The Horse Hospital is a

Grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

not for profit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

, independent arts venue at Colonnade,

Bloomsbury Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural, intellectual, and educational institutions. Bloomsbury is home of the British Museum, the largest mus ...

, central London. It has a curatorial focus on counter-cultural histories, sub-cultures and outsider as well as emerging artists. It delivers through frequent events, underground film and artist's moving image screenings, and exhibitions. Founded in 1992 by Roger K. Burton, the venue opened with Vive Le Punk!, a retrospective of

Vivienne Westwood Dame Vivienne Isabel Westwood (née Swire; born 8 April 1941) is an English fashion designer and businesswoman, largely responsible for bringing modern punk and new wave fashions into the mainstream. Westwood came to public notice when she m ...

punk Punk or punks may refer to: Genres, subculture, and related aspects * Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres * Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...

designs in 1993. The building was originally built by

James Burton James Edward Burton (born August 21, 1939, in Dubberly, Louisiana) is an American guitarist. A member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame since 2001 (his induction speech was given by longtime fan Keith Richards), Burton has also been recognized ...

in 1797 as stabling for cab drivers' sick horses.

History

Initially programmed by Burton and Ian White, the venue's reputation grew both in London and abroad. James B. L. Hollands later replaced White as curator. The artist,

Tai Shani Tai Shani (born 1976) is a British artist. Shani uses performance, film, photography, sculptural installations and experimental texts to explore forgotten histories and stories. She is currently a Tutor in Contemporary Art Practice at the Roya ...

was the programmer from 2006 to 2016, followed by Sholto Dobie and Letitia Calin. In 1998, the Horse Hospital hosted the debut British exhibition by

outsider artist Outsider art is art made by self-taught or supposedly naïve artists with typically little or no contact with the conventions of the art worlds. In many cases, their work is discovered only after their deaths. Often, outsider art illustrates e ...

/ painter Joe Coleman which attracted a new audience. Subsequently, the venue played host to a variety of performers, musicians, artists, film makers and writers, including

Dame Darcy Darcy Megan Stanger (born June 19, 1971, Caldwell, Idaho), better known by the pen name Dame Darcy, is an alternative comics, alternative cartoonist, fine artist, musician, cabaret performer, and animator/filmmaker. Her "Neo-Victorian" comic boo ...

Anita Pallenberg Anita Pallenberg (6 April 1942 – 13 June 2017) was a German-Italian actress, artist, and model. A style icon and "It Girl" of the 1960s and 1970s, Pallenberg was credited as the muse of the Rolling Stones: she was the romantic partner of the ...

Iain Aitch Iain Aitch is an English writer, journalist and artist who lives in London. He is the author of the travel book '' A Fête Worse Than Death,'' a humorous first person journey through an English summer, and ''We're British, Innit,'' a humorous le ...

, Jack Sargeant,

Valie Export Valie Export (often stylized as 'VALIE EXPORT'; born 17 May 1940) is an avant-garde Austrian artist. She is best known for provocative public performances and expanded cinema work. Her artistic work also includes video installations, computer an ...

, Chris Carter,

David Tibet David Tibet (born David Michael Bunting; 5 March 1960) is a British poet and artist who founded the music group Current 93, of which he is the only full-time member. He was given the name "Tibet" by Genesis P-Orridge, and in January 2005 he a ...

Helen Chadwick Helen Chadwick (18 May 1953 – 15 March 1996) was a British sculptor, photographer and installation artist. In 1987, she became one of the first women artists to be nominated for the Turner Prize. Chadwick was known for "challenging stereotypic ...

Dennis Cooper Dennis Cooper (born January 10, 1953) is an American novelist, poet, critic, editor and performance artist. He is best known for the ''George Miles Cycle'', a series of five semi-autobiographical novels published between 1989 and 2000 and describ ...

Nan Goldin Nancy Goldin (born September 12, 1953) is an American photographer and activist. Her work often explores LGBT subcultures, moments of intimacy, the HIV/AIDS crisis, and the opioid epidemic. Her most notable work is '' The Ballad of Sexual Depe ...

