Category Archives: Art

Jack White at Newport Street Gallery

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Once you’ve written probably the best known guitar  riff of the 21st century you’d think that life is pretty much downhill after that. But clever Jack White from the White Stripes thought of a backup long before creating the chant a from thousand terraces. His first ever public art exhibition, These Thoughts May Disappear, is an overview of White’s artistic space outside of music. Some of these works are from the 90’s but most have been created specifically for this exhibit/salesroom at Newport Street Gallery in Vauxhall. And yes, amongst us we figured out that a terrace isn’t just a place where you gossip and sip Rose.

At first glance White’s artworks are pop art, Tim Burton-ian inventions to the extent that you expect Helena Bonham Carter herself to pop from behind a sculpture, but they invite a closer look. People who are aware of the Stripes work (not us) will detect his colour coded references to the Stripes back catalogue. An upstairs room acts as a nod to White’s start as a Detroit upholsterer and features a stripey table with a levitating ping pong, as all good tables should possess.

Gallery one is comprised of a number of small ceramic figurines which all bear a striking resemblance to White himself, which to us acted as sinister, almost Trumpian introduction to the exhibit. In the third gallery we encounter White’s mythical Pallet Cleanse Corporation, which repurposes redundant pallets into glamorous objects of adoration, often in high gloss. As if you forgot the identity of the artist, there are stripes of every sort to remind you. And apparently references to songs we’ve never heard of.

After the furniture jumble sale with aforementioned levitating ping pong, the third room becomes immersive and allows us to play with all sorts of Moog synthesisers and other fiddly bits which integrate into the works. The overall impression are of works manufactured out of household objects from a man shed in the back of a garden,  which across this impressive group of more than 100 sculptures, paintings, photographs, and pieces of furniture White achieves.

Is this the evolution of a talented artist or a bored, washed up rock star trying to capitalise on his name? To think in these binary terms rather defeats the purpose of art like this. If you enjoy art for art’s sake, does the artist really matter? And as it’s free who cares, as a seven nation army can’t hold you back.

These thoughts may disappear is on now until 13.9.2026, so you have no excuse to get over there. And for those of you who have no clue who the hell we’re talking about, the video is below.

Pullens Yard Open Studios Spring 2026

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As frequent readers are all too aware, we here at the Observer love nothing more than anonymously sticking our noses where they don’t belong. So why not join the merry ranks of middle class white people and partake of our passion/dysfunction? We’re talking, of course, of the great Pullens Yard Spring Open Studios weekend taking place on 5-7 June (that’s next week and not this weekend, folks. Keep up) in Walworth. It might just prove to be the last warm weekend of the year.

Pullens Yards (Clements, Peacock and the large Iliffe Yard) are an amazing collection of 1880’s workhouses which were originally designed for the people who lived in the nearby Pullens Estate. We wrote about the fascinating squatting history of the estate a few years ago. Instead of being converted into luxury flats, the Yards serve the same purpose as they did 140 years go, and the cabinet makers and blacksmiths have been replaced by potters, jewellery makers, card makers and folks who make things that you want but by no means need. We once bought moth balls disguised as little knitted mice. And as we know crystals are just rocks, but the stall holders might just convince you that they have the power to heal.

The studios at Pullens Yards are usually not open to the public, but twice a year they fling their doors open to give us a glimpse into their creative universe and this is the Spring iteration. The artists are more than happy to show you what and how they create, and of course you can buy what’s on show. And buying is by no means compulsory, as at the end the day these folks just want to show off how clever they are and it’s totally free. Have we mentioned how much we love free?

A visit to the Yards is a fun way to spend a morning or a late afternoon searching for quirky and unusual gifts for yourself or loved ones. In the past we’ve encountered live music, food for sale, a bar provided by Orbit Brewery(!) and live music. A sunny late spring day is an exceptionally optimistic way to see the Yards. And who knows, you just might discover a previously unrealised desire to own a necklace made out of forks or a room deodoriser fashioned as a piece of cheese.

Pullen’s Open Studios is open Friday evening and in the daytime over the weekend. And if you’re overwhelmed by that necklace fashioned out of forks, take a break and check out the great and very quirky Electric Elephant Café. And no, its not a charity shop. It just looks like one.

