London Calling

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It was always likely that British art would recover from its post-YBA slump in a manner as radically refreshing, thrilling, and unforeseen as the arrival of Hirst, Emin, et al. had been at the beginning of the 1990s. But few could have predicted that the revolution would start in Peckham.

Change is afoot in this corner of London, specifically behind the anonymous-looking doors of a particular warehouse in an industrial estate. Those doors lead to the Hannah Barry Gallery, one of the most dynamic new art galleries in Britain and home to some of the best young talent in the country.

The eponymous head of the operation is a 25-year-old Cambridge graduate and former arts publicist. Courteous and thoughtful, Hannah Barry has achieved an astonishing amount in the three years since November 2006, when she organized a group show of young painters and sculptors in the crumbling Peckham house she shared with them. That was followed shortly by the formation of a gallery space in a derelict warehouse nearby. The original corps of 10 has swelled to 30, and the gallery has mounted dozens of critically lauded shows around London, in locations ranging from a bleak multilevel car park to the prestigious Timothy Taylor gallery, in the West End. Barry’s most recent project is the puckishly titled Peckham Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Today she is acknowledged as one of the British art scene’s most important figures.

It’s an impressive résumé, especially considering that she started her business on a shoestring with a stable of artists barely out of their teens. Now the Financial Times wonders breathlessly whether her recent show signaled "a serious, seductive vision of what 21st-century painting is and might become."

Speaking from her London office, which she shares with her business partner and cocurator, Sven Mundner, Barry recalls what it was like starting out. "I’m interested in anything and everything. I don’t think anything made can be excluded from being classified as art. You have to consider everything that comes your way. And I think when I first met those artists, what struck me and made me feel that there was an answer here was the quietness of the art, the confidence and assurance with which it dealt with what it saw."

Barry got to know the group through painter Shaun McDowell, who brought her to the run-down house on Peckham’s Lyndhurst Road where they all lived. There she met sculptor Bobby Dowler, mixed-media artists Christopher Green and James Balmforth, and photographer Oliver Griffin, who, with McDowell, became the nucleus of her embryonic gallery.

Dealing with fresh talent, as all these artists were, poses particular problems for a gallerist. To address them, Barry has developed a practice based on total immersion. "You’re showing people who have no reputation," she explains. "No one knows anything about them. You have to create a situation where people understand what they’re about, and showing them in depth is the first step to doing that. So we have a lot of exhibitions. If you show, say, Christopher Green three times or four times over two years, you are creating a system of opportunities for him. People can see very quickly the progress he’s making. They can see the paintings from last year and compare them to the paintings this year. But you have to work out the right program for each person. You can imagine with 30 or so artists it’s quite a lot."

All Barry’s shows — whether the grand annual "Bold Tendencies" group exhibitions, colossal affairs to which each of the gallery’s artists contributes; the one-offs, such as the superb "To Paint Is to Love Again" in London this April; the Venetian Peckham Pavilion; or the regular two-person shows that highlight often dizzying contrasts between the juxtaposed participants — evince a love of experimenting with combinations and exploring relationships that make for memorable experiences.