YES WAY

YES WAY

30 March, 2009
by: Tom Jeffreys

Tom Jeffreys ventures all the way to Peckham for a weekend of music and art fun times.

Barbour: check. Brogues: check. Checks: check. No it's not a weekend on the farm; it's a trip to South London. Golly, I feel intrepid as I board the bus and sashay valiantly down the Old Kent Road. Destination: an old car garage turned project space called auto-italia, for a two-day art/music festival extravaganza going by the name of YES WAY. We spot the venue from afar, and as we approach, it looks increasingly like the whole of Hackney has upped sticks and toddled down to Peckham with us. Barbours are everywhere, and one of my friends is probably the only person not in a checked shirt. 'We might as well be in the Old Blue Last,' he says. 'Oh, shut up,' I say.

So what is this YES WAY all about then? Well, it's a collaboration between London promoter and record-label, Upset The Rhythm, and the exciting young artists who live and work in the warehouse that is auto-italia. I've been intrigued by their work since mid-2008, when I went to the Katie Guggenheim-curated The Dark Show in Hackney's FormContent. Although these artists – Amanda Dennis, Rachel Pimm, Kate Cooper and others – all produce very different kinds of work, there is, I think, a shared ethos, a kind of subtly subversive mindset: they're not out to shock, but to explore. Their work is also fun, which makes a nice change from some of the po-faced old nonsense I spend my life going to...

For YES WAY, these artists have produced work that responds to the DIY punk aesthetic associated with Upset The Rhythm. The entrance to auto-italia is bright and white and, like the shop of a major public gallery, full of neatly designed bits and bobs – CDs and T-shirts, photographs and things, all apparently for sale. Inside the dilapidated warehouse, however, it's a different matter. Stuck to the floor are various sheets of paper covered in chaotic abstract scribbles, and already marked by footprints. 'I've trodden on some art!' my friend says. 'I wouldn't worry,' I say.

Elsewhere there's various video projections, photographic pieces and little light boxes dotted about on the walls. Periodically I'm entranced by a rizla falling from a girder above. Do they fall, or are they pushed? Who knows. But, caught in a bright spotlight, they flutter gently down like little litter sycamore samaras. Only to be trodden into the floor. This bears the hallmarks of Amanda Dennis: it could be a bit like that awful plastic bag scene in American Beauty but actually it works. Because this is not art that seeks to be the centre of attention, and because, with various bands thrashing merrily away, it seems merely incidental, and, in fact, goes largely unnoticed.

In terms of the music, Saturday sees sets from bands like The Shitty Limits, Gay Against You, Spin Spin The Dogs and Graffiti Island. It all rather blurs together for me: lots of loud untutored noises and girls shrieking into microphones, but my music friends say it's good, so you'll have to take their word for it. We are all, however, entranced by oddly-named jazz flute and conceptual drumming duo Part Wild Horses Mane On Both Sides. Again this could be tedious, but the experience of watching Pascal Nichols' endlessly complex percussion is actually completely hypnotic.

Periodically a group of people wander about spraying lemon-scented freshener into the air. Are they eliminating the scent of wet Barbour? Or have all these trendies been lured to Peckham to be unceremoniously gassed? Fortunately for me, it seems the former is the case. Or perhaps it's art. One of the beauties of auto-italia is that it's hard to tell for sure.

London Art
London Exhibitions
London Events

Tom Jeffreys