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Decima Gallery (also Decima Projects, Decima International Arts or Decima) is a London-based arts projects organisation with a reputation for irreverent projects. [1] It is owned and managed by David West, [1] [2] [3] [4] Alex Chappel, [1] [2] [4] [5] Larry McGinity [5] and Mark Reeves. [4] [5]
Decima have occupied various physical spaces since 1997 and have also staged a number of projects hosted by other venues, in London and around the world, including major London spaces such as the Tate Modern, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Whitechapel Gallery. Decima have also staged many conceptual, event-based and media-based projects. [2] [5] Ralph Rugoff in a 1998 edition of Frieze called them "Neo-Publicists", describing them as not just seeking press coverage, but using mass media as an artistic medium. [6]
As well as staging art projects, events, and club nights, Decima deals in limited edition books and prints, specialising in Gilbert & George [7] and Stephen Gill.
A 2008 article in The London Paper described the gallery as "infamous" for its headline-grabbing stunts in the late 1990s, including the hoax "Fuckart & Pimp" exhibition where Angela Marshall pretended to offer her artwork in exchange for oral sex, the show "Was Jesus a Homosexual?" and the time that curators Alex Chappel and David West gratecrashed the Tate dressed as a pantomime cow to "make people think". [2]
David C. West worked with the Factual Nonsense Gallery alongside Joshua Compston before Compston's death on 5 March 1996. [8] Among projects on which they collaborated was The Jack Duckworth Memorial Clinic, [9] a spoof clinic for soap opera addicts.
In 1996, West, along with Alex Chappel, formed a "media terrorist" group called a.r.t. ("a reasonable thought"). "We use the media as a canvas for art", explained West: [10] "Stunts have included running a clinic for soap opera addicts and launching The Dennis Nilsen Tour Company.". [6] [11]
The group's name originates from the address of their first gallery space [2] [12] which was officially launched in February 1998 at 3 Decima Studios, Decima Street, London SE1. [13] [14]
The gallery was first occupied on 31 August 1997 by Guy Hilton, Philip Hunt, Alex Chappel and Matthew John Andrew. Guy Hilton left before the first show, later founding the Guy Hilton Gallery with Angela Friese in London's East End, in 2005. On 12 February 1998 the gallery was launched with a show named "Scott", [13] [14] which was organised by Matthew John Andrew and Philip Hunt.
In April 1998, Decima staged "Fuckart & Pimp", a hoaxed show that purported to feature a female artist producing paintings while having sex with clients. [15] [16] [17] [18]
"With delicious predictability, the Great British Public were incensed." The show was in fact a hoax. [19] [20]
Hunt and Andrew left in November 1998 after which, Decima was managed by Chappel and West.
On 21 August 1998, Decima sent a fax to the Tate informing them that they would be bringing a real cow to the Gallery to "show where food and sex connect with the world of art". It turned out to be the artists themselves as a pantomime cow. At this time, the artist Derrick Welsh was represented by and closely affiliated to Decima. [2] [21]
In April 1999, Decima attempted to cause another splash with a show entitled "Was Jesus a Homosexual?" which was organised in conjunction with political philosopher Richard Morley. The Independent's Pandora column reported that:
Gilbert and George have installed part of a 100-year-old fountain they purchased recently, which featured the inscription "Jesus said if any man thirst let him come to me and let him drink". This now reads "Jesus said let him come". Another exhibitor, Piers Wardle, has made a crucifix with wooden balls attached by a "string that can be played with" and called it The Miracle of Holy Balls. Charles Sayer's canvas of a naked woman, legs apart, is displayed alongside eight framed biblical texts and entitled Anti-Christ I awake thee. The piece de resistance is Andrew Putland's untitled triptych depicting a black Jesus and black disciples engaged in fellatio with Christ. [22]
The exhibition also featured Swedish artist Anna Livia Löwendahl-Atomic.
When the original gallery space closed in January 2000 the name Decima continued to be used by Chappel and West for art projects.
Decima steadily continued organising and participating in projects during 2000–2007, albeit far less frequently. During this time, those involved with Decima became involved with other offshoot and related projects.
In 2005, The Upstairs Gallery in Clerkenwell Green, London was opened by Chappel and Fiona Watson while the Guy Hilton Gallery was opened in Spitalfields, London, and an art and book sales website www.drugaddict.co.uk was launched by West.
Decima opened an art gallery in a former peanut factory in London's Hackney Wick area [7] [23] on 23 February 2008 with a launch show "The Famous, The Infamous and the Really Quite Good". [2] [ failed verification ]
In March 2008, Decima began a collaboration with local galleries Elevator and Residence and local studios to plan a local Arts Festival, called Hackney Wicked. On 8 August, The first Hackney Wicked festival went ahead. [23]
Also during 2008, Decima launched their online project 'Decima TV' by webcasting a "chat show" in which comedian Aaron Barschak conducted a series of interviews with artists, namely the artists Bob & Roberta Smith, [24] Franko B and Mark McGowan.
