Busy with the final bits of artist herding for Attract now that all the Christmas nonsense is out of the way.  Rather excited about the art and artists we’re gathering together for this one, I do like the way the picture of the show as a whole comes together as we fit the jigsaw together in our minds, I very much doubt if anyone who hasn’t put a show together has any idea what goes on ahead of a hang and an opening – how is the art going to fit together? How will pieces talk to each other across the room? Will he fit in with what we have already? Is she the right one for this show, is this show right for her? It is very much about making a group show work as one whole rather than just a random collection of disjointed pieces that don’t relate to the room or each other – a show has to flow as one thing. Just putting together the final touches, we’ll announce the full details over the weekend… That’s a rather big Yi Zhang piece from one of last year’s rather succesful Cultivate Columbia Road takeover shows, we’re looking forward to having Yi with us again for this one

Yi Zhang

A big thanks to everyone who responded to the open call aspect of the Attract show,  everyone who did should have heard back from us by now, sorry if you didn’t make it this time, I hope the individual responses explained the why, the how and the rest of it, i do hate having to say no to people but I do hope the explanations help – there are artists who’ve said no to before who eventually became Cultivate regulars, indeed there’s a couple who consider themselves too big to be part of our shows now, Being “turned down when you’ve submitted your art to a show is never nice, I do hope that the time we take to address artists personally and give an actual reason and some hopefully constructive helpful feedback, nothing worse that a rude cut’n paste rejection, or indeed not hearing a thing back (especially when the curator has contacted you and requested you send in some images and a biog – and especially when  that not to be named here curator is a fellow artist who spends all his time bleating about galleries and the way artists are treated on his Facebook feed.  Rejection is never a nice thing but I do hope we make it as painless (and constructive) as it can possibly be..(SW)