BOLDING GALLERY IS RIPPING UP THE RULE B

BOLDING GALLERY IS RIPPING UP THE RULEBOOK

Esme Blair and Sam Lincoln are reinventing what a gallery should be, building one of London’s most exciting spaces for young artists

On a late summer afternoon last year, I dragged myself to the Yoko Ono retrospective at the Tate Modern. There was a room dedicated to the performance archives of Ono’s 1960’s Chambers Street loft series: after moving to New York City in the late 1950’s, Ono met composer La Monte Young and together they began programming experimental performance work from Ono’s loft in TriBeCa. This not only instigated NYC’s artist loft culture, but also provided an unregulated space for artists to commune, present work and share ideas. I was overcome by a horrific sense of yearning: for a city and arts culture that could support this kind of artistic cauldron, bubbling over with fresh ideas and challenging work that evades traditional exhibition models.

On the 17th December 2024, Bolding Gallery presented its first one-night exhibition in an office space in Mayfair. It featured electric performances from Enzo Randolfi, Arthur Poujois and Charlie Osborne. Randolfi, legs dyed pink sporting a wig, aggressively roller-skated around Poujois’ metal assemblage works. Poujois gyrated in latex behind foggy glass. Osbourne sang to an elderly gentleman plucked only minutes prior from the audience. I was witnessing the origin of what was to become one of London’s most exciting emerging art spaces, and struck by the energetic parallels to the early New York Loft culture.

Run by directors Esme Blair and Sam Lincoln, over the past nine months, Bolding has carved out an unusual space within the London art landscape: building their castle not grandly on a hill, but squeezed into architectural nooks and crannies in traditionally inaccessible central areas of the city. Its infrastructure not built on commercial gain nor industry capital, but rather begins only with the art and the artist.

Since opening, the gallery has produced nine exhibitions across two gallery locations and exhibited works by 15 artists, quickly establishing itself as a vital emerging space for experimental performance and research based practices. Its unusual structure actively resists aesthetic pigeonholing and instead, puts the needs and desires of young artists at its forefront. Bolding focusses on the art of exhibition building, which is treated as a core element of artists’ practices. The director duo met working on special projects for Alfie’s and Gray’s, two of London’s largest and most esteemed indoor antique markets.

Sam Lincoln: We had independently noted that The Music Room, which runs sample sales in that space [Gray’s], doesn’t run 24/7, and likewise, there would occasionally be stalls empty in Alfie’s.

Esme Blair: We had worked together a little, and about a month in we decided to come up with a proposal to open a gallery in the Mayfair space.

SL: The entire building was built as a showroom for state of the art, WC technology. Our original impression of the upstairs Mayfair space was just a phantasmagoria of the ideal bathroom.

EB: There's definitely a lost glamour in that today. The personality of both markets is really loud. They are going obsolete quite quickly so it's nice being in the context of a Dickensian, vastly obsoleting London.

SL: The artists we’ve worked with have been excited to play off and respond to that. There's something in the fragmentation of the aesthetic experience: walking through Alfie’s and seeing a little bit of everything. It aligns with how a lot of artists are trying to figure out this shattered reality we all live in.

EB: There's also something in directing visitors to our gallery: “Oh yeah, it’s right next to the hammerhead shark”. What other galleries can say that?

SL: We had to start thinking about performance, because we weren’t going to have access to that space for long enough.

Billy Parker: I remember you asking me whether it was possible to install, open and deinstall an exhibition in three days…

EB: It’s impossible. That’s head exploding toil. With the size of the space – it’s an apex of a triangle right in the middle of town –which for media and performance is perfect. There's a natural point to the room that gives perfect performance parameters. Performance is amazing as all these natural occurrences take place. Charlie [Osbourne] met someone in the audience, five minutes later, he’s on stage just because she liked the colour of his tie. In what other mediums do you get that?

SL: With the constraints of space it would be impossible to fill it with art. But you can fill it relatively easily with people.

EB: And with light and sound. It’s definitely unsung for the obvious reason that it doesn’t have commercial value: how do you sell that? But there are a lot of people doing really interesting things. People don’t just come from art backgrounds, they come from theatre, music and dance.

BP: Although you are showing a lot of ‘discipline-less’ performance, you are still conceptualising it as a gallery.

SL: When people hear ‘gallery’ they think commercial, which is not our mandate nor our pull. We have a patron who responded to our proposal for the space, so we have rent covered. Everything else is for us to scrimp and scrape together.

EB: Hence the experimental nature of our programme. We have the luxury of curating without commercial caché.

BP: Usually it’s only large institutions that have the capacity to support that, which comes with limitations and accessibility issues. You can support younger, experimental artists without those limitations.

SL: It's a dream come true for sure. Hopefully we are finding artists who wouldn’t find homes in commercial contexts.

EB: Although performance work emerged organically in our Mayfair space, we do have a ‘plastic’ programme in Marylebone, with physical works of art.

BP: When did you open the second space in Alfie’s?

EB: In April. A lot goes into the performance exhibitions so it's nice to have a consistent ‘up on the wall’ programme.

BP: The whole operation has happened very quickly. I blinked and suddenly you were both running a rigorously programmed two-space gallery.

SL: The only way to figure out if we overcommitted is to have done it.

EB: There's a logic to the madness and density. London is ever changing, nothing is secure and whilst we have this opportunity we have to hurtle our way through it, whilst providing as much respect and time to the artists. We don’t know how long we will have this on our hands.

