A Clear Comfort: Food and Queer performance art at Van Gogh House London
Inspired by the homes of queer artists, we take a look at Ian Giles' recent three course meal and immersive performance...
July 6, 2023
Though the American photographer Alice Austen and Gertrude Tate lived together from 1917, they couldn’t share a bedroom of their own. Their home – Clear Comfort, a suburban cottage on New York’s Staten Island - was kept by a young, Catholic housekeeper. As such, they kept their sexuality secret, behind two sets of closed doors.
Contemporary artist Ian Giles starts here - and an article in Apartamento - in his research into the homes of LGBTQ+ artists. His performance is named after Austen’s home, which soon became a safe haven of queer expression, a site of protest for the Lesbian Avengers, and one of the first places in the conservative area to fly the Pride flag. But from here, he travels through time and space, to a private gay club - ‘three levels of pure partying’ - and back to the Van Gogh House in Stockwell, where this iteration of A Clear Comfort currently parades.
Austen, who produced over eight thousand photographs, is first connected with a better-known British icon; within six months in 1986, Derek Jarman had been nominated for the Turner Prize, diagnosed with HIV, and had set out to make a garden of his own. He moved to Dungeness in Kent before the recent wave of gentrification. Residents today bemoan their beaches being ‘picked clean by Guardian readers’, but even then, his Prospect Cottage was frequented by the likes of Tilda Swinton.
It is easy to suspend disbelief, when Giles gestures to ‘over there, on the harbour’, or beckons us into Austen’s garden. Though historically informed, his script is wholly verbatim, from interviews with those who still tend these properties made during site visits. The performance connects these places and peoples; giving credit to the fisherman who truly built Prospect Cottage, and delivered by local actors and musicians, like Sophie Crawford.
Where previous exhibitions have extended outside the museum space, A Clear Comfort reimagines Van Gogh House’s interior. We move up, down, and around the space, engaging with it on different levels. In this ‘promenade performance’, PK Taylor pours a cup of tea in the kitchen. Crawford calls us into the living room through an open window.
In collaboration with the local Café Van Gogh, Giles curates a seasonal menu. The shiitake mushrooms which adorn the main course are inspired by this year’s crop from Alice Austen’s gardening club, founded in 1914 and still active today. We also read of fungi’s asexual, ‘non-binary’, reproduction. But the overlaps between the food on the plate, and the art on display, need not be made so explicit.
It’s clear, in the ‘volatile oils’ of the lavender, rosemary, and thyme transplanted into the space (and which peppers our Brixton Gin cocktails.) The bright colours of leaves, licked by the ‘drying winds’, which similarly influenced van Gogh’s practice. These notes collapse the boundary between (human) art and nature, highlighting overlaps between the two.
Inside, the lights go green, then pink, and we’re transported again to nightclubs in Chicago. Here, Giles connects the origins of House music and queer culture. Pale light bulbs signal us through the space, towards a film of a sweet pea, the product of a chemical fault in early Kodak film which prevents the magenta from fading, or ‘pinking’. It’s present in the rhubarb which colours and flavours dessert, a sorbet; another element forced to grow in complete darkness. Giles plays with pink, and uses it as a prop, to prevent these important people from falling into posthumous obscurity.
These subtle touches are where A Clear Comfort triumphs. The tablecloths are adorned with photographs from the artist’s residency, ink paintings of plants, which also permeate his practice. The seats, filled by his friends and family. It all creates a sense of community, wholly different from the haute cuisine which characterises museum restaurants and their menus. Tangible connections with the local community and businesses – much like the Brixton Brewery beers created for Harold Offeh’s installation, which raised a glass to local activist Olive Morris – are what mark out this institution.
Once again, Van Gogh House proves how the house-as-museum can be a living, evolving place. Giles too is no stranger to the moving installation; his previous performances have taken place on boats, and as walks. This work will crop up again in Charleston, another natural home, with even clearer queer historical connections, later this year.
So hurl Jarman’s feared hortus conclusus (walled garden) out of the window. There’s a slightly more accessible heaven on earth to be found here. Other, larger institutions, could take a leaf out of their book, and be open to such a takeover – a kind of cultural rewilding - who knows what may grow out of it?
Ian Giles: A Clear Comfort was performed at the Van Gogh House in London in June and July 2023. The performance will tour to Charleston, Lewes, later on in the year.
Though the American photographer Alice Austen and Gertrude Tate lived together from 1917, they couldn’t share a bedroom of their own. Their home – Clear Comfort, a suburban cottage on New York’s Staten Island - was kept by a young, Catholic housekeeper. As such, they kept their sexuality secret, behind two sets of closed doors.
Contemporary artist Ian Giles starts here - and an article in Apartamento - in his research into the homes of LGBTQ+ artists. His performance is named after Austen’s home, which soon became a safe haven of queer expression, a site of protest for the Lesbian Avengers, and one of the first places in the conservative area to fly the Pride flag. But from here, he travels through time and space, to a private gay club - ‘three levels of pure partying’ - and back to the Van Gogh House in Stockwell, where this iteration of A Clear Comfort currently parades.
Austen, who produced over eight thousand photographs, is first connected with a better-known British icon; within six months in 1986, Derek Jarman had been nominated for the Turner Prize, diagnosed with HIV, and had set out to make a garden of his own. He moved to Dungeness in Kent before the recent wave of gentrification. Residents today bemoan their beaches being ‘picked clean by Guardian readers’, but even then, his Prospect Cottage was frequented by the likes of Tilda Swinton.
It is easy to suspend disbelief, when Giles gestures to ‘over there, on the harbour’, or beckons us into Austen’s garden. Though historically informed, his script is wholly verbatim, from interviews with those who still tend these properties made during site visits. The performance connects these places and peoples; giving credit to the fisherman who truly built Prospect Cottage, and delivered by local actors and musicians, like Sophie Crawford.
