The imposed morality of a bystander resulting in artist censorship. In 1938, Jean Cocteau’s La peur donnant des ailes au courage was impounded at Croydon airport and Peggy Guggenheim and Marcel Duchamp had to take action in securing its liberation.

In November 2024, Phoebe Collings-James, who features in this issue, saw their installation at Kunstverein Hamburg vandalised when a visitor erased the word ‘Palestine’ from a list depicting countries affected by conflict, leaving the words ‘Congo’, ‘Sudan’ and ‘Haiti’ untouched.

The work was restored. The museum saddened and supportive.

It is sacrosanct that art remain truly free, and we can travel with it – or let others do so. For the 100th anniversary of Cork Street, the spiritual home of modern and contemporary art lends an English translation of the former work, ‘Fear Gives Wings to Courage’, to this magazine. And in the run up a group show across the galleries as well as a new banners commission in the open air, curated by Tarini Malik of our neighbour the Royal Academy of Arts. Since its inception, the sky above Cork Street has become the capital’s most central public art space.

How we arrived at today is very much Louisa Buck’s oratory, recalling our fondly thought-of characters and their ways that made Cork Street what it is. While Gareth Harris shines light on the suppression of LGBTQ+ artists in ‘illiberal democracies’, sharing an extract from his essential book Censored Art Today.

It is our privilege to publish Phoebe Collings-James in conversation with Anthea Hamilton. To feature Jenkin van Zyl. Hear Shirin Neshat the Iranian-born artist speak to an Iranian-born writer, the New York Times contributor Farah Nayeri. All incredible artists, and not all of them are represented by galleries on Cork Street. Because life and art has panorama. We’ll never stop celebrating that.

100 years in the making

In 1925, Freddie Mayor opened The Mayor Gallery at 18 Cork Street, what would in retrospect set the beginning of Cork Street as a unique art destination with the highest concentration of galleries worldwide, becoming the spiritual home of modern and contemporary art.

It is, however Peggy Guggenheim we look to in anointing issue 8.0, marking Cork Street’s centenary our way and focusing on a hugely influential moment that is still somehow largely understated in its cultural contribution.

In January 1938, Peggy opened her first gallery Guggenheim Jeune at 30 Cork Street above a pawn shop. It ran for just 18 months before closing in June 1939, punching beyond its firework-like existence – there are no street photos – with first showings of artists that later became not just part of the fabric of the art world but vernacular new-masters of prestigious museums.

Guggenheim Jeune’s opening exhibition was Jean Cocteau, curated by Marcel Duchamp, who acted as Guggenheim’s artistic advisor. Cocteau’s specially-made work [La peur donnant des ailes au courage] was deemed obscene and detained at Croydon Airport, with Duchamp and Guggenheim having to convince customs to release the art, on the understanding that it was to be shown in a back room.

CATALOGUE 8.0: CORK STREET 100 YEARS | FEAR GIVES WINGS TO COURAGE
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF DEAN MAYO DAVIES
EXECUTIVE EDITOR GILLIAN McVEY
ART DIRECTOR TOM HINGSTON
DESIGN HINGSTON STUDIO
OCTOBER 2025

With special thanks to: Jūratė Gačionytė, Wenbin Sun, and all the artists, their studios and their galleries.