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NEW ART GALLERY ROUND UP: east london

From:     friends of the earth
Category: Art
Date:     24 September 2008
Time:     03:18 PM

Review:

http://www.artvandelay.com/

http://www.calvert22.com/

We have art vandelay and calvert 22, both weird names but art vandelay is better cause it's Seinfeld's 
georges nom-de-architect.  Both are swanky in an easty way with nice invites, decent publications 
and a sense there is a designer thinking about all this in the background. 

Calvert wins on location, close to old street, while vandelay is up and coming dalston. Space wise 
both are nice, but vandelay feels more purposeful square and tall, while calvert sprawls.

On show front calvert starts with a group of quite ok art, but it's hard to get a sense of what it wants to 
say, a lot of it seems carefully made, I liked Swayle's work best. At Vandelay we had two artists, more 
coherent, nat rackowe and doug white, white anthropomorphic tree stumps made a woody torture 
disasters of war feel while rackowe had painted scaffolds. long live sculpture.

Openings wise, calvert had champagne sponsorship, vandelay had fiji and beer. Point to calvert.

Overall a score draw and both promise a new professionalism in artier spaces in the east. the boom 
continues.


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