Cabinet, 132 Tyers Street Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, London SE11 5HS
www.cabinet.uk.com Instagram: No
Cabinet has remained enigmatically atypical since its foundation in 1991 by Andrew Wheatley and Martin McGeown. That’s evident in location, building and presentation. After starting in Brixton, then the East End, Cabinet moved to Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens in 2016, a suitably alternative dimension of the entertainment scene in Georgian London.
The building, conceived by Cabinet collectively and designed by architect Trevor Horne, has striking additional features from gallery artists John Knight, Lucy McKenzie, and Marc Camille Chaimowicz, all of whose work links applied art to architecture. Texts tend to eschew conventional explication in favour of supplementary material. Writing is important to many of the artists, and Cabinet’s website is set out as the contents of a book, linking to a wide range of content.
The directors resist characterising the programme, but one might say it is primarily post-modern, if we take that to mean a reaction against the idea of universal truths, grand narratives, and objective reality in favour of irony and scepticism from a subjective individual perspective. Jana Euler, James Richards, Mark Leckey, Ghislaine Leung and Ed Atkins are my favourites among those making work now – Atkins has the highest profile currently with his immaculately orchestrated retrospective at Tate Britain. Cabinet also shows a suitably eccentric mix of more historic work: Pierre Klossowski, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Cosey Fanni Tutti… Overall, I’d say, the vibe is cool and you’re likely to be fascinated and baffled in equal measure.
The current show, by the artist known as R.I.P. Germain, is the most unusual and least comfortable experience – both in content and viewing conditions – available in a London Gallery at the moment: I recommend getting there by 10th May!
London’s gallery scene is varied, from small artist-run spaces to major institutions and everything in between. Each week, art writer and curator Paul Carey-Kent gives a personal view of a space worth visiting.
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Art critic and curator, based near Southampton. I write most regularly for Art Monthly, Frieze, World of Interiors, Seisma, Border Crossings, Artlyst, … and, of course, FAD.
