28—MARYLEBONE JOURNAL CULTURE: IN BRIEF
Accordian Maestro (left) and Kerela Waterway by Frazer Price
given us the chance to work with the students, which is great fun. In 2009 we showed in the fashion
school on Paddington Street, which was a really nice space. Then last year they told us that the ceiling needed repairing in that building, so could we put up with the main hall on Marylebone High Street instead? It was amazing. You could not beg, borrow or steal a location as good. The last day of the exhibition coincided with the summer fayre, and the place was packed. That was the final piece of the jigsaw really – the perfect way of getting local people through the doors. I took over as chair of Art in
OPEN ART SURGERY
Frazer Price, a talented painter and the chair of Art in Marylebone, gives the lowdown on this remarkable local arts organisation’s annual exhibition
The fifth annual Art in Marylebone exhibition takes place over 16th-19th June. Visitors to the summer fayre will be able to drop into the American Intercontinental University on the high street and see the work of dozens of talented artists and photographers, all of whom live or work in this hugely creative area of London. The idea for Art in Marylebone took
off some five or six years ago. Getting it off the ground was hard work – it all happened on a wing and a prayer. It began with Gemma Detti, a local artist who produced large architectural paintings. Her husband, Richard Harris, approached the Marylebone Association to ask for backing for a group show of local artists, including Gemma. The association liked the idea, and Art in Marylebone was born. Amazingly, the association
managed to get us the old fire station on Chiltern Street as a venue for that first exhibition. There were five of us
whose work was shown there. It was a beautiful venue, the timing was perfect, and we got some great press. It was a fantastic social event, and the Marylebone Association gathered a really big crowd. They looked at everything, drank everything, ate everything. They didn’t buy everything, but you can’t have it all. The second year, we ended up at
the old library on Marylebone Road. It was a real challenge, as although it’s a magnificent building we weren’t allowed to move anything around inside. We had to hang things off the book shelves, which didn’t always work too well. There was an old sign in the corner saying ‘drinking too much will give you a headache, and please don’t remove your clothes’. Hilarious. That wasn’t put up as art, but it might have won the competition if it had been. That year the competition featured
25 artists, and it has been growing ever since. It is an open show, meaning that anyone can submit work – it is a proper community event, open to anybody. That makes curating it a challenge, but it’s a sacrifice worth making. For the past two years the exhibition
has been hosted by the American Intercontinental University. Their involvement has given it some real texture and substance. It has also
Marylebone two years ago, after Richard and Gemma moved to Portugal. My first thought was that while the exhibition was an open show, it was only really open if you were a painter or sculptor, which is a hell of a limitation. When I worked at Newsweek in the 1970s we had a feature called A Day in the Life, with the best images from around the world on a particular day. I pinched the idea for A Day in the Life of Marylebone. We ask people to go out and take pictures of the area on St George’s Day each year, and the best 50 shots are shown at the exhibition. It has opened up Art in Marylebone to anyone with a camera. This year we are also running a selection of paintings of Marylebone, and we’ll be judging the best one through a public vote. The show is being officially closed this year by Dame Rosalind Savill, the director of the Wallace Collection, which is a great honour. It is hard to think of another individual who has done more to enhance the artistic life of the area – and that, after all, is what Art in Marylebone is all about.
LINKS
Art in Marylebone 16 – 19 June
American Intercontinental University 110 Marylebone High Street
artinmarylebone.org
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