Cork Street, the beating heart of Britain's commercial art world, for much of the past century, celebrates its centenary this year. To mark the occasion, 15 galleries are taking part in a group show inspired by a controversial Jean Cocteau work that the American dealer and patron Peggy Guggenheim was forced to install out of public view, at the back of her Cork Street gallery in 1938.
Labelled obscene by the British authorities for its depiction of nudity and pubic hair, La peur donnant des ailes au courage (fear gives wings to courage) was confiscated upon arrival in the UK. It was only through incessant petitions to the government from Guggenheim and her adviser, the artist Marcel Duchamp, that the work was eventually released on the condition that it would be shown in a back office of her gallery, Guggenheim Jeune, which occupied the second floor at 30 Cork Street.
Today, all 15 galleries on the Mayfair thoroughfare are presenting exhibitions that pay homage to the unabashed spirit of Cocteau’s work, as well as Guggenheim’s belief that dealers must uphold and encourage artistic practices, even in the face of societal and political pressures. Organised in collaboration with the curator Tarini Malik, who is overseeing the centenary exhibition, Stephen Friedman Gallery is showing photographs by Caroline Coon alongside ceramics by Cocteau, while Alon Zakaim Fine Art is exhibiting Impressionist artists who initially faced intense criticism and rejection from their contemporaries. Goodman Gallery is presenting Shirin Neshat's film Illusions & Mirrors—a work that “embodies the ongoing role of art as an act of defiance and resistance”, according to the gallery’s senior director Jo Stella-Sawicka.