‘I’m struck by the absence of any balance in the city between competition and humanity" - New works by Gram Hilleard

‘See London before it dies!’ This ominous and portentous warning marks a new development in the work of Gram Hilleard. His new show of irreverent but unerringly serious postcards is the long-awaited sequel to his celebrated exhibition ‘Developer Up Yours’ (2015).

In a London where the homeless (often working homeless!) pass empty luxury flats daily – more and more of which are being built to lie fallow – and corporate-financed skyscrapers oversee an invisible, forgotten sub-culture from food banks to a faltering British Bulldog Brexit, Hilleard stops his viewer in her/his tracks.

He asks the visitor to look beyond the selfies of the Houses of Parliament … and he invites Londoners momentarily to step outside the daily digital daze and grind.

Where his earlier landmark exhibition mourned the losses of rampant and culturally insensitive gentrification, in this new presentation of work, Hilleard modulates his tone to turn his sharp critical gaze to obvious but overlooked phenomena: over-development, corporate neo-liberalism and an increasingly quiet but pernicious prevailing political ideology - in short, to a city failing its own, especially the modest, vulnerable and quiet.

To Hilleard the last word: ‘I’m struck by the absence of any balance in the city between competition and humanity … to the point where people and their suffering mean nothing. London in 2018 may be world-class, but it is now a world-class folly – one that will leave an empty and soulless inheritance.’

text by Persi Darukhanawala

Gram's work is part of "The sun rises in the East End" show, find his postcards in our shop today and don't forget to join us for the show's private view on Thursday 24th May.

Join the event HERE