Viva Brighton Issue #66 August 2018

ART
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Cuckoo 2, 2015, Galvanised steel, cast fibreglass balloon and sand
Alison Wilding
‘I’m an unashamed elitist’
Bexhill’s De La Warr Pavilion has put on some
tremendous art exhibitions over the years,
but compared with, say, the Jerwood, Pallant
House or Towner it always seems to me to be
operating slightly under the radar. Perhaps
it’s an unlooked-for consequence of the sheer,
dazzling diversity of cultural and not-so-cultural
entertainment that is constantly on-tap at the
Mendelsohn and Chermayeff 1930s modernist
masterpiece. (‘Est. 1935, Modern ever since’, as
the latest jaunty De La Warr publicity has it).
I’ll always remember my first visit to Bexhill after
moving down from London at the end of 1983.
Posters on the Pavilion promised the eclectic
mix, inter alia, of a Victor Pasmore exhibition
and… Val Doonican. Here’s just a few of my
personal artistic highlights over the last two
decades. 1999: British linocuts of the 1920s and
1930s – this showcased the exuberant work of the
Grosvenor School, especially Cyril Power, Sybil
Andrews and Claude Flight. 2008: an exemplary
exhibition devoted to the work of Ben Nicholson.
Dark Horse 1, 1983, Portland roach & neoprene
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