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I'm Joanna Pyroneves, your host, and this is exhibitionist this
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I'm an independent writer and curator with a wide-ranging 2
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decades career in contemporary art, from commercial galleries
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to art fairs, from research to curating, from Lisbon to London
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through Paris. But when I'm asked what I do
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outside the out world, the inevitable reaction is, oh, I
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don't know anything about contemporary art.
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Ouch. So call it a midlife crisis,
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call it arrogance, but I gave myself the task of trying to
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fill that gap with Co host conversation.
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Episodes centered around a genuine exchange of thoughts,
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feelings and precious context around solo exhibitions,
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interviews and special episodes based on a particular topic to
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keep you alert and on your toes. If you want to read further into
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some of the topics discussed in the episodes and more, you can
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also find me on Sub Stack under my name, Joanna Pyroneves.
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Hi there, a few notes on the episode you're about to listen
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to. So I'm interviewing Sarah Lacung
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Sung because to my knowledge she has the only commercial gallery
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dedicated to showcasing and promoting art produced by women
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and queer artists in the UK. So the gallery is called SLQS
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and is based or is located in Shoreditch in London.
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So when I mention the artist Bex Wade and the acquisition of
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their work by the VNA. So Bex Wade had an exhibition
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right before the current one at SLQSI say that Bex Wade was the
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first non binary artist in the collection which is not correct.
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So when you get to that point of the introduction, remember that
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Bex Wade is a trans non binary artists.
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And in the words of Zorian Clayton, another of Bex's
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photographs purchased with art font support, has recently gone
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on display at Young Vienna in Bethnal Green.
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This is believed to be the first time an out trans artist work
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has gone on display in a permanent gallery at the VNA End
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of Quotes. So this is to celebrate.
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And Zorian Clayton was the curator responsible for this
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acquisition. So it is important to set the
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record straight, straight and also to be joyful and to
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celebrate this state of affairs at the VNA and in the permanent
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gallery. But it's also important, I
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think, to acknowledge the current climate of erasure of
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trans rights and the narrowing of notions of gender.
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And so I thought of reading an excerpt of a text Wade wrote for
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the summer edition of Art Review, and available in its
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entirety there. So as Sarah mentions eloquently
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in the interview, we are indeed living at a time where trans and
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queer communities are being failed and where gender is being
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reduced on a legislative level. So reading a part of Bexwade's
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text is to put it out there. It's my voice, but it's their
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experience. So stick around for the
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interview with Sarah and her fascinating trajectory, and then
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to listen to Bexwade's words after the interview.
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Without further ado, let's do this.
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And thank you for being here. So far, the highest ranking
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episodes of the first season and the last season of exhibition
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Isters are Philip Guston, Gerhard Heshta, followed by
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Marina Abramovic, Dido Mariama, Tanya Kovacs, Yoko Ono, Judy
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Chicago and Aria Dean. I would have put my money on
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Abramovich, Yoko Ono and Judy Chicago being the most listened
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to, especially because they've had so much press coverage and
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two of them are two big stars. But oh and also I'm a female
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host so I thought you know, more females listen to females, but
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no. And you'll be surprised to know
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that the majority of listeners to the Abramovich episode are
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male. So I can tell you exactly the
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percentage. It's 62.5% and 37.5 are female.
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And there are non no non binary listeners.
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So this is really interesting because in the 8 ones.
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So if you don't look at ranking, there's five women and three
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men. But what's interesting as well
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is in the 12 episodes, we have more women than men.
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So that kind of reflects the program as well.
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And of course, this is anecdotal.
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We all know that to have a real statistical data, you need far
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more examples and you need far more numbers.
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But it's still interesting. It's just one season, it's just
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one experience. But it's interesting to know
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that Abramovich coming in 3rd place is really telling because
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she's a second generation. She's in the second generation
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of feminism, which is a very typical generation of saying, as
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she has said that had she had children, she wouldn't have
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gotten where she did. Of course she tracked back.
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She kind of course corrected on that one.
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But it's true that if you think back in and and look at the
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artists who made it from that generation, a lot of them had to
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kind of what the third generation of feminists have
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sort of read into their attitudes.
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They kind of went against notions of the female gender.
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So for example, being mums was a question counterexample Mary
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Kelly that we may talk about. So the reason why I'm mentioning
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these analytic results and these very questionable readings, of
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course, I'm very conscious of that is because today I have a
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special guest. So this is an interview episode.
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A new star in the constellation of London galleries, Sarah
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Lekong Sung, who has established the gallery in Shoreditch last
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year called SLQS and which champions female, queer or non
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binary artists. I was intrigued as soon as the
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gallery popped up on my exhibitionist's Instagram feed.
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So the reason why my curiosity was peaked further is precisely
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because Sarah doesn't have your usual career path of art
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history, culture management, working at Sotheby's or
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Christie's, then working in commercial galleries and
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eventually opening your own gallery.
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Which by the way, not many people take that step.
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So, you know, dear listeners who are students, build your own
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career path. There's a lot of stuff out there
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to do. You can be an art advisor.
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You can work for funding in big institutions or small ones,
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nonprofits. You can do lots of things.
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And Sarah did precisely that. So I decided to invite her
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because I thought, OK, I'm really interested.
