Publications

Castle & Elephant

By: Niki Russell

Castle & Elephant is a new gallery in the centre of Coventry. Rather than having a fixed abode it will exist in constant transition, moving to available empty shop units in the City Arcade.

This has already affected artists and their exhibitions, for example, the need to change venue part way through the set-up for the inaugral exhibition by Tom Godfrey. Whilst the transitory nature of certain artist-led spaces is nothing new, the speed with which the move was required may have come as some surprise, perhaps even an inconvenience. However, speaking to both the artist and the curator Hannah Conroy, what could have been perceived as a hassle is instead referred to as a more 'interesting journey'. Godfrey's exhibition title, The Three Day Week, references a measure introduced by the Conservative government in 1974 to conserve electricity by limiting commercial users to a specified working week. The deadpan analogy between this measure and the opening hours of Castle & Elephant, can be seen to have wider implications in the context of a gallery in a shop unit, surrounded by empty and redundant commercial lettings. The nature of this particular context has clearly had an effect on the decisions made through the installation. Whilst an exhibition can often make an artist reconsider artworks that to date have functioned in the studio, as a proposal, or on a webpage, the...

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