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Today we’re busy “hanging” the Deflect show, I reckon these on-line shows take up far more time and effort than a physical show (I still don’t see how any gallery can even consider charging artists a fee to take part in an on-line show, there is no excuse, there is no rent to pay and the time spent exploring the work of the artists is a pleasure). The Deflect show will open tomorrow night, Tuesday 11th January, 7pm UK time, we’ll post the direct link as soon as it all goes up. Deflect will be there to be viewed from all over the globe is you have access to the www, do please view it on something more than just a phone though, fire up your desktop computer and please give it the respect the art and the artists deserve.

The on-line shows, as we keep saying, are not substitutes for physical shows or “proper” galleries, and we would have been doing this on-line even if there hadn’t been the ongoing pandemic situation (our first online show was in 2017) but we have found enormous value in these on-line shows and the way they connect people, connect artists, the way they pull things together and yes, I do like the simple way they work in terms of the look and the flow. I am yet to be won over by virtual reality and attempts to recreate a physical gallery, I am yet to see anything other than a simple slide show that really works, all these 360 zoom around mouse-fighting views don’t do it for me, you can’t reproduce the smells of a gallery, the delight in standing in front of an exciting emotional painting or walking around a piece of sculpture, you can do something exciting with simple on-line shows though and right now we’re finding lots of positives in hanging this one.

We put on six online shows in the first six months of 2021, they were visited by thousands of people, tens of thousands, actually more than a hundred thousand during last year, indeed people are still visiting them (we see no reason to end an on-line show). All 17 of are on-line shows are still viewed regularly, all seventeen feature artists from all over the land and the globe as will this eighteenth when it opens tomorrow.  We plan to do these shows on a monthly basis again for at least the first part of 2022. The second of this year will be a show called Book in late February, we have started working on that one already, some of the artists have already been invited, we’ll start working on it properly in a couple of days (the open call and such), right now we must finish the Deflect Hang….     On with it all