- Venue
- Dirty Square Gallery
- Location
A parody of the art gallery, not a critique. A squatted, stolen space; a chance encounter.
A mini-spectacle, something ‘other’ to the place. Two men stop as they walk past. They take a photograph and they have a laugh. They then carry on their journey.
The first element to Dirty Square Gallery is finding it. It is down Rivington Street near Old Street in London. It is not, as one might expect, a building, so it has no street number. It is a frame, a dirty and old frame at that, on a brick wall. It is next to some bins, a lamp post and some run down buildings. You either struggle to find DSG or chance upon it. Inside the frame sit some foreign coins, glued to the brick wall behind, along with paper, the remnants of a past show.
‘Blue Plaque’ by Leo Koivistoinen and Eilidh Short is a small circular, ceramic tile, stating ‘This plaque was installed 6th May, 2010.’ It is outside the frame of DSG, a little higher and to the right. It is nailed and glued to the wall, as all other DSG works have been stolen. The coins that have gone are gauged out of the wall, requiring hard work and some time. A challenge to an invisible competitor.
Urban art, not so dissimilar to graffiti. DSG plays with the idea of medium, however. It plays with the space, the vulnerability of the work and where it is located.
A Happening: ‘an apparently impromptu situation, performance, event or series of events.’ What is impromptu is the space, the people around the work and any other factor that cannot be calculated by virtue of where the work is. It is non-permanent and perishable. The work is not for sale. Art permeates the boundaries of life as we stumble across it.
‘Blue Plaque’ and indeed all the work at DSG cannot be read or understood outside of DSG. The ethos and space go hand in hand.
