East London’s new Centre for Contemporary Art
This month sees the inauguration of LCA, the Leytonstone Centre for Contemporary Art, in a part of East London best known as the birthplace of Alfred Hitchcock and the beginning of the M11 motorway. Sited at 49 Rhodesia Road, London E11 and open every Saturday between 12pm and 6pm; LCA consists of 100 square-feet of custom-built exhibition space, set within the Rhodesia Sculpture Park, an area of open grass, paving stones and planted vegetation that can be used for showing three- dimensional works of art or staging performances. It may look like a shed in a back garden, but LCA has big ambitions. “Leytonstone needs a centre for contemporary art—I believe in opening things up and making them happen—it just has to be low budget,” says LCA director and artist Bob and Roberta Smith who, with LCA head curator Jessica Voorsanger, has been responsible for the construction of LCA and is now fine-tuning its programme. LCA opens with “Critical prose”, an exhibition of text work by Joe Amrhein, the director of Pierogi 2000 in Brooklyn who, as well as running one of New York’s most inventive galleries, also has a long track record as a sign writer for the likes of Lawrence Weiner. “He’s taken all the mad, idiotic phrases art critics use in art magazines and layered them onto tissue paper into this dense mass of text,” says Smith, adding that as “the piece is 13 feet-long, I’ve had to build special walls to hold it”. Scheduled for August, LCA’s summer show “Weakest link” plays with Britain’s time-honoured North-South rivalries by showing London artists against those from Manchester and allowing the public to come in every week and vote out their least favourite works, which will then be “tossed into the Rhodesia Sculpture Park.” Tours around Leytonstone’s cultural spots such as the Alfred Hitchcock mural at the local tube station are planned—with a scheme of residencies and awards being lined up for the future.
Georgina Starr moves to Emily Tsingou
After nearly a decade with Anthony Reynolds Galley—since she left art school in 1992—Georgina Starr left the gallery last month and is now represented by Emily Tsingou. “We were friends and then it gradually became a possibility for us to work together,” Ms Tsingou told The Art Newspaper. “I’ve always admired her work and always followed it—and so it all happened very slowly and naturally.” Ms Tsingou, whose gallery artists include American artists Gregory Crewdson and Karen Kliminick and British photographers Henry Bond and Sophy Rickett, feels that Georgina Starr will fit well within this context. This month sees the dramatic inauguration of Ms Starr’s new association with a full scale event at the Venice Biennale. She had already been invited by Harald Szeemann to present an installation, but now, with the help of the Tsingou Galley, this is to be accompanied by “The Bunny Lake Collection”. But this, according to Ms Tsingou, is just the beginning. “We’re going to do a really, really big project with her next year: there will be work in the galley, but we’re also looking for a huge space.”
Sheena Wagstaff goes to Tate Modern
Sheena Wagstaff, Tate Britain’s head of exhibitions and displays since 1998, has now moved south of the river to fill the equivalent post at Tate Modern, which was vacated earlier this year when Iwona Blazwick moved east to be director of the Whitechapel Gallery. Before she joined the Tate, Ms Wagstaff was director of exhibitions, collection and education for five years at the Frick Art Museum in Pittsburgh.
Magnani Goes East
This month sees yet another addition to London’s Eastward drift with Gregorio Magnani forsaking his Warren St shopfront for the grittier environs of Commercial St. The fully converted space opens with a show of Angela Bulloch (until 7 July).
Magnani, 82 Commercial St, London EC1 6LY, Tel: +44 (0)20 7375 3002, fax+44 (0)20 7375 3006, anybody@magnani.co.uk
Originally appeared in The Art Newspaper as 'Contemporary art finds a home in Leytonstone'