{"id":2604,"date":"2012-01-01T19:56:24","date_gmt":"2012-01-01T19:56:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.guyburch.co.uk\/?p=2604"},"modified":"2020-05-13T19:31:13","modified_gmt":"2020-05-13T19:31:13","slug":"curator-for-the-lgbt-element-of-brixton-calling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.guyburch.co.uk\/?p=2604","title":{"rendered":"Curator for the LGBT element of Brixton Calling!"},"content":{"rendered":"

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As curator for the LGBT element to Brixton Calling! – an Arts Council for England and Heritage Lottery Funded project to draw attention to Brixton Art Gallery, I helped to assemble archival material deposited\u00a0at Tate Britain and Lambeth Archives.<\/p>\n

Brixton Artists Collective were based at a gallery in Station Road and held a number of important seed exhibitions relating to concepts that would later become prominent in the contemporary art scene. These included curated shows of\u00a0artists outside the dominant white western heritage groupings (artists of African, Caribbean, Latin American and Palestinian origin for instance), women artists and lesbian and gay artists. It also introduced mediums that were little recognised but now have become a common place in the realm of ‘fine’ art. Textiles, video, installation, performance and ceramics were fully accepted into the program.<\/p>\n

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\"Banner\" <\/a>
\n \"bag <\/a>
\n \"The <\/a> The opening of the exhibition at 198 Gallery
\n \"Black <\/a>
\n \"P1200362\" <\/a><\/p>\n

The collective operated on a tiny budget having initially squatted three railway arches that had been a carpet warehouse outlet: the space was substantial. Well over 1000 artists were shown there including a number who went on to become Turner Prize nominees. It provided most with their first opportunity to show work. The gallery materials were ephemeral in nature and in part the project sort to reconstitute a record, leaving an account at both the Tate and Lambeth Archives. It also sort to engage parallel groups to those mentioned above in current day activities modelled on the collectives methodologies. Many of the Collectives posters and catalogues utilised manual\u00a0cut\u00a0& paste and photocopying foreshadowing todays Zine culture so, for instance\u00a0Tate Collective worked with Barbara Asante to produced\u00a0Bam, Bam! a fanzine exploring Black Art in the 80s.\u00a0The first fifty exhibition posters, inspired by former Collective member Andrew Hurman’s web site<\/a>, were depicted on the exhibition publication and these and catalogues formed part of the gift to Tate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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