Where previous exhibitions have extended outside the museum space, A Clear Comfort reimagines Van Gogh House’s interior. We move up, down, and around the space, engaging with it on different levels. In this ‘promenade performance’, PK Taylor pours a cup of tea in the kitchen. Crawford calls us into the living room through an open window.
In collaboration with the local Café Van Gogh, Giles curates a seasonal menu. The shiitake mushrooms which adorn the main course are inspired by this year’s crop from Alice Austen’s gardening club, founded in 1914 and still active today. We also read of fungi’s asexual, ‘non-binary’, reproduction. But the overlaps between the food on the plate, and the art on display, need not be made so explicit.
It’s clear, in the ‘volatile oils’ of the lavender, rosemary, and thyme transplanted into the space (and which peppers our Brixton Gin cocktails.) The bright colours of leaves, licked by the ‘drying winds’, which similarly influenced van Gogh’s practice. These notes collapse the boundary between (human) art and nature, highlighting overlaps between the two.
Inside, the lights go green, then pink, and we’re transported again to nightclubs in Chicago. Here, Giles connects the origins of House music and queer culture. Pale light bulbs signal us through the space, towards a film of a sweet pea, the product of a chemical fault in early Kodak film which prevents the magenta from fading, or ‘pinking’. It’s present in the rhubarb which colours and flavours dessert, a sorbet; another element forced to grow in complete darkness. Giles plays with pink, and uses it as a prop, to prevent these important people from falling into posthumous obscurity.
These subtle touches are where A Clear Comfort triumphs. The tablecloths are adorned with photographs from the artist’s residency, ink paintings of plants, which also permeate his practice. The seats, filled by his friends and family. It all creates a sense of community, wholly different from the haute cuisine which characterises museum restaurants and their menus. Tangible connections with the local community and businesses – much like the Brixton Brewery beers created for Harold Offeh’s installation, which raised a glass to local activist Olive Morris – are what mark out this institution.
Once again, Van Gogh House proves how the house-as-museum can be a living, evolving place. Giles too is no stranger to the moving installation; his previous performances have taken place on boats, and as walks. This work will crop up again in Charleston, another natural home, with even clearer queer historical connections, later this year.
So hurl Jarman’s feared hortus conclusus (walled garden) out of the window. There’s a slightly more accessible heaven on earth to be found here. Other, larger institutions, could take a leaf out of their book, and be open to such a takeover – a kind of cultural rewilding - who knows what may grow out of it?
Ian Giles: A Clear Comfort was performed at the Van Gogh House in London in June and July 2023. The performance will tour to Charleston, Lewes, later on in the year.
Though the American photographer Alice Austen and Gertrude Tate lived together from 1917, they couldn’t share a bedroom of their own. Their home – Clear Comfort, a suburban cottage on New York’s Staten Island - was kept by a young, Catholic housekeeper. As such, they kept their sexuality secret, behind two sets of closed doors.
Contemporary artist Ian Giles starts here - and an article in Apartamento - in his research into the homes of LGBTQ+ artists. His performance is named after Austen’s home, which soon became a safe haven of queer expression, a site of protest for the Lesbian Avengers, and one of the first places in the conservative area to fly the Pride flag. But from here, he travels through time and space, to a private gay club - ‘three levels of pure partying’ - and back to the Van Gogh House in Stockwell, where this iteration of A Clear Comfort currently parades.
Austen, who produced over eight thousand photographs, is first connected with a better-known British icon; within six months in 1986, Derek Jarman had been nominated for the Turner Prize, diagnosed with HIV, and had set out to make a garden of his own. He moved to Dungeness in Kent before the recent wave of gentrification. Residents today bemoan their beaches being ‘picked clean by Guardian readers’, but even then, his Prospect Cottage was frequented by the likes of Tilda Swinton.
It is easy to suspend disbelief, when Giles gestures to ‘over there, on the harbour’, or beckons us into Austen’s garden. Though historically informed, his script is wholly verbatim, from interviews with those who still tend these properties made during site visits. The performance connects these places and peoples; giving credit to the fisherman who truly built Prospect Cottage, and delivered by local actors and musicians, like Sophie Crawford.
Where previous exhibitions have extended outside the museum space, A Clear Comfort reimagines Van Gogh House’s interior. We move up, down, and around the space, engaging with it on different levels. In this ‘promenade performance’, PK Taylor pours a cup of tea in the kitchen. Crawford calls us into the living room through an open window.
In collaboration with the local Café Van Gogh, Giles curates a seasonal menu. The shiitake mushrooms which adorn the main course are inspired by this year’s crop from Alice Austen’s gardening club, founded in 1914 and still active today. We also read of fungi’s asexual, ‘non-binary’, reproduction. But the overlaps between the food on the plate, and the art on display, need not be made so explicit.
It’s clear, in the ‘volatile oils’ of the lavender, rosemary, and thyme transplanted into the space (and which peppers our Brixton Gin cocktails.) The bright colours of leaves, licked by the ‘drying winds’, which similarly influenced van Gogh’s practice. These notes collapse the boundary between (human) art and nature, highlighting overlaps between the two.
Inside, the lights go green, then pink, and we’re transported again to nightclubs in Chicago. Here, Giles connects the origins of House music and queer culture. Pale light bulbs signal us through the space, towards a film of a sweet pea, the product of a chemical fault in early Kodak film which prevents the magenta from fading, or ‘pinking’. It’s present in the rhubarb which colours and flavours dessert, a sorbet; another element forced to grow in complete darkness. Giles plays with pink, and uses it as a prop, to prevent these important people from falling into posthumous obscurity.
