London According to: Leopold, Angelina, Lucy, Julia and Tosia at Emalin
Shoreditch-based Emalin is home to emerging artists with strikingly diverse practices. Its gallery team gives a street-eye view of the capital
Shoreditch-based Emalin is home to emerging artists with strikingly diverse practices. Its gallery team gives a street-eye view of the capital
Once a project that roamed between temporary locations, Emalin has been based in a former Victorian department store in Shoreditch since 2021, its gallery windows overlooking a crossroads of London lives. Emalin champions the practices of emerging, multi-disciplinary artists, including Alvaro Barrington and Sung Tieu, with a particular focus on politically and critically engaged work. Leopold, Angelina, Lucy, Julia and Tosia from the gallery reveal their favourite local haunts, including an iconic greasy spoon and the best spot for a glimpse of green.
Favourite restaurant/café in your area?
The gallery is right around the corner from the Boundary Estate, one of London's earliest council blocks with the charming Arnold Circus in the middle – that's the best place to eat and walk with a coffee in hand. The 19th century red brick blocks house Rochelle Canteen for dinners and Leila's Cafe for lunches (and ice cream in the summer!). A bit further into Bethnal Green, and a completely different flavour, is E Pellicci – an iconic East London greasy spoon that has been serving a strange, though unique, mix of Anglo-Italian food since 1900. Prepare to queue!
Best pub near the gallery?
The Marksman is definitely a highlight – Martino Gamper, the Italian designer and a good friend of the gallery, has designed the upstairs dining floor which we are always delighted to return to for dinners and events. (Martino also designed an iconic stool inspired by Arnold Circus!) A 10-minute walk from the gallery down Columbia Road takes you to The Royal Oak, our regular haunt for post-opening drinks.
Your most recommended local business?
Our gallery neighbours: Hales in the iconic 1930s Tea Building we see from our gallery windows, Kate MacGarry based just off Arnold Circus and Maureen Paley with their beautiful Studio M space housed in the same Victorian boys' school as Rochelle Canteen.
Favourite museum or gallery in London?
We are longtime fans of Chisenhale Gallery’s programming – Emalin’s co-director Angelina Volk is a member of the Chisenhale Council and this September we opened a solo exhibition by Nikita Gale who had their first UK institutional solo exhibition there.
Favourite exhibition in London at the moment and the last exhibition you went to?
A current highlight is 'Lagos, Peckham, Repeat: Pilgrimage to the Lakes' at South London Gallery. We recommend the SLG program for their interweaving of London's multiple histories and narratives and Alvaro Barrington had an incredible exhibition there in 2021. This upcoming season, we can't wait for Marina Xenofontos at Camden Art Centre, the winner of last year's Frieze Emerging Artist Prize, and for Lutz Bacher at Raven Row – East London's favourite institution that has only recently reopened, to everyone's joy.
Which emerging art trend and/or artist excite you at the moment?
There are some great conversations about self-narration happening among artists born at the break of the millennium, like Ana Viktoria Dzinic, Emily Barker, Coumba Samba and Gretchen Lawrence. We worked with them on 'World as diagram, work as dance', a group exhibition curated by Tosia Leniarska earlier this year. The trend of project spaces popping up in artists' homes is also an interesting phenomenon that seems to have spread between London and New York – these are often exciting incubators.
What’s great about your gallery’s location?
The windows of the Lazarus Building – the Victorian ex-department store that Emalin is based in since 2021 – look out right onto Shoreditch High Street, a junction of so many paths through London. We love being in a historic, listed building that is at the same time at the very heart of contemporary London life – we have plans to bring more of this sentiment into Shoreditch, very soon. Apart from always spotting our friends coming by from afar, we have seen every kind of parade, hen-do, stag-do and Hell's Angels' funeral procession you can imagine. Throughout the year, we play a game of recognising all the songs we hear from the cars that stop by the traffic light below our window – we published the playlist for the last New Year's Eve. It's a snapshot of Shoreditch as an Emalin Window Party.
Tell us about the concept behind your gallery and the kind of artists you look out for.
Emalin started as an itinerant exhibition project in strange locations – a hotel room, a folly building, a defunct church – and we have tried to maintain that boldness of supporting artists in their larger-than-life ideas and challenging spaces. There is a special sensitivity involved in developing exhibitions site-specifically, in engagement with the history and politics of the place. The artists we look out for take care in resolving their concepts – often dealing with sociopolitical as well as aesthetic issues – in material, with attention to form and touch. Historical architecture lends itself to this type of sensitivity.
Why would you recommend this area to art lovers new to London?
You can see where art histories begin – at institutions that double as artist studios, such as Cell Project Space or Chisenhale.
Emalin, 1 Holywell Ln, London EC2A 3ET @emalinofficial
Main image: Installation view, Daiga Grantina, Temples, Emalin, London, 12 April – 22 May 2021 © Daiga Grantina Courtesy of the artist and Emalin, London Photography: Plastiques
Thumbnail image: The Lazarus Building in daylight. Image courtesy of Emalin.
