Curating

As an independent fine art curator, I’ve created numerous exhibitions in London and elsewhere. I like to curate immersive site-specific projects, contemporary painting, and photography. My most recent project is Alchemy! http://alchemy.artsite.org.uk/

I ran the Studio75 Gallery in London.

My curator page is at www.curator.gillianmciver.org

above: The Derelict Sensation, St Pancras London

“Opening this unknown and unknowable urban site to the public via art opened up more than the building. It opened up the dialogue about the city and change – people suddenly saw the Kings Cross area as it might once have been more than a hundred years ago, before urban blight descended like a filthy cloak, obscuring the past glories of the railway age. Gazing out onto the Euston Road from the Ladies Smoking Room, which featured an audio installation by Thunderbolt and a painting installation by Derek Szteliga of T.R.O., offered an opportunity to stand for a moment on the fault line between past and present. From the window, one could see the cranes and huge machines rebuilding the area into a showcase of architectural regeneration and post-modern transport. Inside the room, one heard the murmured conversation of 19th-century ladies, and in the corner of the eye, a huge painting of the underwater interior of the Titanic – symbol of modernism and hubris.

While urban renewal is a feature of life in the modern city, it is all too often experienced passively by the citizens, who see cranes on the skyline and earthmovers rumbling, but have little other contact with the transformation. Yet a sense of ownership of the environment, a sense of familiarity with the cityscape, is essential to a feeling of belonging. Dispelling the anomie of urban life is one of the tasks and responsibilities of the contemporary artist. As the 19th and 19th-century artist’s job was to re-present the environment back to the aristocratic or capitalist owners of the land, the contemporary artist’s job – in a liberal democracy – is to involve and invoke the relationship between the citizens and their city.” – excerpt from Curator’s Notes, The Derelict Sensation at the St Pancras Hotel, London.

above: Titanic HQ, Belfast

“Rediscovering the city as urban playground and dispelling the anomie of urban life is one of the tasks and responsibilities of the contemporary urban artist, to involve and invoke the relationship between the citizens and their city. This is particularly important when the urban landscape has been scarred and rendered unusable as genuinely public space. Belfast like all cities boasts a number of what Ivan Chtcheglov in ‘Formulary for a New Urbanism’ (1953) called “magical locales” that deserve to be explored. The locale which interested me was the “Titanic Quarter” on Queens Island, the area of the harbour where the great ships were designed and built.”

above: Studio75, London

Studio 75 was founded in Haggerston, East London by artist Nazir Tanbouli and fine art curator Gillian McIver. Located in Shoreditch, East London, the centre of the biggest artist community in Europe, the Studio was intended as an art hub and cultural and artistic space for the local community.

Studio 75 was founded to reinvigorate and renew the definition of “artist-run,” exploring the relationship between artwork, artist and audience

Studio 75 London was active for 3 years until the building was demolished as part of the East London regeneration. In this time we hosted 30 exhibiting artists and 22 film-makers, in exhibitions, screenings, artist exchanges, mini-lectures and debates, and mini-residencies as well as mural projects, and was featured in London and international media coverage during the 2012 Olympics. We were awarded the University of the Arts London’s 2012 Creative Enterprise Award, for Most Enterprising Project.”