it seems like a long time since the exhibition in november. i wrote last month that hanging the exhibition was a great experience, but that was only half of the story. after hanging the show on the monday, the rest of the week was spent making sure everything was in order for the private view on the friday evening. and it all went so well. half an hour in and the gallery was packed out.
for me, the evening flew by as i didn’t stop talking to people the whole time (when i wasn’t stuck on the bar – i’m there on the far right in the pic above!), and it was great because people were really positive about all of the work. i got a lot of attention for my own pieces which was good, and some really positive comments too. i was talking a lot about my inspiration for the work, my way of working, how much i liked some of the other work in the exhibition and our ambitions for indigo octagon. it was good to sell some of our bits of merch too – sets of badges and our zine-style exhibition programme/booklet. we also had a couple of live musical performances that really made the evening. the first was a piece of music written specifically for the private view by artists andrew smith and shaun morris – ‘music for service stations’. the second was an awesome performance by ‘box of knives’ (sally cartwright and kevin theakston, ft.mark callow) – their set really brought something special to the evening.
we were particularly pleased with the private view. the rest of the week at the gallery was not so eventful, but then we expected that anyway – the gallery is a super space for exhibiting, but was a little out of the way on the first floor of the works building to attract anybody casually passing by. however, i enjoyed many hours spent listening to andy’s cheeky (or sinister?), little choir of voles – “just you wait…” – and i finally got to meet hugh and spend the saturday afternoon talking with him at the gallery (i’d liked his work since first seeing it on his blog and it was good to see the work for real, i was pleased he agreed to be part of the exhibition). having a selection of craig underhill‘s new work as part of the exhibition was a real treat too.
so a success for indigo octagon’s inaugral event… on to the next.
chris cowdrill's blog 