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I want to know how exactly she came.
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She arrived at Shoreditch. Who was this person?
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I thought, and you know, I won't know who she is at the end of
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the episode, but a dear listener, I think we're going to
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really love listening to what she has to say.
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So Sarah is Franco, Vietnamese. She had a multicultural
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upbringing. She lived in many places amongst
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which Cameroon, UK, France. She studied acting in Paris and
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then she came to the UK, to Manchester where she studied
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international fine, international business, finance
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and economics and then she moved to Dubai where she lived for
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eight years and she earned a living in real estate while
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taking a keen interest in experimental theatre of all
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things. She was Co founder of one of the
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city's first experimental theatre companies.
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But in her mid 30s with a 2 year old child, she returned to
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London for an MA in Performance at Goldsmiths in 2016.
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She then became Co director of the charity Procreate Project,
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which promotes artist mothers, and through which she curated
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the first Mother Art Prize and Oxytocin Birthing the World
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Exhibition program. And I'm quoting her here.
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She said becoming a mother changed everything.
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My schedule, my mobility, my decisions.
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Speaking with the Art Newspaper, Le Kangsang said that starting
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the gallery brings together the two parallel strands of her
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career, a career as an artist and in business.
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The gallery was launched on International Women's Day.
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Interviewed by Melanie Girlis for the Financial Times, she
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described her venture as a long game.
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So far the gallery has showcased the work of Bex Wait, a non
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binary artist whose work has been acquired by the VNA, which
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turned them into the first non binary artist in the collection.
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Diana Gravina, Poly Penrose, Ingrid Berton, one Mia
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Wilkinson, Kate Williams and currently so the current
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exhibition, Vietnamese artists Vicky Do Ho Dang Clergy and
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Duong Thai Otui Nguyen. I apologise for the
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mispronunciation of the names, surely.
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So, Sarah, welcome to the podcast.
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I'm really, really happy to have this conversation with you.
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Thank you so much. What a power introduction you've
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given me. I'm really flattered and really,
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really honoured to be on your podcast.
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Thank you so much for inviting me.
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It's a pleasure because I did go to the gallery.
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We had a sort of a meeting and I, we spoke for about an hour
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and I just remember leaving the gallery and thinking, well, that
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was not enough to answer the question, was this woman?
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Why? How did she come here?
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But it really, really kind of sparked even more interest.
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So I'm going to ask you the first question.
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So this is exhibition esters. I'm always interested in knowing
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where was your first connection to visual arts?
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How did it start? Was it in the family?
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Was it later in life? I must have been 8 and my
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parents took, took me to the Dali Museum in Girona, in
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Figueres. And so, you know, Salvador Dali,
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basically there was this municipal theatre that was
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destroyed during the Civic War, the Spanish Civic War, civil
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war, sorry. And he renovated this theatre.
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But the whole, I mean, you know, the whole place is a work of art
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and it's a surrealist work of art.
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And I went back actually a few years ago because I was just so
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struck by this memory. There is a car outside where you
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have to feed with people inside and you have to feed it a coin.
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And when a coin drops, rain starts raining inside a car.
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And I wish I just remember being totally mesmerized by this
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impossibility of raining inside and how performative I think,
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how performative I think I've, you know, my interest in art has
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always been through performance. But I think, yeah, the taste for
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experimental also came from when I was 9, my family moved to West
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Africa. We moved to Gabon for three
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years, and then we moved to Cameroon.
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And I was immersed again, you know, thanks to my mother.
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She was a cultural journalist and she was fascinated and a
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huge supporter of the local art scenes.
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So she really introduced me to, I think what I remember is
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really being immersed in music, you know, by key African
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musicians, you know, like Manu Dibango, Salif Klater, Angelique
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de Geoff and Benam. You know, this is also very much
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part of my childhood. So quite a classical training,
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but then also something, you know, very different.
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Being immersed into the cultural richness the West Africa was
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also very pivotal in my understanding of the arts.
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Is there an exhibition that you can think of when you finally
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came to visual arts that sort of made the cut for you, that kind
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of like really showed you something new or made you decide
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that visual art was really where you wanted to go because you
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also have a practice as an artist.
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So that probably was a shift there.
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I presuming it was an exhibition but might not have been.
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It was my experience creating an exhibition with visual artist
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that really widened my perspective.
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I went back to study at Goldsmiths and I studied
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performance making. At the time I had a 2 year old
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and then in my second year I was also pregnant with my second
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child and I was really looking for other artists who were
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mothers or carers at the time. Being a mother was a was a huge
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part of my identity. I think I probably felt that my
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identity was almost reduced to my mothering responsibilities.
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So there's a brilliant library, the Women's Art Library in
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Goldsmiths. And Althea who who runs the
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library, Althea Grenham, spoke to me about Procreate Project.
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And Diana Grovina, she's the founding director of this
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organization called Procreate Project, which is a non profit
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space that really supports artists for our mothers and
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carers through several initiatives.
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And when I met her, she had the Mother Mother House studios,
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which were artist studios with integrated childcare.
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She was piloting this new concept, but we were we we also
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started working together on this symposium, which was oxytocin
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birthing the world. But what really transitioned me
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from performances to the visual art is when she asked me to
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create the first Mother Art Prize.