BP: Esme, you did your foundation at CSM, studied art history at Goldsmiths and then did an MA in art history and philosophy of art in Paris. How has this impacted the gallery?

EB: Because of my foundation, I had this scattered network of friends across all of the art schools in London. Naturally you all mingle. It means I have a very organic network. All my friends are artists, or write about art, or run galleries, or want to, I don't know, tap dance. That’s who I spend all my time with.

BP: Sam, you grew up in New England [US]. Studied classics and comparative literature in the States and then did an MA in art history at Oxford. How did you end up in London?

EB: I put out a bat symbol [laughs].

SL: I wanted to know if I could make a career in the art world, and London felt like an exciting place to do it. It's spread horizontally as opposed to the vertical stack of New York, which felt more accessible. I did the terrifying thing of moving to London without a job.

EB: It’s also nice approaching artists from the place of “I studied art too.”

BP: I think that makes sense with your model. You are essentially facilitators for artists. So often galleries are too commercially focussed. Of course there's an element to developing artists' practices but that’s always in the realm of building their market. A lot of gallerists don’t come from art practices; they aren’t artists.

EB: Often they function as dealers.

SL: What is curating – if you are doing it in a meaningful way for artists – if it’s not facilitating?

EB: We don't have a house style. We have a very open approach to curating. We don’t want to pigeonhole our aesthetic in any way. We’ve done photography shows on grief, but also music adjacent shows. Artist Willow Swan, for example, used a jacuzzi pump to make noise from an organ – the programme has a wide range.

SL: A studio gives artists space to think through ideas visually. But realising a show is a generative part of one's practice. You can get new ideas from the public perception of your work, but also from arranging something in a space that isn’t your own. That’s a neurological scramble. The exciting next phase is curating more group shows – isolating the qualities of young artists that deserve to be put in conversation.

BP: A lot of the time with group shows, the artists never have involvement. It seems Bolding wants to dismantle this system. Exhibition building is the whole work.

SL: I can’t imagine that is in any way revolutionary.

BP: It’s not revolutionary but it's rare.

EB: It’s nice to know that the community can still be at the core.

BP: I get the impression that you are sitting on something more special than you realise, in terms of carving out a very specific space in the art world. As amazing as London can be, an artist's career here is very restricted.

EB: In the confines of having next to no budget - which is important to emphasise - a lot of creativity is required. You really have to muddle together with the artists’ heads.

BP: Beautiful things come from not having means.

EB: It’s been interesting not forcing things to be ‘polished’, as that can feel contrived. One artist made an amazing piece where he concocted roller blades out of some surplus rubber army boots which produced tarmac-like scuffs all over the floor. I spent four hours the next day with spoons, rubbers, and bleach trying to get them off. I have scars from blisters to this day.

SL: The moral of the story: if you are working with a performance artist, clarify whether mark-making is a part of their practice before it's too late. [laughs]

EB: Keep boys away from the army surplus stores, that's what I say! We are also pursuing some other projects outside of London and the potential for a residency programme.

SL: If there's one thing that we’ve learnt, the amount of scaffolding that each show deserves takes a lot of time to blossom.

EB: We are running these spaces whilst having full time jobs. We are under no illusion that other people are also doing that.

BP: How do you find your artists?

SL: When you’re not trying to network. An authentic conversation will spring up with someone who’s doing something you want to know more about, and that will happen at the least expected time. You have to always be ‘on’. It’s shocking how much can actually happen organically.

EB: We are trying to be all-embracing while keeping on a clear track with what we think actively adds to London, and show people who need to be seen.

BP: Esme, you’re working with artists you’ve had long personal relationships with. How does that affect the curatorial process?

EB: There's a natural ease in having known someone's practice for years. Knowing where and what they have shown in the past. Knowing that someone is due a show of a certain scale. It also just comes down to knowing that an artist has a body of work ready.

BP: Do you have an overarching focus? Is there something you're reaching for?

SL: Basel [laughs].

EB: International acclaim! [laughs]. Jokes aside, we want the artists we are working with to see some success, in whatever form that takes. We’re not necessarily a stepping stone, we’re just trying to create a community, some confidence, and to rise up together.

SL: There's an infinite amount of mistakes that you make when you’re starting a gallery. It's very helpful to have a community of artists who will forgive you, and figure things out in the moment.

EB: We haven’t come through a blue chip system.

BP: It's really refreshing. People who have the capacity to open galleries normally have worked through the gallery system, which creates these imitated models. You are creating a new one.

SL: We don't have a commercial reference point, that’s for sure. We don't really have any reference point.

BP: Which I think is incredibly exciting.

EB: The artist is always going to be the protagonist.

SL: It’s incredible that people make art. It's such a wonderful part of being alive. It's so exciting to have a hand in supporting artists.

BP: What does the future hold?

SL: Fundraising. Partnering with institutions that align with our values. I think it would be exciting to have an education element, to show that there are many ways being a working artist can look. The great advantage to London is the scrappiness you see, in how people piece their lives together. We’re figuring out how to work that into exhibition making.

EB: There's a suitable madness to how some artists speak.

BP: I went to art school but I wasn’t exposed to what being an artist actually looks like. If someone showed me how scrappy and weird it can all be, it would have made me a lot more excited. Instead I feared it. I needed Bolding.

EB: It’s nice to be honest about what that looks like: ‘This is how you muddle through, and learn as you go’. We will hopefully be running residencies outside of London by the end of this year. It's exciting to leave the London-centricness of the art scene and look beyond.

PLASTER MAGAZINE

August 2025