Mare Street Biennale

Mare Street Biennale 2010

Unfeasibility Study

4th November-6 December 2010

ArtistSpace is pleased to announce that it is launching the 2010 biennale, following the success of the inaugural Mare Street Biennale, which took place in 2008. The Mare Street Biennale has emerged as the anti- Biennale that London currently appears to need, and this year’s show Unfeasibility Study will be a wide ranging micro-survey of current art practice in London within the wider context of conformity/rule-breaking. Unfeasibility Study has deliberately been created with a broad mandate to allow for a fresh approach, as a curatorial dig into the contradictory currents and problematics of producing work of real substance now, in London and the wider sphere. The 2010 Mare Street Biennale will serve as a forum for the exchange of ideas surrounding contemporary presentation trends, and will take place in a location close to the London Olympic 2012 site.

Creating work that somehow avoids being “ridiculous”, ”irrelevant”, “humorous”, “derivative / appropriated” is a challenge to artists today who’s practice is not already fixed in the history of ideas.This Biennale perhaps belongs to those artists who seem to sense either directly or via the background hum, the implicit futility of being engaged in making artwork in this age of slow-motion doom and yet still endeavour to shine brightly in make sense of the approaching changes, even if with some uncertainty and some confusion.  

Writer Douglas Park describes the mission:

Mission-Impossible Quota Score

The main plan and emphasis with this year’s Mare Street Biennale is to identify and address potential flaws and futility throughout far too much contemporary culture / but also whether there’s anything different and better possible /Then if so what that may be and how it can be done / Attempt made and opportunity offered to consider, minimize or even abolish setbacks and pitfalls, made often, by many / Most importantly, progression, advancement and alternatives are sought and encouraged / At the very least, concern and message should get across, become known –and ideally to some extent be acted upon.

For more information on submitting work for consideration, please go to Submissions,

or contact Mare Street Biennale Coordinator, Alexandra Flood