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And that was really looking. You know, we had an open call.
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It was on the theme of leftovers.
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You know what are are your leftovers creatively in terms of
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your sexuality, in terms of your identity when you are mothering,
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you know what is left unused. Can leftovers be used for your
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creativity? There was a winner which was
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Mary Martin who won for her film The Divide.
00:16:04
So I think working and creating this exhibition with 22 artists
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that I mean, except for Mary Martin's film, were very
00:16:13
different to theatre, Very, very different to performance.
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You know, we had sculpture, drawing, photography,
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installations, mixed media installations.
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That really opened up for me a different world because the
00:16:30
theatre world is very separate I guess to the visual art world.
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Performance is striding in between rejecting theatres.
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I guess my experience was like, you know, going to Goldsmiths
00:16:44
for two years with like performance.
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Live art is essentially rejecting some of the tropes of
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performance. It's not acted.
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It's very much a lived experience.
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And then creating this exhibition really widen even
00:17:01
more my perspective into visual art.
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And so in terms of your experience of being of being a
00:17:08
mother and being at Goldsmith's, I'm really interested also if
00:17:13
this experience has had an impact on how you see the art
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world as a professional structure.
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So like a set of unwritten rules and behaviours that are very
00:17:26
much there, but there aren't spelled out as such, if I may
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say. So like it's a life that is not
00:17:34
very conducive to be to having a family.
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So did you think about that as well?
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And how does that entail then setting up a gallery and in your
00:17:45
gallery do you think about those aspects?
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Yes, totally. I mean you know, when I was at
00:17:51
Goldsmiths I used to live in in Bethnal Green and Goldsmiths is
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was an hour away from, you know, door to door really.
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It took me an hour to get to New Cross.
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I had a 2 year old child that was between a Charmander, a
00:18:09
nurse, you know, a nursery. I had a very different life to
00:18:12
the students who were in my course.
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You know, they were all living in South London.
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They were all hanging out after lectures.
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I was just running back and forth.
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I was running back and forth. I mean, I had a child that
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didn't sleep. I was waking up at 5 trying to
00:18:30
catch up with some work. You know, it was a very
00:18:34
different experience. That's taking me back to so many
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memories. That we'll probably try to
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forget How. Difficult.
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Having young children is, you know, I had access to two
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residencies. I had, I did a weekend with the
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live art development agency, which was I think the first
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weekend I had spent without my child where I could focus
00:19:05
exclusively on thinking and sharing with other participants
00:19:11
in the residency. And then later on a few years
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ago, again, I had the opportunity to do a five day
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residency with UK new artists in Lincoln.
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Again, you know, being child free, being able to think, you
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know, because it's very, I found it was just really difficult to
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even think or to even have time to think really clearly.
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But you know, that's probably the maximum amount of time I
00:19:39
could really go on a residency. You know, I talked to other
00:19:42
artists who work in the gallery who have caring responsibilities
00:19:47
as well. You can't just disappear for one
00:19:50
month. You don't potentially have the
00:19:54
support system and maybe also you don't want to.
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And then when I was thinking about opening the art gallery, I
00:20:01
mean, yes, of course, you know, I did think, oh, maybe I could
00:20:03
work in an art gallery for a while.
00:20:07
But I didn't think that was possible.
00:20:08
I didn't think, you know, I, I want to have a life which is
00:20:12
flexible. I want to be able to attend my
00:20:15
children's sports day and the five different Christmas events
00:20:21
that were put on by the schools. From a personal level, I wanted
00:20:24
to create an organization that can be flexible.
00:20:28
I also wanted to set up a gallery that would discuss, you
00:20:34
know, problematic definitions of what is an emerging artist, what
00:20:41
is a mid caring mid career artist.
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Can we remove these definitions? I'll remove date of birth for my
00:20:51
artist biographies. I don't think it's relevant.
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I don't think it's relevant if you've done X amount of
00:20:57
exhibition by the time you're 30.
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Have you been in an institution? I think we need to really
00:21:03
rethink these definitions and be more inclusive by acknowledging
00:21:10
that people have got different career paths.
00:21:14
And if you are, you know, emerging or re emerging because
00:21:19
you emerge in your 20s and then you got busy in your 30s, maybe
00:21:23
you, you know, you're back fully into your artistic practice in
00:21:28
your 40s. You've got a life experience.
00:21:31
But I'm also working with, you know, artists who are younger
00:21:36
and who are asking themselves, what happens to my career if I
00:21:41
have a family, you know, can I work with a gallery that will
00:21:45
support this? You know, and I think these are
00:21:48
really important questions to think about and to have with
00:21:52
collectors. You know, I went to Milan for
00:21:54
Mega Art Fair in April and I was quite surprised by a lot of
00:22:00
collectors asking me how old is this artist?
00:22:02
Because I want to support an emerging artist.
00:22:05
And really, you know, and I really had to to be like, all
00:22:08
right, hold on, let's stop, Let's let's discuss this.
00:22:11
Let's have a conversation. When you move to the market, as
00:22:14
you say, people have really specific expectations of what an
00:22:19
artistic career is. So what you're doing is very
00:22:23
interesting. And now I'm interested in
00:22:24
knowing how the collectors reacted to your spiel.
