Forget the permanent collections of the big art museums like the Tate and the National Gallery that you’ve seen a dozen times already, or the exhibitions of already established and heftily overpriced artists at the Whitechapel Gallery and the Hayward. There are countless smaller venues where you can discover new talent and possibly even be able to afford something, and we don’t mean stuffy galleries with paintings of marigolds in vases and snooty art dealers dressed in royal blue power suits. Here is a list of London’s hippest art galleries where you’ll find the most radical, original art, usually with hip hop blaring in the background.
StolenSpace
(Old Truman Brewery, Dray Walk, Brick Lane, London, E1 6Q)
Street art and graffiti feature prominently at this humble-sized gallery housed within the Truman Brewery. Its location alone gives away its hipper than thou credentials, and you’re just as likely to find a pair of sculpted hoof-shaped stilettoes as a pastiche of Roy Lichtenstein’s most famous work. The works on show can be priced anywhere between £50 and a couple of thousand, so you might even walk away with a bargain.
Pure Evil
(108 Leonard Street, The City London, EC2A 4RH)
Pure Evil take a socialist approach to the business of running an art gallery, (even if the name does suggest some form of satanic cult) viewing it as a platform for artists to expose their work rather than a way to make a tidy profit - the artists get paid 75% of their sales, whereas it’s usually more like 40% – 50%. The gallery has its very own recording studio downstairs and you can subscribe to their podcast via iTunes if you like the sound of experimental electroacoustic chord progressions (there’s more to it than that, obviously). Street art is once again the predominant genre, and additionally the venue hosts film nights and workshops.
\n\nPOW
(46 - 48 Commercial St London E1 6LT)
POW, in other words Pictures on Walls (also a clever reference to the work of Lichtenstein) is a former print shop turned gallery, specialising in screen prints. In between solo exhibitions the walls are covered with the best of their archive. You’ll find works by Antony Micallef as well as Robert ‘3D’ Del Naja’s album art for Massive Attack’s most recent album Heligoland, available for £325. Expect confrontational, vivid imagery at this Commercial Street gallery.
The Brick Lane Gallery
(Brick Lane, Shadwell London, E1 6SB)
This teeny gallery sells work by both emerging and established artists like Jamie Hewlett, Banksy and Gavin Turk. Despite the big names it attracts, up and coming artists are encouraged to apply to be part of their group shows. The gallery doesn’t favour a specific style, as exhibitions can range from abstract to surrealist to graffiti art, but it’s on Brick Lane, giving it fashionable kudos.
Signal Gallery
(96A Curtain Road, The City, London, EC2A 3AA)
Signal Gallery takes a marginally more traditional approach to its peers by focusing on figurative painting, however that is not to say you’ll encounter portraits of bored looking aristocrats gazing from the walls. If you’re aware of the work of Jonathan Darby and the poster-like images of Shepard Fairey you’ll know what to expect, and naturally both graffiti and so called ‘urban art’ are well represented.
L-13
(63 Farringdon Road, London EC1M 3JB)
L-13 is a collective, artists’ studio and gallery all in one, based in Clerkenwell. They count the anarchist painter, novelist and musician Billy Childish amongst their ranks, (who also happens to be the former partner of Tracey Emin, but we mention that only as an aside). L-13’s ethos proclaims to be more anti-art than establishment, and their manifestos and other literature can be perused at length in the gallery’s reading area.
Black Rat Projects
(83 Rivington Street City of London EC2A 3AY)
The space alone that this gallery inhabits is achingly cool. Situated within a disused railway arch with brick walls adjacent to nightclub Cargo’s garden, there are paintings, screen prints, photographs and sculptures from hip artists like Giles Walker for instance (check out his highly entertaining motorized figures, such as the bickering Drunk Tories, exhibited here in 2010) and Shepard Fairey. They also display the odd Basquiat, Damien Hirst and Peter Blake piece.
\n\nLazarides
(11 Rathbone Place, London, W1T 1HR)
Finally a gallery that isn’t in the trendy East End. With branches in Soho and Fitzrovia (as well as Newcastle), Lazarides exhibit sculpture, photographs, paintings and stuffed animals. Rather than jump on the street art bandwagon they’ve decided to appropriate the ‘outsider art’ tag, perhaps a little hasty given that the label was coined to refer to artists who worked outside of the art world, i.e. mental hospital patients. Still, they do have a penchant for provocative, striking images your mum wouldn’t feel comfortable with.
Flaxon Ptootch
This venture surely wins in the eccentricity stakes. It’s a hair salon, but it’s also an art gallery. The works on display are mostly by local Kentish Town artists, and there is a private view once a month which usually encompasses live music and other forms of merriment, attracting throngs of Camdenites and associated hipsters. Alternatively you can eye up the artworks whilst getting a quick wash and cut, starting from £20.
London Miles
(28 King Street City of London EC2V 8EH)
Here you’ll mostly find comic book art and pop art. Despite being located in a part of West London that’s more chic than street, there’s plenty of deviant behaviour gracing the walls, and by their own admission they attempt to blur the boundaries between lowbrow and fine art appreciation. Which essentially means plenty of images of subversive-looking little girls and phalluses.
