5 Shows Not To Miss At Art Licks Weekend 2019
By Something CuratedDirected by Holly Willats, Art Licks Weekend, running from 17–20 October 2019, is an annual festival that celebrates the activity of artist-led and non-profit project spaces across London. For its seventh year, Art Licks Weekend takes on the theme of Interdependence, considering how participating projects work within a network of friendship, exchange and shared dialogue. The festival includes exhibitions and events programmed by 63 participating spaces and collectives across London, working with 290 artists. Taking a closer look at this year’s programme, Something Curated highlights five must-see shows.
Material Gestures || Practice in Dialogue @ The Old Police Station
Taking its starting point from the working processes of Practice in Dialogue, a group of feminist artists who have been meeting over the last five years to provide peer support, collaborative working and community, this exhibition places work by the artists in the historical context of feminist art practices and the collectives that have sustained them. Presenting work by the Practice in Dialogue group, curated by Rose Gibbs and Catherine Long, alongside archival documents from women’s artist collectives from the 1970s onwards, this exhibition explores the dynamics of building communities and collective organising to create space for new contexts and visual languages.
114 Amersham Vale, London SE14 6LG
Creatura Albus (White Creature), c. 1270AD, earlier or after, 2019 || Recent Activity’s Nomadic Vitrine @ Southwark Park Galleries
As part of the Art Licks Weekend 2019, Nomadic Vitrine presents Creatura Albus (White Creature), c. 1270AD, earlier or after, 2019 by artist Sherie Sitauze, in Southwark Park Galleries’ Bermondsey Bothy. Referring to the Venda people of southern Africa, of which she is a direct descendant, Sitauze re-appropriates and modifies symbols, interrogating the prevalence of the colonial gaze. In this instance, she severs the head of the mythical protector of Lake Fundudzi and presents it in a bespoke zoo enclosure. Visible only from above, Sitauze investigates the presentation of the “exotic” and how audiences interact with familiar and unfamiliar objects.
Southwark Park Galleries, London SE16 2UA
To whom the flesh / My flesh / Still connects me || Inland Project @ The Poetry Society
Focusing on queer desire, To whom the flesh/ My flesh/ Still connects me, curated by Flora Bradwell, Sylwia Narbutt and Scott Macfadyen, explores queer poetry’s cannon through a series of new work from contemporary visual artists and poets. Queer poetry is expansive and diverse; writers of all backgrounds and sexual identities have captured their varied experiences and feelings of love in the expressive medium of poetic verse. This group show seeks to connect a range of voices and perspectives that all coalesce to present a complex, nuanced, picture of the queer experience of love. To whom the flesh is an act of celebration and solidarity, bringing visual arts and poetry communities together.
22 Betterton Street, London WC2H 9BX
The Return of Come Kiss a Stranger || Why Don’t You…? HQ satellite space
This exhibition results from curators Alison Green and Lucy Soni revisiting a rejected exhibition proposal and funding application Alison made with the artist Kate Howard in 2000. That exhibition, Come Kiss a Stranger, was proposed by two friends, and will now be taken up by two other friends. The Return of Come Kiss a Stranger will explore the possibilities and impossibilities of re-making a show given a time gap of 19 years. The purpose of this project is not to make the original show, but to explore the contingencies that are revealed when you go back to an old idea and see what it could look like in the present.
41 Talfourd Road, London SE15 5PA
The Feeling’s Mutual || The Rectory Projects
The title, The Feeling’s Mutual comes from the class of symbiosis termed ‘mutualism’, in which both organisms benefit from their natural partnership. The Rectory Projects have benefited from the engagement of young artists and artist-run spaces, and have in turn been able to give them opportunities to network, critically engage and develop their practices. Groups such as Platform Southwark, Kingsgate Project Space, Rochester Square and Pipeline, have become friends and collaborators. The Rectory Projects invites previous exhibitors as well as their wider network to show a series of sculptures around the property’s garden wilderness.
The Rectory Projects, London E14 0EY
Art Licks Weekend 2019 | 17–20 October 2019
Feature image: The Rectory Projects, 1990 (via Art Licks Weekend)