00:22:30
How did they receive your information?
00:22:33
I think, you know, you can plant seeds, but it will take time.
00:22:37
It will take time to have fundamental shifts in the
00:22:40
market. It will take time.
00:22:43
And I can't be doing this by myself, you know.
00:22:46
So I think it's also widening this conversation with
00:22:50
galleries. Institutions all demand all the
00:22:54
players within the market to really be able to create change.
00:23:00
So, you know, it's one conversation at a time.
00:23:03
I'm really curious as well, because when I saw your gallery
00:23:06
and I saw, you know, the very specific, specific mission you
00:23:11
gave it, I thought that's really courageous because we're living
00:23:14
in a very conservative time in the market.
00:23:18
People are looking at painting a lot, really going back.
00:23:21
It's like the author, this is in literature, Rachel Cusk said,
00:23:26
sometimes I look at the literature around me and the
00:23:29
and, and what's being read and talked about and it's as if
00:23:32
modernism had never happened. And I sometimes think it's as if
00:23:36
conceptualism, that's never happens at times, you know, when
00:23:40
I go to galleries, which great, you know, every, it was very
00:23:42
patriarchal. All movements in the 20th
00:23:44
century were very patriarchal. And I acknowledge that.
00:23:47
But it is true that looking at painting only can be really
00:23:50
conservative as well. And this probably not the
00:23:53
solution either. So I'm really interested in
00:23:55
knowing, you know, why you chose to open a a commercial gallery
00:24:00
in the current climate. So yes, I mean, I worked as an
00:24:05
artist and I work with nonprofits.
00:24:10
That also allowed me to see how much funding was disappearing
00:24:17
and was being removed and how political funding is as well.
00:24:22
So I think that was one of the reason why I set up a commercial
00:24:27
gallery. I decided to really specialized
00:24:33
and really championing women and queer artists because, I mean,
00:24:38
there is plenty of data and statistics that shows you the
00:24:42
gender inequality in the market. You had, you know, the freelance
00:24:47
foundation that did several reports on the representation of
00:24:52
women in specifically in the UK. You had a book by Hetty Judah
00:24:58
which is on how to include, you know, artist parents and, and
00:25:02
and others, which is also a key publication in giving you
00:25:08
statistics as well. There needs to be more research
00:25:13
for career artists as well. And some of this research for
00:25:15
women artists has been removed as well and have stopped.
00:25:18
And that's worrying, you know, that is, you know, that is
00:25:22
worrying that we don't have, you know, a lot of this research
00:25:26
stopped in 2022 and actually win 2025.
00:25:29
And we don't have necessarily up to date statistics, but it's
00:25:34
very, very clear, you know, there is more women than men
00:25:39
entering art education. There is more men represented
00:25:47
and being shown and so earning as well a lot more.
00:25:51
But also in a political time where women and queer rights are
00:25:56
being revoked and in the commercial sector, there is not
00:26:01
that many galleries that say we support women and queer artists.
00:26:05
They might do it through the programming, but they don't say
00:26:10
it. And I think it's important to be
00:26:12
unapologetic about it and to say this is what we're doing because
00:26:16
it's needed. Absolutely.
00:26:18
You know, my daughter just sent me on Instagram a post of a
00:26:23
young woman saying that recently the police has been allowed to
00:26:29
search women's medical history and home if they've had a
00:26:37
miscarriage. Right.
00:26:40
I mean. What does that mean?
00:26:42
And I was also thinking about, you know, lesbian couples who
00:26:46
have children. You know, there's two women in
00:26:50
there, male artists who are parents and who want to parent
00:26:56
fully, you know, with dedication.
00:26:59
Have you come across situations where there's different kinds of
00:27:03
families, where unconventional and non traditional notions of
00:27:07
family with children? Where and what's difficulties do
00:27:13
people face in those situations? You know, on the question of,
00:27:16
you know, non heteronormative families, I think the, I think
00:27:23
with, you know, gender, the importance is not to make a
00:27:29
decision on the behalf of someone else.
00:27:31
I think what we have to do is to be open and to listen to
00:27:38
different experiences. So I'm not here to be able to
00:27:42
define who is a woman, who is queer.
00:27:46
That's not my role. My role is not to define people.
00:27:49
People have to define themselves.
00:27:51
My role is to create a space that feels inclusive.
00:27:55
And I think my role is to create a space where if you are, if you
00:28:01
don't fit the heteronormative or you're not CIS gender, that you
00:28:06
can still be. You can still feel safe, and you
00:28:10
can still feel like this is a space for you.
00:28:13
That takes me to my question about identity, which you've
00:28:18
started talking about. So I don't know if you're
00:28:21
familiar with the this article that many people have been
00:28:24
talking about Dean Kissick's article, which was published in
00:28:30
Harper's Bazaar, about the fact that identity politics are
00:28:33
destroying art and are making us look and curate bad art in
00:28:38
museums. I was wondering if you see any
00:28:41
pitfalls in this question of identity when it comes to the
00:28:44
market? Talking.
00:28:45
So you're talking about the painted protest, right?
