Pioneering Project Space Coming Soon

25/06/2018

Elephant Magazine to Open a Pioneering Project Space in West London

The new space in west London’s White City aims to foster creative collaborations with an emphasis on emerging talent

In May 2017 Colart International acquired a majority shareholding of Elephant Publishing, now re-named Elephant Art. This joint venture would enable Colart to invest in expanding the reach of the magazine, as well as help Colart to develop a global community of artists, creatives and the culturally interested.

In order to bring Elephant Art to life, the magazine will be opening  a large, new, interdisciplinary project space on the site of a disused petrol station at White City to be called Elephant West. The space is due to open in autumn 2018, and we will keep you updated as the project progresses.

Elephant West will serve as a hub for the West London arts community and provide the emerging scene with an important platform in an area which has recently undergone an extensive regeneration with the development of the Television Centre and the expansion of Westfield shopping centre.

The unique plans for this space are paving the way for a new way of engaging with art and artists through interdisciplinary spaces, as explained by Robert Shore, Creative Director of Elephant Art: “Elephant’s tagline is ‘life through art’ and, in keeping with that, the work produced at Elephant West will resonate thematically with the concerns of the wider world rather that the narrower interests of the ‘art world’. Elephant West will turn ordinary life into cutting-edge art.”

Many of you may have visited Griffin Gallery, our contemporary art gallery in our Head Office in London, which closed in May 2018 so that the curatorial team could join Elephant to support this  new project. The popular and internationl Griffin Residency programme, will become Elephant Residencies, and Griffin Art Prize, an annual prize for emerging artists, will this year be named the Elephant x Griffin Art Prize.

Becca Pelly-Fry, Head Curator of Elephant West, says: “I am enormously proud of what the team have achieved in the Griffin Gallery space over the past six years… we have shown the work of over 300 artists, from those just graduating to some well-established names.  Our residency programme has supported the practice of 50 artists so far, offering them unique opportunities to collaborate with our in-house scientists and develop their understanding of materials and material chemistry.  Throughout all of this, we have encouraged and enabled a conversation about materiality within contemporary art practice, standing firm that is it as relevant today as it ever has been.”

Elephant magazine is built on the idea of collaboration, and the work produced at Elephant West will reflect and develop this ethos, bringing together exciting makers of all stripes to create new multimedia works that break down the traditional barriers between different art forms.

Through Elephant West, the magazine is pioneering a new, triadic structure for art publications, combining print, digital and physical incarnations and using all three outlets to create dynamic, cutting-edge content that can be shared across the Elephant platforms.

Designed by architects Liddicoat and Goldhill, Elephant West will offer a stimulating programme of live dance and music performances, film screenings, and talks and workshops curated by the magazine. In a nod to its famous neighbours Television Centre, the BBC’s former headquarters, and White City Place, the former BBC Media Village, the project space will also serve as a broadcasting hub for Elephant, which will live-stream events and publish other exclusive video content generated at Elephant West via its elephant.art website.

Press for Elephant West so far:

https://www.a-n.co.uk/news/ambitious-new-elephant-room-griffin-gallery-closes/

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/elephant-magazine-turns-gas-station-space-emerging-talent-1296092

https://hyperallergic.com/445233/winsor-newton-griffin-gallery-colarts-lab/

To find out more about Elephant click here.

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