PLAYTIME

The Cable Depot presents Playtime, an exhibition reimagining the potential of our built environment by Charlie Warde, featuring Amikam Toren, Mike Davies, Iavor Lubomirov, Paul Carey-Kent, Camilla Cole, Karl England, Gianni Botsford and Henri Guette.

Cable Depot, 8, Submarine Cable Depot, Warspite Rd, London SE18 5NX 12.11.21 – 06.02.22: by appointment
Opening night: 12.11.21 | 18.30 – 21.00

Playtime is an attempt to readdress Jacques Tati’s eponymous 1967 critique of Modernism in which Monsieur Hulot bumbles his way through a cold, immovable and unrelenting Modern Paris. Over a 3-month period, Warde will invite 10 artists, architects, curators and art writers to play with his modular paintings and sculptures. Unsquare Dance, 16 magnetically backed “Wall Paintings”, each depicting a hyper realistic, three-dimensional slab of recently demolished

Robin Hood Gardens concrete in varying states of neglect, can be arranged in any number of configurations by the players. The sculptures, or “Free Standing Paintings”, made according to Le Corbusier’s Modulor Rule, are also interchangeable. All of the elements will be rebuilt on a weekly basis to explore different possibilities and outcomes, the results accessible live, 24/7, on www.cable-depot.com via high definition CCTV cameras.

“Charlie Warde represents an upsurge in interest in Brutalism and the period’s social housing, at a time when Britain is rapidly divesting itself of its ‘failed’ Brutalist heritage and housing stock. He takes Brutalism as a source material – something to be observed, quoted, appropriated – a part of art history.”

Iavor Lubomirov

“Warde’s paintings depict and mourn the decline of the physical integrity of the social-housing schemes conceived fifty years ago, while retaining enough of their innovative aesthetic to celebrate what they were. No stone, no sand, no concrete was harmed in the production of these facsimiles. Warde wants to push painting as far as it will go: first he sets up the archetypal response to contemporary

art – why, anyone could grab a chunk of wall! – Only to pull away the rug of scorn – wow, the work in that, and the skill!”
Paul Carey-Kent

Three of Charlie Warde’s works can be found in the permanent collection of the V&A Museum. He also features in the collection of 2 Willow Road.