by Iona Lowe // Oct. 16, 2024
It was late evening and it felt strange to be wandering through an office space: echoes of keyboard taps and distant smells of Tupperware lunches, small illusions of the hours spent hunched over laptop screens, still lingered. Entering the office, the room was packed full of chairs—not the typical desk chairs one would expect from such a corporate space, but every kind of chair imaginable. There was a chapel chair with fingers reaching out in the shape of a cross, and plastic picnic chairs covered in metal spikes; a huge hand, with an unassuming visitor sipping red wine in its palm. Some of the chairs were welcoming, while others were resolutely interrogating the functionality of the seat, drawing attention to the place where many of us spend most of our time and demanding that we question it.
‘Take A Seat,’ 2024, installation view // Courtesy of Bow Arts
‘Take A Seat’—a group exhibition of over 40 emerging artists, curated by Bow Arts and curatorial duo ha.lf (Haydn Albrow and Flora Bradwell)—was just the beginning of the show, laid out across 50,000 square feet of disused office space. Inaugurating Bow Arts’ first ever central London project space, two exhibitions opened at 125 Shaftesbury Avenue during Frieze Week, alongside a program that includes a host of immersive performances.
The second layer of the intervention into the former office space was the exhibition ‘Absurd Visions,’ a group show focusing on four artists, with works investigating themes relating to the office detritus left behind in the Shaftesbury building and the absurd dimensions of corporate culture. Pink cables, jarring wires and entangled animal forms were splayed across the floor in Tim Spooner’s ‘A New Kind of Animal,’ which addressed our state of constant connection. The works formed the backdrop of his performance, a representation of measurement and control, with two helpless marionette dolls dangling from Spooner’s hands.
Tim Spooner: ‘A New Kind of Animal,’ 2023, installation view at Southwark Park Galleries // Courtesy of the artist, photo by Mischa Haller
Other performances sporadically came alive during the show’s opening. Mette Sterre’s ‘G-string Theory – Attempting to Rise’ saw the artist animate a monstrous femme cyborg costume, blurring the line between what is flesh and what is technology. Her powerful words spoke of burn-out, manipulation and (lack of) control—common emotions workers may feel within contemporary office culture, but which are rarely openly discussed.
Indeed, as the power of artificial intelligence and the tech industry grows, it can be easy to become fearful. Rosie Gibbens’ ‘Parabiosis’ introduces a rebellion against this fear: inspired by the surgical technique in medical research where two living organisms (often rats) are sewn together so that they share a physiological system, ‘Parabiosis’ speculates on the future of pregnancy and birth and the potential for artificial wombs. In the show, her “birthing contraptions” are brought to life by both humans and machines.
Rosie Gibbens: ‘Parabiosis’ // Photo by Jon Baker
Each year, Frieze Week catapults London into a frenzy of exhibition openings and art events. But it’s also a time for discoveries, like this one. An alternative to the mainstream art world’s agenda, the shows and performances at Bow Arts’ new project space revealed a shared mission of London’s artists: to reclaim a space of their own within the city centre, which has been rapidly and consistently overtaken by corporate interests.
Exhibition Info
Bow Arts
Group Shows: ‘Take A Seat’ and ‘Absurd Visions’
Exhibition: Oct. 8–Nov. 3, 2024
bowarts.org
125 Shaftesbury Avenue, WC2H 8HR, London, UK, click here for map
