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 to access audio and video on collective you need real player.Philadelphia freedom. What makes a group a group? The 30 or so artists under the Space 1026 umbrella are a collective in the loosest sense. The Philadelphia-based group work in the same studios, put on shows alongside each other, occasionally collaborate and bounce ideas about. But there is no clear-cut “group” works or unified aesthetic. The unregimented freedom of their approach comes across in their first UK show. The art in this exhibition varies from psychedelic silkscreen prints and graphic monochrome text pieces to scrawled drawings and sculptural circuitry boxes that flash and beep around a stylised wire portrait of Paris Hilton. The ceiling is filled with flag-like, graphic-printed bandanas. In the window sits a DIY costume of a mummer, inspired by a traditional Philadelphia kind of carnival parade. On the walls there’s politics, horror, some 80s nostalgia, and a hell of a lot of humour.  Paris by Maximillian Lawrence and Untitled by Jason Hsu (both detail). What makes this work interesting is not necessarily the fact that it all looks good – some of it does and some of it doesn’t; the group is interesting because they defy the accepted routes into creating and disseminating artwork. Genuinely DIY, Space 1026’s strength lies in its defiance of traditional funding or sponsorship, or following the cash-led clichés of the art world. Instead, this group found a city where the rent was supercheap and space was large. Where they could make their own makeshift gallery to display art and experiment on their own terms. It’s an impressive feat that the group and its gallery has lasted for almost a decade, and it’s this freedom that has attracted artists like Glen E Friedman, Jim Houser, ESPO and REVS, and Beige to show on its walls. There’s a touch of utopia about Space 1026 - something rare in this capitalist age that should be praised and supported.
Francesca Gavin
Blood In Blood Out is at 96 Gillespie, London, until 01 July 07.
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