Happy Birthday is in order, and it’s a big one. It’s been a year since Ava Kalitowski and Ellie Hill launched The Art Club Collective – how time flies! To mark the occasion, on 18 July, they’re celebrating with their very first birthday party.
The event will bring back a series of Art Club alumni – artists who have exhibited with the collective before. Alongside an exhibition of returning work, visitors will also be able to explore a series of open studios, where artists will be creating live throughout the event.
“You’ll be able to see them working live within the space,” Ava tells The COLD Magazine. “People will be able to go up, chat to them and watch them working in their medium.”
A programme of live music will run into the evening, with performances from headliner Constance Power alongside Die Twice, UGO + Air Support, Juno, Luca Santamaria and The Days, as well as DJ sets throughout the night.
The collective had its beginnings with Ava and Ellie simply wanting to put on an exhibition with friends to exhibit work and noticing the financial tension for artists to do so. The Art Collective was born from a want to provide access into the art industry. Their first open call attracted just over 100 applications. A year later, that number has grown to almost 800 submissions from artists across the world.
“We do completely open calls,” the founders explain. “No brief, no theme. We just ask people to submit a PDF of their work.”
From those hundreds of submissions, around 25 artists will be selected for the 2027 exhibition, with the pair spending weeks narrowing down applications. Alongside the open calls, they also scout artists through exhibitions, gigs and word of mouth.
The collective’s reach now extends well beyond London. Previous exhibitions have featured artists travelling from Rome, Barcelona and New York, while an open call received hundreds of submissions after gaining tens of thousands of views online.
“People are so hungry for somewhere to show their work,” they say.
So, mark the date in your diaries and get yourself to baby’s first birthday! A mixture of exhibition, open studio and gig galore – this event will be a celebration of the community The Art Club Collective has built over the past year.