00:28:47
By the article by Dean Kissick that was that was published.
00:28:51
Thank you for thank you for saying the title which I forgot.
00:28:55
Yeah, by a few months ago. It's an interesting article
00:28:59
because I think it's missing an important question, and I think
00:29:05
it's missing the question of why are artists making work about
00:29:11
identity. So it's only looking at it from
00:29:15
a viewer's perspective and from this particular, you know, it's
00:29:18
pretty much from Dean's perspective really.
00:29:22
But you know, it's obviously it takes a lot of time for artists
00:29:26
to make work. It's a huge amount of time and
00:29:29
research and experimentation. So why are so many artists
00:29:34
making work about identity? I think this is the question
00:29:38
that we should be asking ourselves.
00:29:41
We have an exhibition that includes Vicki Doe.
00:29:43
It's called Only Your Name and it's about the migration journey
00:29:47
of the Vietnamese diaspora from Vietnam to Hong Kong and then
00:29:52
and then to the UK. It's a very peculiar story
00:29:56
because the Vietnamese diaspora, you know, essentially the reason
00:30:00
we have Vietnamese diaspora here in the UK is because Hong Kong
00:30:04
was a British colony. So that's very interesting to
00:30:07
think about. I was talking to Vicky.
00:30:11
She's based in Saigon. But you know, she said something
00:30:13
that interested me. She said I didn't make after
00:30:15
this film, she didn't make work for six years because she didn't
00:30:20
know what, she didn't know what was important to her anymore.
00:30:26
And I think, you know, if an artist is going to make work, is
00:30:30
going to dedicate so much time and effort into making work,
00:30:35
it's because they think it's important.
00:30:41
And there are some, I think, you know, this is the question we
00:30:43
should be asking. So yes, OK, Dean is fed up with
00:30:47
seeing so many work about identity, but it's obviously
00:30:52
really important for these artists to be making work at
00:30:55
that time. Often I would say artists make
00:31:00
work because it interests them on a micro level.
00:31:02
So it might be based on a personal experience, but then
00:31:06
often, you know, artist will then widen their research onto a
00:31:12
macro level. And so it is a reflection of
00:31:16
society. And I think that in those times
00:31:18
that we are now where identities, you know, are
00:31:22
threatened, you know, trans people are threatened, queer
00:31:27
people are threatened, women's rights are threatened.
00:31:30
I don't think identity work necessarily about identity is
00:31:34
going to do to die down. I think there will be more of it
00:31:39
because maybe there will be less work about identity if if it
00:31:44
wasn't relevant anymore, you know.
00:31:47
But I also think it's interesting because in this
00:31:49
article, he obviously talks about, you know, the Venice
00:31:54
Banali last year on Foreigners Everywhere, which is very much a
00:31:59
retrospective of artists that have been marginalized.
00:32:05
This is a whole new Canon of history of art, which I want to
00:32:10
know about. I don't think this is, but it's
00:32:13
interesting to think about this retrospective and to think about
00:32:17
how we interpret the meaning of this artist now in our
00:32:22
contemporary context, when maybe the artist at the time wasn't
00:32:27
specifically making work about identity.
00:32:30
We see it now as about identity, but maybe that was not the main
00:32:35
goal, the main message. So the last exhibition we had
00:32:40
was a solo exhibition of Becks Wade, who's a trans non binary
00:32:44
photographer who is based in the UK but has documented the queer
00:32:49
community for 20 years. And we showed some of the
00:32:53
earliest work, which was early 2010, queer nightlife
00:32:57
photography. So you put it in the context of
00:33:00
Wendy's image were taken. This was on a personal level
00:33:05
when Bex was finding out about the own queer identity, but also
00:33:10
for the wider community. It was before same sex marriage
00:33:14
was legalized in the US. It was the beginning of the
00:33:18
Obama years, and it felt like a really joyous time, a time of
00:33:24
possibility, a time of change. It feels like a lifetime ago.
00:33:29
Right. So now you Fast forward 15 years
00:33:32
later, we have this exhibition, we have this incredible joyous
00:33:37
pictures, you know, photographs on our wall.
00:33:40
You know three of them, like as you mentioned in the
00:33:42
introduction, were acquired by the Vienna.
00:33:44
So they are of historical significance, a reflection of a
00:33:48
certain time. And, you know, the show opened a
00:33:53
week after, you know, the devastating, you know, Supreme
00:33:57
Court announcement of what the legal definition of a woman is,
00:34:03
which has been exclusive, excluding, you know, trans women
00:34:08
and, and the trans community. And which was decided without
00:34:14
discussion with the trans community, which was taking us
00:34:17
back to a point we were talking about earlier, which is making
00:34:21
decisions on behalf of others, you know, And suddenly these
00:34:26
images on the wall became really political.
00:34:29
There was one particular image, which is called New York Nights,
00:34:32
which was the person. It was taken at a lesbian night.
00:34:37
So a person, presumably, you know, a woman urinating in a
00:34:42
urinal. And, you know, when Becks talks
00:34:44
about making this image, they walked into the toilet.
00:34:47
They were like, oh, sorry. You know, the person was like,
00:34:50
no, great, take a photo. And you know, the way Becks
00:34:54
describe tried it, it was spontaneous, it was joyous, it
00:34:57
was performative, it was a collaboration.
