Photo: Kingsland Road, Shoreditch (stand-in; not the Annex). Peter Barr / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
Annex Bar and Art Space opens at 1 Kingsland Road, E2 8AA, on Tuesday 24 November, with a free opening night from 6pm to 10pm and an exhibition, Nothing Stays Still, hung across both floors.
The organiser is ARTB2B, which describes the venue as “a new pop-up from ARTB2B and Gotobeat”, serving coffee during the day and cocktails in the evening, with art on every wall. Eventbrite’s venue field lists the address under the name Katchette Annex (Bar + Art Space); the organiser’s own listings call it Annex Bar and Art Space, in Shoreditch.
Opening night: Tuesday 24 November, 6pm to 10pm
The opening night listing is free, with a glass of prosecco on arrival. The evening starts with a short welcome on why the space is opening, what it is going to be and who made the art, including an introduction to the artists and their work by curator Josie Barbato.
After the welcome, both floors are open to walk round with a drink while the music plays, and the organiser says the artists will be on hand to talk to. The listing gives the times as 6pm to 10pm.
It is not the only free art date in east London that evening: the Film London Jarman Award shortlist is on free show at Whitechapel Gallery, a short walk east.
Nothing Stays Still, curated by Josie Barbato
The exhibition is split across the building. Upstairs is CyberMyth, pairing Francesco Filippelli with Noxa. Filippelli paints with reactive pigments, so, in the organiser’s words, “his portraits slowly change while you look at them, and after about seven minutes they start again”. Noxa shows digital works based on the Greek myths. Downstairs there is work by Carlos Romano, Tavera and BEAST.
Exhibition hours are Wednesday to Sunday, 10am to 6pm, and the organiser says everything is free unless stated otherwise, which applies to the £10 breakfast tour and to the weekend food event. No closing date is given in the listings, so anyone planning a visit beyond the first week should check the organiser’s pages before travelling.
The first week: tours, a talk, drawing and Off the Feed
ARTB2B has put on something different each day for the first week, set out in its free art week listing.
- Wednesday 25 November: guided tours led by Josie Barbato. Art & Breakfast at 11am includes coffee, cake and a tour for £10; a free tour follows at 1pm. Both take about twenty minutes.
- Thursday 26 November: an artists’ talk from 6pm to 7pm, free, described as an informal conversation with Carlos Romano, Tavera, Francesco Filippelli and Noxa. It will be recorded for a future ARTB2B podcast.
- Friday 27 November: free drawing sessions between 10am and 5pm, run alongside the CyberMyth exhibition.
- Saturday 28 and Sunday 29 November: Off the Feed, for which Gotobeat “brings food creators cooking live on stage”. It has its own tickets, from £10 through Gotobeat.
Places are limited on several of these. The two Wednesday tours are booked by time slot, the Thursday talk has limited places, and the Friday drawing sessions also ask for a slot to be booked in advance. Off the Feed is ticketed separately by Gotobeat rather than through the exhibition listings.
The opening falls in the run-up to Christmas, when the area fills with markets, late shopping and festive events across east London, so the daytime coffee hours and the evening bar both have a crowd to draw on.
Practical details for the opening: Annex Bar and Art Space, 1 Kingsland Road, London E2 8AA, Tuesday 24 November, 6pm to 10pm, free. The exhibition then runs Wednesday to Sunday, 10am to 6pm.