BANK was an artists' group active in London during the 1990s.
History and project
Simon Bedwell and John Russell spent a few years on sporadic art events and fake mailout-only 'shows' in the years after leaving St Martins artschool, then in 1991 organised their first proper show, with fellow ex-St Martins friend Dino Demosthenous, in an ex-Barclays on Lewisham Way, South London; this is where the name BANK came from. Dino Demosthenous left in 1992. In 1993, Russell and Bedwell were joined by Milly Thompson, David Burrows and Andrew Williamson (Bedwell, Burrows and Williamson having worked as a group sporadically for the 2 years previously, with shows at Richard Demarco gallery Edinburgh, and Clove 2, London). Burrows left BANK in 1995, Williamson in 1998, Russell in 2000. When BANK's own gallery, Gallerie Poo Poo, closed after the three-day show Press Release in January 1999, the group began to exhibit their collective work in other venues: The Mayor Gallery, London, Magasin 4, Bregenz, Rupert Goldsworthy Gallery, New York, Anthony Wilkinson Gallery, London, Chapman FineARTS, London, Suburban, Chicago, and finally the inaugural show at Store, London, after which Milly Thompson and Simon Bedwell began to work separately as artists whilst managing the BANK archive. BANK works have continued to circulate in exhibitions in the UK and abroad, most recently in The Banquet Years, a mini-retrospective at MOT International, London, who now represent the 'estate' of BANK as well as Bedwell and Russell.
BANK's contribution to UK contemporary art was a series of curated group shows, often with comical, and sometimes offensive, titles. As a group they adopted an aggressive stance towards the mainstream contemporary art scene of the time.
The approximately twenty shows curated by BANK included the work of the BANK artists alongside the work of several future Turner Prize nominees and winners. Although the BANK exhibitions were mostly held in warehouse spaces on Curtain Road, then Underwood Street (both Shoreditch, London) the name of the gallery changed. Initially it was BANKSPACE, then DOG, and finally Gallerie Poo-Poo. The various artworks were bound together, via polemical mailouts, deliberately overt thematizing and radically non-hierarchical methods of display, within single sprawling installations with a penchant for what then seemed like visual vulgarity.
BANK also published a satirical magazine delivering tabloid-style critiques of the art world. Headlines included, "AD MAN YOU’RE A BAD MAN," and, "GALLERIES 'ALL OWNED BY RICH PEOPLE' SHOCK." Other "frankly adolescent" headlines were "ARSE COUNCIL", "SIMON PATTERSON - ONE IDEA, EIGHT YEARS", "CARRY ON CURATING", "PIPPA-LOTTA-RIST-ACTION" and "SAM-TAYLOR WOULD-NOT" These 34 tabloids, along with the Fax-Back project - in which gallery press releases were returned to galleries with corrections and commentary - have since become BANK's best known work.
Julian Stallabrass describes BANK’s activity as "the parodic creation of corporate identity at the centre of which (as their name suggests) is a noisy and constant reference to that matter of which the art world usually whispers: money." They had, according to Matthew Collings, a "surly, self-destructive, self-conscious, introspective attitude - combined...with critical intelligence and a flair for spotting weaknesses in the art system".
BANK SHOWS 1991–2003
2003
SIMON BEDWELL & MILLY THOMPSON Store, London
ART IS HELL The Suburban, Chicago
2002
BANK Anthony Wilkinson Gallery, London
CAPITULATER! Project, Dublin (solo BANK show/billboard)
2001
BANK Chapman Fine Arts, London, BANK Centre for Artist Books, University of Dundee
1999
PRESS RELEASE Gallerie Poo Poo, London
PRESS RELEASE Rupert Goldsworthy Gallery, New York
IF HOPE WAS A TIME MACHINE Magazin 4, Bregenz, Austria
DEAD LIFE Mayor Gallery, London
1998
WHITE3 (BANK, Bethan Huws) Gallerie Poo Poo, London
WHITE3 (BANK, Art & Language), Gallerie Poo Poo, London
WHITE3 (BANK, Lolly Batty), Gallerie Poo Poo, London
STOP SHORT-CHANGING US. POPULAR CULTURE IS FOR IDIOTS. WE BELIEVE IN ART! Gallerie Poo Poo, London GALLERIE WINNER (BANK, Wayne Lloyd) Gallerie Poo Poo, London CONFERENCE Waygood Gallery, Newcastle