'A Stain Upon the Silence' – a Group Show Curated By Young Brixton Based Artists

By Chris Page, curator

The exhibition ‘A Stain Upon The Silence’ came about as part of the ‘output’ of a new collective called ‘Group Show’. The members of this collective met, by and large, in Central Saint Martins, where the majority of us graduated from last year. It began, as I’m sure many collectives do, as a solution to financial hardship – strength in numbers is a cause of many effects in the artworld.

At first the eight of us that make up Group Show exhibited work together out of necessity, ignoring the fact that much of the conceptual terrain that we cover in our different practices was incongruous and unhelpful to each other. This led to some hit and miss shows, and we realised something had to change. Now, in reference to our own work, we use a more organic, proposal-based system for the premise of exhibitions, that any of the members can be a part of if their work fits.

Our own work is by no means the sum of our production however. We endeavour to be a platform for other emerging artists, produce literature, and bring together exciting groupings of work. And so to ‘A Stain Upon The Silence’. With the kind sponsorship of Cass Art Ltd. we have begun a series of biannual shows, the eight of us curating in turn. I took on the baptism of fire, curatorially that is – this was totally a group effort.

Starting with Beckett’s modern/postmodern existentialism, we trawled the internet, galleries and degree shows looking for suitable artists. Some were close to home – Clunie Reid was a tutor of ours at St Martins and Alex Ball studied with us. Others were further afield – John Martin is of course long dead, and Larry Clark lives in California I believe (these works were borrowed from a collector).

Having only five days to build the show was the most stressful part. It was an ambitious plan for a first curatorial outing – we built over 100m squared of fake wall, hung over 150m squared of fabric and installed all bespoke lighting. We finished working at 6.10pm on the night of the private view, close to passing out, smelling very bad, but thankfully all went well. It was a steep learning curve, but a satisfying one. There have been hicups and false starts along the way, but it has been invaluable experience. Best of all has been the people we have met, and are continuing to meet with the show on presently.

The show continues to 7 July at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, Charing Cross Road. WC2