Vestry St, Floor 1, 6-8 Vestry St, London N1 7RE
www.vestry-st.com Instagram: @vestry_st
Vestry St Gallery opened in Hoxton in 2022, effectively as an outpost of Cross Lane Projects, in a first floor space that’s some way from the conventional white cube. Cross Lane Projects – which also has a publishing arm – was founded in 2018 by artists Rebecca Scott and Mark Woods in a former Kendal Mint Factory in Kendal, Cumbria. Both show their own work, so it’s fortunate that I like their contrasting practices. Scott had an excellent retrospective last year, and the last show at Cross Lane and the current one at Vestry St is a solo for Woods. ‘Formula + Fetish’ presents his elaborate artefacts that blur the boundaries between jewellery, fine art, fetish objects and items from cabinets of curiosities. They queer all categories, including those of queerness itself, according to my essay in the monograph he will launch during the show. Woods also has an unusual pursuit alongside his art: he is not only a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, but European champion in the senior class.
Back to the Vestry St programme, the gallery doesn’t represent artists but invites curators to make proposals, so it makes sense that other highlights have been group shows. For example, ‘Salon for a Speculative Future’ included four of my favourite artists (Aideen Barry, Quilla Constance, Evy Jokhova and Koushna Navabi); ‘Trickster Girls: Disruptive Surveillance’, combined Scott with Stella Whalley (who also helps with the gallery) and Wendy Elia; and ‘The Mirror at Night’ was Peter Suchin’s curation of 21 artists responding imaginatively to a poem by Mallarme.
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.
