Opening night: Thursday 29 September, 6-9pm
Friday 30 September – Sunday 2 October 2016
Daily, 12-6pm
Back for its fourth year, the annual Art Licks Weekend celebrates the contribution that emerging artists and grassroots projects make to the cultural life of London. For the three-day festival, artist-run projects, curatorial collectives and young galleries across the city open up their spaces for the public, with free events and exhibitions of young artists’ work.
Art Licks takes positive risks in supporting artists at early stages in their careers – the artists that Art Licks works with are the opinion formers of the capital’s cultural future and should be supported as such, to allow for innovative and forward-thinking practices and ideas to develop.
In 2015, over 87 spaces took part in the Art Licks Weekend, showing the work of 442 artists collectively. The festival saw 12,249 visits – 51% of which described themselves as a non-arts audience and 98% said they would visit the spaces again independently.
The festival collaborates with artists and collectives who are breaking the boundaries of how art can be seen and experienced, examples from 2015 include artists showing work in the back of a van in a Peckham car park, on a roadside billboard, in people’s front living rooms, and on a gaming station in a bar. The festival encourages participants to be creative and brave in their choice of spaces to exhibit and this creates a situation like none other – a chance to see the new work of artists in exceptional circumstances that is fun, challenging and unique.
For 2016, the Art Licks Weekend is made up of exhibitions and events that have been initiated and organised especially for the festival. This continues to ensure the high quality of the programme and demonstrates Art Licks’ commitment in continuing to represent key grassroots activity, and its role in bringing it to a wider audience to experience.
Read the full Press Release here
When: Friday 30 September - Sunday 2 October 2015 with all galleries & spaces open daily from 12-6pm, and an Opening Night on Thursday 29 September, 6-9pm
Where: Spread across London with particular pockets in East & South London, where the younger and non-commercial galleries predominantly operate including: Bermondsey, Elephant & Castle, Hackney, Hackney Wick, Haggerston, New Cross and Peckham
What: The Art Licks Weekend opens up the emerging side of the London art scene to a broad public audience and is free to all
- Offers a positive outlet for young artists and curators to build new networks and relationships with audiences, at a critical early point in their careers
Additional Festival Tours: Art Licks tours take groups around a selection of artist-run spaces and
Programme: projects in: Hackney & Peckham – 2016 tours run by artists Lucy Joyce & Tom Lovelace
Online Project: A---Z present Status Quo, for which artists will make a GIF in relation to a statement they wish to spread. The GIFs will be available for download and to share on social media for the duration of the festival, from 29 September to 2 October.
Learning programme: Art Licks collaborates with local schools and youth groups in South London on artist-led projects and offers tours of the festival to groups.
Artist moving image programme: in collaboration with LUX, CONSTRUCTS is a group exhibition of three London graduates in LUX’s new gallery space