Morton Bartlett Morton Bartlett (1909 in Chicago – 1992 in Boston) was an American freelance photographer and graphic designer who, from 1936 to 1963, devoted much of his spare time to creating and photographing a series of intricately carved lifelike plaste ...

Lydia Lunch Lydia Lunch (born Lydia Anne Koch; June 2, 1959)Martin Charles Strong. ''The Great Indie Discography''. 2003, page 85 is an American singer, poet, writer, actress and self-empowerment speaker. Her career began during the 1970s New York City no ...

, Bruce Bickford,

Gee Vaucher Gee Vaucher (born 1945 in Dagenham, Essex, England) is a visual artist. Biography Vaucher met her long-lasting creative partner Penny Rimbaud in the early 1960s when both were attending the South-East Essex Technical College and School of Ar ...

and

Crass Crass were an English art collective and punk rock band formed in Epping, Essex in 1977, who promoted anarchism as a political ideology, a way of life, and a resistance movement. Crass popularised the anarcho-punk movement of the punk s ...

Alejandro Jodorowsky Alejandro Jodorowsky Prullansky (; born 17 February 1929) is a Chilean-French avant-garde filmmaker. Best known for his 1970s films '' El Topo'' and '' The Holy Mountain'', Jodorowsky has been "venerated by cult cinema enthusiasts" for his wor ...

Stewart Home Kevin Llewellyn Callan (born 24 March 1962), better known as Stewart Home, is an English artist, filmmaker, writer, pamphleteer, art historian, and activist. His novels include the non-narrative ''69 Things to Do with a Dead Princess'' (2002), an ...

Jeremy Reed Jeremy Thomas Reed (born June 15, 1981) is an American former professional baseball outfielder in Major League Baseball (MLB). Early life Reed graduated from Bonita High School in La Verne, California in 1999, and went on to play college basebal ...

Franko B Franko B (born in Milan in 1960) is an Italian performance artist based in London, where he has lived since 1979. He studied fine art at Camberwell College of Arts (1986–87), Chelsea College of Art (1987–90) and the Byam Shaw School of Art (19 ...

Ron Athey Ron Athey (born December 16, 1961) is an American performance artist associated with body art and with extreme performance art. He has performed in the U.S. and internationally (especially in the UK and Europe). Athey's work explores challenging ...

Banksy Banksy is a pseudonymous England-based street artist, political activist and film director whose real name and identity remain unconfirmed and the subject of speculation. Active since the 1990s, his satirical street art and subversive epigrams ...

Marc Almond Peter Mark Sinclair "Marc" Almond, (born 9 July 1957) is an English singer. Almond first began performing and recording in the synthpop/ new wave duo Soft Cell where he became known for his distinctive soulful voice and androgynous image. He ...

Yvonne Rainer Yvonne Rainer (born November 24, 1934) is an American dancer, choreographer, and filmmaker, whose work in these disciplines is regarded as challenging and experimental.

Artūras Barysas Artūras Barysas "Baras" (May 10, 1954 – January 28, 2005) was a Lithuanian actor, singer, photographer, and filmmaker, known as a member of the counter-culture and the father of modern Lithuanian avant-garde. Biography As a teenager moved ...

and others. It has also been used by various record labels, publishing houses including

Soft Skull Press Counterpoint LLC was a publishing company distributed by Perseus Books Group launched in 2007. It was formed from the consolidation of three presses: Perseus' Counterpoint Press, Avalon Publishing Group's Shoemaker & Hoard and the independent So ...

, Verso,

Serpent's Tail Serpent's Tail is London-based independent publishing firm founded in 1986 by Pete Ayrton. It specialises in publishing work in translation, particularly European crime fiction. In January 2007, it was bought by a British publisher Profile Books ...

and

Clear Cut Press Clear Cut Press was a small press based in Astoria, Oregon. About Clear Cut Press was founded by novelist Matthew Stadler and Up Records co-founder Rich Jensen in 2002. Jensen began talking to Stadler while taking a poetry class in 1997. The ...

. and journals such as ''

Strange Attractor In the mathematical field of dynamical systems, an attractor is a set of states toward which a system tends to evolve, for a wide variety of starting conditions of the system. System values that get close enough to the attractor values remain ...

