London: art exhibition on homelessness and politics

From British daily The Morning Star:

Home truths

(Tuesday 18 July 2006)

EXHIBITION: Flat
The Arlington gallery, London NW1

CHRISTINE LINDEY looks at a charitable gallery that bucks the trend of worthiness with a show of punchy political art.

THE Arlington gallery is easy to find.

A lace curtain is not something you would expect to find across the window of an art gallery.

It used to be in a home above Camden’s Regents bookshop and the new space, a shop with flat above, retains an element of the residential.

Imaginatively, the curator has invited seven artists to respond to this domestic space for its opening exhibition at the new site.

This is appropriate as the gallery is one of three run by the Novas group, a non-profit-making organisation which helps the homeless by providing accommodation but also by encouraging its residents to regain self-esteem by telling their own stories.

Future exhibitions here will consist of their works. …

On another wall there are images of political badges. Soviet ones intermingled with our current and past campaigns – the ANC, Chile, the miners’ strike, Hands Off Cuba.

The artist’s individual space is devoted to the social, outside world.

An alcove is devoted to current politics. At the moment, this consists of a newspaper photograph of Jean Charles de Menezes accompanied by an angry poem condemning his murder. This is art with something to say.

The exhibition runs until August 4.