Brick Lane the town of artists

And… Action!

Unwary, she roams around staring at the windows of the fashion shops.

Two men in confident vintage hats ride down the dusty road of abandoned warehouses. Before reaching the corner, they dismount from the rolling reverberating bicycles and take them silently by hand.

They catch sight of her and speak to each other. The one with a thin gangster moustache goes like a bullet to her back. He raises his hands and with a quick movement covers up her eyes. “Hello Darling”, he may be whispering in her ear.

She has been caught.

The mysterious man turns the girl to him, puts his arms around her, takes her feet from the ground and kisses her.

After all, Marcus McSweene is not a vendettore in a Mafia film.

He is a film director in love staring in Brick Lane, the new buzzing venue of contemporary art in East London.

In the northern border of famous Bangla Town, a black silver eagle carved in the brick wall of an abandoned brewery is the sentry of the passage to the lost town of artists.

Independent fashion and record shops, urban-style hairdressers, art studios and passing exhibitions stuff the storehouses of high-ceilings and brick walls.

“I’ve heard – I don’t know if that is true – that there are more artists around here than anywhere else in Europe”, Marcus says.

They call it the New Kings Road. As Sex Pistol’s trendy realm was in the seventies, Brick Lane is more than just a gathering point. “It is kind of a scene of art’s life”, says the film director.

A scene full of extras like Marcus. They come from studios and alternative shops around or from the arts universities in the East of the city.

In The Dray Walk, a corner street, esplanades of tavern-like wooden long benches are jam-packed at lunchtime with folks wildly dressed, lively chatting.

It looks like a canteen of trendy arts people. Everyone in the town of artists is a regular or is in his way to become one.

Around the Brewery

Marcus, 29, is one of the first kind.

He first came to Brick Lane ten years ago when the street was “scummy and bangladeshi”.

Those were the first days of the artist town.

It all started in 1988 with the closure of the old Truman Brewery at the central London’s doorstep.

“When the massive warehouses were freed, Tracy Amy and others of the so-called Brick Art, poor, young, nameless artists moved and settled in creating an artistic buzz that drew creative people together”, says Marcus.

The revolution outburst four years ago when “trendy people started to move in”.

Marcus followed the trend. Back then he moved to Hackney, up the street, and opened his own studio in an old loft around the corner.

Brick Lane is now the scene of his life.

“i get up in the morning and take the bike to the studio. Then I do my stuff, a mad range of things – fashion shooting, documentaries, film edition. To lunch I come to the Dray Walk to meet people I know for long and the newcomers. There is always someone new around these days”.

New artists, but also new exhibitions.

The new buzzing venue of art’s life in London is an ever-changing exhibition. In the warehouses of the old brewery, there are now around a dozen spaces for arts exhibitions, no contributions required.

Brick Lane is not a museum to expose and polish centuries-old art pieces.

Far from the tomb-like silence that dominates the traditional arts museums, the new Kings Road’s exhibitions are flooded with boisterous art discussions that passers-by stop to eavesdrop.

A Mouveable Feast

Sited inside an oversized bookshelf, her legs crossed to fit the square, she can’t take her eyes off from the pictures in the opposite wall. Jessica Charleston, student-photographer, is waiting for success.

“That is a man’s shadow at moonlight”, she explains.

The photo in the middle of the wall is one of the major pieces of Jessica’s work displayed in the Loading Bay, her first public shared exhibition. In The Dray Walk, Brick Lane. — “Obviously”.

“There is so much going on of art wise here… this is the artiest street of London. It is inevitable”, she says.

Besides, the rent was a bargain. The so-called gallery is a vacant shop waiting for the new owner.

But “it is doing the job well”.

Brick Lane is attracting art collectors looking for the hastening exhibitions of unknown artists and Jessica made a lot of contacts.

Weekends are the bargain hunters’ time.

During the week Brick Lane’s shops and exhibitions get ready for them.

“The street changes as the week progresses”, says Ludovic Wilson, a 24 year-old fashion-shop employee in the main street. “It starts rather quiet, but as the weekend approaches it becomes vibrant and busy”.

On Sunday, the fashion, bric-à-brac and food markets overwhelm The Dray Walk’s laid-back and spiritual way of living.

At 5 a.m., the street is already paved with stalls.

Later it will be busy with tourists and young people looking for a fashion or art bargain and trying the flavours of East London.

Brick Lane’s success is a double-edged sword.

“The rent is going up and the artists who came here in first place will be driven away”, says Marcus.

At the doorstep of city’s skyscrapers the town of artists can no longer be a twilight zone hidden from international businessmen in tie and tourists.

“As tourists come, the main stores will come too”, says Ludovic Wilson.

“It will lose its character. It won’t be Brick Lane anymore”.

Ernest

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