'' and ''

Granta ''Granta'' is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centres on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story’s supreme ability to describe, illuminate and ma ...

'' for special events, as well as a screening space for numerous film festivals including the

Fashion in Film Festival The Fashion in Film Festival (often abbreviated as FFF) is a biennial festival organised by Fashion in Film. The festival is currently in its fourth edition. It has previously been held at venues including BFI Southbank, Tate Modern, the Barbica ...

London International Animation Festival The London International Animation Festival is an annual animation festival founded in 2003 that takes place at the Barbican Centre in London in November and December.

, London Porn Film Festival amongst others. The Horse Hospital houses and is supported by the Contemporary Wardrobe Collection, a fashion archive that specialises in post-war street fashion, sub-cultures and British design. The Chamber of Pop Culture is located there. Proud Camden has been located there since about 2008. In 2015 The Horse Hospital was listed with

London Borough of Camden The London Borough of Camden () is a London borough in Inner London. Camden Town Hall, on Euston Road, lies north of Charing Cross. The borough was established on 1 April 1965 from the area of the former boroughs of Hampstead, Holborn, and St ...

as a Community Asset and the site was selected for inclusion in the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

’s

UK Web Archive The UK Web Archive is a consortium of the six UK legal deposit libraries which aims to collect all UK websites at least once each year. History In 2005, the British Library, The National Archives, Wellcome Trust, National Library of Scotland, ...

as a website of cultural importance. In 2019 it was announced that The Horse Hospital was at risk of closure after its landlord proposed a 333 per cent rent increase, from £30,000 to £130,000 annually from the beginning of 2020. At the start of January 2020 it secured an extension on its lease until 28 February. Eventually, according to The Horse Hospital's website, a new lease was secured until December 2024, with a rent increase of 33%.

The building

The building is

. It was originally built by

in 1797 as stabling for cab drivers' sick horses, the Horse Hospital is notable for its unique stone tiled floor. Access to both floors is by concrete moulded ramps, the upper floor ramp retains hardwood slats preventing the horses from slipping. It can be found at Colonnade,

, London.

Major exhibitions

*1993 Vive Le Punk!,

and

Malcolm McLaren Malcolm Robert Andrew McLaren (22 January 1946 – 8 April 2010) was an English impresario, visual artist, singer, songwriter, musician, clothes designer and boutique owner, notable for combining these activities in an inventive and provoc ...

*1998 Original Sin, Joe Coleman *1998 Remote Control,

Laurie Lipton Laurie may refer to: Places * Laurie, Cantal, France, a commune * Laurie, Missouri, United States, a village * Laurie Island, Antarctica Music * Laurie Records, a record label * ''Laurie'' (EP), a 1992 album by Daniel Johnston * "Laurie (Stran ...

*1998 Meet,

Brian Griffin H. Brian Griffinas shown in Brian Griffin's House of Payne is a fictional character from the American animated television series ''Family Guy''. An anthropomorphic white labrador retriever voiced by Seth MacFarlane, he is one of the show's mai ...

*1999 Car, Photographs by Peter Anderson *1999 ''Andre the Giant Has a Posse'' by

Shepard Fairey Frank Shepard Fairey (born February 15, 1970) is an American contemporary artist, activist and founder of OBEY Clothing who emerged from the skateboarding scene. In 1989 he designed the " Andre the Giant Has a Posse" (...OBEY...) sticker cam ...

*2000 Oh Lover Boy,

*2000 The Situation At This Address Has Changed, Sculpture, Drawing, Painting Harry Forbes *2000 Transromantik, Cathy Ward and Eric Wright *2001 Two Es And A Viagra, Peter Rigby *2001 Beat 13!, Lucy McLauchlan, Tim Watkins, Al Murphy *2001

*2001 Hospital Brut, The Toxic art of

Le Dernier Cri Le Dernier Cri is a Marseille based publishing house focused on publishing books, prints, silkscreens, posters and original art of visual artists that produce underground art. Pakito Bolino and Caroline Sury started the organisation in 1992. Bes ...

*2002

and

Steven Stapleton Steven Peter Stapleton (born 3 February 1957) is an English musician who is best known as the only constant member of experimental improv outfit Nurse with Wound. He is often seen as one of the pioneers of the British industrial music scene, a ...

