Is the London art scene actually back?

31 can feel young if you want a winter flu jab, old if you want 30% off UK rail travel, and virtually cremated if you’re trying to make it as a contemporary art scene kid. 

Last year in Art Review, Martin Herbert asked: ‘Are You Too Old for the Artworld?’. He lamented emerging beyond the average age of most emerging artists: “You’re increasingly cranky, you miss the carefree old days, you can’t be bothered to truffle-hunt and, hey, it seems like most art sucks.” Martin is a little older than me, but I do identify with some of his plight. One thing you do take for granted in your early 20s is that emergent contemporary art makes sense with little effort. It’s legible because its language is being invented in real time, mostly by those who still have the excuse of youth. Then one night, you could find yourself at the ICA looking down a list of names you don’t recognise. But why would you? These are New Contemporaries, it’s supposed to be an introduction. But it occurs to you: if you were actually on the scene, wouldn’t you already know these artists? Surely, you’d have partied with them in a grotty Dalston warehouse and been invited back to their studios to discuss big ideas into the small hours. You’d appear in their paintings and photographs and one day find your likeness in Tate’s collection, immortalised as a member of the scene.

But even I’m not shrivelled or jaded enough to notice that over the last few years, there’s been something of a scene resuscitation in London. There’s an infectious appetite for going out, seeing stuff and being seen. People are horny for it. Cool new galleries have entered the fray; their opening nights are packed, well-documented and sometimes done in collaboration with each other. There is an avalanche of happenings, performances, pop-ups, readings, screenings and a stream of newsletters summarising the what to see (and what you wish you could unsee) of each week; new Instagram meme accounts poke sweet-n-sour barbs at art world antics and there’s a renewed editorial focus on camaraderie and community. It’s not just about the art, it’s about the moths that gather around that particular flame. But what’s changed?

“London’s art community is having a dynamic reimagining. Long may it continue,” gallerist Sadie Coles tells me. “There is an unstoppable wave of do-it-yourself energy and activity and a behavioural change: people are hanging out again. It is fun.” Coles recently launched GARGLE as “a response to observing one-off live events of all species of happenings in spaces all over the city.” The monthly events programme invites organisations, publishers, editors, and artists to curate a single evening of presentations, readings and performances. The two she has staged so far, with Climax Books and The Real Review, were “startlingly” well attended. “It is definitely answering a need”, she says. “Perhaps [because] everything feels so bleak, we all just want to see each other, talk, and be together.”

Now, a lot of people glorify the 1990s – sometimes to the point of delusion – as an era of societal and creative enlightenment, but there do seem to be some parallels between the spirit of then and now. Coles agrees: “There is a sudden feeling of there being space for thinking and doing, of making do with what is available.” She puts this down largely to the pandemic-enabled effectiveness of networks and collaborations. “The 1990s generation pushed themselves out of a dismal economic slump with hotspur and self-determined activity, and this moment feels a bit similar. There is enterprise in the air.” Coles, of course, would know. She was at the epicentre of the ‘90s scene, even responsible for partially cultivating it.

In the same decade, Hettie Judah, critic and author, was deep in the Glasgow scene; there she found a melding of art, performance, music and club culture. “It was in this really intense ferment, and the art school was a really exciting space. There wasn’t a boundary between what was happening at the art school and in the rest of the city – it felt like there was a lot of osmosis between the two.” Like Glasgow, the 90s London scene also spilled out of one art school in particular, Goldsmiths. The decade brought a post-recession creative boom as the country ripped off the chains of Thatcherist gloom – all bolstered by the promise of New Labour and a better life for all. Like Druids to sacred trees, artists flocked to each other. 

The public reception to the Young British Artists was split between awe, volcanic disgust and utter confusion, and the art market lapped it up. They worked on a shoestring, made do with what was at hand, called in favours and showed their art in disused industrial spaces, which often doubled up as home. Soon, the dusty old masters made way for new contemporary art galleries and audacious impresarios like Charles Saatchi bet their chips on a new type of artist, one whose currency was shock and sensation. Where few had dared before, they had fun, publicly. Sure, they were committed to their craft, but they also broke into art fairs and got pissed on primetime TV. They’d snuck into the art world through the back door, leaving the cobwebbed establishment foaming at their plummy gobs. 

Even the hermits among us get FOMO looking at archive pictures of Hirst and Lucas sweating it up in The Colony Room or tumbling out of Groucho. But everything looks great after a fat line of nostalgia. And perhaps the scene surrounding the YBAs was made all the more atmospheric for the substance-fogged memories of its protagonists. Most art movements were just as much about the art as the stuff happening around it. The Futurists, the Surrealists, the Bauhaus, the Bloomsbury Set, Warhol’s Factory – they all conjure scenes of artists convening around manifestos, big ideas and wild parties. What they have in common is that they’ve already happened; only in retrospect can a scene be seen. Ergo, to claim you are part of a current scene is to admit that you are probably not. 

