastation during WWII.
SPACE and Acme Studios would play, amongst others, a significant role in pioneering the East End. Both artist-run, not for profit initiatives, would utilize abandoned houses on the bomb peppered streets of East London as affordable live/work spaces, to counteract ever-increasing living costs. Acme started out with 2 properties in Bow with 21 month life expectancies before demolition. LEB OFF was painted on as notification of disconnection from the London Electricity Board; however, they required only peppercorn rent from as little as £1 a year. Acme proved intrinsic to the creation of a vibrant, creative community in many parts of the East End, most notably Approach Road where they had a number of houses. The Approach pub, previously an East End drinking den quickly became an artists’ haunt, and would result in the founding of the approach gallery in a room upstairs.
Gregor Muir, author of Lucky Kunst: The Rise and Fall of YBA, describes in his memoirs, early 90s Shoreditch having artists such as the Chapmans, Gary Hume, Mat Collishaw and Gavin Turk all living locally. How dog sized rats would roam down Curtain Road and laughing at the possibility that one day, 2 bed flats in Hoxton St, ‘The Ditch’, would go for £60 a week; That implausibly, rents would soar and how ‘the entire area seemed to be resurrected overnight.’
Artists are the SAS of gentrification. Where they deploy, it will follow. They seek out and pioneer previously lost areas rife with low rent and big spaces, but where no one else wants to go. Thriving artistic communities are now used as tempting bait for luxury flats in downbeat areas. Ultimately though, the gentrification and soaring rents that follow are so rapid they kick the artists out of their own party.
The most significant ripple affect of gentrification is on the emerging art scene. Recently graduated artists are finding the East end is not the affordable low rent haven it once was. For that reason they seek further afield. Silvia Krupinská, an artist who has exhibited internationally, took up studios in New Cross after experiencing its exciting artistic community. Her original search started in the East end but rents were just too high. Nearby is a great independent café - Café Crema, normal priced coffee, artistic clientele - definitely not part of that pesky pattern. Charlotte Bradford is involved with the emerging art scene in nearby Deptford and spoke of its wonderful creative scene, with Creekside Artists, APT gallery, Cor Blimey arts as well as galleries such as BEARSPACE who include recent graduates in their exhibition programme. Artist, Charlotte Bint, due to start her MA at Goldsmiths, decided to use her home as a studio in Denmark Hill. She understands how recently graduated artists tend to look away from the East end, as it can be seen to be billed for creatives and is consequently becoming a cliché.
In 1986, Jeffrey Dennis would progress from being a technician at The Whitechapel to having a solo exhibition there. He noted how back then it was a more fluid institution; much like the South London Gallery is now. The SLG, the Hannah Barry Gallery, Camberwell College of Art and House gallery (who exhibit recent graduates) are examples of South East London’s’ lively creative community.
Artist Simon Foxall resides in a live/work/exhibition space with several other artists in Hackney Wick. The building has a year lease until scheduled for demolition. An all too poignant reminder of the fragility of these spaces is in full view out the window, a vista of JCB diggers and construction; the building of one of the future Olympics sites. The Olympics will exasperate the symptoms of gentrification as more land and vacant buildings are sought for demolition to make room for stadiums and whatever else – changing rooms? As an artist it becomes necessary to accept this transitory lifestyle, however, Simons’ main concern is that there will be no artistic legacy left in Hackney Wick.
Although some smaller galleries in the East End have succumbed to the gentrification of their surrounding areas, others have remained untouchable. The longstanding legacy of the White Cube, the superb plethora of galleries on Vyner St like the Wilkinson gallery, and others such as The approach, Between Bridges, Parasol Unit , Victoria Miro and MOT international, to mention a few(!) still remain poignant sources of inspiration and contemporary cultural reference points.
Walking down Broadway Market shows the areas’ unique creative community. Although the gentrification of the area has hit its emerging art scene hard the established galleries are thriving. Their audiences have become wider and more varied, leading to mutually beneficial collaborations with long standing established art institutions. These collaborations are fantastic opportunities for artists, drawing attention to work which previously may not have been seen. The wider audience also opens access to new realms of funding and possibilities so eloquently demonstrated in the Whitechapel expansion.
Let’s play with the devils avocado for a moment, and consider maybe, gentrification isn’t the only factor causing the constant migration of the emerging art community. Perhaps it’s a more transitory, natural cultural shift. The swinging Kings Road of the 60s and 70s is no longer, and is now the epitome of gentrified living. It seems that artists naturally move on to greener pastures hunting for the more subversive and undiscovered areas, in cyclical repetition, pioneering an area then leaving it.
Gentrification does have it benefits. It helps to bring wider audiences, thus attracting the interest of more established art institutions, resulting in fantastic collaborations and increased funding possibilities. On the contrary (my dear Watson) it is detrimental in the way that it’s clearly knocking out the emerging art scene in key areas of the East end. Right now, with its high concentration of artists, studios and creativity, it remains a stimulating, dynamic, vibrant place…But for how long?
With sizeable factors to consider like the upcoming Olympics, the planned East London tube extension, the deluge of overpriced coffee and the burgeoning artistic communities in South East London, you hope that the East end will remain a major and remarkable cultural centre, but the massive frosty snowball of gentrification does seem to be gaining speed; Its time to hope for some sunshine.
Posted Wed, April 15, 2009
Comments on The Rise and Rise of the East End
Fantastic article, really informative and funny. I’m currently writing a piece about Hackney Wick and interviewing some creatives in the area, I hope its ok to quote a sentence and credit you? all the best,
Monique Jackson
Posted by: Monique Jackson | 18/07/2009 at 13:11