The Mysterious Case of the Kerbside Markings

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If you’ve ever looked at your nearest kerb you’ve seen them. They’re in Kennington Cross, in the older bits of Elephant, even in the languid streets of Walworth. They’re cryptic inscriptions  cut into the kerbs when they were laid down. Is it a cult symbol? The Masons? We love nothing more than a mystery, and if you look at a kerb there are plenty to be found. Just don’t get hit by the 59 bus.

When it comes to hobbies like deciphering kerb markings  there are plenty of sad, probably middle age white dudes out there with loads of time to waste on these matters, making the job of our research team much easier. An easy answer is that the marks are stonemason cuts to let the bosses know how many stones were cut that day by one person. But some have two markings, so that isn’t it. Other white dudes speculate that they marked the beginning and end of a day of laying them down, but in some places there are three of the same markings in a row. Many of these markings are just squiggles or crosses, further undermining that they were made to evidence the identity of the stone layer.

One middle age white dude with a LOT of time on his hands was Ashley Cowrie, who investigated 4000 miles (!) of British kerbstones to unlock the meaning behind this great British mystery and has written a surprisingly erudite paper about it. He debunks a number of theories, such as the presence of crosses to commemorate plague deaths (sorry sunshine, but during the plague of 1665 Kennington was but a swamp) or an indication of underground utilities (but some only appear once). In an age before street signs the crosses could indicate parish boundaries, but again they appear too frequently.

If you’re interested in kerb markings, first off you might want to seek professional help. But if the desire persists then there are many resources online to assist your fixation, such as their own Facebook page (kids, Facebook was a social media tool used a LONG time ago).  But there is tantalisingly no consensus as to the meaning of the many carvings. We’ve eliminated stonemason marks, an indication of underground utilities, parish boundaries, or individual identities of the worker. This Victorian mystery remains an enigma that you can solve on your own. That is, if you struggle to find friends.  

Topical Ghosts in Oval

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We love contemporary art and we love Gasworks Gallery in Oval. And while nothing will quite achieve the varnished heights of a previous show which turned the gallery into a Hampstead Heath cruising area, the current offering certainly tries its best. So if your taste includes ghosts who can play the piano while talking about racism, then you’re in for a real treat.

The current offering at Gasworks is by Portuguese American artist Gabriel Abrantes and is called ‘Bardo Loops’. The animated ghosts reference a phase between death and rebirth. Think of them as really articulate zombies. The ghosts talk about a range of topics without the other ghost listening (they are dead after all) in a friendly and almost mocking tone. The challenge for the viewer is that some of these topics are indeed very serious, but made to look trivial. Abrantes uses the ghosts as a way to explore issues relating to loss, illness and vulnerabilities. The manmade disasters unfolding behind them (eg a forest fire) seem minimal as we remain trapped in our own drama, ultimately only getting out of said drama by the use of our phone or AI. Or both.

Bardo Loops is open now until 7 June and is totally free. But please remember that if you want to mingle with the apparitions, the gallery is only open Wed-Sun 12 to 6. If you want even more ghostly fun they are having an artist curators tour on 9 May and a few other phantasmic offerings to be found here.

Beauty and Destruction at the Imperial War Museum

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We love nothing more than a four day weekend, but after a fifth episode of ‘A Place in the Sun’ things can get rather, shall we say, boring…..So we’ve decided to build some brain cells by popping over to the Imperial War Museum to see the petite, pop up exhibit ‘Beauty and Destruction: Wartime Art in London’. Its free (we love free) and open throughout the weekend.

Through the medium of oils, watercolours, pen and ink drawings and even letters we can see the destruction wrought through 57 days of the Blitz and beyond. Included are works by Paul Methuen, Evelyn Gibbs and Leonard Rosoman. We frankly have no idea who any of these people are, but they’re good artists who were either commissioned by the government to undertake these works or were casual painters. The most notable of these being Henry Moore. As with all exhibits at IWM, this is not a glorification of warfare, and many of these works are testaments to resilience, depicting mums shopping or people just getting on with their lives. So you have no excuse to get your Guardian reading selves over there.

Beauty and Destruction is on now until 1 November and is totally free. As the exhibit is small, why not pop over to the Blavatnik Art, Film and Photo Gallery on the same floor? They have a number of stunning works and it’s a fun way to spend some time.  Well, if you can sidestep the unfun fact that’s been endowed by a dodgy Russian oligarch. So Guardian readers, you get a free pass on this one.  

