The Art All-Nighter

On 1 July, contemporary art festival Art Night returns to London’s East End. Independently curated by Fatoş Üstek in collaboration with the Whitechapel Gallery, the festival will see various nooks and crannies of London’s East End transformed into an all-night contemporary art festival. The programme comprises 11 artists presenting installations, performances and music in 13 venues across the east of London. Sounds pretty great, right? 

 

“For  Art  Night  2017,  I  wanted  to  explore  the  theme  of “Fusion  of  Horizons,  inviting visitors  to  engage  in  multifarious  dialogues  whilst  bringing  their  own aspirations  and  dreams,” says festival curator Fatoş. “I  have  formulated  the  festival  experience  as  a  series  of  situations  that  are  evocative of horizons that lie ahead, through which we see and understand the world around  us.”

 

Such a multi-layered theme unsurprisingly manifests in an eclectic programme. While Ian Whittlesea will lead meditation in the Bascule Chamber of Tower Bridge, Jake & Dinos Chapman will show a video installation in a disused warehouse in London Dock. Elsewhere, Melanie Manchot  will host a mass dance class in Exchange Square at Broadgate. Other participating artists include Charles Avery, Benedict Drew, Anne Hardy, Do Ho Suh, Lindsay Seers and Lawrence Lek.

 

Jake & Dinos’ video installation, The Misshapeness of Things to Come, has been created especially for the festival and will screen inside a listed warehouse situated at London Dock. In addition to the screening, the audience will be treated to a live performance by Jake’s band. Elsewhere, over at Dennis Severs House, an 18th century candlelit Huguenot house, the Chapmans will display a series of defaced prints that will be artfully positioned amongst the house’s existing furnishings.

Jake & Dinos are currently showing The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth but not the Mineral Rights, a series of three large-scale sculptures, at the Cass Sculpture Foundation.