These subtle touches are where A Clear Comfort triumphs. The tablecloths are adorned with photographs from the artist’s residency, ink paintings of plants, which also permeate his practice. The seats, filled by his friends and family. It all creates a sense of community, wholly different from the haute cuisine which characterises museum restaurants and their menus. Tangible connections with the local community and businesses – much like the Brixton Brewery beers created for Harold Offeh’s installation, which raised a glass to local activist Olive Morris – are what mark out this institution.
Once again, Van Gogh House proves how the house-as-museum can be a living, evolving place. Giles too is no stranger to the moving installation; his previous performances have taken place on boats, and as walks. This work will crop up again in Charleston, another natural home, with even clearer queer historical connections, later this year.
So hurl Jarman’s feared hortus conclusus (walled garden) out of the window. There’s a slightly more accessible heaven on earth to be found here. Other, larger institutions, could take a leaf out of their book, and be open to such a takeover – a kind of cultural rewilding - who knows what may grow out of it?
Ian Giles: A Clear Comfort was performed at the Van Gogh House in London in June and July 2023. The performance will tour to Charleston, Lewes, later on in the year.
Though the American photographer Alice Austen and Gertrude Tate lived together from 1917, they couldn’t share a bedroom of their own. Their home – Clear Comfort, a suburban cottage on New York’s Staten Island - was kept by a young, Catholic housekeeper. As such, they kept their sexuality secret, behind two sets of closed doors.
Contemporary artist Ian Giles starts here - and an article in Apartamento - in his research into the homes of LGBTQ+ artists. His performance is named after Austen’s home, which soon became a safe haven of queer expression, a site of protest for the Lesbian Avengers, and one of the first places in the conservative area to fly the Pride flag. But from here, he travels through time and space, to a private gay club - ‘three levels of pure partying’ - and back to the Van Gogh House in Stockwell, where this iteration of A Clear Comfort currently parades.
Austen, who produced over eight thousand photographs, is first connected with a better-known British icon; within six months in 1986, Derek Jarman had been nominated for the Turner Prize, diagnosed with HIV, and had set out to make a garden of his own. He moved to Dungeness in Kent before the recent wave of gentrification. Residents today bemoan their beaches being ‘picked clean by Guardian readers’, but even then, his Prospect Cottage was frequented by the likes of Tilda Swinton.
It is easy to suspend disbelief, when Giles gestures to ‘over there, on the harbour’, or beckons us into Austen’s garden. Though historically informed, his script is wholly verbatim, from interviews with those who still tend these properties made during site visits. The performance connects these places and peoples; giving credit to the fisherman who truly built Prospect Cottage, and delivered by local actors and musicians, like Sophie Crawford.
Where previous exhibitions have extended outside the museum space, A Clear Comfort reimagines Van Gogh House’s interior. We move up, down, and around the space, engaging with it on different levels. In this ‘promenade performance’, PK Taylor pours a cup of tea in the kitchen. Crawford calls us into the living room through an open window.
In collaboration with the local Café Van Gogh, Giles curates a seasonal menu. The shiitake mushrooms which adorn the main course are inspired by this year’s crop from Alice Austen’s gardening club, founded in 1914 and still active today. We also read of fungi’s asexual, ‘non-binary’, reproduction. But the overlaps between the food on the plate, and the art on display, need not be made so explicit.
It’s clear, in the ‘volatile oils’ of the lavender, rosemary, and thyme transplanted into the space (and which peppers our Brixton Gin cocktails.) The bright colours of leaves, licked by the ‘drying winds’, which similarly influenced van Gogh’s practice. These notes collapse the boundary between (human) art and nature, highlighting overlaps between the two.
Inside, the lights go green, then pink, and we’re transported again to nightclubs in Chicago. Here, Giles connects the origins of House music and queer culture. Pale light bulbs signal us through the space, towards a film of a sweet pea, the product of a chemical fault in early Kodak film which prevents the magenta from fading, or ‘pinking’. It’s present in the rhubarb which colours and flavours dessert, a sorbet; another element forced to grow in complete darkness. Giles plays with pink, and uses it as a prop, to prevent these important people from falling into posthumous obscurity.
These subtle touches are where A Clear Comfort triumphs. The tablecloths are adorned with photographs from the artist’s residency, ink paintings of plants, which also permeate his practice. The seats, filled by his friends and family. It all creates a sense of community, wholly different from the haute cuisine which characterises museum restaurants and their menus. Tangible connections with the local community and businesses – much like the Brixton Brewery beers created for Harold Offeh’s installation, which raised a glass to local activist Olive Morris – are what mark out this institution.
Once again, Van Gogh House proves how the house-as-museum can be a living, evolving place. Giles too is no stranger to the moving installation; his previous performances have taken place on boats, and as walks. This work will crop up again in Charleston, another natural home, with even clearer queer historical connections, later this year.
So hurl Jarman’s feared hortus conclusus (walled garden) out of the window. There’s a slightly more accessible heaven on earth to be found here. Other, larger institutions, could take a leaf out of their book, and be open to such a takeover – a kind of cultural rewilding - who knows what may grow out of it?
Ian Giles: A Clear Comfort was performed at the Van Gogh House in London in June and July 2023. The performance will tour to Charleston, Lewes, later on in the year.
Though the American photographer Alice Austen and Gertrude Tate lived together from 1917, they couldn’t share a bedroom of their own. Their home – Clear Comfort, a suburban cottage on New York’s Staten Island - was kept by a young, Catholic housekeeper. As such, they kept their sexuality secret, behind two sets of closed doors.