Free Culture in Greater Kennington 3 – Open House London 2025

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It’s that time of year again and one of our favourite activities here at the Observer….sticking our noses where they don’t belong! From 13 September to 21 September ii’s the Open House London Festival, celebrating London’s housing, architecture and neighbourhoods by flinging open doors and streets not usually open to the public. We have a few suggestion for you and they are all FREE, and we love free. Well, the last two aren’t free.

Most Open House venues have friendly staff on hand to tell you more about what you’re seeing and there are often things to read. If you look on the website you’ll see some local bookable things, but we’re afraid you’ve mostly missed the boat on those babies. The localish venues listed below are open to the public on specific dates, so look at opening times. However, if you possess the audacious gaul to travel out of Greater Kennington you might find there are hundreds more free things to stick your head into around the capital. But we couldn’t possibly encourage that kind of behaviour.

London Fire Brigade Memorial Hall (perhaps your last chance to see it before it is turned into, you guessed it, flats and a luxury hotel).

https://programme.openhouse.org.uk/listings/11781

International Maritime Organisation (that bizarre looking building on Albert Embankment. pictured below)

https://programme.openhouse.org.uk/listings/7730

Anderson WW2 Bomb Shelter (for the fetishists among you).

https://programme.openhouse.org.uk/listings/10010

St. Paul’s Newington  (Been and recommend. 1950’s beaut)

https://programme.openhouse.org.uk/listings/2556

Walworth Garden (been and recommend, even if it is like a stroll through a garden centre)

https://programme.openhouse.org.uk/listings/10950

Soane Re-imagined – St. Peter’s Church

https://programme.openhouse.org.uk/listings/13342

Southwark Heritage Centre and Walworth Library (been and recommend. Yes, it’s a trip to the library but with a museum stuck in it)

https://programme.openhouse.org.uk/listings/9722

Van Gogh House London (Been and recommend. Its more about restoration than the great man so don’t expect any paintings or a severed ear).

https://programme.openhouse.org.uk/listings/8317

Lots of other interesting things that are less than free such as an Elephant and Castle Walking Tour

https://open-city.org.uk/events/elephant-48

And Nine Elms Walking Tour (fun but also not free)

https://open-city.org.uk/events/elms-29

The Bygone Era of Greater Kennington

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Some parts of Greater Kennington have survived for centuries, some were lost as a result of enemy action, and other parts bulldozed as a result of short term thinking and poor planning. Others are lost in plain sight as not many people know about them. Have you ever noticed the former Pelham Mission Hall in Lambeth Walk?

The quite striking Mission Hall was built on 1910 to a design by local architects Waring and Nicholson, who possibly collaborated on the stunning Doulton Pottery building (below) in Black Prince Road. It replaced something called a “beerhouse” of which little is known. The Hall was in fact a church, complete with an outdoor pulpit. One can imagine that it’s no coincidence that a church should supplant a beerhouse, and perhaps the Rector used his bully pulpit to warn the marketgoers in Lambeth Walk about the evils of drink and its associated lascivious behaviours.

The Mission Hall is one of those rare survivors of the bygone era of a Cockney Kennington tinged with deprivation and struggle. When the Hall was built Lambeth Walk had over 100 market stalls run by street sellers, or costermongers, who would hawk their wares in a melodic street patter which can still be heard in East Street market in Walworth. If you want to know more about the history or Lambeth Walk itself, check out our post from 2021.

Like the pawn shops and fruit sellers which once dominated Lambeth Walk to ease the hardship of people, there is no longer the need for a rector to be spouting the value of pious living for eternal salvation. Today the Hall has stopped  saving souls but is a home to creating sculpture. The Henry Moore Sculpture Studio exists as a creative place for sculpture courses and a space for creating lovely things. They offer a range of courses in all aspects of sculpture which are not free, and periodic lectures which are. Check out their website for information about both.

throwers at Gasworks Galley

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We always enjoy the eccentric offerings offered up by the quirky Gasworks Gallery in Oval, and their current exhibition certainly doesn’t let us down. Previous shows have included a giant Styrofoam coffin, and another saw the space turned into a Hampstead Heath cruising area. The current show is called ‘throwers’ by Johannesburg based artist Noland Oswald Lewis and is an altogether more serious offering, but just as surreal.  

In the first room we find a 3D printer furiously creating stones which appear to be large lumps of coal. When completed the stones are logged by Gasworks and either stored or put on display, creating what is called a ‘Black Earth Library’. The text on the walls place them as various rock samples extracted from settler communities in South Africa, Australia and the USA. As coal often turns into diamonds, to us it was redolent of how people have exploited indigenous lands for reasons of profit or settlement.  

