Eyes Down For Bingo Art

The London Art Fair was the venue for a unique exhibition launch on Sunday 25th of January. Unfortunately we weren’t able to make the event, but Henry/Bragg have provided a lovely series of photographs of how the opening of B.I.N.G.O. proceeded.

Art exhibition launches tend to follow a standard formula: free drinks and nibbles, and the artist(s) wandering around chatting to guests, while the work is displayed for a couple of hours. Then its off to somewhere else, as most openings are usually on a Friday night as the curators know that’s when they’ll draw in the most visitors.

But, the Henry/Bragg artist duo decided to do something a little different that tied in with the theme of their latest work. They decided to make the opening a bit of fun with free bingo games for visitors, with prizes sponsored by amongst others our good selves, Playing Bingo. The prizes consisted of a variety of items, including ‘I luv bingo’ Teddy Bears, and prints from the B.I.N.G.O collection. A selection of butcher’s cuts were also up for grabs, so some players left with at least their breakfast sorted for the next day.

The turn out was a good one, all tables were filled, and some players even had to sit around the outside without a table to rest their bingo cards on. As you can see from the photo below, it was obviously a lot of fun. One good thing about the event is that it bridged the generation gap, young and old enjoyed themselves while the gold festooned caller shouted out the numbers extracted from a good old fashioned bingo tumbler.

The launch was created as an homage to the pastime of bingo which is the subject of the exhibition. The reason for the gold is to accentuate bingo’s previous almost regal position within working class culture. The event was launched to publicise a year’s work by the pair, photographing bingo hall interiors and players across the country.

Our website will be hosting more of the photographs by the duo in the near future, in the meantime you can see the full collection from the exhibition launch on our Henry/Bragg London Art Fair page.