Artists Studios

 PRIVACY AND PRODUCTION, COMMUNITY, OBSESSIONS AND COLLECTIONS

Few people realise that Hackney Wick in East London is home to the world’s largest number of artists and studio spaces per square meter, with over 600 individual venues hosting exhibitions, film screenings and performances on the doorstep of Olympic Park.
I am writing this blog because I have just taken part in a photo shoot to help archive artists working in studios in Hackney Wick and beyond in the East End of London. I am a member of the Barbican Artists Group Trust Studios Hertford Road, Haggerston, Hackney .

The Photographer, Ansell Cizic has established the archive to highlight the threat to this unique community from developers who are moving in on these areas and ousting artists in favour of different types of studios in the guise of high rise, high priced studio apartments which push up land values and make it increasingly impossible for artists studios to survive. The Hertford Road Studios have already been demolished, reduced in size and split on two sites because of the pressure of development.
PRIVACY AND PRODUCTION
Why is it that many artists studios are often situated away from their homes?
The act of going to a place of work is important because it establishes routine and gets artists away from the distractions of home. I do not have a telephone or windows in my studio in Hackney ( that’s my personal preference) but I have natural light in my teaching/ preparation studio which is in my garden at home.
In highlighting artist’s studios it is pertinent for OCA Students to consider the vital function and importance of the space that they work in terms of establishing a working routine, privacy and working practice. Many OCA students tell me that they have difficulty in establishing a working space within their homes.  It is important to have a dedicated space to store materials, to have uninterrupted thought and space/ wall space needed to work and stand back to view and evaluate your work. The other factor – mess – is also important because if this happens as part of the working process ; we should not have to worry about it and a dedicated studio allows for mess.
I am attaching a short “video studio selfie” to explain my working space and practice and it would be good to see contributions of this nature from students and tutors to see what space they have and what they think about it. I would stress that this is an intensely personal thing to do and quite understand that some may see it as an invasion of privacy. Francis Bacon for example was extremely private about his studio space and would not allow visitors.

COMMUNITY
Frank Auerbach made the observation when talking about the ‘School of London’ , that ‘Artists usually come in gangs’. The School of London’ is an imprecise term to describe a group of fiercely individual artists who in essence established a body of work, that over the past sixty years possesses a power and relevance to the future of painting that would be hard to match anywhere else in the world. Yet this loose association has precisely to do with the fact that Auerbach says that ‘ London takes no notice at all of its artists’, further adding that  ‘ I mean, there can be no nonsense here about artists sitting at cafe tables having heated discussions.’

It is a sense of community and vocation that dominates studios in London. Extremely private spaces where nothing that does not serve the purposes of work is tolerated, they contain above all the detritus of the artists practice  including their materials and their collections and obsessions. It is therefore the product of this labour that produces the rewards and it is no accident that the studios in Hackney Wick, Newham, Tower Hamlets in particular were the spawning ground for the YBA’s and associated artists who all had studios in The East End after most of them graduated in 1988/1989 . The Whitechapel Open catalogue for 1990 lists the artists working in the East End studios that year including Fiona Banner (working at the Carpenters Road Acme studios Stratford),  Ian Davenport, Damien Hirst, Angus Fairhurst, Anya Gallaccio (working  at the Jacob Street Studios),  Gary Hume and Sarah Lucas ( working at the Rufus Street studios, Hoxton) and Paul Noble ( working at the Pixley Street Studios, Mile End) amongst many more established artists.

OBSSESSIONS AND COLLECTIONS
I mentioned that artists studios often house their collections and obsessions –When bankrupted in 1656, Rembrandt had to sell his cabinet of  exotic shells, corals and animal specimens. Andy Warhol horded a huge collection from his shopping sprees, which included cookie jars and women’s shoes and Picasso amassed a collection of African and other native artworks.
Many artists accumulate and hoard often bizarre objects ( some artists collect dust or finger nails) and never let anything go. Many live and make direct use of their collections and others keep them under wraps or in storage. Collecting objects for research and study is key to the practice of many artists.
My wife has recently been working in Peter Blake’s studio packing up his collection of stuffed animals (which have to be bagged and stored in a freezer to kill moth) in readiness for an exhibition entitled Magnificent Obsessions: The Artist as Collector,  which opens at the Barbican Art Gallery, London on 12^th February 2015 and includes collections  by Arman, Martin Parr, Sol leWitt, Peter Blake, Andy Warhol and a number of other artists. Please look here for more information.