Peckham challenging Hoxton for art

Working behind the bar are Johnny Pinchard and Tom Harrad, two of Off Modern's five members, average age 21.

Bright yet bleary-eyed from the night before, dressed in art-student uniform of charity-shop chic, the group have all graduated, or are soon to, from Goldsmiths and Camberwell.

They are bemused by the attention they have begun to attract. "One reviewer of the exhibition wrote that we all looked like the cast of Skins," Pinchard tells me.

One can understand such comparisons - the youth of Off Modern is striking, even for this 25-year-old. Yet, so is their impatient ambition and entrepreneurial spirit.

Feeling divorced from the more established routes into the art world, they took it upon themselves to set up their own shows.

"There's a whole system in place," says the group's resident writer, Felix Petty.

"It's like this big mystical thing of the White Cube or the Saatchi Gallery. How does a 19-year-old art student from south London get into being that kind of artist? It almost seems impossible."

Obliquely named after Harvard professor Svetlana Boym's Off Modern manifesto, which questions notions of historical progress, they tried solving this quandary by holding a monthly club night-meets-gallery space of the same name at Corsica Studios in Elephant & Castle, which began last November.

They have since put on shows featuring up-and-coming groups S.C.U.M, Gentle Friendly and Fiction, the band they manage themselves, as well as holding an art-only exhibition, Frontiers, in the Elephant & Castle shopping centre.

"Having no money forces you to think of a completely different way to get things done. We can't open a real gallery - we haven't got that sort of capability - so we put on a night," says Harrad.

"It sort of becomes a social happening for people, instead of just 'here is some art on a wall' kind of thing. It's a lot more involving."

Sometimes the audience becomes a little too involved, however. "We exhibited this huge wooden sculpture with a saw coming out of it by the artist Ryan Murray," Harrad explains.

"There must have been about 500 people in the club at the time. It got destroyed when there was a ceremonial smashing of it."

But didn't the artist mind? "He loved it," says Pinchard. "That was his intention - to see what happened."

Instant communication via social networking sites has enabled Off Modern and others to rise seemingly from nowhere.

A Peckham artist network called Lucky PDF held a fundraiser for future projects in March, converting a warehouse within a local industrial-age warehouse complex, the Bussey Building, into a legal rave.

"We invited people on Facebook and we got 2,000 confirmations," says Lucky PDF's Ollie Hogan, a 23-year-old Wimbledon graduate.

"One taxi-driver said he did five trips back and forth from Shoreditch to Peckham. Rye Lane was filled with about 1,500 young people.

There were about 200 kids who couldn't get in. I didn't talk to many people on the street but I know the local off-licence really liked it. They keep asking me to do it again."

When Hannah Barry, still under 30 but the most established and influential of the Peckham set, enterprisingly took local artists from her much publicised Peckham Pavilion show to this year's Venice Biennale, it was Hogan who made sure it was well attended by organising a flashmob - or "flash holiday" as he puts it.

"I was wandering around Venice and I remember turning a corner and suddenly seeing about 100 people from Peckham stood in St Mark's Square," says Off Modern's Harrad, who also works for the Hannah Barry Gallery.

"It was the first time I had thought, 'There's a really exciting scene here that's worth making something of.'"

The Hannah Barry Gallery itself is housed within the Bussey Building.

Cricket bats were once produced there but these days it is a hub of artists' studios (about 60 work there) and a few small businesses, and even provides a place of worship for more than one church (the Sunday I visited, the place was alive with a joyous sound-clash of singing and African drums emanating from the different services around the complex).

"I found myself here and I soon realised that somebody had to take responsibility and open a gallery," says Barry, who graduated from Cambridge with a degree in art history in 2001, moving to Peckham soon after.

She seems genuinely excited by the local artists she shows, such as 22-year-old James Capper, who was awarded the Jack Goldhill Award for sculpture at this year's Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and whose Skidder and Extenda-Claw industrial-size works currently sit inside the gallery.

"These artists have a quiet confidence about them. Their art tries to say something about the world which we all share instead of looking in on itself."

