Tom Jeffreys ventures all the way to Camberwell to see the newly expanded South London Gallery.
I don't get to south London as often as I should. It's not through any north/south or east is best snobbery though – I know there are loads of cool things going on places like Deptford, Peckham and Camberwell. I'm just lazy really.
Anyway, the news that the much-respected South London Gallery is opening its doors again after a £2 million expansion project is just enough to drag me away from Hackney and down to Camberwell for the morning.
And boy is it totally worth it. Having never been to the South London Gallery before, it's difficult to make accurate comparisons, but as far as I can tell, what they've done is incredible. By taking over a dilapidated three-storey house next door, South London Gallery have been able to create three small-scale gallery spaces, a delightfully sunny little garden, and a café that looks onto the street as well as a flat to provide accommodation for a programme of artists' residencies. The new Clore Studio also apparently quadruples the gallery's education and community outreach activities.
Aside from the main gallery – big and grand and airily white – it's the flat which really catches the eye. Everything from the sinuously curving wooden bannister to the noiseless kitchen drawers has been finished to the most exacting standards. Not your stereotypical artist squat this – it's a beautiful, chic, modern apartment – I seriously envy whichever artists get awarded residencies here!
The actual exhibition with which the relaunch is heralded is a little patchy, but when it works it's great. Nothing is Forever sees a broad range of wall-based works by the likes of Fiona Banner, Yinka Shonibare, David Shrigley, Mark Titchner and Lawrence Weiner, all of which will be painted over when the exhibition draws to a close in September.
In the main gallery, Fiona Banner's big wall scribble dominates – it draws you in but the sheer mass of words acts almost as a barrier to sense. Lawrence Weiner's work seems trite, but then I've never been a fan. The problem is that by displaying simple words or phrases – in this case “Poised between dissolution and resolution. At the present time” – he puts too much pressure on these poor words. We all know what he's trying to do, but Derrida did it better – his writing is far more dexterous than Weiner's sloganeering could ever be.
Elsewhere, two works really stand out for me. First is Penny McCarthy's cute trompe l'oeil drawing on the wall above the bed in the residency flat. It's delicate and charmingly apt. But it's Gary Woodley's take-over of the beautiful staircase that steals the show. Thin strands of black PVC tape circle round and round the building's interior, taking the eye on a journey around and along the exquisite edges and curves created by the architects. Both simple and complex, it's a wonderful marriage of art and gallery – site-specific work at its finest.
The whole expansion has been done so sensitively – old materials have been reclaimed, new ones sourced meticulously – that the South London Gallery has a real charm. It's not only impressive and ambitious but also welcoming and quirkily comfortable – this is the kind of place you could spend a whole day, easily. A triumph and a delight.
Image credit: Andy Stagg
Nothing is Forever is at South London Gallery until 5th September 2010.
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