00:35:00
And, you know, 15 years later, you look at it in a context when
00:35:05
we where all the media was obsessed about who's going to be
00:35:09
using which toilet. It almost became, you know,
00:35:12
there's a collector who acquired it.
00:35:14
And you ask him about the market and collectors and, you know,
00:35:17
collectors who acquired Beck's works, Yes.
00:35:20
Are collectors that want to support a trans artist.
00:35:23
There are obviously collectors who are, you know, want to see
00:35:31
queer images as part of the collection, want to include the
00:35:36
queer gaze in the collection. And you know, the collector who
00:35:42
bought this work said this is the image of the year.
00:35:44
There is no other image. And Art Review Commission begs
00:35:49
to write an article about this work, which will be published
00:35:55
soon. So I think there is, yes.
00:35:58
Why are artists making work and how is it being viewed in the
00:36:02
current context and defined eyes identity?
00:36:06
That's fascinating because that's particular definition of
00:36:13
women. I was so taken aback by the fact
00:36:17
that it didn't focus on the trans community as a whole, but
00:36:20
it focused on trans women. And again, it's always that
00:36:25
stigmatization of femininity and the reduction of the notion of
00:36:29
femininity. And I was writing the other day
00:36:32
about something, I mean, notions of gender from the the the
00:36:35
beginning of the century. And I was rereading this text
00:36:38
where Freud was looking at his daughter and was thinking, oh,
00:36:43
women were aren't inventors. You know, women didn't invent
00:36:46
anything. They didn't have the minds for
00:36:48
that. And then he kind of took it back
00:36:51
because Anna Freud was at the loom and he thought himself OK,
00:36:56
Of course, they probably invented the loom because the
00:36:59
pubic hair is hiding their desire for a penis.
00:37:04
So this focus on the genitals is here culturally so much such a
00:37:11
such a critical thinker for our communities and for our society
00:37:14
and for our culture. And at the same time such
00:37:18
terrifying writing about notions of gender.
00:37:21
I was kind of thinking, So what can we do?
00:37:24
So do you, do you have any words to put out there in terms of
00:37:30
institutions? I think the VNA is a great
00:37:33
example. You know, I mean, when when this
00:37:35
acquisition took place with the VNA, they actually received some
00:37:38
money from Art Fund to diversify the collection and to
00:37:43
specifically include a trans artist.
00:37:48
And I think that these pots of fundings are critical and
00:37:56
necessary for institutions to be able to acquire work.
00:38:04
We still need to do a lot of work into diversifying,
00:38:07
diversifying boards of institutions so they reflect
00:38:14
more, you know, our society and also the artistic landscape.
00:38:23
Well, who are the members of the artistic community more than the
00:38:26
artistic landscape? You do you mean the opinion
00:38:30
makers, the the people who have like power in those, like
00:38:34
decisional power in those institutions, Yeah.
00:38:37
Yeah, absolutely. I think in terms of decisional
00:38:39
power, we need to have, you know, I mean, obviously the, you
00:38:45
know, the curator Zion Clayton, who was responsible for this
00:38:50
acquisition for Beckswaid, is part of making the queer and
00:38:55
trans community. And so we need more diverse
00:38:59
voices when it comes to institutions, not just, you
00:39:03
know, at the artist level, but at the curatorial level, but
00:39:06
also at the managing level and board of direct, you know, board
00:39:12
members of institutions that have got huge soft powers.
00:39:16
So we need diversity across across the board.
00:39:22
I think with, you know, the state of the public funding at
00:39:24
the moment, I think that private collectors have a huge role to
00:39:30
play and. Agreed.
00:39:34
Agreed on all. Yes, absolutely.
00:39:37
I mean, you know, it's interesting.
00:39:39
We had, I was part of the London Gallery Weekend this weekend,
00:39:45
which is great. It's an event, you know, that
00:39:48
invites 125 galleries to participate and to put on events
00:39:52
all weekend. You know, we had an artist walk
00:39:54
through, we had a tour with Martin Clark at the gallery.
00:39:59
It was a real moment of activation, but it was also a
00:40:03
real moment of meeting institutions.
00:40:08
So London Gallery Weekend again has got funding to be able to
00:40:13
invite international curators. To come to London.
00:40:17
And so I met, you know, international curators in
00:40:21
countries where there is no public funding.
00:40:23
So I know we complain about our, you know, how much our public
00:40:28
funding is decreasing, but actually there are countries
00:40:31
that has, that has no art council or that has no public
00:40:35
funding at all. And there, you know, patronage,
00:40:40
private institutions, private collections have a big role in
00:40:47
making sure that all artists are supported, making sure that all
00:40:54
genders are supported and trying to rebalance that, you know,
00:40:59
gender inequality, which is in the market.
00:41:02
Can you unveil a little bit what you're thinking about in terms
00:41:05
of the future of the program of the gallery?
00:41:08
Yeah, sure. I mean, we, we have a solo
00:41:13
exhibition that's going to be in the autumn with Damaris Athene,
00:41:17
who's actually the work that you can see behind me.
00:41:20
Well, that's part of one of her series called Leighton Space.