Growing up outside London looking in, my fantasy of the art scene was a melding of the above: glitzy dinners, parties after after-parties that end only because we all need to get to the office by 9 am; loo cubical bonding; cigs (etc.) bummed from idolised artists, debauchery, decadence, weeklong hangxiety and fuck-im-going-to-be-sacked-for-what-I-said-last-night self-loathing. When I got there and eventually infiltrated its periphery, this was not exactly what I found. Exhibition openings felt awkward, stale and stiff, filled with tight lips, ass kissing and starchy dealers peering over your shoulder for someone richer to speak to. There was also a strange breed of ‘manufactured fun’ that rarely scratched the itch: “[insert large luxury fashion brand] throws Frieze Week rave in Soho!” In less than a decade, I’ve noticed a shift. Private view culture is no longer a wearying ritual for the mealy-mouthed, champagne-stem-pinching repressed. It’s got energy, life and heart. It’s, apparently, for everyone. “In the art world, connection is currency,” says Seren. “I see progress in accessibility, but the system still runs on access and networks. Working-class artists often have to build their own spaces, creating their own versions of nepotism by uplifting each other rather than waiting for institutional recognition.”

Of course, things seem much more civilised than the 1990s were. The debauchery is more hush-hush, and nobody breaks into disused spaces to put on clandestine exhibitions; it’s all done through the proper channels. The tabloids and society rags don’t seem to care who was seen doing what unless the subjects look hot, have a famous daddy or have paid for the feature. Plus, the stakes are much higher; the art market is an unmerciful ruler. Yes, the economic backdrop is different now – you’re lucky if you get an affordable studio space within the M25 – but what we can take from the YBAs is that a new era could bloom from financial rubble through the power of entrepreneurial misfits who had nothing but great ideas, a will to make stuff happen, and a few pragmatic affiliations with deep-pocketed, progressive patrons. Now, a stormy financial climate and lack of government support has induced a seizing of opportunities; post-Covid, empty retail units are available as temporary exhibition spaces, lower rents in central London mean younger galleries can open closer to the action, and those with deep pockets (these days, largely luxury brands) are all vying for a piece of the art pie. Phoenix, ashes, etc. 

Hettie told me that “All scenes need their chronicler.” In the 1990s, even art mags had society features, like Artforum’s legendary Scene and Herd column. “I was living in Belgium at the time and basically knew who everybody on the London art scene was by looking at those party pages,” she recalls. “Of course they fill you with FOMO.” 

Today, one chronicler might be the anonymous collective spittle, whose weekly newsletter has become the oracle for what’s hot, what’s tepid, and what’s absolutely shot in the art world. “The scene, to us, is made up of people who like to be out, we don’t like to be at home,” they tell me. “It’s accepting of everyone, from drifters and hangers on – the Gregor Muirs (in the ‘90s at least) of this world – to gallery assistants and artists and techs and writers, the scene is nebulous and ever-evolving but crucially localised (i.e. not the jet setting class) and out on the streets (got nothing better to do).” Seren Metcalfe, director of The Working Class Creatives Database defines being on the art scene as “largely about visibility; being present at events, being written about, or having work that circulates in the right spaces. To be on the scene is to be seen on the scene.” 

As the scene has revived, so too have the efforts to capture it. Of course, it would be remiss of me not to bring Plaster into this – the whole reason we launched the magazine is because we felt the art world was missing one key ingredient: excitement. “The individuals documenting art are as important as the artists themselves in shaping the scene,” says Seren. But there’s a difference between documenting it and attempting to define it. Lest we forget the Evening Standard’s much-mocked YLA (Young London Artists) declaration of 2023. Ok, so the majority of those featured were not actually artists, and there were some questions over whether this was actually a representation of the scene, or just a forced gathering of people in a bleached photography studio – noughties family portrait-style – few of whom seemed to know of each other. Earlier this year, society mag Tatler had a go, touting the “next generation of YBAs breathing new life into the British art scene.” Naturally, it included contemporary art darlings (George Rouy, Louise Giovanelli), those with familiar surnames (Phoebe Saatchi, Rocco Richie), and of course, an aggressive milking of celebrity connections (artist Georgina Odell, “the wife of singer Tom Odell”). At least they were smart enough not to put the feature online for the sharks to feast on. “There is a responsibility on magazines, photographers, and writers to look beyond the parties and the socialites and uncover what is truly happening in the art world,” says Seren. spittle told me that they find magazine attempts to construct the scene comical, “It’s not about your individual achievements but your interest in *being there* at events which those with similar interests also want to *be at*. It is shared interest! and energy! and what you’ve got to say! … and your socialising stamina,” they say. “Even those random two old guys that seem to crop up at every opening in Mayfair for the free wine are part of the scene. They are bodies on the ground, shower-uppers, chatting shit in the smoking area to randomers, just like the rest of us.” 

