Lucinda Burgess from Stroud writing about exhibiting in London during a Pandemic. February 2022
Variations in Red, 2020 Lucinda Burgess
1. How did you manage to get two exhibitions in London at the same time?
My work is very minimalist, abstract, linear with an emphasis on the natural character of many different materials.
I had been going to all the exhibitions of another minimalist artist, Frank Gerritz at Bartha Contemporary since about 2015. It is natural that you would be drawn to the artists and galleries who interest you and who are like-minded, and this contact with the gallery led to a dialogue.
Writing this has just reminded me that my connection with Bartha Contemporary actually started when I was exhibiting in a London group show (Truman Brewery Gallery off Brick Lane) in 2015 shortly after my MA. There, while standing near my work, I met a Japanese artist called Meg Shirayama. We had a really nice chat, were clearly like-minded, and she mentioned during the chat that I should make contact with a gallery called Bartha Contemporary - she felt my work would suit it. So, it is thanks to Meg’s brilliant advice that I became aware of the gallery and the artists they exhibit.
Going to Bartha Contemporary had often involved booking an appointment, even before the pandemic, as this is how Bartha often operates. Because of that, I got the opportunity to meet Niklas and Daniela von Bartha to chat about the work being shown. Niklas indicated that he knew my work. I know a fellow artist and friend had suggested to him that he look at my work, (I found out afterwards), I also knew the gallery was following my Instagram posts. Instagram has become such a helpful means of getting work out there.
On one of my visits, around 2017/18, Niklas suggested lots of different ways I could instigate and curate shows in Germany independently of any gallery. I didn’t follow this up then (I am now!), but I kept going to the gallery to see their exhibitions. Later in 2019 after another viewing of Gerritz’s work at the gallery, Niklas said he’d like to visit a show I had on at the time at No Format Gallery in Deptford. As it happened, he ran out of time, the show was only on for a week.
However, he made a commitment to visit my studio with Daniela. Thankfully that happened in very early 2020 just before the pandemic. They bought a large framed work for a client in Switzerland and asked if I would exhibit with Frank Gerritz at the end of the year. Being 2020 this was of course postponed and postponed and eventually the show took place in the Autumn of 2021 in Bartha Contemporary’s new gallery space in Notting Hill. They moved here from Piccadilly partly because they had found people didn’t want to go into central London in times of plague, they were much more comfortable visiting leafy Notting Hill.
The work shown with Frank Gerritz had clear links with him; a minimalist aesthetic and an emphasis on materiality and surface. And whilst both of our works hung on the wall, they could both be classed as sculpture.
Bartha Contemporary, Notting Hill 2021.
Niklas von Bartha contacted me again in 2020 asking if I’d be interested in showing another body of work that has fewer links with Gerritz at another exhibition site at the same time as the exhibition with Gerritz. A friend and colleague of his, Martina Geccelli, has a project space/gallery – RaumX, in Kentish Town. As the works to be shown at Bartha were all works on paper, he was suggesting that I show my large steel and glass installations at Martina’s gallery.
Martina was looking to exhibit Dutch artist Jose Heerken’s work and wanted another artist who would both link and compliment her work. Niklas suggested me to her. She had had another artist in mind so in order to decide she came to visit my studio with Niklas and Daniela.
Thankfully Martina asked me to show at RaumX. As it turned out my sculptural installations worked really well with Jose’s paintings, both being similarly abstract, non-objective, emphasizing materiality and line.
Difference. Installed at RaumX, Kentish Town 2021. Lucinda Burgess
So, there were two shows on at the same time in October/November 2021; one with Frank Gerritz at Bartha Contemporary and one with Jose Heerkens at RaumX.
Jose Heerkens paintings at RaumX
Kentish Town, Oct/Nov 2021
Same by Lucinda Burgess at RaumX
Kentish Town, Oct/Nov 2021
2. What practical difficulties were there in transporting and setting up two exhibitions?
There were quite a few, it wasn’t the easiest thing to do, transporting a lot of large work to two different parts of London at the same time.
Having found a reasonably priced art courier it was then up to me to pack it suitably. I ordered some bespoke cardboard boxes which arrived flat. Once built I wrote large instructions on them, for example which way to tip when going through a door, which gallery they were going to and so on. I stuck tape with FRAGILE written on it, to the delicate ones. I had to reinforce the largest long box as it was bending in the middle; I got some long pieces of wood to carry underneath it like a stretcher. In fact when it came to it, I forgot these and the box did bend a little, I noticed this happened when being carried into the van, by which time it was too late. So that added to the anxiety, had the work inside got bent too!?
The work was picked up on a Friday as the courier was too busy to come the day I was installing. However, he had a storage facility in London, so he took a whole lorry load there. I went up to London on the Monday after. Getting all these timings and deliveries of work arranged took quite a bit of time, especially as the courier was really busy with London Frieze week and consequently very hard to get hold of.
