User:Ella Odem/sandbox
Skip Gallery
is a mobile exhibition space, which was launched in 2017 by the creative partnership, Baker & Borowski. It is made from a decommissioned 8 yard, 6.1m3 refuse skip, and as a concept, is designed to challenge the public’s ideas and norms around traditional exhibition spaces. Due to its mobility, Skip Gallery can be located anywhere, and has made appearances in Hoxton Square and Selfridges on London’s Oxford Street.
Since its launch, Baker & Borowski have collaborated with notable artists such as David Shrigley (Look At This, June 2017), Gavin Turk (Transubstatiation, November 2017), Richard Woods (Upgrade, June 2018), graffiti artist Ben Eine, and the Milanese football team, AS Velasca, for their Skip Gallery exhibition programme.
| Years active | 2017 |
|---|---|
| Location | United Kingdom |
Baker & Borowski
Baker & Borowski is an artistic partnership between the painter and music producer Lee Baker, and sculptor and placemaker, Catherine Borowski, who teamed up in 2017 specifically with the idea of creating Skip Gallery. Baker studied a degree in Fine Art at Newcastle University, and began his career making site-specific installations around the UK. For these, he drew on his love of manga and customizing cars. This large-scale art practice led Baker to work as a scenic artist at the English National Opera and National Theatre and from there, he travelled around Japan extensively during 2010 and developed his style exploring Japanese historical imagery. He is studying for an MA in Japanese Studies at SOAS.
Catherine Borowski is a British sculptor and placemaker, and attributes her interest in how people engage with public and civic spaces from growing up on a North London council estate. Her work in sculpture focuses heavily on town planning and urbanization, and how human culture is affected or affects public places. Borowski is the founder and CEO of the events production company Produce UK, which works with businesses, brands and developers to create large-scale exhibitions, bespoke installations, festivals and experiential events.
Exhibitions in order:
- Skip Gallery X Selfridges, London
Between 4th and 31st March 2019, SKIP Gallery was located between the Chloé and Gucci sections on the shop floor of the department store Selfridges, on London’s Oxford Street. The month-long installation, entitled Like It Or Lump It was part of Selfirdge’s nationwide State of the Arts campaign. Three artists – London-based Paul Kinderesley and Clare Pearce, and Serbian-born Maja Djorjevic – were selected to present performance, conceptual and sculpted works in and around the skip: Nothing To Wear Again!, Maja Djordjevic, 4th - 17th March 2019 Ship Of Fools, Paul Kindersley, 18th – 31st March 2019 Infernal Desires, Claire Pearce, 4th – 10th March 2019
- Richard Woods, Upgrade
Alongside the London Festival of Architecture in June 2018, Baker & Borowski commissioned Hoxton-based artist Richard Woods to create a visual commentary on the national housing shortage and second home ownership, following his contribution to the 2017 Folkestone Triennial. Woods’ brightly-coloured ‘throwaway house’ appeared casually abandoned within SKIP Gallery in a month-long installation in Hoxton Square between 1st and 30th June 2018.
- Gavin Turk, Transubstantiation
In November 2017, British YBA artist Gavin Turk took over Skip Gallery with an exhibit entitled Transubstantiation. With his hyper real Trompe L'oeil packet of crisps seemingly dumped in a skip, it provided viewers with a comical expression of the Skip Gallery ethos; a humorous commentary on consumerism. Known for his subversive sculptural works that question artistic identity and authorship, Turk brought his classic style to the pop up gallery, questioning the very nature of a skip as a place to dispose of rubbish, and our relationship to what we choose to throw away. The exhibition was programmed as a run of shows on 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, 23rd, 24th, 25th and 26th November.
- AS Velasca
In October 2017, Baker & Borowski’s Skip Gallery was itself commissioned by Milan-based football team AS Velasca to launch its new football kit. The team was named by FIFA as “the most artistic football club in the world,” after the squad’s president, the conceptual artist Wolfgang Natlacen, started the team as an ongoing artwork. The kit launch took place as an art installation under Milan’s brutalist Torre Velasca building. To accommodate the on-location site for the exhibition in Italy, Baker & Borowski had an identical skip made in Milan for the occasion.
- Arnolfini Gallery Bristol, Jurassic Skip
Located outside Bristol’s Arnolfini Gallery in September 2017 as part of Saatchi’s The Other Art Fair, the exhibit featured Jurassic Skip, the brain child of Catherine Borowski's son Loris. A simply constructed giant green monster with the body of a Batemans Skip.
- Art Night, featuring Ben Eine, Jake Spicer and Art Macarbre
On Saturday 1st July 2017[Date?], notable life drawing artists, Nikki Shaill of Art Macabre and Jake Spicer, along with street and graffiti artist Ben Eine, took over Skip Gallery as a space to host an evening of drawing classes. Located at St. John Cass’s Foundation Primary School in East London, Skip Gallery’s Art Night ran a succession of seven drawing sessions for pre-registered participants between 6pm and 12midnight. A subsequent exhibit curated by Ben Eine stayed in situ until 7th July 2017.
- David Shrigley, Look At This
Between 14th and 25th June 2017, SKIP Gallery teamed up with Turner Prize-nominated artist David Shrigley for Look At This, a characteristically minimal exhibition featuring Shrigley’s trademark irony. Featuring 3D bronze letters inside the skip spelling out the words “look at this”, Shrigley’s SKIP Gallery exhibition was located at its recurring site in Hoxton Square.
- Baker & Borowski, Na, I Don’t Want None of That Again
The inaugural Skip Gallery exhibition tackled the subject of death, discloation and identity, in March 2017. When her father left home, Borowski’s mother abruptly converted to Islam, who subsequently died in unexplained circumstances while undertaking the Islamic pilgrimage known as the Hajj to Mecca. Unable to visit her mother’s grave since the Saudi government bans non-Muslims from visiting Mecca, Borowski’s only clue to her mother’s final resting place is a scrap of paper with handwritten coordinates on it. Na, I Do’t Want None of That Again was Baker & Borowski’s response to this very unusual and personal experience, and depicted the rite of a conventional Anglican funeral for a mother.
Notes and references:
- Time Out- David Shrigley
- TimeOut - Baker & Borowski
- Evening Standard- Richard Woods
- The Art Newspaper - Selfridges
- Design Boom - Richard Woods
- Cool Hunting - Richard Woods
- Wall Paper- Richard Woods
- Creative Boom - Selfridges
- Elephant - Selfridges
- BBC Arts - Gavin Turk
- BBC Arts - David Shrigley
- Canvas - Baker & Borowski