Karin would like to thank Professor Dawn Ades for opening the private view and was honoured that Herr Cord Meier-Klodt, the German cultural attaché, attended.

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The work Pigeon Hole shown at the exhibition

Karin talking about her work

Venue: Cafe Gallery Projects
Dates: 28 January – 8 February 2009

www.cafegalleryprojects.com

Here’s what the exhibition looked like:

And here’s “Pipe Dreams” in the exhibition:

For this exhibition I have created two works, Meme x 2 and Meme Encounters that make visible the life cycle of such ideas, believes, fashions which are taken up by society at one point in time and then dropped and forgotten when another idea, attitude takes over, e.g. ‘Waste Not, Want Not’ has been discarded in favour of ‘Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind’. Litter, in the widest sense of the word, spreads through our environment like a virus for which we have no thought or cure at present.

On MDF board sprayed with silver car paint I have arranged in rows black film containers in a shape resembling a flower head. Within a row a new flower head (new idea or meme) appears in that it has a white centre. It spreads through the following rows till it has gained ascendancy over the black flower heads and is itself ‘invaded’ by a new flower head (white with a black centre). It goes without saying that these containers are normally thrown away.

Meme x 2 in context

Meme x 2

The installation (the Return of the Unwanted) shows how a Meme may be superseded for better or for worse, in this case surely ‘for worse’.

The first work shows the uncontaminated Thames at low tide. It is very beautiful. The second work is of the urban Thames. Bits of litter are swirling around in the water and a red canister is bobbing through the painting. It is still beautiful.

Thames at low tide and Urban Thames

The third wall-hung piece is a ‘River of Litter’, after which you enter a dark damp room. Gulls are screaming and waves crash on the beach, only this beach is rubbish that I collected from the Thames foreshore at Bermondsey. It is as if it has finally poured out of the paintings. In the course of collecting the rubbish, I found 25 white plastic bottles containing a message each.

River of litter

After the damp room, a sculpture suspended from the ceiling forces the viewer to push aside a bicycle wheel (retrieved from the river) to view a photo attached to a squashed bottle. This photo shows rubbish dumped in front of gate with the sign ‘Please do not obstruct’. The viewer is physically forced to engage with the rubbish – a non-verbal message.

Sculpture suspended from ceiling

The promotional flyer had this to say about the theme of the exhibition:

Janus is the Roman god of gates and doorways, beginnings and endings, change, transition and all that is double edged in life, unlocking the portals to whatever is termed ?culture?.

In the month of Janus, Cafe Gallery Projects London open their doors to the Bermondsey Artists’ Group (BAG) Biennale. This is the first in a series of exhibitions and events, featuring work proposed, selected, made and curated by members of the Bermondsey Artists’ Group. The exhibition consists of a multi-disciplinary selection of works responding to the patron of January.

Founded in 1984 by members of the Bermondsey Artists’ Group, Cafe Gallery Projects London is an artist-led initiative. It promotes a wide range of work, from internationally recognised artists to various creative practices beyond the gallery system. This exhibition provides a rare chance to see the talent of the membership behind the organisation.

Alive art programme consisting of performances by exhibitors and collaborations with invited artists will run as an integral part of the exhibition.

The pieces of Karin’s work that were shown in the exhibition were: two from the Bankside Power Station cycle: the detail shot featuring part of a gate which joins and separates an electric sub-station from Tate Modern. The second image was created from an interior shot (detail) of the roof of Bankside Power Station but makes architectural references to the windows of that building. The third picture shows the Canary Wharf IRA bombing plus advertising hoardings.

www.cafegalleryprojects.com

In the confined space of the upstairs bar Karin exhibits four works, all of which have been in major exhibitions both in London and Bristol. Of particular interest is a piece which records the result of bomb damage in Marsh Wall (Last shown at the Salon des Arts, Kensington, London). Three further ‘paintings’ have as their subject the last working spice mill in Butlers Wharf, a building which has now been converted into luxury flats.

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