The fine lines between art and life have long been a point of attention for Artangel, the body in charge known for staging the recreation of the famous Jeremy Deller. Battle of Orgreave (2001), the concrete distribution of an East End house by Rachel Whiteread (1993-94) and the testament of pain by Taryn Simon. A losing occupation (2018). Now, the organization is pushing the envelope in a radically different way with an open call to enter the UK’s biggest ever hobby exhibition.
The Hobby Cave, created in collaboration with London-based artist and filmmaker Hetain Patel, asks the public across the country to share their hobbies, be it crochet, cosplay, wood carving or robotics, through a form on a dedicated website. Thousands of handcrafted objects will then be selected to be displayed at a yet to be decided location in the UK. Meanwhile, to coincide with the show, Patel will produce a film that shows people’s pastimes with “a visual language usually reserved for Hollywood films and luxury advertising,” according to a statement.
Patel and Artangel are inviting contributions from hobbyists, from puppet makers to origami artists.
Photos: Esme Buxton and Darryl Bedford
Patel is an avid hobbyist, having started working on cars with his father and now focuses his energy on perhaps his greatest passion, Spider-Man, whose instantly recognizable outfit the artist has hand-crafted into several suits. talking with The Journal of Artexplains that it was his love for the Marvel character that sparked the idea for the project.
“In the beginning [of the process], I was partly thinking, “man, I’d love to gather all the Spider-Man costumes in the world in one room, just for my own pleasure.” And then, interrogating that with Mariam [Zulfiqar, the director of Artangel], we begin to think, what is the essence? For me it was about something real, something close to the bone. And I felt that that applied to a wide variety of other ways of making and creating.”
Besides a creative exercise, Patel sees The Hobby Cave as a form of protest, of pushing back against the forces of authority and control, even in the contemporary art sector. “The power dynamics we talk about in this project extend to everything, to all those things that impose rules on us, and the art world is part of that,” he says. “There is control and pressure and judgments, so it is important that this project is not just a nod to the world of art. It’s the fans who are at the center.”
Nevertheless, it is undoubtedly a canon of contemporary art that he is entering; Artangel’s previous projects have secured the reputation of some of the leading artists working today, with Whiteread’s house, for example, winning him the Turner Prize. Zulfiqar says, however, that this points to the radical nature of the organization’s projects rather than any form of conformity. “I think it’s easy to look back at Artangel’s portfolio of work and say, well, of course that’s art. But at the time it was really groundbreaking; it completely transformed the language with which we were prepared to speak and understand what museum or gallery art looked like”. Patel’s project, she says, should be no different.
Both Zulfiqar and Patel also acknowledge this The Hobby Cave is being launched at a time when people across the UK are feeling the strain of a cost of living crisis, a tense socio-political environment and horrendous international conflict. Patel hopes that the initiative can play a positive role in this context. “Many times we feel powerless, out of control of our time or what we are doing, and that is added to the war and all these things that happen in the world,” he says. “I think the hobby is a hopeful act and I feel like we can do with it right now.”
• The public can submit details of their hobbies via https://thehobbycave.org.uk/
