Banksy, Hirst and Emin come to town: an arty weekend in Newmarket, Suffolk
21.07.2023 - 11:31
/ theguardian.com
/ Tracey Emin
/ Damien Hirst
Newmarket in Suffolk is the home of British horse racing, with equine attractions aplenty. There are the two race courses, the Rowley Mile and the July Course; the gallops where the horses are exercised; the National Stud, where they are bred; and Tattersalls, where they are bought and sold. There is plenty of art, too, but it is largely of a horsey nature – the Packard Galleries of British Sporting Art are full of paintings by George Stubbs and Alfred Munnings, and depictions of hunting, hawking, shooting and, of course, racing.
This summer, though, there is a new kind of art in town. The National Horse Racing Museum is one of three venues across west Suffolk jointly hosting a huge street art exhibition. The Urban Frame: Mutiny in Colour features more than 300 works by leading street and contemporary artists, including Banksy, Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin.
The Newmarket exhibition includes a world-first showing of The 7: Banksy Under Siege, replica lifesize “walls” created by the artist in war-torn Ukraine last November. The photographic reproductions are particularly poignant given that many of the actual walls have now been destroyed by the bombardment. The show also features two original works by Banksy: Hula Hooping Girl, from the wall of a beauty salon in Nottingham, and Love is in the Air, an anti-war image that appeared on the side of a garage in Jerusalem. The latter is being exhibited formally for the first time after being sold at auction for $12.9m last year, and will then travel to galleries in Amsterdam and Barcelona. Other exhibits includes Citroen Berlingo Van, a vehicle painted with 200 eyes by the artist My Dog Sighs; work by Blek le Rat, the father of stencil graffiti; cult contemporary artists the Connor Brothers, and big names in street art, such as Pure Evil, Stik and Kaws.
The two other venues, featuring work by many of the same artists, are Haverhill Arts Centre and Moyse’s Hall Museum in Bury St Edmunds. Both are within easy reach of Newmarket – Haverhill is a half-hour drive, Bury St Edmunds a 20-minute train journey – and it is well worth visiting all three over a weekend. The Haverhill venue, a Victorian former town hall, has artists running free workshops in illustration and print-making, inspired by the exhibition.
The exhibition at Moyse’s Hall, a 12th-century building on the marketplace, is inspired by My Dog Sighs’ use of found materials. The set dressing is borrowed from artists or created using crates and bricks, there are no paper labels – information is written or painted directly on to the walls – and other fixtures and fittings have been reused from past displays. This show also features a Banksy – Sandcastle Girl, which was painted on a wall in Lowestoft in 2021