Issue 018: The Shared Drive
In this issue, I’m inviting you to join us in person tonight at 8 Vine Yard for a Q&A with artist Alexei Izmaylov, on the occasion of his brilliantly absurd and sharply tender exhibition, NO RESERVE.
NO RESERVE: Q&A TONIGHT
6.30pm - 8 Vine Yard
Join us this evening, 6.30pm, for a conversation between artist Alexei Izmaylov and myself, on the occasion of NO RESERVE, now on view at 8 Vine Yard.
The exhibition centres around a single object: a sleek, pristine bicycle elevated on a pedestal. It was bought on impulse. It’s the wrong size. It can’t be ridden. Quite literally, the bar was too high. Now, stripped of function and transformed into an aesthetic object, the bike becomes a stand-in for every irrational decision, every useless purchase, every attempt to buy meaning. In short: it’s perfect.
And yes — it’s for sale. On eBay. With no reserve.
The auction forms the conceptual spine of the show. Izmaylov toys with ideas of value and worthlessness, seduction and sabotage, precision and chaos — pushing the bike into the territory of fetish, joke, and high art all at once.
The space is plastered with black-and-white posters: NO RESERVE, LARGER GEAR, BIDDING ON BAD DECISIONS, among others. Framed photographs present the bike like a cult object, oscillating between high-gloss advertisement and erotic iconography. Alongside these are several new framed drawings — works that echo the same tensions with a playful, child-like focus.
A haunting soundscape by uah (aka Usman Haque), Toruniquet (Sorry Syd), fills the space with late-night melancholy — a dream loop of half-remembered lyrics, madness, and longing. Like the exhibition itself, it hovers between sincerity and absurdity, always in search of something just out of reach.
Izmaylov, who identifies as neurodivergent, approaches making with a mix of hyper-focus and irreverence. His work is compulsively detailed and completely unserious; until it suddenly isn’t.
We’ll be talking tonight about all of this and more- desire, dysfunction, collecting, chaos, the art market, and how it feels to put your failures on a pedestal.
Q&A | TONIGHT at 8 Vine Yard
Wednesday, 16 April at 6:30PM
Free and open to all. No RSVP required.
See you there.
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8 Vine Yard, SE1 1QL
Exhibition continues through 25th April 2025
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About 8 Vine Yard
8 Vine Yard is a roaming project housed in a temporarily disused warehouse, reimagined as a platform for dialogue, experimentation, and exchange. With studios integrated into the exhibition space, it fosters an environment where works and ideas are in constant motion—where process and presentation exist side by side.
NO RESERVE is the third and final exhibition in this program.
Contributions to The Shared Drive
As ever, I’ll be sharing some projects and exhibitions from The Shared Drive community
THE SECOND RUIN: MIYA KOSOWICK & HENRY GLOVER
Love Waxes Cold | 24 April - 15 May 2025
London, 24 April 2025 — The Second Ruin brings together artists Henry Glover and Miya Kosowick in a space where myth and history dissolve and reform. Through a process of call and response, the work of both artists in situ together forms an intricate web across found and made objects; spanning paint, lichen, clay, and wax. Glover and Kosowick do not co-create singular works but instead develop individual pieces that engage in an ongoing, shifting dialogue. Some pairings face the viewer directly, while others create unexpected echoes.