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2/2/2011

It's Time To Go I Have No More Breast

Sartorial Contemporary Art, London

Gretta Sarfaty has amassed an impressive collection of the artists' works, and decided to unleash these energetic urban art examples to highlight the finale of the gallery's involvement with Street Art. It's Time To Go I Have No More Breast harks back to the glory days of this audacious and prolific coalition, offering visitors one final chance to view these influential works, and even own a piece of contemporary art history for themselves.

In urban theorist Henri Lefebvre's 1968 book Le Droit à la ville, Street Artists were defined as "citizens acting individually and collectively, often outside of established institutional frameworks, to shape urban experience according to their wants and needs."
When Gretta Sarfaty was approached by James Jessop, one of her represented artists, with the fledgling idea for a show with his graffiti crew, she cast Lefebvre's aspersions aside. Intrigued by these painterly pariahs of the underground; Gretta paved the way, opening her space to this new partnership. Needless to say her decision was divisive; there was outcry in the Local press that this unlikely union was "making vandalism acceptable".

The shows that followed would provide unprecedented Institutional exposure for the likes of Sweet Toof, Cept, Cyclops, Tomas Downes, Panik, Rowdy, Tek33, Nathan 80, O.two, Mr. P, Shaze, William Tuck and more. Gretta explains. "I wanted the contributing artists to use the gallery space with the same freedom as in the streets."

Following several months of application forms and proposals, Sartorial Contemporary Art was awarded two grants totalling
£ 23,000.00, from Leeds College of Art & Design, Arts Council, O2 and Camden Council. This money was beneficial for the artist’s creative progress, encouraging the production of new works. Subsequent exhibitions made possible by this funding included Burning Candy I * at Leeds College of Arts & Design’, Artistic Vandals, Burning Candy II and Urbanart at Sartorial Contemporary Art.

Furthermore, the awarded funds were put towards the organization of a series of workshops with Panik at the local youth centres**, as well as setting in motion two further exhibitions: Cept - A Frozen Explosion and Panick - Changing Faces.
These shows were held at the newly founded The Writer’s Bench**, an independent street art gallery initiated by James Jessop (Tek33) and Gretta Sarfaty, at a space adjacent to Sartorial.

It's Time To Go I Have No More Breast**** harks back to the glory days of this audacious and prolific coalition, as Gretta’s artistic outlook advances to a more conceptually homogeneous and innovative group of artists, she offers visitors one final chance to view these influential works, and even own a piece of contemporary art history for themselves.

* Accompanied by a book of the same name
** Corams Fields Youth Resource Centre, O2 and South Camden Youth Access Point
*** www.thewritersbench.org
**** Quotation from a book by Greek Poet Nikos Karouzos

Cyclops
A consummate street professional, Cyclops is ever-enigmatic. His statement accompanying Artistic Vandals merely read "Cyclops has no friendly bacteria. He is gutless. Cyclops is developing eyeglasses radiation proof. Cyclops is a teenage surgeon or a diamond smashing into the sun blah blah blah".His works can be seen throughout London; Cyclopic skulls and other one-eyed manifestations, the artist's calling cards.

Rowdy
"While many people prefer to invest their time and money into bricks and mortar, Rowdy prefers to squat houses and paint large rocks". Rowdy's precocious talent came to light with his antics in Bristol quarries, endowing great lumps of rock with cartoon personalities, or as it was once termed 'Ren & Stimpy meets Goldsworthy' . More recently Rowdy is responsible for the release of countless wide eyed (and equally wide-mouthed) crocodiles into the urban jungle.

James Jessop (Tek33)
His work borrows heavily from outlandish B-movie imagery and the '60s covers of pulp fiction, this eclectic and eccentric concoction bound with Bronx style tagging. Jessop's work featured in Saatchi's New Blood exhibition. While representing the artist, Sartorial arranged two International solo shows at Thomas Cohn, Sao Paulo and Tom Christoffersen, Copenhagen,
as well as a collaborative show James Jessop vs Harry Pye - It Takes Two, at a newly opened Fishmarket Gallery,Northampton, launched with the assistance of Gretta Sarfaty,

Sweet Toof
The artist cut his teeth as a graffiti writer in the late '80s. His huge, ghoulish skulls with their salmon-pink gums adorn the sides of many an unsuspecting end-of-terrace house. His works on canvas have been likened to Edward Hopper. But where Hopper employed hints of solitude, Sweet Toof whips out the macabre; masked raiders and chain gangs. Thanks to Sartorial, Sweet Toof is one of an esteemed few Street artists featured in the V&A permanent collection in London.

Sartorial Contemporary Art
26 Argyle Square London WC1H 8AP
Open Wed - Fri 13:00 -18:30 and by appointment

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