James McNeill Whistler: Nocturne Blue and Silver – Cremorne Lights 1872
(Tate Gallery)
Where the creatives lead, the money and estate agents follow.
Chelsea’s slide into its current suburban coma probably started when Whistler, Rossetti and the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood made SW3 the centre of artistic life in Britain. Although the Chelsea Arts Club is still a beacon of bohemia, it’s a light that flickers rather than blazes, almost extinguished by the disappearance of the hundreds of artists’ studios over the decades and some of the most expensive property prices on the planet. The Kings Road has been living off its reputation since the 1970s. Vivienne Westwood’s store Sex , the epicentre of punk, is long gone: today, too many of the shops are either dreary on-every-high-street chains or boarded up, unable to pay their way and pay the rent. Despite its blue collar roots, symbolised by Chelsea FC’s ground at Stamford Bridge – actually The Blues are across the border in Fulham – Chelsea today is true blue Conservative. Most of the artists packed up long ago and headed East.
Chelsea’s fate to go from being socially-mixed Swinging London’s Creative Central to becoming The Location of Peter Jones, that Mecca of the middle classes, is the stuff of a sociology PhD on the effects of gentrification. Something similar has been happening in E1 since the mid-1990s as the indie shops are elbowed aside, the warehouses converted and the prices creep out of the reach of the locals. A trawl through Shoreditch and Spitalfields today brings up plenty of Foxtons signs and Euro-tourists, who have just crossed Portobello Road off the to-do list. In Tracey’s shop, Emin International, limited edition prints and posters can be found along with eggcups and tea towels that feature sketches of birds and Docket the cat. We could almost be in Peter Jones, especially with background chatter about how a Coutts’ debit card has been lost yet again and the bank’s £600 a year account charges. It’s quite a way from The Shop Tracey ran with Sarah Lucas almost 20 years ago and parallels the changes to E1. Money can’t buy you love, but it can buy you Love is What You Want.
“Love is What You Want” by Tracey Emin
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