Hastings Contemporary opened 10 years ago on the Stade, right next to the beach that hosts Europe’s largest beach-launched fishing fleet and where fishermen have been launching and landing their boats for over 1,000 years. It seems apt, therefore, to celebrate those 10 years with the exhibition Seafaring. HOT’s Lauris Morgan-Griffiths was delighted to explore.
It felt odd and exhilarating to walk into Hastings Contemporary and straight into, what in effect is, Project Art Works’ recreated studio space. HOT’s Lauris Morgan-Griffiths was delighted to come face to face with large scrolls of paintings hanging in the Foreshore Gallery. Shortlisted for the 2021 Turner Prize, Hastings Contemporary has given locals the opportunity to see the artists’ work in their home town.
Museum and galleries have reopened, yippee. Culture is being introduced back into our lives. Hastings Contemporary is welcoming the public back with, potentially, a very popular show about the seaside – Seaside Modern. The one-time popular music hall song, Oh I do love to be beside the seaside, Oh I do love to be beside the sea, gives a vague flavour of it, though not in a popcorn and slot machine sort of way. HOT’s Lauris Morgan-Griffiths found it an enticing exhibition to celebrate art after this long hard year of lockdown.
It is gratifying how people, businesses and the creative industries have defied the rigours of Covid while retaining their optimisim and energy. HOT’s Lauris Morgan-Griffiths was pleased to discover that seven south east coastal towns have come together to celebrate their stories, histories, community and creativity in outdoor installations.
Hastings Contemporary is open after the latest Lockdown with three stimulating exhibitions. Just because you haven’t heard of an artist doesn’t mean that they aren’t good or that they aren’t well respected somewhere else. Quentin Blake is extremely well known but HOT’s Lauris Morgan-Griffiths has to admit she didn’t know the work of artists Lakwena Maciver or Stephen Chambers before. She does now.
Hastings Contemporary is open again with Covid regulations intact and two very different exhibitions. First you walk through Quentin Blake’s rather forlorn We Live in Worrying Times and then enter something completely different in Victor Pasmore’s abstract exhibition: Line & Space. After five months in the cultural desert HOT’s Lauris Morgan-Griffiths went to visit the gallery.
Sir Quentin Blake, greatly respected artist, renowned illustrator of children’s books and much loved Hastings resident, is living, like all of us, in these Covid-19 suspended animation times. Understandably, as many artists are – and will in the future – he has been exploring the effect of these times, which has resulted in an exhibition We Live In Worrying Times. HOT’s Lauris Morgan-Griffiths was intrigued to see some of the images which differ markedly from his previous work.
In these challenging times, we need other things besides food to nurture us. And at this time it is an opportunity to exercise not only our bodies but our minds and do those things that we have always wanted to do – and found excuses not to do or simply never done or achieved. Lauris Morgan-Griffiths wondered what there was out there to be enjoyed online, locally and nationally, from your home.
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