Based in neighbouring New Cross, Dave Charlesworth of the collaborative art group Charlesworth, Lewandowski & Mann is looking forward to the opening of the East London line next year, which will link Peckham to other London hotspots Dalston, Whitechapel and Hoxton.

"Historically we have had a problem with getting people down south, which is why they migrate and do events elsewhere," he says, but he expects the improved transport connections will change that.

"The trick now is to set up an infrastructure so people don't just bugger off to the East End at the first opportunity," agrees Off Modern's Petty.

"We need to make sure that these temporary places can be made more permanent."

The beginnings of such permanence are becoming evident. Inspired by squats but often assisted by Southwark council and thus made legitimate, Peckham is seeing more artists' spaces pop up.

Auto Italia, an Arts Council-funded space off the Old Kent Road, has built a reputation since it opened two years ago in its original former car showroom-home on Queens Road.

It will play host to a series of events curated by artists such as Katie Guggenheim - no relation - during Frieze week in October.

There is also Area 10, a hangar-size council-developed project space on Peckham Hill Street that can hold anything from raves to talks.

Of course, one must be wary of eulogising too much about how effective such initiatives are on the lives of those who really need help.

Poverty - and the resulting crime - are persistent problems in Peckham and many are cynical about what good art initiatives do, aside from assisting in gentrification.

These days the East End resembles more a stylish (if by no means pristine) nightspot than an outpost for budding enfants terribles.

Redchurch Street is an established part of London's gallery circuit and Emin's beloved Brick Lane has become the first port of call for hipster tourists attracted by the bars, coffee shops, street markets, vintage clothes and record stores.

The tributaries that connect the City to Old Street, such as Curtain Road, have become destinations for the post-work drink.

Taking in most of the London skyline from the vantage point of the car park roof, punctuated by the Gherkin, Peckham feels a million miles away from all that - and yet, right at the heart of things.

The South East in East Festival, 28 August-3 Sept at Vibe Bar, Old Truman Brewery, 91-95 Brick Lane, E1 (020 7247 3479, www.southeastineast.com).

Tim Burrows is author of From CBGB to the Roundhouse: Music Venues through the Years, published by Marion Boyars.

Hannah Barry Gallery presents
Bold Tendencies III
Two for the price of one: Bold Tendencies III, the rooftop exhibition featuring work by Molly Smyth, James Balmforth and the Sunday Painter, as well as Frank's Café and Campari Bar and the best view in London, from Wembley Stadium to the O2 in Greenwich. Around the corner in the Bussey Building is the Hannah Barry Gallery, by appointment only.
Bold Tendencies III, Level 10, Peckham Rye Multi-storey Car Park, 95A Rye Lane, SE15; Hannah Barry Gallery, Warehouse 9i, The Bussey Building, 133 Rye Lane, SE15. www.hannahbarry.com

Bussey Building
The Bussey is frequently home to arts events. This Saturday sees the fourth annual Collision, a collaborative occasion featuring experimental performance, sound art, live music and a bar all within a 3,000 square foot space.
www.collision.org.uk

Auto Italia
The current exhibition at this former car showroom is Closed Forever, which converts the space into a derelict cinema, and features works by Jesse Jones, Catalina Niculescu and Elizabeth Price.
1 Glengall Road, Peckham, SE15,
www.autoitaliasoutheast.org

Bar Story/Sassoon Gallery
Located underneath the railway arches of Peckham Rye Station, Bar Story is a good destination for lounging during the day, or dancing when the sun goes down. There's food too — Tuesday is 2-4-1 burger day. Out back is the Sassoon Gallery. Catch Hero of Switzerland's Bad Taste exhibition from 28 August.
213 Blenheim Grove, SE15, www.barstory.co.uk,
www.thesassoongallery.co.uk, 07733 327 682ý

Corsica Studios
Going from strength to strength since it started six years ago in Elephant & Castle, Corsica has earned a reputation for attracting internationally renowned bands such as Squarepusher and fostering local talent. Catch Off Modern back there on 1 October.
4/5 Elephant Road, SE17, www.corsicastudios.com