Scott Lawrie Gallery began life in 2017 as a regional contemporary art space in Matakana, New Zealand – a semi-rural village with a population of under 500 people. The gallery, a unique purpose-built exhibition space (inspired by a sheep shed) invited a mix of emerging, mid-career, and major international artists.

Somehow, it worked.

In 2020 COVID arrived, and NZ became one of the most locked-down countries in the world, so the gallery was forced to close and go online. A few months later, still a little bruised, the gallery moved to a small space in central Auckland to kick things off again.

By 2021 the gallery was back on its feet, but I was feeling increasingly unsettled. It seemed to me that big brands, private museums, art fairs and more, had somehow taken over as the arbiters of taste, pushing aside many artists who would never get shown in such an obviously manufactured and sterile environment. The art world is no stranger to late stage capitalism and market manipulation, but given its crushing effects on creativity, I knew I needed to pivot away from institutional structures and ‘blue-chip’ gallery models towards a more open, fearless, vessel for artists.

In 2022, I moved in to an even larger warehouse space with three dedicated exhibition areas. This allowed me to work with artists on major shows – encouraging an energetic mix of viewers and supporters. Mount Eden became a popular and welcoming space to anyone, and offered a decent coffee and a large library of art books to dive into at any time. A good debate was often had. I loved getting out of there and into communities too. In particular, I grew close to the Moana / Pasifika artists from as far afield as Niue, Cook Islands, Samoa, Tonga and Fiji, with their dynamic, bold, and highly inventive visual cultures and communities, all of whom welcomed me openly as a friend.

In 2022, I took things up a gear with The Confessions, a show inspired by the brutal 17thC Scottish witch hunts; an allegory for the scourge of cancel culture today. This was my first attempt at a free large-scale public show in Auckland, bringing in over 1000 visitors to the waterfront concrete silos in its first week.

The gallery has hosted around 200 exhibitions, and shown work by over 120 artists from around the world including significant international artists such as Patricia Piccinini, Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori, Rebecca Wallis, Fiona Pardington, Andy Leleisi'uao, James Collins and many more.

Scott Lawrie Gallery will present its first UK show during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August 2024.

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Adventures in Space:
The Gallery as Practice

Looking back, it was an accidental idea. As the gallery progressed and evolved, so had I. I'd spent a lifetime with art, yet, I'd become increasingly suspicious of the structures and motivations which surrounded it. I wanted to explore and question that in depth, so I began to do a deep dive into the state of the arts globally. I was particularly influenced by the writings of the late Mark Fisher, especially his book, Capitalist Realism, is there no alternative? I'd grown up in a housing estate on the edge of a mining community in Moredun in south-east Edinburgh, and while at Edinburgh College of Art in the late 1980's and early 90s I'd always leaned towards Marxist theory, within the realms of Continental philosophy at least.

I jumped back in to bring my thinking up to speed - revisiting Baudrillard, Lacan, and Marcuse, and discovering Mark Fisher, Ben Davis, and even Žižek for the first time. While I'm no academic or philosopher, the more I grappled with this thinking, the more I wanted it to deterritorialise the idea of what a gallery is. To my mind, the shows became a lot more interesting too.

As a result, sometime around 2022 the gallery gently and slowly transformed into a gallery practice, just like those of the artists it worked with. I encouraged a more experimental culture, working with artists to ask pertinent questions that the institutions, and many commercial galleries, wouldn't – or simply couldn't – address. All sales (usually to outstandingly brave collectors) simply went back into the running of the gallery program.

This shift in focus liberated me from the sometimes cloying suffocation of contemporary art world frigidity; the joyless architectural formalism, the unhealthy obsession with convention, a place where success is somehow correlated to self-control. Look how far things have slipped. Brands are now influencing the art world – why is this celebrated? Brands and art should never be seen together anywhere outside of irony. They are literally irreconcilable. Capitalism must not be allowed to dictate what we experience in art, because it is never in the best interests of the viewer or the artist.

Late stage capitalism – where we are right now – has had a terrible effect on both imagination and ambition in the arts. Due to the almost near-universal acceptance of this 'new norm', I believe art is experiencing an existential crisis. Market manipulation, putting clients and sponsors first, brand alignments, the incessant drive for crowd pleasers, visitor KPIs, lack of youth engagement, muffled silences, and (largely corrective, but well-meaning) post-Colonial panic attacks by the museums, is making art myopic and tame; a place where rigorous and relevant questioning is barely encouraged at all. The commercial art world is worth billions. Yet 95% of working artists barely earn a living at all.

For all of these reasons, I believe the entire art ecosystem has to radically change. Not just to keep art relevant, but actually alive in the minds of human beings.

Art is a liberating force; a portal, if you like, to new experiences, inspiring knowledge, and human connections. In an always-on world of 24/7 screens, fast dopamine fixes, and awe-inspiring new paradigms in digital realities, art must now punch – upwards, and harder than ever before – to become more relevant than ever. My fear is art will soon become subjugated by capitalism (and definitely by technology) to the extent that it becomes irrelevant and vacuous; eternally gasping for air in the tourist heritage bucket. Instead, art must become a popular (not populist), forward-thinking pathway to dynamic, ever-changing new experiences. Like it or not, all art in the here and now is political, whether it sits behind Corinthian pillars or not.

As a gallery practice, exhibitions become partnerships. When these are between curator and artist, ideas are thrown around, pulled apart, and ultimately merged to form a basic premise for each show, which is then explored through the work itself, accompanying essays, and sometimes films and talks. All the time cherishing the freedom to critique, and occasionally raise eyebrows. (I don't especially care if you love it, or hate it. But all of us care why.)

At the moment, the practice is particularly interested in two streams, which occasionally converge; the breakdown of current societal structures and the emergence of new forms of art using non-human intelligence, and the current effects of capitalist realism on art and culture. The first show of the latter subject, ‘THIS IS NO SAFE SPACE: Art in Capitalist Realism’ will be shown at WASPS Granton Station during the Edinburgh Festival from 3-25 August 2024. Details to come.