We are heading into the silly season in the London Art world and quality stuff worth seeing will be thin on the ground. Now is the season of the salon show, the gallery for rent exhibition, the community project funding bonanza, the landlord's sister's cat watercolours and all other spatial debts. September things will start picking up again, Deptford X is looking interesting this year, and come October we'll be up to our ears in fat gallery stalwarts. That is when the major spaces fill their front windows with their most established / saleable / artist's work, all ready for when the Frieze circus comes to town.
Until then you could do far worse than a little personal improvement. The Piccadilly Community Centre in the, now defunct, Hauser & Wirth building on Piccadilly is the perfect place to start. There are a number of free courses, including Zumba, Algerian Baking and Renaissance Fencing and in the basement is a small bar and stage. Up on the second floor is a well-stocked Charity shop, which does a fine line in slight-seconds umbrellas for five to seven pounds. The Piccadilly Community Centre is always looking for volunteers for work in all areas of the organisation - go on, give something back!
www.piccadillycommunitycentre.org
In this issue we have an artists' page by Samuel Levack and Jennifer Lewandowski entitled 'Port of Venice'. We also have reviews of the performance 'Over Seas' in Folkstone, 'Mary Kelly: Projects 1973-2010' in Manchester, Richard Prince in Paris, the Edinburgh International Film Festival, the Venice Biennale, 'Twombly and Poussin: Arcadian Painters' in Dulwich and the event 'Field Trip' in Bradwell on Sea.
Adrian Lee