One more place to introduce is this interesting exhibit called the TEA building. As it sounds, it was an actual tea stock room. Now there are two galleries: HALES GALLERY and ROCKET in this building. The former was exhibiting Menageries and Monuments by Adam Dant, who represents modern society with a comic art touch. His gigantic unique art attracted everyone at the show and reminded us of Brueghel, the Dutch painter. The latter had German writer Lars Wolter’s exhibition Drilled. Either of the two exhibits didn’t have a big enough space for the exhibition, but the structures and artist’s choices made people excited and enjoyable. Also the art gallery’s office and art bookstore were set up in this building. This whole building was the very happening East London space.

We saw many different works of art from many different artists, there were some great pieces and some that weren’t so hot. I thought it was a mixture of chaff and grain, but this is the most interesting thing about the tour. It is always great to go out for pieces that are guaranteed high quality at big museums; however unexpected possibilities of great pieces exist in unexpected places just when you open the door. Question yourself what you think about the piece here is no right answer. You will face your naked self. Being active is an important part of the tour and you will enjoy it that much more. Whenever you ring the bell at a small gallery entrance and see the art curator’s smile, you will meet art you never knew existed.

At the end of the tour we visited our guide Lucida’s art studio. The studio is in a big normal old building in the outskirts of East London. Amazingly, about 50 artists share this studio. I heard there are many buildings like this in this area of London. I saw cranes for fast developing construction through the window. Looking outside, Lucida said that this area will be redeveloped for the Olympic Games so they will need to move eventually. But where, I asked she smiled, shrugged her shoulders and said, I don’t know. Everything is changing in the living city and East London is not an exception. As everything is changing I felt like I just experienced East London’s nOW with this five-pound tour.

East London Art Walks
Date: April 21st, 2007
Place: Galleries in East London
Tel: +44 (0)20 7739 1743
Hosted by COMMENT ART
https://www.commentart.com