Decima are on record as sceptical about the 2012 Olympics, which is planned for the Hackney Wick area. They comment in an article by Fay Nicholson "Relational Aesthetics" [25]
The Hackney Wick Decima Gallery space closed late 2008 - early 2009.
Decima were criticised in January 2009 following an exhibition on Sunday 18th where they utilised images of missing three-year-old schoolgirl Madeleine McCann in a pornographic exhibition Make Your Own Maddy Porn. [1] The exhibition was branded "appalling and completely insensitive" by the NSPCC. [26] West and Chappel responded with a statement to the Hackney Gazette , saying that "In many ways we were just trying to highlight how Madeleine McCann's image has been used and abused by the press over the past 21 months." They added that they "never intended nor wanted to cause offence to the McCann family by doing this" but acknowledged that such an outcome was "impossible to achieve". [27] They claimed to have been subjected to "dozens of people from Liverpool literally kicking the door in" after the gallery's details were given out on a Liverpool radio station, and the Hackney Wick gallery was closed at the end of January. [27]
In July 2009, Decima exhibited in the Ghetto Gallery, Split, Croatia [4] and went on to stage notable exhibitions in Kreuzberg, Berlin, Germany; Piccadilly, London and the Tate Modern, London.
As well as exhibitions, in 2009 Decima also organised various film projects, performance projects, art fairs, live music events and even a Berlin rave.
A selection of exhibitions and projects organised by or involving Decima Gallery. Most dates are approximate: where an accurate date is shown, this refers to the launch date.
Related projects which pre-date Decima:
All 1998 events held at Decima Gallery, London SE1, UK unless otherwise stated.
All 1999 events held at Decima Gallery, London SE1, UK unless otherwise stated.
All 2008 events held at Decima Gallery, Hackney Wick, London E3, UK (unless otherwise stated).
Artists, individuals and organisations Decima work with or have worked with,[ citation needed ] and other related articles:
Adam Dant • Art of the United Kingdom • Contemporary art • David Shayler • Gary Hart • Harry Pye • Little Artists • Louise Camrass • Mark McGowan • Matt Calderwood • Micalef • Neil Zakiewicz • Paloma Faith • Piers Wardle • Sadie Frost • Simon Starling • Stephen Gill (photographer) • Tymon Dogg • Vic Reeves • Young British Artists • Quilla Constance
Michael Landy is one of the Young British Artists (YBAs). He is best known for the performance piece installation Break Down (2001), in which he destroyed all his possessions, and for the Art Bin project (2010) at the South London Gallery. On 29 May 2008, Landy was elected a member of the Royal Academy of Arts in London.
Mark Wallinger is an English artist. Having previously been nominated for the Turner Prize in 1995, he won in 2007 for his installation State Britain. His work Ecce Homo (1999–2000) was the first piece to occupy the empty fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square. He represented Britain at the Venice Biennale in 2001. Labyrinth (2013), a permanent commission for Art on the Underground, was created to celebrate 150 years of the London Underground. In 2018, the permanent work Writ in Water was realized for the National Trust to celebrate the Magna Carta at Runnymede.
Dorothy Cross is an Irish artist. Working with differing media, including sculpture, photography, video and installation, she represented Ireland at the 1993 Venice Biennale. Central to her work as a whole are themes of sexual and cultural identity, personal history, memory, and the gaps between the conscious and subconscious. In a 2009 speech by the president of UCC, Cross was described as "one of Ireland’s leading artists".
Patrick Joseph Caulfield,, was an English painter and printmaker known for his bold canvases, which often incorporated elements of photorealism within a pared-down scene. Examples of his work are Pottery and Still Life Ingredients.
Simon Patterson is an English artist and was born in Leatherhead, Surrey. He was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1996 for his exhibitions at the Lisson Gallery, the Gandy Gallery, and three shows in Japan. He is the younger brother of the painter Richard Patterson.
Gavin Turk is a British artist from Guildford in Surrey, and was considered to be one of the Young British Artists. Turk's oeuvre deals with issues of authenticity and identity, engaged with modernist and avant-garde debates surrounding the 'myth' of the artist and the 'authorship' of a work of art.
Hackney Wick is a neighbourhood in East London, England. The area forms the south-eastern part of the district of Hackney, and also of the wider London Borough of Hackney. Adjacent areas of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets are sometimes also described as being part of Hackney Wick. The area lies 4.2 miles (6.8 km) northeast of Charing Cross.