Contemporary artist Ian Giles starts here - and an article in Apartamento - in his research into the homes of LGBTQ+ artists. His performance is named after Austen’s home, which soon became a safe haven of queer expression, a site of protest for the Lesbian Avengers, and one of the first places in the conservative area to fly the Pride flag. But from here, he travels through time and space, to a private gay club - ‘three levels of pure partying’ - and back to the Van Gogh House in Stockwell, where this iteration of A Clear Comfort currently parades.
Austen, who produced over eight thousand photographs, is first connected with a better-known British icon; within six months in 1986, Derek Jarman had been nominated for the Turner Prize, diagnosed with HIV, and had set out to make a garden of his own. He moved to Dungeness in Kent before the recent wave of gentrification. Residents today bemoan their beaches being ‘picked clean by Guardian readers’, but even then, his Prospect Cottage was frequented by the likes of Tilda Swinton.
It is easy to suspend disbelief, when Giles gestures to ‘over there, on the harbour’, or beckons us into Austen’s garden. Though historically informed, his script is wholly verbatim, from interviews with those who still tend these properties made during site visits. The performance connects these places and peoples; giving credit to the fisherman who truly built Prospect Cottage, and delivered by local actors and musicians, like Sophie Crawford.
Where previous exhibitions have extended outside the museum space, A Clear Comfort reimagines Van Gogh House’s interior. We move up, down, and around the space, engaging with it on different levels. In this ‘promenade performance’, PK Taylor pours a cup of tea in the kitchen. Crawford calls us into the living room through an open window.
In collaboration with the local Café Van Gogh, Giles curates a seasonal menu. The shiitake mushrooms which adorn the main course are inspired by this year’s crop from Alice Austen’s gardening club, founded in 1914 and still active today. We also read of fungi’s asexual, ‘non-binary’, reproduction. But the overlaps between the food on the plate, and the art on display, need not be made so explicit.
It’s clear, in the ‘volatile oils’ of the lavender, rosemary, and thyme transplanted into the space (and which peppers our Brixton Gin cocktails.) The bright colours of leaves, licked by the ‘drying winds’, which similarly influenced van Gogh’s practice. These notes collapse the boundary between (human) art and nature, highlighting overlaps between the two.
Inside, the lights go green, then pink, and we’re transported again to nightclubs in Chicago. Here, Giles connects the origins of House music and queer culture. Pale light bulbs signal us through the space, towards a film of a sweet pea, the product of a chemical fault in early Kodak film which prevents the magenta from fading, or ‘pinking’. It’s present in the rhubarb which colours and flavours dessert, a sorbet; another element forced to grow in complete darkness. Giles plays with pink, and uses it as a prop, to prevent these important people from falling into posthumous obscurity.
These subtle touches are where A Clear Comfort triumphs. The tablecloths are adorned with photographs from the artist’s residency, ink paintings of plants, which also permeate his practice. The seats, filled by his friends and family. It all creates a sense of community, wholly different from the haute cuisine which characterises museum restaurants and their menus. Tangible connections with the local community and businesses – much like the Brixton Brewery beers created for Harold Offeh’s installation, which raised a glass to local activist Olive Morris – are what mark out this institution.
Once again, Van Gogh House proves how the house-as-museum can be a living, evolving place. Giles too is no stranger to the moving installation; his previous performances have taken place on boats, and as walks. This work will crop up again in Charleston, another natural home, with even clearer queer historical connections, later this year.
So hurl Jarman’s feared hortus conclusus (walled garden) out of the window. There’s a slightly more accessible heaven on earth to be found here. Other, larger institutions, could take a leaf out of their book, and be open to such a takeover – a kind of cultural rewilding - who knows what may grow out of it?
Ian Giles: A Clear Comfort was performed at the Van Gogh House in London in June and July 2023. The performance will tour to Charleston, Lewes, later on in the year.
Though the American photographer Alice Austen and Gertrude Tate lived together from 1917, they couldn’t share a bedroom of their own. Their home – Clear Comfort, a suburban cottage on New York’s Staten Island - was kept by a young, Catholic housekeeper. As such, they kept their sexuality secret, behind two sets of closed doors.
Contemporary artist Ian Giles starts here - and an article in Apartamento - in his research into the homes of LGBTQ+ artists. His performance is named after Austen’s home, which soon became a safe haven of queer expression, a site of protest for the Lesbian Avengers, and one of the first places in the conservative area to fly the Pride flag. But from here, he travels through time and space, to a private gay club - ‘three levels of pure partying’ - and back to the Van Gogh House in Stockwell, where this iteration of A Clear Comfort currently parades.
Austen, who produced over eight thousand photographs, is first connected with a better-known British icon; within six months in 1986, Derek Jarman had been nominated for the Turner Prize, diagnosed with HIV, and had set out to make a garden of his own. He moved to Dungeness in Kent before the recent wave of gentrification. Residents today bemoan their beaches being ‘picked clean by Guardian readers’, but even then, his Prospect Cottage was frequented by the likes of Tilda Swinton.
It is easy to suspend disbelief, when Giles gestures to ‘over there, on the harbour’, or beckons us into Austen’s garden. Though historically informed, his script is wholly verbatim, from interviews with those who still tend these properties made during site visits. The performance connects these places and peoples; giving credit to the fisherman who truly built Prospect Cottage, and delivered by local actors and musicians, like Sophie Crawford.
Where previous exhibitions have extended outside the museum space, A Clear Comfort reimagines Van Gogh House’s interior. We move up, down, and around the space, engaging with it on different levels. In this ‘promenade performance’, PK Taylor pours a cup of tea in the kitchen. Crawford calls us into the living room through an open window.