On the day of installation, I got up at 4.30am, (in Gloucestershire near Stroud), met a trusted installation helper, and we drove to London together. Arrived at 8am in Kentish Town and by 1 we had done the difficult bits. One of the works needed a straight wall, and despite choosing the straightest wall in the place, and despite it looking straight, it wasn’t straight! So, installing this gave me a few minor heart attacks, at one point, long lengths of glass were looking like bananas when they were supposed to be straight! Thanks to my helper John and his discrete hammer blows to the screws, the work got stretched and the glass became straight. All a bit precarious and tricky to say the least!
Seeing Straight installed at RaumX. Part of Same on the floor.
John and I then needed to zip across London to Notting Hill to install the show at Bartha Contemporary. We arrived to find that Niklas had made all the difficult decisions, chosen which works to hang and where, and I was completely happy with his choices, he did a brilliant job. That was a huge relief and meant that John was barely needed and could drive back to Gloucestershire. A long day!
3. In what ways did the pandemic affect the whole process?
It affected the footfall mostly. We were still in a cautious phase of the pandemic, we had all been double vaccinated but not boosted, Omicron wasn’t yet on the scene, but the wave of the Delta variant was still strong enough for us to feel we needed to be careful. At Bartha Contemporary the Private View required booking and there was no evening party with drinks, we just had an afternoon. There were enough visitors for it to feel successful and appreciated but certainly no big gathering. Throughout the exhibition period Niklas arranged meetings with his private collectors and international clients.
At RaumX Martina Geccelli had a tradition of giving a dinner for invited guests and the artists. Because of the Pandemic we scaled this back. However, the PV was in the evening, and it turned out to be a good gathering with wine and nibbles, and later on Martina gave us all delicious soupy stew around a big table and surrounded by the art. Her German approach to showing art was a revelation - much more relaxed and informal, lots of really interested and like-minded people came, it was so much fun despite the vague background sense that we were taking a risk and still in a pandemic.
At the end of the first week, we had another gathering at RaumX, a teatime viewing, and this again was really stimulating. Lots of like-minded artists came for really good thought-provoking conversation about the art. By this point, it was the end of the first week, the pandemic didn’t seem quite so worrying. I remember one person asking where he could deposit his mask having just travelled on the tube and watching him take if off a little warily. It was a reminder to me, yes, we were still in a pandemic.
4. Was the whole event a success in your mind?
Absolutely! Very delighted by Niklas and Martina’s curating, and their choice of works from the other artists. Both shows worked so well with their other chosen artists, Frank Gerritz from Germany at Bartha, and Jose Heerkens from the Netherlands at RaumX.
I basked in the appreciation from other interested artists especially at RaumX in Kentish Town. It is a very lovely thing to be appreciated, especially when at times you wonder if you’re quite sane putting so much effort into something so niche. Minimal abstract art seems to lurk in the shadows in this country. I met and made contact with some really interesting, nice people. One has asked me to be a part of a group show in her gallery in Berlin in 2022.
The associated zoom Q&A with Martina, Niklas and Jose was a really good way to get to know Jose (who stayed in the Netherlands), and that went very well too.
Niklas managed to sell one of my pieces and continues to discuss other works with interested viewers via his website.
I think, all in all, they were two successful London shows and I feel hopeful that they won’t be the last.
5. What lessons have you learned?
On a practical level I found out during the shows that a company called Universal Packing makes extremely sturdy packing cases with wood and cardboard and soft foam linings at a reasonable price. I subsequently had a box made for future transportations. So, I learnt that a lot of stress can be cut out if you have adequate safe packaging!
I think you have to be prepared for a stressful period when doing something like this, but at the end you realise that you can do it. Often you can do more than you expect!
My use of Instagram proved to be as useful as ever because I found it a very non-intrusive way to keep in touch with all the different people I was meeting. Sometimes I had conversations with them afterwards via Instagram. It is less formal than exchanging mobile numbers and so it’s easier to make a long-term link with them.
I learnt a lot from Martina’s more informal German way of exhibiting art. This was a revelation. She invited many interested artists and friends, contacts that she has built up over many years. In Martina’s bright studio-like project space or gallery, they created a very joyful and informal atmosphere. This was enhanced by the frequent appearance of tasty food! – soup, cakes, patisserie, chocolate! Taking the formality out of art-viewing made it so much more enjoyable. The conversations were buzzing. Perhaps it was especially memorable because of the contrast with the more insular hermitic lock-down existence that we had grown used to.
I became much more aware that my work is more suited to a German audience. The British always seem to me to be a literary race, and as a consequence perhaps, are often baffled by abstraction.
In writing this I am struck by how easy it is to forget what you’ve learnt! You can also absorb lessons in new situations without necessarily being very conscious of how you’ve changed.
Lucinda’s background in painting, landscape design and oriental philosophy has led to a fascination with the raw elemental qualities of materials, and informs a sculptural practice that accentuates the reality of constant change, undermining the idea of a fixed thing, object, entity or identity.