Nothing is Forever shows the promise of things to come

The South London Gallery’s idea to open with wall drawings and paintings is a good one — when you have a shiny suite of rooms to show off, the last thing you want is to black them out by showing a video artist.

The gallery has found a way to draw attention not just to its dedicated art spaces, but to the new staircase, café, and to the artists’ flat at the top of the extension. The 20 artists represented give a broad sense of the techniques available to artists working directly on the wall.

In the main gallery are text works by big hitters — conceptual pioneers Robert Barry and Lawrence Weiner, and Turner Prize nominees Fiona Banner and Mark Titchner. Barry and Weiner’s cool minimalism clashes vividly with Titchner’s slogan set on a busy background, based on a Victorian floor tile pattern and Banner’s manically scrawled recollections of her experience of watching the film Black Hawk Down.

These established figures present an impressive but predictable opening to the show, yet there are plenty of surprises in the new spaces. Paul Morrison’s gold leaf mural in the atrium is pure decorative bliss, and Gary Woodley’s PVC line which winds and twists around the staircase enlivens an unpromising space. Best of all are Ernst Caramelle’s wall paintings — created in brightly coloured pigment on raw plaster in three rooms, they offer a sensuality largely missing elsewhere in the show.

Nothing Is Forever is a solid if unspectacular start to SLG’s new era, but there is plenty to suggest that, with these intimate new galleries, its reputation as a space for experimental art can be enhanced.

Friday to Sept 5 (020 7703 6120; southlondongallery.org); visit website for details of the coming weekend’s special reopening events.

Nothing Is Forever
South London Gallery
Peckham Road, SE5 8UH