The second room is a bit more playful, and invert familiar representations of the globe. We encounter a globe next to a giant black planet which invites the viewer to consider all manner of interplanetary ideas. A meteor? A threat to white dominance? Along the long wall there is a vast mural (stick with us, people) which weaves together that represents a social history of ‘stones that move’ which includes data from near earth asteroids and their cosmic journey. Accompanying this is a playful archive of people throwing rocks. Hopefully the synthetic ones that won’t split your head open. A recurring theme throughout is that of a thrown rock, be it a giant rock in space headed to earth or the equally symbolic sight of a person throwing a stone in apartheid Soweto which threatens the established order.  

Nolan Oswald Dennis – ‘throwers’ is on now until 22 June and is totally free. The gallery is only open towards the end of the week from 12 to 6 so over the bank holiday take a break and flex those brain muscles which have lied in repose for far too long.  And you can be amogst the bewildered patrons below.

The art of seeing: 140 years of Photography at the Camera Club 

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In Bowden Street near Kennington Cross there exists a little known but fascinating gallery space called the Camera Club, and at 140 years old it’s  one of the oldest such clubs in the world.  Upstairs there are studios, darkrooms (not the kind found in a gentleman’s nightclub in Vauxhall), and a digital suite that even mere photo mortals such as you and I can hire. On the ground floor there is a dedicated gallery space that is open for all of us to peruse. And at the moment they have a little showcase of greatest hits.

The art of seeing: 140 years of Photography at the Camera Club is a retrospective of some of the highlights of the vast collection held by the Club. It spans the era from monochrome to the latest digital advancement and showcases what we love the most about photography. Namely, the pursuit of lighting, storytelling, composition, and the way in which photography exposes the spirit of the individual. In its essence this pint sized production reveals how little has changed in subject matter in spite of massive improvements in technology. We just find different avenues to express ourselves. 

The Art of Seeing: 140 Years of the Camera Club is on now until 2 May and is totally free. It’s open daily from 10:00 to 22:00 and weekends from 10:00 to 18:00. And no, we have no idea why it’s open over 75 hours a week. Regarding joining the club, they welcome absolute beginners and information can be found on their website. They also have a series of events and regular casual meetings for photographers to discuss all things snappy. 

Raging Planet and The Power at Newport Street Gallery

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We just attended the premiere of two exciting new shows at Newport Street Gallery. And by ‘premiere’ we mean ‘the first day’ as people like us don’t get invited to actual premieres. Curated by the son of the man who owns the Gallery, Connor Hirst, in a strange manner the exhibits contrast and relate to one another. 

In the downstairs we find the exhibit ‘Raging Planet’, which is a group show of six different global artists who are endeavouring to incorporate the chaos which is inherent in our planet into their work, mostly by using elements found in the earth. So what we find are swirling, abstract paintings on aluminium. Other paintings feature pigments mixed with sawdust, and in one arresting piece large clumps of mud are painted over in a Franz Klein blue.

For us the best room is the last, where artist Richard Hiornes encrusts sculpture and paintings with copper sulphite crystals. What we see is a giant engine made inert by a residency of crystals and duelling cathedrals in the midst of a crystal invasion. So if what you demand in a show is rocks on the floor and even a small DJ booth, then this could be right up your avenue. You can dance and then fall over on a rock, recreating the experience of many Observer staff at Glastonbury.

More unsettling is the exhibit upstairs, ‘The Power and the Glory’, which is about nuclear weapons testing. We thought it was a strange contrast to the previous exhibit celebrating the earth as opposed to destroying it. The exhibit features a great deal of photos about nuclear weapons tests post WW2 in the Pacific . They are aesthetically pleasing if you can divorce this from their intended purpose, which we struggled to achieve. Mixed in with these are images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki after they were destroyed. 

In the middle of the exhibit we have a beautiful exhibit of what are called ‘scholars rocks’. For centuries they have been collected in East Asia and appreciated by their abstract and wave like forms. As they are also associated with downfall,  one definition of a scholar rock is as a ‘weapon that shatters a dream’. Perhaps this therefore serves as poignant complement to the photos that surround them. 

Raging Planet and The Power and the Glory are on now until 31 August and, like love itself, is totally free.