*2003 The Bogside Artists *2003 Unquiet Voices, English and American Visionary Art 1903 – 2003 *2004 Heralding the Apocalypse, Barry Hale *2005 The 45th Annual Convention of the Middleman and the Cherry Brigade –

*2006

Some Bizzare Some Bizzare Records was a British independent record label owned by Stevo Pearce. The label was founded in 1981, with the release of ''Some Bizzare Album'', a compilation of unsigned bands including Depeche Mode, Soft Cell, the The, Neu Elect ...

Exhibition,

Stevo Pearce Stephen John Pearce, commonly known as Stevo (born 26 December 1962), is a British record producer and music industry executive, best known as the owner of indie record label Some Bizzare Records. Biography He was born in Dagenham, Essex, Engla ...

*2007 Visual Athletics Club, Edward Barber *2007 The Other Side of the Island David J Smith *2008 Miron Zownir – Radical Eye *2008

Sandow Birk Sandow Birk (born 1962 in Detroit) is an American visual artist from Los Angeles whose work deals mainly with contemporary American culture. Seven books have been published on his works and he has made two films. With an emphasis on social issue ...

– Dante's Inferno *2008 Sacred Pastures – Cathy Ward, Eric Wright and

Norbert Kox Norbert Kox (August 6, 1945 – December 29. 2018) was an American outsider artist whose paintings display an unusual approach to religious iconography. Life Norbert Kox was born in Green Bay, Wisconsin in 1945. While a member of the Outlaw ...

*2008 Instead of wives, they shall have toads, Stephen Fowler *2008 30,000 Years of Cryptomnesia *2008 From Fear to Sanity –

CND The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) is an organisation that advocates unilateral nuclear disarmament by the United Kingdom, international nuclear disarmament and tighter international arms regulation through agreements such as the Nucle ...

and the Art of Protest from 1958 to 1963 *2009 The Impossible World of

Stu Mead Stuart "Stu" Mead is an American artist who lives and works in Berlin, Germany. Work In April, 2004 a group exhibition called "When Love Turns to Poison" was held at the Kunstraum Bethanien in Berlin, showing, among other works by Mead, the pai ...

*2010 HOLOGRAPHY for Beginners, Ole Hagen *2010 Drag and Cinema, Cinema in Drag – Brice Dellsperger *2010 Ian Johnstone – The 23 Stab Wounds Of Julius Caesar *2010 Fake Food & Fast Cars: The Pop Couture of Kate Forbes *2011 Adrian Di Duca: Monstrorum Historia *2011

Edweard Muybridge Eadweard Muybridge (; 9 April 1830 – 8 May 1904, born Edward James Muggeridge) was an English photographer known for his pioneering work in photographic studies of motion, and early work in motion-picture projection. He adopted the first ...

: Muybridge's Revolver *2011 Ronny Long – My Life on Earth 1991–2002 *2011 Every beautiful thing... The Michael Ho Chong Collection *2012 The Playgrounds of War – Gina Glover *2012 LFP: The Queen, The Chairman And I – Kurt Tong *2012 The Butcher Of Common Sense *2012 Bunti's Picture Show – Ian Ward *2012 Camouflage, Revolution, and Desire – drawing from movies *2013

*2013

Jacques Katmor Jacques Mory-Katmor ( he, ז׳אק מורי־קתמור) (born 4 September 1938 in Cairo, Cairo Governorate, Egypt as Jacques Mory; died 6 September 2001 at the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center in Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv District, Israel) was an Israe ...

& The 3rd Eye Group *2013 BASHA: the unsung hero of Polish poster art *2013 The Hobo Kings and Queens of Leanne Castillo *2014 A Goodly Company: Ethel Le Rossignol *2014

Walerian Borowczyk Walerian Borowczyk (21 October 1923 – 3 February 2006) was an internationally known Polish film director described by film critics as a 'genius who also happened to be a pornographer'. He directed 40 films between 1946 and 1988. Borowczyk sett ...