In collaboration with the local Café Van Gogh, Giles curates a seasonal menu. The shiitake mushrooms which adorn the main course are inspired by this year’s crop from Alice Austen’s gardening club, founded in 1914 and still active today. We also read of fungi’s asexual, ‘non-binary’, reproduction. But the overlaps between the food on the plate, and the art on display, need not be made so explicit.
It’s clear, in the ‘volatile oils’ of the lavender, rosemary, and thyme transplanted into the space (and which peppers our Brixton Gin cocktails.) The bright colours of leaves, licked by the ‘drying winds’, which similarly influenced van Gogh’s practice. These notes collapse the boundary between (human) art and nature, highlighting overlaps between the two.
Inside, the lights go green, then pink, and we’re transported again to nightclubs in Chicago. Here, Giles connects the origins of House music and queer culture. Pale light bulbs signal us through the space, towards a film of a sweet pea, the product of a chemical fault in early Kodak film which prevents the magenta from fading, or ‘pinking’. It’s present in the rhubarb which colours and flavours dessert, a sorbet; another element forced to grow in complete darkness. Giles plays with pink, and uses it as a prop, to prevent these important people from falling into posthumous obscurity.
These subtle touches are where A Clear Comfort triumphs. The tablecloths are adorned with photographs from the artist’s residency, ink paintings of plants, which also permeate his practice. The seats, filled by his friends and family. It all creates a sense of community, wholly different from the haute cuisine which characterises museum restaurants and their menus. Tangible connections with the local community and businesses – much like the Brixton Brewery beers created for Harold Offeh’s installation, which raised a glass to local activist Olive Morris – are what mark out this institution.
Once again, Van Gogh House proves how the house-as-museum can be a living, evolving place. Giles too is no stranger to the moving installation; his previous performances have taken place on boats, and as walks. This work will crop up again in Charleston, another natural home, with even clearer queer historical connections, later this year.
So hurl Jarman’s feared hortus conclusus (walled garden) out of the window. There’s a slightly more accessible heaven on earth to be found here. Other, larger institutions, could take a leaf out of their book, and be open to such a takeover – a kind of cultural rewilding - who knows what may grow out of it?
Ian Giles: A Clear Comfort was performed at the Van Gogh House in London in June and July 2023. The performance will tour to Charleston, Lewes, later on in the year.
Though the American photographer Alice Austen and Gertrude Tate lived together from 1917, they couldn’t share a bedroom of their own. Their home – Clear Comfort, a suburban cottage on New York’s Staten Island - was kept by a young, Catholic housekeeper. As such, they kept their sexuality secret, behind two sets of closed doors.
Contemporary artist Ian Giles starts here - and an article in Apartamento - in his research into the homes of LGBTQ+ artists. His performance is named after Austen’s home, which soon became a safe haven of queer expression, a site of protest for the Lesbian Avengers, and one of the first places in the conservative area to fly the Pride flag. But from here, he travels through time and space, to a private gay club - ‘three levels of pure partying’ - and back to the Van Gogh House in Stockwell, where this iteration of A Clear Comfort currently parades.
Austen, who produced over eight thousand photographs, is first connected with a better-known British icon; within six months in 1986, Derek Jarman had been nominated for the Turner Prize, diagnosed with HIV, and had set out to make a garden of his own. He moved to Dungeness in Kent before the recent wave of gentrification. Residents today bemoan their beaches being ‘picked clean by Guardian readers’, but even then, his Prospect Cottage was frequented by the likes of Tilda Swinton.
It is easy to suspend disbelief, when Giles gestures to ‘over there, on the harbour’, or beckons us into Austen’s garden. Though historically informed, his script is wholly verbatim, from interviews with those who still tend these properties made during site visits. The performance connects these places and peoples; giving credit to the fisherman who truly built Prospect Cottage, and delivered by local actors and musicians, like Sophie Crawford.
Where previous exhibitions have extended outside the museum space, A Clear Comfort reimagines Van Gogh House’s interior. We move up, down, and around the space, engaging with it on different levels. In this ‘promenade performance’, PK Taylor pours a cup of tea in the kitchen. Crawford calls us into the living room through an open window.
In collaboration with the local Café Van Gogh, Giles curates a seasonal menu. The shiitake mushrooms which adorn the main course are inspired by this year’s crop from Alice Austen’s gardening club, founded in 1914 and still active today. We also read of fungi’s asexual, ‘non-binary’, reproduction. But the overlaps between the food on the plate, and the art on display, need not be made so explicit.
It’s clear, in the ‘volatile oils’ of the lavender, rosemary, and thyme transplanted into the space (and which peppers our Brixton Gin cocktails.) The bright colours of leaves, licked by the ‘drying winds’, which similarly influenced van Gogh’s practice. These notes collapse the boundary between (human) art and nature, highlighting overlaps between the two.
Inside, the lights go green, then pink, and we’re transported again to nightclubs in Chicago. Here, Giles connects the origins of House music and queer culture. Pale light bulbs signal us through the space, towards a film of a sweet pea, the product of a chemical fault in early Kodak film which prevents the magenta from fading, or ‘pinking’. It’s present in the rhubarb which colours and flavours dessert, a sorbet; another element forced to grow in complete darkness. Giles plays with pink, and uses it as a prop, to prevent these important people from falling into posthumous obscurity.
These subtle touches are where A Clear Comfort triumphs. The tablecloths are adorned with photographs from the artist’s residency, ink paintings of plants, which also permeate his practice. The seats, filled by his friends and family. It all creates a sense of community, wholly different from the haute cuisine which characterises museum restaurants and their menus. Tangible connections with the local community and businesses – much like the Brixton Brewery beers created for Harold Offeh’s installation, which raised a glass to local activist Olive Morris – are what mark out this institution.
