July in the Arts: After Dark

July in the Arts: After Dark

21 July, 2008
by: Tom Jeffreys

As an important cultural tastemaker I get invited to a lot of cool stuff. And a lot of shit stuff too. My favourite thing recently was Katie Guggenheim's The Dark Show, an all night artathon in Hackney's FormContent. And it set me to thinking: what with the summer on its way and the light a lengthening and all that, why don't more galleries do fun late night art things? Then I realised: they already do.

There's loads of weekly/monthly late openings at the big institutions like the British Museum, Hayward, National Gallery, V&A and something called First Thursdays run by some magazine or other. We all know about these, but this July there's some extra special art things that are either open late or look at the night-time as a source of fun or indeed of fear.

First up, is Neurotic at the ICA. The ICA, of course, always has late-night goings on, the trendy old thing. And in the first week of July, there's a thing called Neurotic which looks pretty awesome. From what we can gather it's three late nights of punk music involving robots and computer programming. It's organized by Fiddian Warman and part-funded by the Wellcome Trust. So it counts as art, I think.

The Wapping Project is another one of those places that's always open quite late (until 11 six nights a week, would you credit it?) and July sees some really cool photography by Annabel Elgar. Her work adds a dark edge to the stereotypical American suburb. There's always something mysterious or ritualistically weird going on: kind of like if M Night Shyamalan was a photographer rather than an egotistical twat.

A similar sense of the uncanny pervades the July exhibition at The Arts Gallery. They've painted the gallery purple and got some funny lighting in so it feels all dark and mysterious. There's also lots of art by people like Dan Houldsworth, Lee Maelzer and Poppy de Villeneuve exploring the terrors that lurk hidden in night-time shadows. And on the 24th Sukhdev Sandhu is reading from his book Night Haunts which is all about late-night walks in London. His book's great, so this should be fun.

Throughout July, Alexandre Pollazzon is hosting an exhibition called 3am Eternal. This show is co-curated by Steve from Super Super and looks at the night not as a source of fear but of sweaty neon joy. See Horse Meat Disco paraphernalia alongside work by people like 2008 Turner Prize-shortlisted Mark Leckey and 2000 winner Wolfgang Tillmans (who's also got a show on right now at Maureen Paley).

And on 31st of July, the exhibition 'goes live' at the fabulous Louise T Blouin Institute as part of its After Dark 10x10 summer events programme. Every Thursday the gallery is transformed by a different guest curator in whatever way they fancy. And it's open to 11, which is pretty cool. I love this place and these shows look like they'll be ace.

This July, art is no longer Sunday afternoon in the Royal Academy with Granny or ringing doorbells up and down Cork Street. No, it's now fun and cool and they actually want you to go and see it. It's mainly free and it's open late and - here's the clincher - you can get booze at the same time. And if you're an important cultural tastemaker like me, then you get it free.

Keen for more? See more about:

London Photography
London Exhibitions
London Events

Tom Jeffreys