BANK (art collective)
Encyclopedia
BANK was an artists’ group active in London
during the 1990s.
founded the group in 1991. Dino Demosthenous left in 1992. In 1993, Russell and Bedwell were joined by Milly Thompson, David Burrows
and Andrew Williamson. Burrows left the group in 1995, Williamson in 1998, Russell in 2000. When Gallerie Poo Poo closed after the three-day show Press Release in January 1999, BANK begun to exhibit their collective work in other venues: The Mayor Gallery, London, Magasin 4, Bregenz, Rupert Goldsworthy Gallery, New York, Anthony Wilkinson Gallery, London, Chapman FineARTS, London, Suburban, Chicago, and finally the inaugural show at Store, London, after which Milly Thompson and Simon Bedwell began to work separately as artists whilst managing the BANK archive.
BANK's contribution to UK contemporary art was a series of curated group shows, often with comical, and sometimes offensive, titles. As a group they adopted an aggressive stance towards the mainstream contemporary art scene of the time.
The approximately twenty shows curated by BANK included the work of the BANK artists alongside the work of several future Turner Prize
nominees and winners. Although the BANK exhibitions were mostly held in warehouse spaces on Curtain Road, then Underwood Street (both Shoreditch
, London) the name of the gallery changed. Initially it was BANKSPACE, then DOG, and finally Gallerie Poo-Poo. The various artworks were combined together as single sprawling installations.
BANK also published a satirical magazine delivering tabloid-style critiques of the art world. Headlines included, "AD MAN YOU’RE A BAD MAN," and, "GALLERIES ‘ALL OWNED BY RICH PEOPLE’ SHOCK." Other "frankly adolescent" headlines were "GILLIAN WEARING THIN", "SIMON PATTERSON - EIGHT YEARS ONE IDEA!" and "SAM TAYLOR WOULD - NOT DO ANY MORE ART USING OPERA!"
Matthew Collings
states that many of the works of BANK were based on John Russell's input, but goes on to say that, "If you agree to subsume your personal identity within a collective...then you can't really complain if once you've left the collective, no one talks about your individual contribution."
Julian Stallabrass describes BANK’s activity as “the parodic creation of corporate identity at the centre of which (as their name suggests) is a noisy and constant reference to that matter of which the art world usually whispers: money.” They had, according to Matthew Collings, a "surly, self-destructive, self-conscious, introspective attitude - combined...with critical intelligence and a flair for spotting weaknesses in the art system".
Artists: Simon Bedwell, Sonia Boyce
, David Burrows, The Cabinet Gallery, Lucy Gunning, Anne Lislegaard, Matt Mitchell, Ian Pratt, John Russell, Bob and Roberta Smith, Milly Thompson, Andrew Williamson.
Artists: Tim Allen, Liz Arnold, BANK, Lolly Batty, Dave Beech, Simon Bill
, John Cussans and Ranu Mukhergee, Stephen Glynn, Gerard Hemsworth
, Simon Martin and Anna Mossman, Soren Martinsen, Muntean and Rosenblum
, Chris Ofili
, Janette Parris, John Stezaker
, Michael Stubbs, Jessicca Voorsanger, Rebecca Warren
, Max Wigram, Andrew Williamson.
Artists: BANK, Dave Beech, Adam Chodzko
, Maria Cook, Martin Creed
, Peter Doig
, Matthew Higgs
, Sivan Lewin, John Stezaker.
Artists: Terry Atkinson
, BANK, Dave Beech, David Burrows, Carina Diepens, Keith Farquhar, Rebecca Howard, Michael Kay, Graham Ramsay, Fergal Stapleton
, John Stezaker, Milly Thompson, Rebecca Warren,
Wayne Winner.
Artists: BANK, Jake and Dinos Chapman
, Minimal Club, John Cussans & Ranu Mukhergee, Michelle Griffiths, Russell Haswell
.
Artists: BANK
In 2002, BANK (Simon Bedwell and Milly Thompson) received the Paul Hamlyn Award for Visual Arts. Former member David Burrows received the award in the same year.
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
during the 1990s.