00:41:23
And yes, I think I'm really looking forward to Damaris
00:41:27
because she's incredibly ambitious in her vision.
00:41:30
And this is going to be her first solo exhibition in a, you
00:41:34
know, in a commercial gallery. I've been following and I've
00:41:37
been part of her journey for a long time.
00:41:41
She was part of my first exhibition in a physical space
00:41:45
on Chondrit St. last June and then I showed her at the Women
00:41:50
Art Fair. I took her work in Mega, which
00:41:53
was incredibly well received and all placed within private
00:41:57
collections. So to be able to now be able to
00:42:00
say, right, well, we've done all that journey and now you know,
00:42:05
you've got this space to do a solo exhibition is I think it's
00:42:11
it's yes, it's great collaborative process.
00:42:15
She creates incredible installation and sculptures made
00:42:20
of fabric and glass. And, you know, her research goes
00:42:25
incredibly in details and is about interspecies relationship,
00:42:32
specifically in the underwater world, trying to make us think
00:42:36
outside of bodies, trying to make of to make, trying to make
00:42:40
us view our body matter reality differently through, yeah,
00:42:44
intersection with other species, but also the digital.
00:42:48
So I'm really excited about that.
00:42:50
Again, I've got another solo show with Kate Williams, who was
00:42:54
part of the first exhibition here in February against an
00:42:59
incredible ambitious project. Kate creates large scale fabric
00:43:05
work and she's going to create a an installation in the gallery.
00:43:10
I can't tell you much more because I want to keep it.
00:43:13
It's so exciting. But yes, it's basically going to
00:43:16
be, I guess, an immersive space where the gallery floors,
00:43:19
ceilings, you know, will be she will create a cocoon
00:43:24
essentially. And she plays a lot with
00:43:26
perspective. I showed her work in, in, in
00:43:31
Mega in Milan, which was probably 1 of definitely the
00:43:34
favourites of the fair because she plays a lot with illusions
00:43:39
and perfect and perspective. And she, she describes her works
00:43:43
as delicious. She invites you to enter a
00:43:47
delicious illusion world, which yeah, is, is is exciting.
00:43:53
And obviously I'm also looking at art fairs in London and also
00:43:59
internationally. Are you thinking of representing
00:44:03
artists? Are you going to work in a in a
00:44:05
sort of a traditional model, or are you trying to reinvent the
00:44:08
model a little bit? No, I'm looking to represent
00:44:12
artists. I mean, so far I am working with
00:44:15
artists, which is flexible in a way where, you know, works are
00:44:21
consigned, but if there are other opportunities for artists
00:44:24
to show their work, opportunities are discussed.
00:44:27
And essentially I think that, you know, if you're an artist
00:44:31
entering the commercial art world, it's probably beneficial
00:44:34
for you to be working with different galleries.
00:44:36
It's beneficial for the galleries as well.
00:44:38
So I'm also working with, you know, collaborative models.
00:44:43
I'm taking Diana Taylor, one of the artists who was exhibiting
00:44:47
my first exhibition, to do a solo show in LA in July with
00:44:51
another gallery which opened recently as well called Don't
00:44:54
Look Project. So it's also about, you know,
00:44:57
what opportunities I can find internationally, which is not a
00:45:02
fair, which is a collaboration with other galleries.
00:45:07
I do want to represent artists and I will be representing
00:45:10
representing artists either by the end of this year or the
00:45:13
beginning of next year. That I think it's important to
00:45:17
take my time and for both me and the artist to test the
00:45:23
relationships before engaging into representation.
00:45:31
And that is through doing RIP exhibition or doing solo
00:45:34
exhibition or art fairs together before fully committing to, you
00:45:40
know, representation. I think that that building a
00:45:42
relationship with the gallery is a very, very important aspect of
00:45:47
the work. It really is.
00:45:48
And it sounds like you're really doing it slowly, steadily, and
00:45:53
with lots of consideration and dedication.
00:45:57
So that's really, you know, something to appreciate.
00:46:00
So thank you so much, Sarah, for your generosity.
00:46:05
It was really fabulous to listen to you and to know more about
00:46:10
your experience, to follow you and to keep on following you
00:46:13
after the episode. So do you have any call outs
00:46:17
that you want to leave out there for any of your projects?
00:46:20
This is the moment. And then we'll just say goodbye.
00:46:24
Thank you so much for having me. It's been such a pleasure to
00:46:27
talk to you. So we currently have an
00:46:30
exhibition called Only Your Name, which I mentioned early
00:46:33
on. It has three artists from
00:46:35
Vietnamese descent, Vicky Do, who is on clergy and Zhong Chun
00:46:40
Guiyen. It's on until the 12th of July,
00:46:44
so please come through. We open Thursday, Friday,
00:46:47
Saturday, 12 till 6. Also open by appointment.
00:46:51
Follow us on Instagram. So we'll be closed for August,
00:46:54
but we will be opening an online screening room which is curated
00:47:03
by Florence, also Fitzgerald, and which is going to be
00:47:07
focusing on interspecies relationships, looking at work,
00:47:13
which are either documentation of performance or that include
00:47:18
performativity. So Flow is creating a really
00:47:22
exciting programme which is going to be going on for six
00:47:25
months, where each month an artist film is featured and
00:47:29
available online, which really is about extending the programme
00:47:34
outside the gallery walls. So, yeah, we can also sign up to
00:47:38
our newsletter to be able to get more information on that.
