Art and About: designers Agi & Sam explore the art, sandwiches and markets of Whitechapel

A visit to a gallery or exhibition is about so much more than the art on the wall or the artefacts on show. Our new partnership, Art and About, developed in association with the Art Fund, sees four creatives head off to a diverse number of cultural institutions and share with us the moments of inspiration they encountered along the way. We armed each with a National Art Pass (use code FIVEOFF for a £5 discount) and documented their day.

Over the next few weeks we will be sharing these creatives’ insights, itinerary and reactions to what they saw and where they went. In this, the second article in the series, we caught up with menswear designers Agi & Sam, who popped down to the Whitechapel Gallery in east London.

Agi: The Whitechapel is one of my favourite galleries: the exhibitions are always amazing and I’ve never gone there and been disappointed. The Electronic Superhighway (2016 – 1966) exhibition feels very relevant to today – everyone’s talking about how there’s too much information, and it’s really interesting to see how artists respond to that.

Sam: For the last couple of seasons I’ve been looking at this sort of thing. I love Nate Boyce, who makes work with the musician Oneohtrix Point Never, that mixes 3D and sculpture and concept design, but it’s very organic-looking.

08:30 Soho, W1

Agi: We met at the studio in Soho, because Sam lives in south London and I live east. We sorted out some stuff for the team to work on and then left.

10:15 Oxford Circus W1 to Liverpool Street EC2

Sam: We got the tube over to Liverpool Street and it was fine, if you’re on the central line at 8.30am it can be a bit gross, but it was quite empty.

Agi: We walked through Aldgate and around Petticoat Lane, because with the sunlight and everything it looked amazing. I know the area quite well – I’ve lived in east London for about eight years, and when I first moved to London I stayed at a friend’s place on Brick Lane for a bit. It was one of those days where you just want to look up and around you: we were talking about how much that area’s changing, with these high-rises going up and all the gaps where buildings have been demolished.

Sam: I had a coffee on the way as I felt really ill. I was just trying to make myself feel better by drinking loads of coffee.

11:00 Whitechapel Gallery E1

Sam: It was all very impressive when you first went in: there’s so much going on, and it’s all so visual. One of the first things you see is a woman’s ass when you walk in, which is quite good.

Agi: It’s a massive picture of a naked woman, which was pretty eye catching. [Olaf Breuning’s Text Butt (2015)]

12:00

Agi: I spent a lot of time in the room where there’s a video piece, where the artist has used his mother’s drawings. The bits with the dancer… It was completely insane. It felt like a bit of an acid trip.

Throughout the whole exhibition there was a nice juxtaposition between work that was digital and work that was quite analogue. It was curated to include things that were quite subtle: the printed out and framed Grindr conversations [Mahmoud Khaled’s Do You Have Work Tomorrow? looked very old, even though it wasn’t, and felt very unusual. I also loved the piece where the artist had printed screen grabs of everything that had been on his laptop in one day. The eye [Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s Surface Tension (1992)] was quite cool and interactive too.

Sam: It was all really well curated – you can tell the gallery approached the theme in every possible way. I particularly liked the bit upstairs with Nam June Paik’s work, and John Cage. On one of the little TVs there was a documentary showing different people working as fine artists and curators talking to and working with engineers, by a guy called Steve Paxton. It’s amazing watching something that’s so old feeling so relevant. The way the people are dressed is wonderful – they’re in a sort of 1950s get-up, or they look like businessmen, but they’re making this incredible art.

14:00

Agi: We left at about 14:00. I took loads of pictures, I always take pictures on my phone for inspiration but they get a bit lost in among all the other things on there. We spent a good few hours in the exhibition, but I think I definitely could have stayed much longer. I’m planning on going back.

14.15 Exmouth Coffee Company E1

Agi: After the exhibition we met up with our friend Alex who works at the Whitechapel and caught up about her new job and her band over a flat white. Very trendy.

Sam: We had lunch at the Exmouth Coffee Company next door. Me and Agi ate the same thing, a pastrami sandwich. We always have the same thing. I think it’s because I’m worried I’ll get something shit otherwise.

15:00 Brick Lane E1

Agi: When we left the cafe we walked down Brick Lane. I hadn’t been there for a while, but I’ve always loved Beyond Retro [a vintage clothes shop]. We had a look at some bits there as research for our next collection. We just research by eye really, we’re always picking out things like a fabric technique, or the fit, or a colour, the fabrics… it can be anything! There were even things in the exhibition that made me think about things we want to do. We bought three jackets.

15:30 Spitalfields Market E1

Sam: We had a look round the vintage shops in Spitalfieds for garment research. There’s a really good market there on a Thursday.

Agi: Sometimes they have these old random garments that had a function 100 years ago and we take ideas from those. We’ve found some really interesting fabric stalls, and got a couple of great contacts there too.

16:00 Liverpool Street EC2 to Oxford Circus W1

Agi: We headed back to the studio on the tube at about 16:00. We were talking about all the ideas from the show and how we could use those concepts.

Sam: I think I’m always consciously trying to get information out of everything I see and think about how I can use it. The show made me more inspired to go and try out more 3D Studio Max stuff. I loved going in and seeing how everything worked, and the scope of what you can do with technology.

A National Art Pass offers 50% off major exhibitions, plus free entry to hundreds of charging museums, galleries and historic places across the UK. The really good bit? Funds raised through the pass allow the Art Fund to help museums and galleries buy important works of art for everyone to enjoy. Learn more about the National Art Pass here and use the offer code FIVEOFF to receive £5 off the total price.

Or get in touch to find out how it’s available to you and your colleagues in the creative industries through the Art Fund’s corporate scheme.