Louisa Buck (Cork Street Galleries special episode)
DEC 1, 202559 MIN
Louisa Buck (Cork Street Galleries special episode)
DEC 1, 202559 MIN
Description
<p>#AD - Cork Street Galleries special episode!</p><p>We meet art critic Louisa Buck to explore 100 years of Cork Street!</p><br><p>Cork Street Galleries this year celebrates its centenary as a pioneering force in the art world, </p><p>with 2025 marking 100 years as the iconic London art destination. A specially curated programme honours its rich legacy as the historic and enduring home of modern and </p><p>contemporary art in London.</p><br><p>In tribute to the centennial year, a first-of-its-kind initiative, a group exhibition entitled Fear Gives Wings to Courage was staged across all 15 galleries on Cork Street in the Summer, with each gallery presenting a response to a central theme conceived by Tarini Malik, curator of modern and contemporary Art at the Royal Academy of Arts, London.</p><br><p>Fear Gives Wings to Courage has been commissioned in three parts as a response to the curatorial theme conceived by Malik. This is comprised of Fear Gives Wings to Courage Part I; a new edition of the Cork Street Galleries Banners Commission forming an outdoor element of the </p><p>exhibition on view until the end of 2025; Fear Gives Wings to Courage Part II; a presentation </p><p>of works within each participating gallery space, on view from 11 to 25 July 2025; and Fear </p><p>Gives Wings to Courage Part III; CATALOGUE Issue 8:0, guest-edited by Malik, which coincided with Frieze London 2025.</p><br><p>Taking its title from Jean Cocteau’s seminal 1938 work La peur donnant des ailes au courage</p><p>(Fear Giving Wings to Courage), the exhibition celebrates 100 years of Cork Street and the </p><p>transformative potential of artists' voices both within gallery spaces and outside of them. </p><p>Gesturing to the street's long-established cultural history, the exhibition's theme recalls Cork </p><p>Street’s pioneering role in transforming London into a hub for international art practices in </p><p>the twentieth century, while also making it one of the key platforms in Europe for the </p><p>expansion of Surrealist and Dadaist movements.</p><p>13 years after Freddy Mayor established the first gallery on Cork Street in 1925, Peggy </p><p>Guggenheim opened her 'Guggenheim Jeune' gallery in 1938. While hosting her first show </p><p>with the famed polymath Jean Cocteau, the gallery stirred up significant controversy due to </p><p>his painting La peur donnant des ailes au courage (Fear Giving Wings to Courage), which was </p><p>confiscated by British customs authorities upon arrival in the United Kingdom. Similarly, this </p><p>exhibition nods to the necessity of the gallery ecosystem in encouraging, upholding and </p><p>presenting artists' practices that are assertions of agency in the face of societal and political </p><p>pressures. The galleries on Cork Street were asked to respond to the theme with artists’ work </p><p>that can be thought of as emblematic of Cocteau’s unabashed vigour and Guggenheim’s </p><p>abiding belief in supporting artists. The galleries were also encouraged to profile artists who </p><p>continue to draw from the legacies of Surrealism, not as a mere style or movement within the </p><p>Western canon, but rather as a state of mind; a fluid, boundless approach of navigating </p><p>notions of the self and society that transgress borders and temporalities. </p><br><p>Follow <a href="https://www.instagram.com/corkstreetgalleries?igsh=M2drcGlkbXJzMXN1" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@CorkStreetGalleries</a> and Visit http://CorkStGalleries.com to discover more about this history of Cork Street as well as current exhibitions! Follow Louisa Buck on her Instagram <a href="https://www.instagram.com/loubuck01?igsh=bjNseWQ5OTBhOGRv" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@LouBuck01</a></p><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>