Once again, Van Gogh House proves how the house-as-museum can be a living, evolving place. Giles too is no stranger to the moving installation; his previous performances have taken place on boats, and as walks. This work will crop up again in Charleston, another natural home, with even clearer queer historical connections, later this year.
So hurl Jarman’s feared hortus conclusus (walled garden) out of the window. There’s a slightly more accessible heaven on earth to be found here. Other, larger institutions, could take a leaf out of their book, and be open to such a takeover – a kind of cultural rewilding - who knows what may grow out of it?
Ian Giles: A Clear Comfort was performed at the Van Gogh House in London in June and July 2023. The performance will tour to Charleston, Lewes, later on in the year.
Though the American photographer Alice Austen and Gertrude Tate lived together from 1917, they couldn’t share a bedroom of their own. Their home – Clear Comfort, a suburban cottage on New York’s Staten Island - was kept by a young, Catholic housekeeper. As such, they kept their sexuality secret, behind two sets of closed doors.
Contemporary artist Ian Giles starts here - and an article in Apartamento - in his research into the homes of LGBTQ+ artists. His performance is named after Austen’s home, which soon became a safe haven of queer expression, a site of protest for the Lesbian Avengers, and one of the first places in the conservative area to fly the Pride flag. But from here, he travels through time and space, to a private gay club - ‘three levels of pure partying’ - and back to the Van Gogh House in Stockwell, where this iteration of A Clear Comfort currently parades.
Austen, who produced over eight thousand photographs, is first connected with a better-known British icon; within six months in 1986, Derek Jarman had been nominated for the Turner Prize, diagnosed with HIV, and had set out to make a garden of his own. He moved to Dungeness in Kent before the recent wave of gentrification. Residents today bemoan their beaches being ‘picked clean by Guardian readers’, but even then, his Prospect Cottage was frequented by the likes of Tilda Swinton.
It is easy to suspend disbelief, when Giles gestures to ‘over there, on the harbour’, or beckons us into Austen’s garden. Though historically informed, his script is wholly verbatim, from interviews with those who still tend these properties made during site visits. The performance connects these places and peoples; giving credit to the fisherman who truly built Prospect Cottage, and delivered by local actors and musicians, like Sophie Crawford.
Where previous exhibitions have extended outside the museum space, A Clear Comfort reimagines Van Gogh House’s interior. We move up, down, and around the space, engaging with it on different levels. In this ‘promenade performance’, PK Taylor pours a cup of tea in the kitchen. Crawford calls us into the living room through an open window.
In collaboration with the local Café Van Gogh, Giles curates a seasonal menu. The shiitake mushrooms which adorn the main course are inspired by this year’s crop from Alice Austen’s gardening club, founded in 1914 and still active today. We also read of fungi’s asexual, ‘non-binary’, reproduction. But the overlaps between the food on the plate, and the art on display, need not be made so explicit.
It’s clear, in the ‘volatile oils’ of the lavender, rosemary, and thyme transplanted into the space (and which peppers our Brixton Gin cocktails.) The bright colours of leaves, licked by the ‘drying winds’, which similarly influenced van Gogh’s practice. These notes collapse the boundary between (human) art and nature, highlighting overlaps between the two.
Inside, the lights go green, then pink, and we’re transported again to nightclubs in Chicago. Here, Giles connects the origins of House music and queer culture. Pale light bulbs signal us through the space, towards a film of a sweet pea, the product of a chemical fault in early Kodak film which prevents the magenta from fading, or ‘pinking’. It’s present in the rhubarb which colours and flavours dessert, a sorbet; another element forced to grow in complete darkness. Giles plays with pink, and uses it as a prop, to prevent these important people from falling into posthumous obscurity.
These subtle touches are where A Clear Comfort triumphs. The tablecloths are adorned with photographs from the artist’s residency, ink paintings of plants, which also permeate his practice. The seats, filled by his friends and family. It all creates a sense of community, wholly different from the haute cuisine which characterises museum restaurants and their menus. Tangible connections with the local community and businesses – much like the Brixton Brewery beers created for Harold Offeh’s installation, which raised a glass to local activist Olive Morris – are what mark out this institution.
Once again, Van Gogh House proves how the house-as-museum can be a living, evolving place. Giles too is no stranger to the moving installation; his previous performances have taken place on boats, and as walks. This work will crop up again in Charleston, another natural home, with even clearer queer historical connections, later this year.
So hurl Jarman’s feared hortus conclusus (walled garden) out of the window. There’s a slightly more accessible heaven on earth to be found here. Other, larger institutions, could take a leaf out of their book, and be open to such a takeover – a kind of cultural rewilding - who knows what may grow out of it?
Ian Giles: A Clear Comfort was performed at the Van Gogh House in London in June and July 2023. The performance will tour to Charleston, Lewes, later on in the year.
Though the American photographer Alice Austen and Gertrude Tate lived together from 1917, they couldn’t share a bedroom of their own. Their home – Clear Comfort, a suburban cottage on New York’s Staten Island - was kept by a young, Catholic housekeeper. As such, they kept their sexuality secret, behind two sets of closed doors.
Contemporary artist Ian Giles starts here - and an article in Apartamento - in his research into the homes of LGBTQ+ artists. His performance is named after Austen’s home, which soon became a safe haven of queer expression, a site of protest for the Lesbian Avengers, and one of the first places in the conservative area to fly the Pride flag. But from here, he travels through time and space, to a private gay club - ‘three levels of pure partying’ - and back to the Van Gogh House in Stockwell, where this iteration of A Clear Comfort currently parades.
Austen, who produced over eight thousand photographs, is first connected with a better-known British icon; within six months in 1986, Derek Jarman had been nominated for the Turner Prize, diagnosed with HIV, and had set out to make a garden of his own. He moved to Dungeness in Kent before the recent wave of gentrification. Residents today bemoan their beaches being ‘picked clean by Guardian readers’, but even then, his Prospect Cottage was frequented by the likes of Tilda Swinton.
