Art, writing, and culture are not, and do not need to be about entertainment and commerce, about making one’s way in society. They can be a mode of relating to each other that takes its cues from friendship, from engaging each other as separate and related people committed to each other in mutual support and protection…
Fred Dewey ‘a polis for new conditions’
How can Arcade support important and necessary practices where artists innovate and take risks, either in their form, subject or modes of social engagement? And how can we address art’s impact on society which can only happen with a truly democratic and inclusive audience?
These two questions and the communities they represent are deeply entwined. To answer them we are in the process of refining our business model – a gallery and event space with a kitchen – which will use food as a form of care, inclusivity, social glue, and revenue stream that can answer these questions in mutually reinforcing and beneficial ways.
Established by Christian Mooney in 2007, Arcade offers a programme of exhibitions and a constantly evolving platform of performances, live events, talks and publications. Through these varied formats, we aim to find new modes of presentation exploring the developments and complexities in contemporary art, across a range of practices, media and concerns.
Both in London and internationally, Arcade has sought to support working artists and explore how experimental practice in the visual arts can have a vital relevance in public life. Initially we took the form of a traditional commercial gallery as the best basis for materialising these aims, but we are now proud to announce that we have changed status to become a Community Interest Company (CIC). Community for us means the community of artists that make up the gallery as well as the various local communities we live and work amongst.
This new structure will better represent Arcade’s vision. Surplus profit will now be specifically directed to public programmes serving the wider community. Arcade has always been an experimental platform for contemporary culture. Becoming a CIC represents a development of that vision, and an attempt to respond strategically to the shifting social and political landscape. Rather than being driven by the need to maximise profit for investors and owners, our focus is driven by the need to tackle a wide range of social and environmental issues, utilising our business strategies and partnerships to achieve public good.
I had the pleasure of meeting Christian through our community work. I’ve been truly inspired by his creative vision for transformative, progressive change in the fields of arts, culture, and broader societal issues.
Allan Hogarth | Head of Government and Political Relations at Amnesty UK
Our new visual identity for the gallery is a comma or breath mark. This motif is borrowed from the artist Anna Barham who started using it in 2015 to implicate the audience’s breath in the reading of her work. During the several lock-downs of 2020 and 2021, it seemed also to reflect the gallery’s moment of pause and reflection, giving time to the questions ‘What is art?’ ‘What is its purpose?’ ‘What impact can it have on society’. The work and friendship of Jeremiah Day and the late Fred Dewey, have been instrumental in helping to understand how Arcade can present and begin to answer these questions.
The name ARCADE is a ready made (referencing neither Pac-Man nor Walter Benjamin) found on a street in Amsterdam in 2006 on the way to a studio visit with Jeremiah Day—the first artist approached to make an exhibition at a gallery that hadn’t yet opened.