00:47:42
Amazing. I already did and you should.
00:47:44
So thank you so much, Sarah. Thank you for doing this with
00:47:48
us. It was a great pleasure.
00:47:51
And you out there, I hope you're doing very well.
00:47:53
Thank you for listening. Sign up for our newsletter as
00:47:56
well. Sign up for all newsletters.
00:47:58
I mean, you know, we put so much, so much love into those.
00:48:02
So do that as well for exhibition esters.
00:48:04
And I hope you're having a great time and I'll be with you in two
00:48:09
weeks. Thank you so much.
00:48:11
Bye bye. Bye.
00:48:12
Thank you. All right, so as promised, I am
00:48:15
going to read an excerpt of the text written by Bexwade for art
00:48:21
review for the current issue, Summer 2025.
00:48:27
I encourage you to get your hands on it so that you can read
00:48:30
the whole text. So I am going to read the last
00:48:35
part of the text a little bit further than the middle.
00:48:40
So here goes, Becks Wade for art review.
00:48:48
There's a difference between being visible and being
00:48:50
witnessed, A distinction I return to often in my work.
00:48:56
Documentary photography, at its most human, isn't just about
00:49:00
observation, it's about responsibility.
00:49:05
It doesn't just look, it listens.
00:49:08
It stays. It becomes a kind of testimony
00:49:12
not shaped by spectacle but by solidarity, by trust, and by the
00:49:17
ethics of presence. Visibility may bring exposure,
00:49:22
but exposure isn't empathy. To be visible is to be seen.
00:49:28
To be witnessed is to be felt. I've often said visibility does
00:49:33
not equal safety, and I believe that now more than ever, my
00:49:39
photographs aren't always made as declarations for the outside
00:49:43
world, even if they're sometimes received that way.
00:49:46
They're often gestures inward. I photograph from within the
00:49:51
queer and trans community. As someone who shares the
00:49:54
spaces, who has danced the nights, and who now marches the
00:49:58
protests and prides. I carry their same fears.
00:50:03
It's why I speak not of capturing moments, but of
00:50:06
creating them together. Every image is built on trust,
00:50:12
on shared understanding, on consent.
00:50:16
And that consent is all-encompassing.
00:50:20
It's at the heart of my work because I ask whether someone is
00:50:25
alone in a crowd or up a tree, as happened recently at a trans
00:50:30
protest I was documenting for British Vogue.
00:50:34
Our community is so often treated as if we don't deserve
00:50:38
autonomy in how we're acted towards, spoken about or
00:50:42
legislated upon. That truth was laid bare by the
00:50:47
Supreme Court's ruling, which passed judgement on trans lives
00:50:51
without hearing a single trans voice.
00:50:55
It's a pattern. We are debated, defined,
00:50:59
regulated, but rarely asked what we need, how we want to live or
00:51:04
how we seek to be protected. My work insists that trans and
00:51:09
queer people have the right to decide how they are seen,
00:51:13
whether they are seen at all. I've always thought of my
00:51:17
photographs as a living archive, not static records, but moments
00:51:23
full of breath and contradiction.
00:51:26
They say we will not be legislated out of public life,
00:51:31
nor erased from public memory. In moments like this, when the
00:51:37
law fails us, when public discourse turns cold, art can
00:51:41
become a shelter, not one of retreat but of resistance, a
00:51:47
space where we write ourselves back into history, where we care
00:51:51
for each other in public, where we refuse the terms we've been
00:51:55
given. But still there is joy.
00:51:58
Still there is that image in the nightclub bathroom.
00:52:02
Still there are people protesting from treetops.
00:52:05
Still there is a dance floor. Still we persist, not despite
00:52:09
our complexity, but because of it.
00:52:13
I don't take photos to prove we exist.
00:52:16
I take them because we do. These were the words of Beck's
00:52:23
Wade for Art review. Bex Wade is a photographer based
00:52:28
in the UK and it has been my honor to share their words with
00:52:33
you. Thank you so much for being
00:52:36
here, for allowing me to be in your eardrums, and I hope that
00:52:42
in the following two weeks until the next episode, you will be
00:52:46
out there in the world, fabulous, having fun, having
00:52:51
respect for yourself and for others and being great.
00:52:55
Thank you so much to those who made this episode possible.
00:53:00
Shout out to Vita Hebb who assisted me in this episode,
00:53:07
particularly in the edition. So if you're on Spotify or
00:53:11
YouTube and if you want to have a look at the images and the
00:53:14
works we talk about, you can always go back and revisit the
00:53:19
video. You can go to our Instagram
00:53:20
account where we also have images of the works we mention.
00:53:26
You can also follow SLQS on Instagram.
00:53:30
You can follow us Exhibition Esters, under score podcasts.
00:53:33
So that's it. This is the end of the episode.
00:53:37
Take care, have a good one. Exhibition Esters is an indie
00:53:45
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Thank you for being here, thank you for supporting us, thank you
00:54:09
for listening. Have a good one.