SKIP Gallery: art for the people

Hitting the shop floor at Selfridges between 4 and 31 March, SKIP Gallery’s latest exhibition Like It or Lump It will see three uncompromising artists bring their take on identity, gender and body politics to the West London fashion hotspot.

In a skip sandwiched between Gucci and Chloé, Serbian-born multidisciplinary artist Maja Djordjevic will exhibit her signature ‘pixel’ nude girl, while makeup enthusiast and YouTuber Paul Kindersley will combine live action, film and sculpture for a performance-focused two weeks. Elsewhere in the building artist Claire Pearce will fill a changing room with an installation about the intersection of body image and social media. For curators, Lee Baker and Catherine Borowski, anywhere, even a department store, can become a gallery.

Baker & Borowski first set up SKIP Gallery in 2016 when they had a project to show but couldn’t catch a break from conventional art spaces. From personal struggle, the itinerant skip-based exhibition venue has become something much bigger – it’s a space that challenges where art can exist and who it exists for.

Ahead of the show, we wanted to find out more about SKIP’s social mission, exploring gender politics at Selfridges and quiz them on how they got started…

SKIP Gallery started as a way of exhibiting work on your own terms and now can pop up anywhere where there’s a parking space. Why has it been important for you to show art in spaces other than art fairs and galleries?  

Catherine: It started from necessity. We didn’t have a gallery representing us and couldn't afford to hire a pop-up space for a show we wanted to do at the end of 2016. The parking space seemed like a simple solution for us: stick a skip there, open it as an art gallery and go from there. I’m definitely not anti-gallery, but I am interested in showing work to audiences who might not ordinarily engage with contemporary art. At a gallery you're showing work to an audience who are experienced at consuming, viewing, making and buying art. In a street based gallery you’re not. I love watching the reaction of people who walk past SKIP and peer in or take a selfie with their kid (or dog) in front of it. We’ve got some great pics of bin men cracking up at the Shrigley SKIP. We’ve also found that local builders, tradesmen and restaurateurs become very protective about SKIP and that seems to help keep it safe in the street.

Lee: For me, SKIP Gallery’s primary goal is to place art in people’s way. To democratise the way art is experienced while also affording emerging artists opportunities that would otherwise not exist. And even though Catherine and I have very different views on art, where our conceptual paths cross is our view on how art can be experienced by the people. Two artists which we have both admire (and don’t argue about) are Jeremy Deller and Christo and Jeanne-Claude. They have a goal to bring art to the people, while also not patronising with unchallenging obviousness.

Catherine: One of the other reasons that the parking-space-as-art-space feels so exciting is that we can create work without compromise, we work really closely and collaboratively with our artists and if we like something we just make it happen, it feels very strong and liberating to work like that.

What issues do artists without tonnes of connections and cash face when trying to carve out a career? And how does this affect the wider scene?

Catherine: On a really basic level, it can mean that many artists and art students give up before they’ve even got going – I certainly did. It took me years to start making work again after I’d graduated because quite simply I needed to pay the rent and got caught up with my day job. It’s bloody hard to be an artist in London. Having said that, the financial hardship, the lack of space and opportunities can be a massive driving force to making things happen. The best thing about London as well is that you really can do anything, if you’ve got an idea or the gusto for new venture and with a lot of creative lateral thinking you can make it happen. It’s definitely possible to create your own opportunities, just maybe not in the way you dreamt of at art college.

What advice would you give to creatives who want to put on a show but don’t have loads of money?

Lee: Jeremy Deller’s Open Bedroom is our inspiration. Deller said of the show, ‘This exhibition took place at a point in my career when I wanted to show work, but I didn't really know where or how to show it. A lot of artists were having 'open studio' exhibitions at the time, but I didn't have a studio – I was living with my parents and was working from my bedroom at this point – so I decided to stage an “open bedroom” and turn the slightly embarrassing situation of still living with mum and dad in my mid-20s into a “feature”.’ An exhibition can happen anywhere. It’s just that our notion of what an exhibition should be has been adjusted by the proliferation of white wall spaces. We have to be seriously innovative to overcome these kinds of cultural obstacles.

The artists included in the next edition of SKIP challenge audiences to reevaluate identity, body politics and gender. Why was important for you to do this now, especially in a space that commodifies visual expression through clothes and cosmetics?

Lee: We both seem to be drawn to artists that are asking existential questions, often through the lens through wit and mischief. Artists that challenge our everyday notions of what ‘normality’ is. Without wanting to get too personal, something that connects Catherine and I are the challenges we have faced in our own families, challenges which have forced us to question the idea of conformity. In an age of frightening conservatism we have gravitated towards artists that are trying to push back. SKIP Gallery is site-specific and our choice of artists for Selfridges has definitely come from the questions the artists raise about the notions of beauty and identity in the 21st century.

Catherine: The artists we’ve chosen are like a mash-up of London, an extravaganza of cool, cutting edge, visually sumptuous people who are creating London’s off-Mayfair cultural scene. The Selfridges audience are incredibly savvy and certainly have a knowledge and appreciation of contemporary art but I wanted to intro that audience to the exciting things happening in Dalston, Peckham and so on – not cultural appropriation via fashion or makeup but real stuff and real people living it. Also, SKIP isn’t just for people in Hoxton and Hackney. The Selfridges audience might be well heeled but they’re still valid and important observers of SKIP.

You scouted the artists featured in Like It or Lump It from social media. What drew you to them?

Catherine: I met Paul cos he’d posted a pic of his mum at his Hayward Drag private view. I’m such a massive fan of mums and I told him that we did our first SKIP as a memorial for my mum and we went from there. I follow all the art schools closely and I liked what was going on at the Slade MA show. Claire had posted some pics on Instagram feed of her taking selfies at Topshop and it was so obvious that we should propose a Fitting Room Residency to Selfridges. Also, my mum worked at UCL (which the Slade is part of) as a welfare advisor so it really feels like i’m including my mum in this work. She feels very present to me.

Do you think online platforms like Instagram are making the art world more accessible?

Catherine: If you’ve got a smart phone it means that with some clever hash-tagging (or not) you’ve got access to an instant and in some ways appreciative audience, or even a critical audience. It doesn’t really matter so long as you’re showing to someone.

Lee: For us, it’s been an incredible opportunity to connect with artists and curators from all over the world. To be able to simply DM artists and start chatting almost immediately has been liberating. The challenge is to not be drawn like magpies to the bright lights and follower count, because there’s a risk that the thought behind art is being supplanted by the purely visual and popular. Also, there’s a tendency to feel like you’ve experienced an artwork by seeing it online, and it’s in the social platform’s interest to guide us towards this way of thinking. But you just can’t beat a real experience, and being immersed in art, be it a painting or an installation, or a skip is better than flicking through your phone.

If you’re keen to immerse yourself in SKIP’s art for the people, head to Selfridges between 4 and 31 March, and follow the project on Instagram here.