Bobinska Brownlee New River, 38 Tower Court, 1a Canonbury Street, London N12US
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Bobinska Brownlee New River is normally a modest but stimulating exhibition space, set in a bunker-like room in the back garden of a house in Islington. That’s where its founders, Monika Bobinska and Barbara Brownlee, live – you can also take a peek at their own collection… BBNR has been going for just three years, but it follows on from Bobinska’s more conventionally sited former galleries Monika Bobinska (2004-11) and Canal (2013-2017). The former is where, for example, I first saw the work of Turner Prize winner Laure Prouvost in 2008.
In celebration of that third anniversary, the gallery pops up with more space until 8th June at 36 Great Pulteney Street in Soho. There you can see a substantial presentation of Diana Taylor’s poly-temporal paintings – hence her show title ‘Borrowed Time’ – and ‘Stop – Repeat: Jost Münster & Jacob Wolff’. There’s also an archival presentation by DJ Roberts – who has exhibited in all three Bobinska iterations – of the background to his neon commission for the 50th Anniversary of the Soho Housing Association. He’s illumined ‘the echoing footsteps of years’, a quote Charles Dickens’ writing about the area in ‘A Tale of Two Cities’. Welcome as that temporary expansion is, there have also been interesting shows ‘back home’: I recall Louise Ashcroft, Rae Hicks, Frances Richardson and Mary Yacoob as highlights, as well as Roberts and Münster. And it’s just a few yards from postROOM, Sandie Macrae’s similarly domestic space – it makes sense to visit them in succession.
London’s gallery scene is varied, from small artist-run spaces to major institutions and everything in between. Each week, art writer and curator Paul Carey-Kent gives a personal view of a space worth visiting.
