TEXT BY BETH MCKENZIE

“bittersweet is a really good taste!” - Aleksandra Moraś

These days, it seems like galleries are popping up all over London in the unlikeliest of places. New to the scene of burgeoning Hackney art spots is miłość gallery. Comfortably nestled next to an F45 gym and located on the ground floor of an unassuming industrial unit on Downham Road, miłość is the passion project of University Arts London (UAL) alumna Aleksandra Moraś. Armed with a BA in Criticism, Culture and Curation from Central Saint Martins, with a focus on queer theory and care ethics, and a CV that boasts names such as TJ Boulting, the graduate-turned-director’s challenge for the art world is simple but effective: to lead with love.

Opening a gallery was a longstanding goal for Moraś and partner Hayden James. ‘I [had] really wanted to open a gallery for a while’ she tells me. ‘Hayden and I have been talking about it for a long time, but it was never tangible for us because of money.’ Whilst she would take on the gallery’s conceptual and creative direction, James with his  ‘incredible technical knowledge’ would be responsible for its more practical elements. Pooling their savings, along with some help from family members and the lucky happenstance of finding full-time employment - an increasingly difficult feat in the arts sector as of late - the miłość team managed to scrape together the funds to sign off on their cosy Haggerston space. ‘It was quite funny, because I was like, are we rich now?’ Moraś says and then jokes ‘people say it's never a good time to have a baby!’

Installation shot of ‘Let’s make miłość’. Courtesy of miłość gallery and the artists.

Considering the gallery’s ethos, her choice of phrase, though said in jest, was apt. Moraś’ approach to miłość is akin to a mother-daughter relationship in its caregiving ethic. The gallery name translates from the Polish word for love, or compassion. American author bell hooks’ writing on this subject proved to be a source of inspiration for Moraś during the gallery’s inception: ‘[hooks] speaks, very beautifully, of love as the opposite of domination and of how in a global struggle for power, a love ethic is a necessary dimension of liberation.’ Instead of the asymmetry that tends to be perpetuated in traditional artist-curator relationships, miłość takes a more collaborative approach, centring mutual respect and care above all else. Moraś tells me she doesn’t like the idea of power and hesitates to view the gallery as an ‘empowering’ space. Instead, she sees miłość and the relationships it facilitates as ‘liberating’ for both artists and gallerists.

In a similar vein, miłość’s inaugural exhibition gave attention to an oft misrepresented group, Eastern-Central European artists. ‘Let’s make miłość’ highlighted the work of several Polish artists - Gosia Kołdraszewska, Zofia Pałucha,  Jan Możdżyński’, Patryk Różycki, Maja Janczar, Alicja Biała’ - richly contextualised in a way that Moraš believes is rare. ‘There's a side to Eastern European and Slavic cultures’ she says ‘that is so incredibly misrepresented and fetishized in Western media in a way that people seem to have a complete blind spot towards’. Hailing from Poland herself, Moraś laments the patronising notion that Eastern European aesthetics are ‘simplified and un-self aware’, claiming that many Brits narrowly think of this part of the continent as a place for ‘cheap booze and raves’. Thus, it was important to create a space in which Eastern European and Slavic artists could show their work in a properly contextualised manner. Moraś remarks that, at the show’s opening, ‘it was so nice to see people engage with something that gave the artists agency rather than viewing Eastern Europe in this reductive way’.

Installation shot of ‘Let’s make miłość’. Courtesy of miłość gallery and the artists.

Although, she was quick to denounce my suggestion that miłość could be at the forefront of a new Polish contemporary art scene. She sang the praises of fellow Poles, British-born Sarah Kravitz and Lisbon-based Izabela Depczyk of Her Clique. For herself and her peers, presenting this work is not a selfless act of generosity but rather a showcase of brilliant but seldom seen artists. ‘I don't want it to sound like we’re doing charity work because it's not charity. We're just showing really good art. But it's properly contextualised.’