We’re talking exclusively about London, but there are, of course, art scenes bubbling up across the UK, like the thriving community of painters working in Ardwick, Manchester, expertly documented by Matthew Holman in a recent Plaster feature. “There are art pockets in other cities, but the recipe for being ‘on the scene’ typically involves London, elite art schools, and social connections to wealth or established galleries. That doesn’t necessarily create a good scene, just a scene. With social media and the increased platforming of working-class voices, there is hope that those previously on the edges of the scene will now be included in its documentation. The real story of our time should embrace the underdog,” says Seren.

I was recently followed by an Instagram account called God Save The Scene, who feature mini interviews with a who’s who of young London creativity. As expected, I didn’t recognise most of them, but I did know that these guys looked cool: moody passport-style pics and recs for bars that probably don’t even have a front door. I wasn’t sure why the scene needed rescuing (or if God would show any interest in its salvation), so I dropped them a DM to find out. “We were sick of paid ads and a lack of online curation,” founders Elizabeth Dimitroff and Livvy Bryant told me. “It made sense to launch a newsletter featuring younger, less established artists and writers from London.” Writer Olivia Allen was one of those featured. Often accompanied by her Chihuahua accomplice Plum, she is, in my view, one of the most prolific recorders of the scene, offering a running Insta commentary of evening art antics via close crops in a plume of Lost Mary. I ask her if she would define herself as part of it. “I guess if we’re judging by the parameters of my 19-year-old self, yes, but that makes me sound like a bit of a dick,” she says. “The word ‘scene’ can come across as performative and exclusive (which sometimes is lol), but what I really feel a part of is more of a community where people are actually nice and you know there’ll always be someone to have a drink/cig/gossip with.” Olivia works in fashion, which, although adjacent, does allow for a healthy distance. “It’s not work in the same way it is for some of my contemporaries, and I can bail if I can’t be bothered to chit chat.”

“If you want to attend the creative side of the art scene – shows, talks, readings, openings – this is probably more accessible than ever before in a literal sense. There are many places online that list and document these types of events,” say GSTS, citing newsletters from spittle, Seb’s Art List and Hector Campbell’s The Shock of the Now. Olivia Allen concurs: “I think there’s this misconception that the art scene is bitchy and exclusionary, but in my experience, most (not all) people are nice and open and realising that everyone feels awkward while lurking in the corner was an enlightening moment for me.”

On Instagram, an aesthetic revival of night-out messiness caught on high-flash disposables might feel like a substitute for the scene itself, but it’s merely a pixel echo of the real deal. “This idea of The Scene now has a lot to do with social media *yawn*” says Olivia. “When you’re more aware of where people are/ who they’re hanging out with, it’s easier to both perceive and perpetuate the image of A Scene, regardless of how real it is.” Online, there are only appearances – and like so many illusions, it’s all about how persuasively you present it. “You can lurk on IG and follow those micro/influencers who pap and get papped at everything and think you know the scene, but you do not!” say spittle. “For all the gossip, subsections and antics that outsiders always assume make up the entirety of scene-lore, the less sexy truth is that this nebulous thing is alive and as complex as the people that constitute it.”

Walk around two current London exhibitions and you’ll see what I mean. Leigh Bowery’s retrospective at Tate Modern is as much about his work as a chronicle of New Romantic nightlife; films, polaroids, outfits worn to the club; his art could not have existed without the scene as his stage, and all those clambering to be part of it. Then there’s The Face exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, which chronicles how, from 1980-2004, the magazine captured the raucous spirit of an era for an audience gagging to be told where, who and what they should be. Of course, it was cool, all these subcultures intersecting for the first time, but did it actually feel like a scene at the time, or was it just well recorded?

No one person defines a scene. It’s a collective effort; a pooling of resources, a DIY spirit, and a cross-pollination of art forms. Like the 1990s, the current scene is emerging from economic hardship and a united view that the establishment is no longer serving the thing that feeds it. 

Sorry, Martin, but I don’t think we should be so hung up on age. I don’t even think that most art does actually suck these days. I think we’re tired of being pulped by pixel simulations, steamrollered by capitalism and the tyranny of the art market and shaken by a generational attention deficit that doesn’t allow time for an Insta reel over 1:30, let alone the slow game of falling in love with newfound art. You don’t need to be young, rich or well-connected for this scene – the drinks are (mostly) free – just bring yourself and the will to have been part of something. It’s time to truffle hunt. 

Of course, a scene can’t be grasped while it’s going on. The paradox is that it’s always happening somewhere else, or in the past. So for now, meet me at the end of the rainbow.