History and project
John Russell, Dino Demosthenous and Simon BedwellSimon Bedwell
Simon Bedwell is an artist based in London.He has shown work internationally in many exhibitions including solo show “The Furnishers” at White Columns in New York, “Galleon and Other Stories” at the Saatchi Gallery in London, “England Their England” at Laden fur Nichts in Leipzig, “Beck's Futures...
founded the group in 1991. Dino Demosthenous left in 1992. In 1993, Russell and Bedwell were joined by Milly Thompson, David Burrows
David Burrows (contemporary artist)
David Burrows is British artist and writer. His work consists of drawings and paint-spattered, debris-littered, haphazard installations. He writes articles on art and aesthetics and is the editor of Article Press at Birmingham City University...
and Andrew Williamson. Burrows left the group in 1995, Williamson in 1998, Russell in 2000. When Gallerie Poo Poo closed after the three-day show Press Release in January 1999, BANK begun to exhibit their collective work in other venues: The Mayor Gallery, London, Magasin 4, Bregenz, Rupert Goldsworthy Gallery, New York, Anthony Wilkinson Gallery, London, Chapman FineARTS, London, Suburban, Chicago, and finally the inaugural show at Store, London, after which Milly Thompson and Simon Bedwell began to work separately as artists whilst managing the BANK archive.
BANK's contribution to UK contemporary art was a series of curated group shows, often with comical, and sometimes offensive, titles. As a group they adopted an aggressive stance towards the mainstream contemporary art scene of the time.
The approximately twenty shows curated by BANK included the work of the BANK artists alongside the work of several future Turner Prize
Turner Prize
The Turner Prize, named after the painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist under the age of 50. Awarding the prize is organised by the Tate gallery and staged at Tate Britain. Since its beginnings in 1984 it has become the United Kingdom's most publicised...
nominees and winners. Although the BANK exhibitions were mostly held in warehouse spaces on Curtain Road, then Underwood Street (both Shoreditch
Shoreditch
Shoreditch is an area of London within the London Borough of Hackney in England. It is a built-up part of the inner city immediately to the north of the City of London, located east-northeast of Charing Cross.-Etymology:...
, London) the name of the gallery changed. Initially it was BANKSPACE, then DOG, and finally Gallerie Poo-Poo. The various artworks were combined together as single sprawling installations.
BANK also published a satirical magazine delivering tabloid-style critiques of the art world. Headlines included, "AD MAN YOU’RE A BAD MAN," and, "GALLERIES ‘ALL OWNED BY RICH PEOPLE’ SHOCK." Other "frankly adolescent" headlines were "GILLIAN WEARING THIN", "SIMON PATTERSON - EIGHT YEARS ONE IDEA!" and "SAM TAYLOR WOULD - NOT DO ANY MORE ART USING OPERA!"
Matthew Collings
Matthew Collings
-Life and career:In one of his books on art, Collings states that, in his early teenage years, he ran away to Canada. This act was preceded by a period of hanging around in a house in Oakley Street, Chelsea, whose residents included members of various rock bands including Mighty Baby and Family...
states that many of the works of BANK were based on John Russell's input, but goes on to say that, "If you agree to subsume your personal identity within a collective...then you can't really complain if once you've left the collective, no one talks about your individual contribution."
Julian Stallabrass describes BANK’s activity as “the parodic creation of corporate identity at the centre of which (as their name suggests) is a noisy and constant reference to that matter of which the art world usually whispers: money.” They had, according to Matthew Collings, a "surly, self-destructive, self-conscious, introspective attitude - combined...with critical intelligence and a flair for spotting weaknesses in the art system".
Exhibitions
- WISH YOU WERE HERE (curated by BANK at BANKSPACE, 1994)
Artists: Simon Bedwell, Sonia Boyce
Sonia Boyce
Sonia Dawn Boyce,MBE born in London in 1962 is a British Afro-Caribbean artist, living and working in London. She studied at Stourbridge College in the West Midlands. She works across a range of media including photography, installation and text. She came to prominence as part of the Black British...
, David Burrows, The Cabinet Gallery, Lucy Gunning, Anne Lislegaard, Matt Mitchell, Ian Pratt, John Russell, Bob and Roberta Smith, Milly Thompson, Andrew Williamson.
- COCAINE ORGASM (curated by BANK at BANKSPACE, 1995)
Artists: Tim Allen, Liz Arnold, BANK, Lolly Batty, Dave Beech, Simon Bill
Simon Bill
Simon Bill is a contemporary British visual artist who lives and works in Sheffield, England, United Kingdom. He studied art at the St. Martin's School of Art in London from 1977–1980 and at The Royal College of Art, also in London, from 1982-1985...
, John Cussans and Ranu Mukhergee, Stephen Glynn, Gerard Hemsworth
Gerard Hemsworth
Gerard Hemsworth is an academic and a contemporary artist. He studied at St. Martin's College from 1963-1967 and has exhibited his work internationally since the 1970s. Initially his work was associated with the conceptual art practices of the late 1960s/1970s, however since the early 1980s it has...