It is easy to suspend disbelief, when Giles gestures to ‘over there, on the harbour’, or beckons us into Austen’s garden. Though historically informed, his script is wholly verbatim, from interviews with those who still tend these properties made during site visits. The performance connects these places and peoples; giving credit to the fisherman who truly built Prospect Cottage, and delivered by local actors and musicians, like Sophie Crawford.
Where previous exhibitions have extended outside the museum space, A Clear Comfort reimagines Van Gogh House’s interior. We move up, down, and around the space, engaging with it on different levels. In this ‘promenade performance’, PK Taylor pours a cup of tea in the kitchen. Crawford calls us into the living room through an open window.
In collaboration with the local Café Van Gogh, Giles curates a seasonal menu. The shiitake mushrooms which adorn the main course are inspired by this year’s crop from Alice Austen’s gardening club, founded in 1914 and still active today. We also read of fungi’s asexual, ‘non-binary’, reproduction. But the overlaps between the food on the plate, and the art on display, need not be made so explicit.
It’s clear, in the ‘volatile oils’ of the lavender, rosemary, and thyme transplanted into the space (and which peppers our Brixton Gin cocktails.) The bright colours of leaves, licked by the ‘drying winds’, which similarly influenced van Gogh’s practice. These notes collapse the boundary between (human) art and nature, highlighting overlaps between the two.
Inside, the lights go green, then pink, and we’re transported again to nightclubs in Chicago. Here, Giles connects the origins of House music and queer culture. Pale light bulbs signal us through the space, towards a film of a sweet pea, the product of a chemical fault in early Kodak film which prevents the magenta from fading, or ‘pinking’. It’s present in the rhubarb which colours and flavours dessert, a sorbet; another element forced to grow in complete darkness. Giles plays with pink, and uses it as a prop, to prevent these important people from falling into posthumous obscurity.
These subtle touches are where A Clear Comfort triumphs. The tablecloths are adorned with photographs from the artist’s residency, ink paintings of plants, which also permeate his practice. The seats, filled by his friends and family. It all creates a sense of community, wholly different from the haute cuisine which characterises museum restaurants and their menus. Tangible connections with the local community and businesses – much like the Brixton Brewery beers created for Harold Offeh’s installation, which raised a glass to local activist Olive Morris – are what mark out this institution.
Once again, Van Gogh House proves how the house-as-museum can be a living, evolving place. Giles too is no stranger to the moving installation; his previous performances have taken place on boats, and as walks. This work will crop up again in Charleston, another natural home, with even clearer queer historical connections, later this year.
So hurl Jarman’s feared hortus conclusus (walled garden) out of the window. There’s a slightly more accessible heaven on earth to be found here. Other, larger institutions, could take a leaf out of their book, and be open to such a takeover – a kind of cultural rewilding - who knows what may grow out of it?
Ian Giles: A Clear Comfort was performed at the Van Gogh House in London in June and July 2023. The performance will tour to Charleston, Lewes, later on in the year.
Though the American photographer Alice Austen and Gertrude Tate lived together from 1917, they couldn’t share a bedroom of their own. Their home – Clear Comfort, a suburban cottage on New York’s Staten Island - was kept by a young, Catholic housekeeper. As such, they kept their sexuality secret, behind two sets of closed doors.
Contemporary artist Ian Giles starts here - and an article in Apartamento - in his research into the homes of LGBTQ+ artists. His performance is named after Austen’s home, which soon became a safe haven of queer expression, a site of protest for the Lesbian Avengers, and one of the first places in the conservative area to fly the Pride flag. But from here, he travels through time and space, to a private gay club - ‘three levels of pure partying’ - and back to the Van Gogh House in Stockwell, where this iteration of A Clear Comfort currently parades.
Austen, who produced over eight thousand photographs, is first connected with a better-known British icon; within six months in 1986, Derek Jarman had been nominated for the Turner Prize, diagnosed with HIV, and had set out to make a garden of his own. He moved to Dungeness in Kent before the recent wave of gentrification. Residents today bemoan their beaches being ‘picked clean by Guardian readers’, but even then, his Prospect Cottage was frequented by the likes of Tilda Swinton.
It is easy to suspend disbelief, when Giles gestures to ‘over there, on the harbour’, or beckons us into Austen’s garden. Though historically informed, his script is wholly verbatim, from interviews with those who still tend these properties made during site visits. The performance connects these places and peoples; giving credit to the fisherman who truly built Prospect Cottage, and delivered by local actors and musicians, like Sophie Crawford.
Where previous exhibitions have extended outside the museum space, A Clear Comfort reimagines Van Gogh House’s interior. We move up, down, and around the space, engaging with it on different levels. In this ‘promenade performance’, PK Taylor pours a cup of tea in the kitchen. Crawford calls us into the living room through an open window.
In collaboration with the local Café Van Gogh, Giles curates a seasonal menu. The shiitake mushrooms which adorn the main course are inspired by this year’s crop from Alice Austen’s gardening club, founded in 1914 and still active today. We also read of fungi’s asexual, ‘non-binary’, reproduction. But the overlaps between the food on the plate, and the art on display, need not be made so explicit.
It’s clear, in the ‘volatile oils’ of the lavender, rosemary, and thyme transplanted into the space (and which peppers our Brixton Gin cocktails.) The bright colours of leaves, licked by the ‘drying winds’, which similarly influenced van Gogh’s practice. These notes collapse the boundary between (human) art and nature, highlighting overlaps between the two.
