Consider this: London’s first commercial gallery dedicated to non-academic artists. That’s what The Gallery of Everything is. Founded in September 2016 this gallery supports artists and offers many activities. All proceeds from sales go to The Museum of Everything a non-profit organization.
The Gallery of Everything is located at 4 Chiltern Street. Here visitors can explore archive material. They can also attend exhibitions events and talks. The gallery hosts a new exhibition every two months. These exhibitions include artworks at different price levels. You can find affordable contemporary material and historical masterpieces.
James Brett’s Museum of Everything is described as London’s first commercial gallery dedicated to non-academic artists and private art-makers. The inaugural exhibition was Jarvis Cocker’s Journeys Into the Outside.
Let’s journey from the outside world into the inner world of EVERYTHING. The gallery is neatly housed in a space. It was once known as Mario’s Barber’s. This characterful environment introduces works by extraordinary men. They carved their place in the universe by creating their own rules. They possessed an overwhelming desire to be their own masters.
The gallery visitor is greeted by Folk artist Howard Finster’s portraits. These portraits on bedsteads depict Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. These homespun heroes stare into infinity. Lining the walls are framed and figurative works. These are from Finster’s Paradise Garden. It was originally created over 4 acres. Art was a powerful faucet directing his utopian visions and moral beliefs.
Sentinel life sized mosaic and smaller cloth figures by Nek Chand also grace the entrance. He secretly transformed a city’s wasteland. It became a vast wonderland of his imagination. He used recycling. His Rock Garden environment is now the second most visited destination in India. Nek viewed his art humbly as something that’s in everyone.
Through the gallery towards the far end room stands a simple carved chair. A hidden inscription reads Amor et Dolor Love and Pain. This solitary seat was once owned by a French priest Abbé Fouré. For 16 years he hewed out the local granite headland. He used a simple hammer and chisel. This chair was his vessel of contemplation. He sat to consider his hundreds of excavations.
The back parlour gallery has a nostalgic touch of lace curtain and fireplace. There is a period table and vintage photograph of Mario’s Barber’s original interior. It gave the room a lived-in homeliness. A small screen played edits from Jarvis’s foray into the artists’ worlds. This was helpful to appreciate the import these works once held.
Karl Junkers architectural marvel emanated a powerful presence. It had a gnarly hand carved medieval style frame. Between Junkers art and the video excerpts sprawl hand made crosses and metal signs by WC Rice. He warned that Hell was for the majority. He daubed in red paint the colour of Jesus’s blood.
The sole painting by St EOM hung at the top of the stairs. St EOM created the psychedelic compound Pasaquoy. His compound was a blend of occultist counterculture pre-Columbian motifs and mythic symbolism.
Below were works by Chomo. Guided by cosmic forces he created The Realm of Preludian Art. He devoted his life to creation. Standing dramatic carved burnt and painted wood totems made people imagine anxieties. The walls hung with vibrating Heads and Mutant paintings.
Like a time tunnel Jarvis’s programmes played in a small vaulted space. As work disappears into private hands any document of these artists is precious. Fortunately there are now more Institutions and collectors bringing these works back together. This exhibition is an impressive selection of noteworthy artists. It is also possible that there won’t be another chance to engage with these works.
The Gallery of Everything is a platform for alternative neurodiverse and non-academic art-makers. Its roster includes contemporary and historic art brut so-called outsider artists and vernacular objects from the 1800s to the present day. The gallery engages with a wide network of institutions artists and curators.