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On this inspiring web page, New York artist James Hyde documents a visit he made to London studios a couple of years ago. Few people I know were terribly moved by the YBA (young British artist) work forcefed to the U.S. in the mid- to-late 90s. It was just so art-smart, riffing on famous pieces the recent grad students had seen in slide lectures at Goldsmiths, or wherever. Hyde has tapped a vein of real eccentric creativity, however. He writes:
"[In] March of 2000, I was in London to install my exhibition at Hales Gallery in Deptford. I managed to clear a week to steep myself in the new local culture. Much of this involved beer, crisps, curries and negotiating a maddeningly managed public transit system.
"I visited a number of studios. The locations ranged from rooms in a very domestic house to a council flat to various industrial spaces. There is an architecture to how an artist's workplace is organized. I photographed these studios to attempt to draw out the intimate and sometimes subliminal dialogue between art objects and their [original] scene."
The photos, taken with a digital camera (I assume), are gorgeous, cryptic, semi-abstractions, very much reflecting the style and sensibility of Hyde's own art (according to his website he has a show up at Brent Sikkema right now, but I haven't seen it yet). It's fascinating to see his eye at work, cropping and zooming in on studio details: materials strewn casually around, half-finished pieces, product packages, photos pinned to walls, puddles of brightly colored goo. Pieces by Daniel Coombs, Kathrin Boehm, Keith Wilson, and others show me a side of the London scene I wasn't so familiar with (Deitch artist Richard Woods had a nice, underappreciated show at Cristinerose a few years back, but I'm seeing some of the other artists here for the first time). Kudos to Hyde for his curiosity and enthusiasm.