We want to celebrate and find out more about the characters driving the renaissance of the London gallery scene, and what better way than to resurrect THAT’s Interesting.
Last time we had Alex Harrison from Public Gallery this time we have gallerist Camille Houzé.
I’m a curator and writer who is currently Director at NiCOLETTi, a gallery founded by my friend Oswaldo Nicoletti in 2019. Alongside my role at the gallery, I worked at the Barbican, where I led the research for the Jean Dubuffet retrospective in 2021, and this year I worked on Dubuffet X Giacometti at Nahmad Contemporary, New York, the first tête-à-tête between the two artists since 1968. I also published a number of catalogue essays on Dubuffet (Prestel, 2022; and Nahmad Contemporary, 2024); Julie Béna (Kunsthalle Prague, 2023) and Anna Hulaová (Kunstraum, 2019), and I recently started to interview contemporary artists such as Clémentine Bruno and Eva Gold.
Some Art I’m Interested In
At the moment my personal research concentrates on discourses and practices that consider the relationship between colonial history and ecological crisis. This informs portions of the programme at NiCOLETTi, and materialised in the cycle of exhibition total climate, a co-curation with researcher Estelle Marois and artist Gaëlle Choisne (the first two chapters took place in 2022 and 2023, with the third and final will be organised in 2025). I’m therefore interested in artists and artworks that show the intricate links between historical and natural processes rather than addressing them separately, something The Otolith Group, for instance, has been doing incisively in their films (e.g. Infinity minus Infinity, Four Nocturnes or Vertigo Sea) and that a new generation of artists is tackling brilliantly each in their way. At the moment, I think one of the most powerful manifestations of these ideas can be found in the work of Dominique White, whose work excavates (and fictionalises) untold stories of the middle passage from both scientific and speculative investigation of the ocean (I can only recommend you to visit her exhibition Deadweight, currently on view at the Whitechapel Gallery). Other artists I like in this context are Patricia Dominguez, Thao Nguyen Phan, Candice Lin and, closer to the gallery, Josèfa Ntjam and Divine Southgate-Smith, whom we’ll be showing at Frieze London this year.
Some Design I’m Interested In
Following up on the previous section, I’m interested in design and architecture that reconsider our relationship with the environment and try to develop sustainable ways of building and living. I haven’t been there but recently read about The G.A.S. Farm House in Nigeria, an artist residency at the Ecology Green Farm founded by artist Yinka Shonibare in 2018. The building was designed by Papa Omotayo of MOE+ Art Architecture (interior design by Temitayo Shonibare), using bricks made from the earth used dug up during the foundation laying process and creating natural ventilation systems by piercing some of them while repurposing the bamboo used as scaffolding during the construction to create the screens that wrap the building (among many other gestures). More projects like this are flourishing around the world and I think it’s the right direction to take.
Some Culture I’m Interested In
In a past life I used to DJ a little bit and the UK rave and party scene is one of the reasons why I moved to London in 2010 – a moment when parties like LoKee, Toi Toi, Kubicle and Half Baked were still taking place in the middle of Shoreditch. Although I go out less these days I’m very happy to see promoters such as my friends from Cartulis (now hosting their nights at London’s new techno church Fold) continuing to organise great parties where there’s an incredible amount of care given to each record being played. To me, all the record digging, set planning, and collective dancing associated with techno parties is a culture I don’t see dying anytime soon. With NiCOLETTi, we are attempting to build bridges between this culture and the art world by replacing traditional dinners with techno parties, which we have been organising at The Glove That Fits (owned by the same people who created Fold) since 2023, and we look forward to organising more of them!
Some Tech I’m Interested In
L1527, shown in this image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), is a molecular cloud that harbors a protostar. It resides about 460 light-years from Earth in the constellation Taurus. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
I’m not a tech person at all but I’m fascinated by all the visualisation of outer space provided by the James Webb Space Telescope on NASA’s website: science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/. I think realising how small and transitory our planet (let alone our species) is would do good for some of the people living on it.
Some Style / Fashion I’m Interested In
My girlfriend recently took me to Fantastic Toiles, a series of pop-up boutiques across London launched by designer Nasir Mazhar, who invites young designers to sell (in person) one-off creations from sustainable and found textiles, all of which are documented in a series of magazines. I’m not always bold enough to wear what they are selling – although I bought a jumper by Jonty Kristian Mellman – but there’s great energy and we spotted Martine Rose shopping there.
A museum or gallery show recommendation
Francis Alÿs’s exhibition Ricochets at the Barbican, based on his Children’s Games film series, which captures children playing all sorts of games, often in sites of geopolitical conflicts. I think the show is brilliantly curated, with all the films playing simultaneously, which create a cacophony similar to those in playgrounds. But more importantly, it shows the universality and inventiveness of play, its role in modes of comprehension and apprehension of physical and social environment, and its potential as an act of resistance. A film showing “Haram Football”, played without a ball by kids amid the rubbles in Mossul, Iraq, is particularly poignant.
Thank you to Alex from Public Gallery for nominating me and Mark for the opportunity to share a few things I find interesting. Please follow our next projects with NiCOLETTi, including the opening of our new gallery space on 91 Paul Street in Shoreditch on 19th September 2024, with a solo exhibition by French artist Tarek Lakhrissi.
I’m inviting Isaac Simon, founder of South Parade, for the next series. I’ve known Isaac since he created his gallery in Deptford and they recently moved to a new space in Farrington, with their first participation in Frieze London coming up this year.