Inside, the lights go green, then pink, and we’re transported again to nightclubs in Chicago. Here, Giles connects the origins of House music and queer culture. Pale light bulbs signal us through the space, towards a film of a sweet pea, the product of a chemical fault in early Kodak film which prevents the magenta from fading, or ‘pinking’. It’s present in the rhubarb which colours and flavours dessert, a sorbet; another element forced to grow in complete darkness. Giles plays with pink, and uses it as a prop, to prevent these important people from falling into posthumous obscurity.
These subtle touches are where A Clear Comfort triumphs. The tablecloths are adorned with photographs from the artist’s residency, ink paintings of plants, which also permeate his practice. The seats, filled by his friends and family. It all creates a sense of community, wholly different from the haute cuisine which characterises museum restaurants and their menus. Tangible connections with the local community and businesses – much like the Brixton Brewery beers created for Harold Offeh’s installation, which raised a glass to local activist Olive Morris – are what mark out this institution.
Once again, Van Gogh House proves how the house-as-museum can be a living, evolving place. Giles too is no stranger to the moving installation; his previous performances have taken place on boats, and as walks. This work will crop up again in Charleston, another natural home, with even clearer queer historical connections, later this year.
So hurl Jarman’s feared hortus conclusus (walled garden) out of the window. There’s a slightly more accessible heaven on earth to be found here. Other, larger institutions, could take a leaf out of their book, and be open to such a takeover – a kind of cultural rewilding - who knows what may grow out of it?
Ian Giles: A Clear Comfort was performed at the Van Gogh House in London in June and July 2023. The performance will tour to Charleston, Lewes, later on in the year.
Though the American photographer Alice Austen and Gertrude Tate lived together from 1917, they couldn’t share a bedroom of their own. Their home – Clear Comfort, a suburban cottage on New York’s Staten Island - was kept by a young, Catholic housekeeper. As such, they kept their sexuality secret, behind two sets of closed doors.
Contemporary artist Ian Giles starts here - and an article in Apartamento - in his research into the homes of LGBTQ+ artists. His performance is named after Austen’s home, which soon became a safe haven of queer expression, a site of protest for the Lesbian Avengers, and one of the first places in the conservative area to fly the Pride flag. But from here, he travels through time and space, to a private gay club - ‘three levels of pure partying’ - and back to the Van Gogh House in Stockwell, where this iteration of A Clear Comfort currently parades.
Austen, who produced over eight thousand photographs, is first connected with a better-known British icon; within six months in 1986, Derek Jarman had been nominated for the Turner Prize, diagnosed with HIV, and had set out to make a garden of his own. He moved to Dungeness in Kent before the recent wave of gentrification. Residents today bemoan their beaches being ‘picked clean by Guardian readers’, but even then, his Prospect Cottage was frequented by the likes of Tilda Swinton.
It is easy to suspend disbelief, when Giles gestures to ‘over there, on the harbour’, or beckons us into Austen’s garden. Though historically informed, his script is wholly verbatim, from interviews with those who still tend these properties made during site visits. The performance connects these places and peoples; giving credit to the fisherman who truly built Prospect Cottage, and delivered by local actors and musicians, like Sophie Crawford.
Where previous exhibitions have extended outside the museum space, A Clear Comfort reimagines Van Gogh House’s interior. We move up, down, and around the space, engaging with it on different levels. In this ‘promenade performance’, PK Taylor pours a cup of tea in the kitchen. Crawford calls us into the living room through an open window.
In collaboration with the local Café Van Gogh, Giles curates a seasonal menu. The shiitake mushrooms which adorn the main course are inspired by this year’s crop from Alice Austen’s gardening club, founded in 1914 and still active today. We also read of fungi’s asexual, ‘non-binary’, reproduction. But the overlaps between the food on the plate, and the art on display, need not be made so explicit.
It’s clear, in the ‘volatile oils’ of the lavender, rosemary, and thyme transplanted into the space (and which peppers our Brixton Gin cocktails.) The bright colours of leaves, licked by the ‘drying winds’, which similarly influenced van Gogh’s practice. These notes collapse the boundary between (human) art and nature, highlighting overlaps between the two.
Inside, the lights go green, then pink, and we’re transported again to nightclubs in Chicago. Here, Giles connects the origins of House music and queer culture. Pale light bulbs signal us through the space, towards a film of a sweet pea, the product of a chemical fault in early Kodak film which prevents the magenta from fading, or ‘pinking’. It’s present in the rhubarb which colours and flavours dessert, a sorbet; another element forced to grow in complete darkness. Giles plays with pink, and uses it as a prop, to prevent these important people from falling into posthumous obscurity.
These subtle touches are where A Clear Comfort triumphs. The tablecloths are adorned with photographs from the artist’s residency, ink paintings of plants, which also permeate his practice. The seats, filled by his friends and family. It all creates a sense of community, wholly different from the haute cuisine which characterises museum restaurants and their menus. Tangible connections with the local community and businesses – much like the Brixton Brewery beers created for Harold Offeh’s installation, which raised a glass to local activist Olive Morris – are what mark out this institution.
Once again, Van Gogh House proves how the house-as-museum can be a living, evolving place. Giles too is no stranger to the moving installation; his previous performances have taken place on boats, and as walks. This work will crop up again in Charleston, another natural home, with even clearer queer historical connections, later this year.
So hurl Jarman’s feared hortus conclusus (walled garden) out of the window. There’s a slightly more accessible heaven on earth to be found here. Other, larger institutions, could take a leaf out of their book, and be open to such a takeover – a kind of cultural rewilding - who knows what may grow out of it?
Ian Giles: A Clear Comfort was performed at the Van Gogh House in London in June and July 2023. The performance will tour to Charleston, Lewes, later on in the year.
