Viva Lewes Issue #143 August 2018

ART
Cuckoo 2, 2015, Galvanised steel, cast fibreglass balloon and sand. Courtesy of the Artist and Karsten Schubert Gallery, London.
Alison Wilding
‘I’m an unashamed elitist’
44
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.
Courtesy of the Artist and Karsten Schubert Gallery, London.