An artist-run space or artist-run centre (Canada) is a gallery or other facility operated or directed by artists, frequently circumventing the structures of public art centers, museums, or commercial galleries and allowing for a more experimental program. An artist-run initiative (ARI) is any project run by artists, including sound or visual artists, to present their and others' projects. They might approximate a traditional art gallery space in appearance or function, or they may take a markedly different approach, limited only by the artist's understanding of the term. "Artist-run initiatives" is an umbrella name for many types of artist-generated activity.
Maureen Paley is the American owner of a contemporary art gallery in Bethnal Green, London, where she lives. It was founded in 1984, called Interim Art during the 1990s, and renamed Maureen Paley in 2004. She exhibited Young British Artists at an early stage. Artists represented include Turner Prize winners Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Gillian Wearing and Wolfgang Tillmans. One thing in common with many of the artists represented is their interest in addressing social issues.
Fuckart & Pimp was a media hoax conceived by Alex Chappel and David C West in April 1998 which subjected London's Decima gallery to worldwide media attention and became a British front page newspaper sensation, as well as featuring on national television. The show was originally presented as a real event and managed to dupe many national newspapers in the UK before being revealed as a hoax.
Jasper Joffe is a British publisher at Joffe Books contemporary artist and novelist who lives and works in London.
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Ross McNicol is an artist, who lives and works in London.
Christopher Piers Arthur Wardle was a British artist, musician and art factotum. Born in Beckenham, he lived in Southwark, London, UK and died in Clyst Hydon, Devon, UK.
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Hackney Wicked is an annual arts festival that takes place in Hackney Wick in East London.
Wilfrid Wood is a London-based artist working in various mediums and specialising in portraiture. He trained in graphics at Central St Martins before building latex heads for satirical TV programme, Spitting Image.
to state that Decima has faced "universal condemnation" is simply incorrect
ART for sex, gay claims for Jesus, pantomime cows – all standard fare for infamous London gallery Decima. The space, formerly in a Bermondsey back street, built up a rep in the late 90s for its headline-grabbing stunts. There was the Fuck Art and Pimp exhibition, where Angela Marshall offered her drawings for blow jobs (later unveiled as a spoof), the show Was Jesus a Homosexual?, and the time Decima's joint curators Alex Chappel and David West gratecrashed the Tate dressed as a pantomime cow to "make people think"
[Pete Doherty] has also failed to impress art experts, with David West, owner of London's Decima Gallery, adding, "It's not got any artistic merit. He's using his blood to make them interesting, but when you look at them they're what any four-year-old can do."
controversial artist group Decima Gallery... disagree. In a joint statement, directors Alex Chappel, Larry McGinity, Mark Reeves, declared "street art is dead."
Having abandoned Shoreditch, the capital's art squads have spent the past couple of years annexing the post-industrial wasteland of Hackney Wick. One former factory has been converted into studios with the Decima Gallery, which specialises in limited edition Gilbert & George prints, the main draw. Keep an eye out for their regular club nights.
THE Dennis Nilsen Tour company - named after the convicted serial murderer - is considering coach holidays to horror sites around Britain
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(help)One of the prime targets of spoof art is the press - those people who can't tell an artwork from a pile of bricks and who keep wittering on about taxpayers' money. Sex-for-art is as good a bait for hacks as holidays- as-art. Angela Marshall, the artist who stipulated sexual consummation with the buyers of her paintings at the Decima Gallery in Bermondsey, south London, in April, turned out to be an imposter. Then the real Ms Marshall turned up and proceeded to do the business.
CALL THE Daily Mail and get them to send a reporter to the Decima Gallery in London's Borough, pronto - there's enough material there to fill the paper for a week.
I was recently interviewed by Aaron Barschak.
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(help)In what would be one of the most outrageous exhibitions ever held in London, an American artist was planning to sell her body as well as her paintings, The Independent newspaper reported on Friday.
A shocking tribute to the late Princess Diana involving a pantomime cow...
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has generic name (help)Yes, that's right, it's party time, courtesy of controversial East End art folks Decima....in order to raise money for Decima's forthcoming Berlin-based exhibition. Britain's Rubbish will examine the state of the nation - corruption, individualism, fear, ridiculousness.
Die britische Künstlergruppe Decima veranstaltet weltweit Art-Parties. Zur Eröffnung ihrer Kreuzberg-Galerie ließen Alex Chappel und David C.West zwei Bands, 5 DJs und 3 Video Künstler tanzen.Gänsehaut bekomme ich von dem ganzen Kommerz-Halloween-Trubel..
Buy art, listen to music, drink beer and eat soup and cake at the infamous Shadwell hostelry
Award-winning artist Louise Camrass will be exhibiting her work alongside Bulgarian artist Nelly Dimitranova – including films, photographs, paintings and drawings