The next exhibition at miłość will present works by British artist, Lily Bunney. Having already staged the first iteration at Guts Gallery last month, miłość will host the second part of this collaborative solo show ‘Fantasising about wild horses’. Like its predecessor, this show will deal with themes of friendship and girlhood but also looks to some of its darker aspects, including celebrity culture and the false sense of intimacy that can emerge from parasocial relationships. Moraś tells me that the exhibition title originates from Clarice Lespector’s 1949 novel The Besieged City. She explains that there is an early scene in the book in which the protagonist dreams about wild horses in a pasture behind her house. Throughout the novel, the township where she lives becomes modernised; horses, like those in her dream, are replaced by cars and the wilderness is lost in a literary mirroring of the protagonist’s own eventual ‘taming’ through marriage. ‘That kind of loss’ she says ‘we [myself and Lily] saw that as the commodification and appropriation of friendship and communion, sisterhood and girlhood.’ The whole exhibition seems bittersweet in terms of the subject matter but also as it marks the culmination of a longstanding project for both the curator and the artist, who became friends during many hours spent printing IDs in the offices of UAL. But as Moraś so wonderfully points out ‘bittersweet is a really good taste!’

Jan Możdżyński, ‘Boobpipes’, 2024. Glazed stoneware. Courtesy of miłość gallery and the artist.

Other aspects of gallery ownership have been more on the bitter side however. When I asked how she assuages the moral dilemma of balancing her more compassionate aims with the necessity of commercial success, Moraś admitted that she struggles to reconcile the fact that ‘the people who will often respond to the themes that we’re showing, will very often not be the people who can afford to buy the art.’ At miłość, prospective collectors can pay in instalments, a move that Moraś attributes to their efforts to make collecting more accessible. Even without the financial obstacle, many feel that there is a psychological barrier preventing them from even entering the gallery space. Those who venture in to miłość from the street often appear unsure, asking if they need a ticket to enter, whether the art is for sale, or if they’re even allowed to look. But at miłość the art is for everyone. ‘What I’m wanting to make clear’ Moraś says, ‘is that if you have a special connection to a piece of art, we can figure out a way that you can have it.’ 

Nevertheless, this has not deterred the director from presenting work that may not be the most commercially viable. She tells me of a show that will take place in January and explore Israeli propaganda and its appropriation of Holocaust imagery to weaponize trauma against Palestinians. ‘I think it's unbelievably important to show’ she argues. ‘I struggle with it myself and don’t expect everyone to want to engage with it, but alongside the struggle, it offers a glimmer of hope.’ As with their first exhibition, this show will present challenging works from artists Shir Cohen and the aforementioned Kołdraszewska, Israeli and Polish-Jewish respectively, and allow viewers to engage with the art in a meaningful and considered way. Moraś hopes to accompany the show with a programme of talks and events, any proceedings from which will be donated in aid of the victims of the ongoing genocide in Palestine. She considers with empathy that engaging with work of this kind requires a contextual knowledge that has been obscured, and that uncovering these stories is a ‘very individual journey’ that takes real effort and engagement with histories that operate in opposite to dominant narratives. But she reasserts that, first and foremost, ‘the attention should be on the people who are suffering now’.

It can only be hoped that miłość manages to stay the course and continue to promote progress within the contemporary art sphere. Moraś assures me that the lease is solid for the next five years at least. Her plans for the gallery are vast and include the publication of a poetry book amongst other projects. ‘It’s a great privilege and I hope that we can continue making beautiful things’ she says. And, for the sake of the London gallery scene, I hope so too. For too long, the art world has been preoccupied with sales and reputations whilst artist relationships and cultural commentary have taken a backseat. If we are to facilitate real engagement with and meaningful conversation around art, then we need to take a page out of Moraś’ book. Perhaps all the art world really needs is love, or just a little bit of miłość.

‘Fantasising about wild horses’ opens at miłość gallery on Friday Nov 15 with a preview evening on Nov 14. It will run until Dec 14.

This interview was edited for brevity and clarity.

RECORDED NOV 10. Published NOV13 2024.