"A man's ethical behaviour should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs;
no religious basis is necessary."
Albert Einstein
Updated 26th May 2010
Robert Cripps of Gildford Lane Gallery is at it again
At a recent exhibition, held at Guildford Lane Gallery, an artist reports her reputation and exhibition were destroyed by Robert Cripps and his bizarre unchecked antics. When will any official arts reviewer, so called artists support organisation or arts writer/publisher have the guts to do anything about him? Demetrios Vakras and I got nothing but useless mutterings "how awful", well that isn't good enough. A review supporting the show and its purpose or even critiquing it properly would have been the expectation. But no, what we received was much less than nothing, we were left to hang. It is time to out Cripps for what he is.
Let's see, at my exhibition what did he do that would suggest he is a creep and his motivations suspect? My paintings display nudes, generally, though not always, from the back. He embarrassed me, and the entire concept of the show, by asking women at the opening, "is that your lovely bottom?" What did he do to display he is a bully? He stood an inch from my face and screamed at me in front of visitors to the gallery and gallery volunteers. When I moved back he moved forward. He did the same to Demetrios. He poked aggressively at our chests and shouted his foul abuse and we stood our ground. He was incensed that we wouldn't back down, that we would dare to stand up to him and for our character and our exhibition.
Anyone who works or volunteers for him who doesn't support this account of the kind of person he is, is a coward and an enabler of a bully and a lecher. There were at least 3 volunteers visible and in earshot of the incident I have referred to. Present as well was the paid Gallery Manager who during Cripps' tirade remained his silent lackey, saying and doing nothing of honor. All who were there at the time know you did nothing. How many times has it been that you did nothing? I'm sending out the call to all "his women", this is what he calls you, (he is only interested in young inexperienced women and men too weak to stick up for themselves it seems) to come forward and contact me, lets get together and have an honest discussion about who Robert Cripps is.
How many people must he dishonor and ill treat with his shameful antics? People with any notion of self respect simply leave his gallery, but no one ever does anything about it to prevent the next person making the same mistake to 'work' for him. You are meaningless to him and he has no respect for you; he is a narcissist without scruples who stands not for art but for himself and the appeasement of his own appetites. I notice that even more and more associates are included into the Guildford Lane Gallery venue. Melbourne Life Drawing and Utopian Slumps to name two. How is that going for you?
Contact Lee-Anne
from personal experience ~ a review of guildford lane gallery
Guildford Lane Gallery, level 2, displaying one aspect of the exhibition "Humanist Transhumanist - An Umbrella and Two Surrealists".
If an artist or interested person were to ask me, how did your show go?...what was the gallery like?...did you have a good experience? I would have to say in order; terribly; an impressive space to be avoided at all costs and, no, it was the worst experience and one I could never have imagined. Why?
No more than 5 minutes after the close of our opening night event my co-exhibitor, Demetrios Vakras, and I were subjected to a truly sickening tirade of insult by the Director, Robert Cripps. The basis for his tirade, directed mostly at my co-exhibitor was that Cripps had taken exception to one aspect of religious criticism in the exhibition. In his tirade we were informed without invitation, that he (Cripps) was anti the Jewish State and pro Palestinian. There was no reference to this conflict in the content of exhibition. Nevertheless he demanded it be removed. We left that evening, without resolution to this extremely insulting accusation and with Cripps claiming later to anyone who would listen to his bombast that he was 'attacked' by us. We subsequently returned to the exhibit some days later to photograph the installation. (See the above photograph which is one of the few good ones and one of the few we were able to take) We only managed to take very few shots of the show as during our attempt to document the exhibition Robert Cripps proceeded to shadow us around our rented space declaring once more that Demetrios and the show was racist. He had installed several "disclaimer" notices within the exhibition space (we'd hired the entire 2nd floor) and at the first ramp of the stair way leading up to the space a huge "WARNING" sign was posted.
When a gallery of its own volition does this, it says more about the gallery direction than anything else but damage is also done. It was effective enough to cast a pall over the content and therefore overall reception of the show, which was up for three weeks at the mercy of Cripps' vile interpretations. It was very effective, a complete sabotage, the gallery had all the money it was ever going to get out of us after all and didn't need to support sales of our art or our self produced catalogue in order to make any profit. It is all about the money at Guildford Lane Gallery. If it were about the art, the gallery Director would of course already know that Surrealism is a protestant movement, one born from a fiercely anti establishment, anti-religious, ant-discrimination and anti-violence background. With particular emphasis on anti-violence purportedly performed in the name of religion.
What of the content? This exhibition was well announced to the Director and his staff, well documented in our formerly welcomed application to be a return to Surrealism's roots, an unapologetic announcing of Surrealism's origins and traditional temperament. No saccharine coated pop-version of surrealism by designers. This means religion is critiqued. Cripps though only cared about criticisms of Islam, not Christianity, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism or Judaism. The content, it was claimed, was racist towards Islam alone. The critiques on Islam were backed up by quotation from the Koran with passages extolling violent action and misogyny. Quotations were referenced to emphasise the problems and significant contradictions between the text and claims made about this religion. Quotation from the Bible similarly prominent was undisputed and not a concern for Cripps. The point of logic presented to Cripps that Islam is multi-racial so criticism of the religion cannot be racial was rejected. He further claimed to be threatened by us and that neither could visit the space we hired without prior warning and that Demetrios was just not to come at all. Never mind that as renters we had a clear right to be present during business hours this was all declared by Cripps whilst inches from us in a posture one might find very contradictory to this claim (we couldn't back away he kept moving in). This occurred all in the presence of a visitor to the gallery whom we did not know, she remained although initially hesitated when coming upon the exchange, but then she stayed, read everything and she came to us when Cripps left the space to reassure us that there was nothing to his accusation, she could "see what we were doing" and that the work was "amazing" - she said she'd be back to see it more, I hope she did.
I wonder how many turned around and left the space when coming upon the disclaimers, or how many were treated to a special audience by the director. I can't know this for sure and can only reasonably speculate of course but it stands to reason. To add further insult we had to fight for six weeks post the closure of the show to receive our sale money and bond money owed. It wasn't a large amount, but we were not prepared to let the gallery retain it. It was a further self-discrediting act by this gallery in my opinion. So beware artists, take care to research your gallery selections well, I hope this helps you.
If asked by a prospective artist applicant to the gallery for an assessment I would have to say think twice before being lured by Guildford Lane Gallery's undeniably striking interior, it comes at a significant cost.
Review the account of my co-exhibitor Demetrios Vakras here: http://www.vakras.com/exhibitions.html#exhibition_in_2009
