Tom Jeffreys reports from a cheerfully busy opening night.
“How many art fairs does London need?” So wondered Spoonfed's Music Editor this morning on reading of the launch of The Other Art Fair that took place at the Bargehouse last night. It's the third major art fair to have launched in London this year alone (following Sluice and Moving Image) and on top of SUNDAY and Moniker (launched in 2010) and of course Frieze, London Art Fair, the Affordable Art Fair (now fairs plural), 20/21, Multiplied, Art London and The Future Can Wait, makes, according to our tenuous grasp of mathematics, a whopping 13 art fairs.
But judging by the crowds who were there for the The Other Art Fair's opening, there's still no sign of overkill. One thing in its favour is that it's new (and everyone in the art world loves novelty) while the other is that the model is quite different from the art fair norm – hence the name. Instead of each stand being given over to a gallery, each of the 80-odd artists at The Other Art Fair are there representing themselves, which means that they receive 100% from the sale of their works.
But it also means that they must shoulder 100% of the costs. And with the price of exhibiting starting at £690 for a stand (plus travel, printing business cards, press releases etc) there is a certain commercial pressure that many may not have experienced before. I overhear one artist confiding to her friend: “obviously artists aren't used to being salesmen,” she says. Perhaps it's soon time they did, but for the moment it leads to a pleasantly relaxed atmosphere.
For the visitor, it's lovely being able to talk to the artists directly – especially as many seem so charmingly shy and nervous – but it can be awkward walking past some truly dreadful work trying to avoid eye contact with the artist who made it. And, unfortunately, there is a lot of bad work on display – this despite so many applications that apparently 60% had to be rejected. Perhaps the standard was simply not that good overall, or perhaps one might blame the selection panel: a motley crew comprising artist Charming Baker, Dr Anthony Downey from Sotheby's, Sophie Hastings, the Features Editor at GQ, Graham Fink from Ogilvy and Mather, and Godfrey Worsdale, the director of BALTIC.
Either way, the overal standard is disappointing, and nowehere is this better encapsulated than by the well-publicised presence of perennial art chancers Jasper Joffe and Harry Pye. They're running a 99p stall, selling various everyday items that the pair have scrawled over in one way or another. I overhear Joffe announcing proudly that “it's all completely handmade”, as if that were, in itself, some kind of great virtue. The handmade is only worthy of note if the hand in question is operated with some skill. One might cite The Poundshop as an example of this kind of thing done properly. This though is tat, pure and simple, and a rip-off at half the price.
In amongst all this though there is work by artists with promise. In particular I like elements of Edward Coyle's architectural architectural muddles; Tom Hodgson's playful darkroom trickery; the less brash of Islamiya Scarr's collages; Kiwa Lam's mathematical paper shapes; Rachel Wilberforce's housing estate photographs [above]; the idea behind EA Byrne's art criticism graphs; and the less obvious of Dan Hillier's menagerie of Victoriana (which seem to be amongst the most popular works at the fair).
There are two genuine highlights though: the darkly absorbing photography of Matthew Booth, whose work recalls, visually at least, that of painter Kerry Brewer. Created by capturing the reflection of an image in a black photograph, these are complex ponderings on the nature of looking and seeing, but slickly finished, with none of the sub-theoretical bilge spewed out elsewhere. The more you look into them, the more you seem to see, or think you see.
And the other highlight? A delightful picnic area laid out by the Robin Collective on the fifth floor of the Bargehouse, and serving unusual teas, excellent homemade cookies, and a rather delicious apple-laced Scotch Egg. Splendid! The Other Art Fair can definitely stay.
The Other Art Fair is at The Bargehouse until 27th November 2011.
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