David Redfern LG reflects on a recent exhibition with fellow London Group Memeber, Paul Tecklenberg LG, at hARTslane Gallery
“Paul Tecklenberg LG and I recently had an exhibition at hARTslane Gallery in New Cross, South East London from 4th to the 7th June. If you don’t know this venue please check it out, it’s an old motorbike repair shop and retains all the scars of years of industrial use. Which is what attracted Paul and I to it as a possible exhibition venue as our work bears sympathetic similarities. As members of The London Group we became aware of each other’s interests, started talking, like you do, at private views and then met socially. For me and other colleagues, this peer support and conversation is a valuable aspect of group membership. We discovered we had a lot in common, an interest in science, love of the found object and a sense of humour. It was fellow London Group member Melissa Alley who said, “You two should have a show together”. So we did. We both found it revealing to drag work out of studio storage and to expose it to the light of day and visitors’ comments. Similarly, whilst invigilating, Paul and I talked for seven hours a day about our work and life which I found encouraging, affirming and loaded with potential for future work and exhibitions.
Our exhibition planning was meticulous and “old hand” professional. To begin with I made a scale model (photo) of hARTslane within which Paul and I placed scale images of proposed work to gauge which and how many works the venue could take. This was fascinating and formative because it was at this point we realised our mutual “contact” points within our two bodies of work. We began to see the two and three-dimensional pieces talking to each other, then we, as artists, talked to each other over multiple rounds of café coffees, but were, of course, also talking to ourselves. Funnily enough, when we finally got our pieces into the gallery space we spent many enjoyable hours shifting the stuff around discovering even more conversations and links between works and finished with an arrangement surprisingly different to the last model placings. We dealt with transport (many thanks to Andy Diffey, uncomplaining hero), installation (an exercise in problem solving), invigilation, organising a Press Preview on the first evening, a “friends” Private view on the second and Artists’ Talks on the last afternoon. This structure may be familiar to many members as it is, of course, largely based on London Group practice. Promotion and advertising was handled by Andia Newton and Hannah Luxton on a private basis; they got our exhibition into hundreds of mailboxes. Again, thank you to you two.
hARTslane Gallery is co-organised by London Group member Tisna Westerhof. If plans work out the touring exhibition Personal Relations will have its London showing in the gallery later this year, all information can be found on The London Group website.”
