Brixton Calling!
Revisiting the Brixton Art Gallery 1983-1986
27th October -21st December 2011




Connecting contemporary Brixton to its past - through the history of the late Brixton
Art Gallery & Artists Collective in the 1980s. The exhibition is a collaboration between
198 Contemporary Arts & Learning and Brixton Artists Collective Archives (BACA).
Ephemera and records gathered during the project will be passed to Tate, Women's
Art Library, Goldsmiths Library; Lambeth Archives, and Hall Carpenter Archive (LSE).

Brixton Artist Collective was based at a gallery in three railway arches below Brixton
Station in the early 1980s. Between 1983 and 1986, Brixton Art Gallery, directly
fronting Atlantic Road, a busy shopping street, held 50 exhibitions with almost 1000
participating artists. A pioneer of the true spirit of the now much maligned
multiculturalism it welcomed every kind of artist, from the most diverse of race, sex,
sexuality and ability, showing anything from installation to painting. In the words of
Tate?s archivist Adrian Glew it “tapped into the socio-political zeitgeist from the
1980s onwards, bringing disparate communities together who otherwise would have
little or no contact”.

Today we take for granted inclusion in the arts but at the start of the Thatcher versus
the GLC era, the picture was very different. A truly multicultural space, which
positively discriminated in favor of those without a voice, it held pioneering shows in
every medium and theme. It offered opportunities to artists, who were elsewhere
excluded from exhibiting because of the content of their work, their race, gender and
sexuality. Exhibitions crossing over the boundaries between crafts and fine art and
exhibitions supporting many political campaigns of the 80s contributed to and
engaged with debates about the nature, location and production of art.

Before Chris Ofilli was bought by major collectors it held important shows of black
artists. Before Robert Mapplethorpe shocked with his gay themed photographs it held
the first national open Lesbian & Gay art exhibitions. Before Grayson Perry made
provocative pots and textiles Brixton was showing radical examples in both mediums.
The Gallery is the first entry in the CV?s of three Turner Prize nominees (Mona
Hartoum, Cathy de Monchaux and Zarina Bhimji) and gave now respected curators,
from Sunil Gupta to Lubida Hamid, their first opportunities to present ideas. Before
Banksy lifted a spay can it invited outrage when it allowed local street artists to attack
its walls and Sex Pistol artist Jamie Reid to walk away with one.

But the Gallery was not about art market bling, but real community engagement and
that is reflected in the exhibition. The culmination of a year?s activities it consists of
BACA?s five Archive Installations and seven Community Archiving and Engagement
projects. Bringing together artists and community groups who have used a collaborative and participatory approach, to re-invigorate both past and present. The exhibition includes a range of Brixton Art Gallery?s ephemera:

Exhibition posters, original catalogues and videos along with a model of the space. In
Brixton Calling! new artworks engage with Brixton today, with the lives and
aspirations of its communities. Conceived as visual dialogues between Brixton in the
80s and today's changing ideas about identity, work, culture and migration, the
echoes of riots and cuts, big business versus ordinary people, make for a fascinating
show. It emphasises the need for artists and communities to understand and
celebrate their recent history and artistic legacy. Both Galleries, the Then and Now
spaces, through exhibition programmes and community participatory events, made
and are still making a radical contribution to Brixton, London and the British cultural
landscape. The ?Big Society? in action, they provided contexts for dialogues, debates,
and engagement between a broad range of individuals and communities.

The Exhibition is accompanied by a brochure and CD available from the
gallery.

Other Brixton Calling! Events

BACA is constituted of 5 individual members of the Brixton Artists Collective: Teri Bullen, Guy Burch, Françoise Dupré, Rita Keegan, Stefan Szczelkun.

Brixton Calling! has been funded by Arts Council England and Heritage Lottery Fund and is developed in partnership with Lambeth Archives; Tate Archive; Women's Art Library (Goldsmiths, University of London); Institute for Modern and Contemporary Culture, University of Westminster.