how to emerge?
What has Sluice taught us – Be independent but work together!
By attending this year’s impressive Sluice Art Fair, and taking part in the Twitter/blog/pub conversations that immediately ensued, I believe many of us, including independents like Core Gallery, have become unoffical participators in an exciting, and as yet undefined, movement that heralds the beginning of a new era of generosity and collaboration between networks of like-minded artist-led spaces who are just beginning to understand the power of solidarity.
Sluice art fair is an example of how when times get hard: the sparkling rhetoric of the commercial galleries – as represented by Frieze – begins to recede, making way for the less glitzy, purer [and poorer!] artist-led concerns to present an alternative way forward. Hayley Harrison summed this up poignantly in her a-n Artist’s Talking blog: Something’s Happening*, when she suggested that we cease to talk about ‘the art world’ but rather begin to call ourselves ‘an art community’. Thanks to Ben Street & Karl England and their innovative spirit, I believe that ball is now firmly rolling.
Indeed, Core Gallery, is now looking forward to attending another gathering of the innovative artist-independent clans at the Conference for Emerging Art Organisers in Goldsmiths on Thursday 24 November.
The place to be!
* Hayley Harrison, Something’s Happening #25 [17 Oct 2011] www.an.co.uk/p/1299464/