– Posters and Lithography *2014 The Opium Den: Jennifer Binnie *2014 Nick Abrahams – Lions & Tigers & Bears *2014 Alien Puma Space Train: The Visionary Work Of Daniel S. Christiansen *2014

Saturation 70 ''Saturation 70'' is an incomplete film written by American writer-director Tony Foutz, and was to star then-five-year-old Julian Brian Jones, the son of Rolling Stone Brian Jones. The film also starred Michelle Phillips and Gram Parsons, as well ...

*2014 Stephen Holman *2014

Stephen Dwoskin Stephen Dwoskin (15 January 1939 – 28 June 2012) was a major avant-garde filmmaker whose work was closely connected to the ' gaze theory' associated with Laura Mulvey; a significant disabled filmmaker – though he rejected being framed as suc ...

– Ha! Ha! *2015 The School Of The Damned Degree Show 2015 *2015

Melinda Gebbie Melinda Gebbie (born 1937) is an American comics artist and writer, known for her participation in the underground comix movement. She is also known for creating the controversial work ''Fresca Zizis'' and her contributions to ''Wimmen's Comix ...

: What Is The Female Gaze? *2015 George Tobias: My Little Kingdom *2015: ''X-Ray Audio'' by Stephen Coates *2016 The Detroit Artists Workshop *2016 Punk in Translation: Burst City *2016

Plastique Fantastique Plastique Fantastique is a London-based art group active from 2004–present envisaged as a group of human and inhuman avatars delivering communiqués from the extreme past and the future. The group was originally conceived of by Simon O’Sulliv ...

: After London *2016 Welcome, Space Brothers: The

Unarius Academy Of Science Unarius is a non-profit organization founded in 1954 in Los Angeles, California, and headquartered in El Cajon, California.Tumminia, Diana (2005) p5 The organization purports to advance a new "interdimensional science of life" based upon "fourt ...

*2016

Destroy All Monsters is a 1968 Japanese ''kaiju'' film directed by Ishirō Honda, with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya. The film, which was produced and distributed by Toho Co., Ltd, is the ninth film in the ''Godzilla'' franchise, and features eleven monster ...

*2016

Autopsia Autopsia is a European art project dealing with music and visual production. Autopsia gathers authors of different professions in the realization of multimedia projects. Its art practice began in London in the late 1970s and continued during ...

: Thanatopolis *2017 The Higher Powers Bible: From Genesis To Revelation, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry and Peter Harris *2017 Cesca Dvorak: Dewy Guises *2017 Peace Love And Anarchy = Freedom And Fun Forever: exhibition of the squatted house, 64–65 Guildford Street *2018 Jakup Ferri: Muscle memory *2018 The Art of Magic *2018 Relating Narratives: A Common World of Women *2018 Cathy Ward: Sub Rosa *2018 Trigger Warning: Films of

Tessa Hughes-Freeland Tessa Hughes-Freeland is a British-born experimental film maker, writer living in New York City. Her films have screened internationally in North America, Europe and Australia and in prominent museums and galleries, including the Museum of Modern A ...

*2019 Herve Guibert: Modesty or Immodesty *2019 Lunar Futurism: Costumes, Props & Ephemera from

Andrzej Żuławski Andrzej Żuławski (; 22 November 1940 – 17 February 2016) was a Polish film director and writer. Żuławski often went against mainstream commercialism in his films, and enjoyed success mostly with European art-house audiences. In the late 1 ...

's 'On the Silver Globe' *2019

Presents: SO REAL IT HURTS *2019 Jenkin van Zyl: Oblivion Industry *2019 The Gutter Art of

Stephen Varble Stephen Lloyd Varble (1946 – January 6, 1984) was a notorious American performance artist, playwright, and Fashion design, fashion designer in lower Manhattan during the 1970s. His work challenged both mainstream conceptions of gender and ex ...

: Genderqueer Performance Art in the 1970s, photographs by Greg Day *2019 Psychic Communities –_ Drift Fright: New Noveta residency

References

External links

*
"The real home of avant-garde"
by Iain Aitch in the ''Evening Standard'' {{Authority control Performing arts in London Contemporary art galleries in London Cinemas in London Event venues established in 1992 Arts centres in London Art galleries established in 1992 1992 establishments in England Grade II listed buildings in the London Borough of Camden