Histories & Hauntings: Correspondences from the Whitechapel Gallery (1974) to Swedenborg House. Through image and action.

From the exhibition text at Swedenborg House:

Histories & Hauntings is the third in a trilogy of staged interventions by Brian Catling and Iain Sinclair at Swedenborg House. It is also, simultaneously, a reprisal (or continuation) of Albion Island Vortex (1974), an exhibition held half a century ago at the Whitechapel Gallery, co-organized with the artist and writer Renchi Bicknell. On the Whitechapel Gallery website, the exhibition is listed as never having ended. Drawing together a mixture of paintings, archival material, found objects, prints and photographs, Bicknell and Sinclair engage with the spaces of personal memory and the spaces of Swedenborg House in the wake of Catling’s passing late last year. The exhibition is at once a testament to the past, and a new work birthed in the crucible of memory.

I’ve been intrigued, sometimes obsessed and always drawn to the writing of Iain Sinclair. In fact when I arrived in London I was clutching two well worn paperbacks: Sinclair’s Downriver (an excoriating fantasy of Thatcher’s despoliation of London Docklands) and White Chappell Scarlet Tracings, his (unglamorous) revision of the Jack the Ripper murders. Indeed this was the London I came for: dark, historic, mystical and psychically dangerous.

I’ve never ceased to be a Sinclair fan – loving all his subsequent publications and films. And I was terrified and elated to share a platform with Sinclair, among others, for the launch of vol IV of the Swedenborg Review.

Brian Catling I discovered later, mainly through his novels Earwig, and the Vorrh trilogy. These led me to his poems.

I didn’t realize at first that both men made visual art so it was phenomenal to see it in this show. Alongside Sinclair and Catling is Renchi Bicknell . He’s far less well known but that very undesved, since in the evidence of this show he’s a fascinating artist well worth following.

Psychogeography plays a large part in this show, as it does in all Sinclair’s work.

Psychogeography is a concept that originated in the 1950s and 1960s with the Situationist International movement. It is an approach to exploring and understanding the relationship between the physical environment and human emotions, behaviors, and experiences. Psychogeography seeks to uncover the hidden or subconscious aspects of urban spaces and how they impact individuals and society.

The term combines “psycho” (referring to psychology or the mind) and “geography” (referring to the physical environment). Psychogeographers aim to challenge the traditional ways of perceiving and navigating territories by encouraging people to engage with their surroundings in a more creative and intuitive manner.

Psychogeography involves various practices and techniques, such as dérive (drifting or aimless wandering through physical spaces), mapping subjective experiences, and creating alternative narratives of the territory . It emphasizes the importance of sensory perception, chance encounters, and the exploration of urban/non urban/liminal landscapes beyond their functional or utilitarian aspects. I’ve long been fascinated by psychogeography and practice it from time to time- though not systematically.

For me the highlight is Renchi’s prints that merge his own psychogeographical wanderings in England onto the classic spiritual picaresque The Pilgrims Progress.

Copies exhibited of the small-press publications the three have been producing since the 70s are very inspirational. it’s even easier to produce such publications now, yet few do, relying on the Internet alone – as I am here in this blog. Watch this space- I’m thinking of producing a zine …

Altogether , Histories and Hauntings is one highly inspiring exhibition. It was great to be introduced to Renchi’s work and to see Catling and Sinclair ‘s in an art gallery as opposed to between the covers of a book.