, Simon Martin and Anna Mossman, Soren Martinsen, Muntean and Rosenblum
Muntean and Rosenblum
Muntean and Rosenblum are artists based in Vienna and London. They have been collaborating since 1992....
, Chris Ofili
Chris Ofili
Chris Ofili is a Turner Prize winning British painter best known for artworks referencing aspects of his Nigerian heritage, particularly his incorporation of elephant dung. He was one of the Young British Artists, and is now based in Trinidad.-Early life:Ofilli was born in Manchester. He had a...
, Janette Parris, John Stezaker
John Stezaker
-Overview:Stezaker attended the Slade School of Art in London in the 1960s. In the early 1970s he was among the first wave of British conceptual artists to react against what was then the predominance of Pop art....
, Michael Stubbs, Jessicca Voorsanger, Rebecca Warren
Rebecca Warren
Rebecca Warren is a British sculptor, and a nominee for the 2006 Turner Prize.Rebecca Warren was born in Pinhoe. She studied Fine Art at Goldsmiths' College, University of London receiving a BA before taking her MA in Fine Art at the Chelsea College of Art, London...
, Max Wigram, Andrew Williamson.
- ZOMBIE GOLF (curated by BANK at BANKSPACE, 1995)
Artists: BANK, Dave Beech, Adam Chodzko
Adam Chodzko
Adam Chodzko is a contemporary British multi-media artist, exhibiting internationally.-Work:Adam Chodzko was born in London, England...
, Maria Cook, Martin Creed
Martin Creed
Martin Creed is an artist and musician. He won the Turner Prize in 2001 for Work No. 227: the lights going on and off, which was an empty room in which the lights went on and off.-Life and work :...
, Peter Doig
Peter Doig
Peter Doig is a contemporary artist born in Scotland. In 2007, a painting of Doig's, entitled White Canoe, sold at Sotheby's for $11.3 million, then an auction record for a living European artist.-Early life:...
, Matthew Higgs
Matthew Higgs
Matthew Higgs is a British artist, curator, writer and publisher. His contribution to UK contemporary art has included the creation of Imprint 93, a series of artists’ editions featuring the work of artists such as Martin Creed and Jeremy Deller...
, Sivan Lewin, John Stezaker.
- DOG-U-MENTAL VIII!!! (curated by BANK at DOG, 1996)
Artists: Terry Atkinson
Terry Atkinson
Terry Atkinson is an English artist.Atkinson was born in Thurnscoe, near Barnsley, Yorkshire. In 1967 he began to teach art at the Coventry School of Art while producing conceptual works, sometimes in collaboration with Michael Baldwin...
, BANK, Dave Beech, David Burrows, Carina Diepens, Keith Farquhar, Rebecca Howard, Michael Kay, Graham Ramsay, Fergal Stapleton
Fergal Stapleton
Fergal Stapleton is a contemporary artist living and working in London.Stapleton studied at Middlesex Polytechnic and graduated from the MA Programme at Goldsmiths College, London in 1993...
, John Stezaker, Milly Thompson, Rebecca Warren,
Wayne Winner.
- WINKLE THE POT BELLIED PIG AND HIS WOODLAND CHUMS (curated by BANK at Gallerie Poo-Poo, 1997)
Artists: BANK, Jake and Dinos Chapman
Jake and Dinos Chapman
Iakovos "Jake" Chapman and Konstantinos "Dinos" Chapman are English visual artists, often known as the Chapman Brothers, who work together as a collaborative sibling duo...
, Minimal Club, John Cussans & Ranu Mukhergee, Michelle Griffiths, Russell Haswell
Russell Haswell
Russell Haswell is a multidisciplinary artist.He has exhibited conceptual and wall based visual works, video art, public sculpture, as well as audio presentations in both art gallery and concert hall contexts. Extreme Computer Music is one specialized area of activity...
.
- STOP SHORT-CHANGING US. POPULAR CULTURE IS FOR IDIOTS. WE BELIEVE IN ART! (Gallerie Poo Poo, 1998)
- PRESS RELEASE (Gallerie Poo-Poo, 1999)
Artists: BANK
After 1999
BANK was part of the Protest to Survive exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in 2000.In 2002, BANK (Simon Bedwell and Milly Thompson) received the Paul Hamlyn Award for Visual Arts. Former member David Burrows received the award in the same year.