Grot | The Crypt
I passed a sign for this exhibition by chance, walking down the Euston Road after leaving the office. I’d been to the crypt gallery below St Pancras Church, that gloomy Victorian pile festooned by weirdly foreshortened caryatids, once before, and fancied another go.
The art in this exhibition, curated by As/If, was negligible. But the atmosphere of these narrow tunnels, dimly lit and echoing, made it worth the visit. In one side passage, piles of discarded gravestones were propped up against a wall.
What of the actual art? Not much to say. I enjoyed Reuben Yoell’s Maurizio Cattelan tribute, a bare toilet bowl filled with wooden eggs. A face-down partially-open laptop down one side passage blared out slurping sounds (Ian Williamson’s After the Swamp).
But by the time I’d reached the back of the crypt, watching clip-job projected videos of cat and dog memes on the damp brick walls (Free Lobotomies, apt title), I was ready to leave. On one hand, a grotty way to celebrate Frieze Week; on the other, a diverting 10 minutes in a memorable space.
Grot is at The Crypt (London). October 15 - October 22