And so Something Black went live at 6pm UK time on Monday April 24th, live via the Cultivate website as well as the Organ website. We ended up selecting 65 artists and featuring 177 pieces or images or shots, I say we this time it was me, (Emma was really busy were her on-going series of circle pieces that have slowly been revealed throughout the year at various shows, I believe there are nine of them complete now). So yes if you didn’t get through the Something Black selection process then blame me and yell at me, just me, no one else, just me.

Emma Harvey (2016/17)

Something Black is the second show in terms of these on-line experiments, and like we’ve said already, they are not substitutes for the physical shows, they could never be that, there is no substitute for a physical art show in a white walled gallery space (or a fractured old warehouse or a railway arch) or somewhere where you can almost touch the texture, sense the scale,  smell the paint, where you can interact. But these on-line exhibitions, the Red one and this Something Black one are an interesting addition to all the other things we continue to do here at Cultivate.

68: Artist DEB COVELL, Title: Stations of the Cross project – work in progress, 2017

So Something Black went live just over a week ago, at least three times the size in term of participating artists and art exhibited, we had just over 7500 visitors during the first 24 hours, viewers from all over the planet including Denmark, USA, Russia, South Africa, France, Germany, Ireland, Turkey, Australia, Serbia, Argentina, Japan Brazil and one visit from Kazakhstan (wonder who that was?).  We hadn’t intended the black show to be quite so big, we had so many good submissions via the open call, I didn’t keep records but it was in the high hundreds in terms of artists submitting their work (we’d have done quite well if we were one of those dreadfully cynical galleries or curators who charge artists a fee just to take part in an e.mail submission process)

53: Artist: CHLOE BEECHAM, Title: ANXIOUS AVOIDANT, Medium: Textile installation, cotton, sand and polystyrene.

A week on and Something Black has enjoyed well over 10,000 viewers now,  the show will stay in place on line on both websites, no plan to close it or take it down.   The selection process was interesting, good to break out beyond the London bubble and “meet” artists from further afield, exciting contributions from the North and such, I think the show looks rather good, I hope people are following the links and exploring the artists.

168: Artist: SEAN WORRALL: – Leaf Growth – Installation on found material at the closing Pop Up, F**k Off show at Broadway Studios, Tootling Broadway, London SW16 (2015)

OPEN CALLS: We will carry on with a third on-line show, keep watching the Open Calls page for the Something Blue details.  Right now we’re busy with the forthcoming Interact show, and yes there is an “open call” element attached to that one

Thanks to everyone who’s taken an interest or taken part in the Something Black show, meanwhile over on the Organ website art is being covered on a daily basis, yesterday’s piece was an adventure around the gallery of East London, read it here……

ORGAN THING: Thirteen galleries, several pints, the further exploration of East London’s art – Athena Papadopoulos at Emalin, the Brains & Lip Takeover at Hix, William Mackrell at The Ryder, Elizabeth Magill’s opening night at Wilkinson, Rckay Rax back at Residence…

Thanks once more (Sean)

Exploring East London art…